The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers - US Army Center Of Military History

Reimer announced in mid-March that, since
the Army had institutionalized the process of
"changing the way the Army changes," he
would terminate the LAM Task Force, "as we
know it." Strategic resource planning would
go to the AVCSA, "once the position is approved."
In a memorandum to the Vice Chief
of Staff and several other addressees, the Director
of the Army Staff confirmed the realignment
of the Task Force's functions as contained
in the Chief of Staff's earlier message
and provided additional guidance on handling
existing contracts and other relationships
and on integrating the realigned functions
into the addressees' organizations 22
COL Boy's function as the new LAM Task
Force Director was now to disband the Task
Force and oversee the transition of some of
its Washington elements into the Center for
Land Warfare under the new AVCSA. As the
Task Force wound down its activities, COL
Boy, at the end of May, laid out for the Director
of Management the ways in which the
LAM Task Force's budget for FY 96 should
be reallocated. Part of it, he stated, should
go to internal requirements, part to the new
Center for Land Warfare, part to organizations
assuming Task Force missions, and part
to the Chief of Staff for his own strategic
agility purposes. The total budget amounted
to $6.28 million. COL Boy, Mr. Valliant, and
Mr. John Rogers presented the Task Force's
final close-out plan to the Director of the
Army Staff on 13 June 1996 and received
his approval.23
With the LAM Task Force on its way to
dissolution, ODCSOPS seems, rather belatedly,
to have realized the value of some of its
functions. Following LTG Blackwell's retirement,
but before the confirmation of his successor,
the Assistant DCSOPS for Force Development,
MG Edward Anderson, chaired
the DCSOPS Force XXI Synchronization
Meeting on 17 May 1996. In his closing remarks,
MG Anderson commented that, with
the coming disbandment of the LAM Task
Force, no organization would exist to oversee
the parts of the LAM process that had
proven useful to the Army. He asked all
present, in light of the disbandment and the
assignment of a new DCSOPS, to think about
the format of the DCSOPS synchronization
meetings and about whether some of the
former LAM Task Force functions should be
included. This led to a poll of the participants
and, ultimately, to an expansion of the meeting
purview and format to include Force XXI
strategic communications, post-AWE requirements,
Army XXI fielding, and Joint/OSD issues.24
The Task Force ceased operations on 1
July and MSG Joan Ziehlke closed the Pentagon
office. COL Boy and a few others had
turned over their Hoffman Building spaces
and some equipment to the OPMS XXI Task
Force, which became operational under MG
Ohle in June 1996. Boy, with others,
transitioned into the emerging Center for
Land Warfare. Mr. Valliant and Mr. Rogers
closed the Fort Monroe operation, but
Rogers and a budget assistant remained in
Building 83 at Monroe to close out the Task
Force's books there in September. LTC David
Tyner had already closed the Carlisle Directorate
. At Leavenworth , LTC Kirby Brown
ceased his association with LAM on the effective
date but continued work on the 1996
Army Experiment with a small staff, the last
remnant of the Task Force.
Conclusions
The period from 20 June 1995 through
1 July 1996 was a turbulent one for the LAM
Task Force. It confirmed for those on the
Task Force that the LAM process, as they
had known it, was clearly dead, and any
ongoing remnants, like the last SWGs and
the last GOWG, functioned mostly as a result
of institutional inertia. Efforts by the
Task Force's leaders to develop and acquire
a new mission proved unavailing, as the
thrust of opinion and action within the
Army Staff moved inexorably toward GEN
Reimer's final decision to eliminate the organization.
The distinction between the
LAM process and the Force XXI process,
one of LAM's products, was one that most
staff officers did not make, nor did most
Institutionalizing LAM and Disbanding the Task Force 83