Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

188 • The Army National Guard, the Army Reserve and the Marine Corps ReserveMost parallel occupation units have lifecycles that are similar to those of academiclifecycle battalions. That is, they are formed, trained, released from active duty, recalledfor refresher training, passed to the second-line reserve and disbanded according toa pre-established schedule. The specifics of these schedules, however, vary greatlyfrom one type of unit to another. Thus, while most parallel occupation units haverelatively short periods of active duty of about one year at the start of their lifecycles,a few military police units spend three years on active duty. (These units are designedto attract young people who intend to pursue a career in law enforcement, but are tooyoung to attend civilian police academies.) Likewise, the refresher training of paralleloccupation units is timed to minimize interference with the civilian occupationsof unit members. While many construction units conduct relatively long periods ofrefresher training each winter, military police units that spend three years on activeduty have very little in the way of on-site refresher training.A small proportion of parallel occupation units, such as mobile field hospitals,legal units and history units, lack the pre-established lifecycle that characterizes thevast majority of units of the Army Reserve. The members of these units are older thanthe rank-and-file of most other units, have considerable prior military service, andpractice professions with long apprenticeships (whether formal or informal). Unitsof this sort conduct little in the way of on-site refresher training. As with members ofother sorts of parallel occupation units, there are many opportunities for members ofthese “continuous existence” units to serve on active duty as individuals.Most of the officers and noncommissioned officers of parallel occupation unitsare senior practitioners of affiliated civilian professions. In construction engineerunits, for example, they are civil engineers, general contractors and foremen. Indeed,in order to obtain their rank in parallel occupation units, the reserve officers andnoncommissioned officers must pass both the requisite military qualifications andbe confirmed by a board that will examine their civilian qualifications. In additionto these occupation-specific leaders, each parallel occupation unit will have a smallstaff of military specialists, officers and noncommissioned officers whose task it is toconduct the purely military training of the unit. In other words, these military specialistswill fulfill a role similar to that of the Marines who are assigned as instructorsin naval construction battalions.A small proportion of Army Reserve units are organized as “seasonal occupation”units. Recruited from among those who practice seasonal occupations (such as thoserelated to fishing, farming and tourism), seasonal occupation battalions conduct on-sitetraining during those months when the seasonal workers in question are most likelyto be less in demand. Unlike lifecycle battalions, which front load their training duringthe first two years of their existence, seasonal occupation battalions divide theirinitial individual and unit training over several annual training periods. Many seasonaloccupation units make use of the special skills of their members. Some amphibious