The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers - US Army Center Of Military History

Chapter 4
INSTITUTIONALIZING LAM AND DISBANDING
Following GEN Sullivan's retirement on
20]une 1995, GEN Dennis ]. Reimer became
Chief of Staff of the United States Army. The
unplanned commitment of Army forces to
trouble spots around the world that had engaged
the attentions of his predecessor continued
unabated, with the most notable being
the initial deployment of Task Force
Eagle to Bosnia in late 1995. Elsewhere in
the Army, force reductions and base realignments
and closures combined with continuing
funding restrictions to further limit the
new Chief's options. Among these many
commitments and concerns, GEN Reimer
inherited the burgeoning Force XXI Campaign,
the moribund Louisiana Maneuvers,
and the LAM Task Force. He was committed
to continuing the total force redesign and
reengineering projected in the Force XXI
Campaign, but his views on LAM itself were
less firm. Clearly, GEN Reimer wanted to find
ways for the Army to update its structure,
technologies, and methods so that it would
still be able to do its job with many fewer
resources.
As Vice Chief of Staff and as FORSCOM
Commander under Sullivan, Reimer had
supported the Chief of Staff's efforts to
mount the Louisiana Maneuvers and to
make the kinds of changes Sullivan believed
the Army needed.l His personal loyalty to
Sullivan and to Sullivan's programs and his
diligence in pushing forward those pro-
THE LAM TASK FORCE
GEN Dennis J. Reimer
grams are beyond doubt. Left to his own
devices, however, it seems unlikely that he
would have settled upon the Louisiana
Maneuvers, as Sullivan conceived them, as
his own means for making changes in the
Army. 2
Regardless of GEN Reimer's own earlier
support of Sullivan's efforts and his appreciation
of the results from the Force XXI
Campaign, he found himself confronted by