Army - Snipper Skills

The Magazine of the Association of the United States Army
ARMY
August 2016 www.ausa.org $3.00
Sniper Skills
Confident, Committed and Cool Under Pressure
No Joke: Good Humor
Makes Good Leaders
Page 20
Back to Basics With
Expeditionary Warfare
Page 26

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ARMY
The Magazine of the Association of the United States Army
August 2016 www.ausa.org Vol. 66, No. 8
DEPARTMENTS
LETTERS....................................................5
WASHINGTON REPORT ...........................7
FRONT & CENTER
Public’s Support in Sharp Contrast to
Lawmakers’
By Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, USA Ret.
Page 9
Strategic Competence Has Moral
Dimension
By Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, USA Ret.
Page 10
ON THE COVER
No Need for Speed: Slow and
Steady Are Hallmarks of Army
Snipers
By Chuck Vinch
Ask the U.S. Army Sniper School’s
master trainer what it takes to be a
great sniper, and he doesn’t
immediately mention marksmanship.
Instead, he fires back with the three C’s:
confident, committed, and cool under
pressure. Page 36
Cover Photo: A student sniper stuffs vegetation
into the netting of his camouflage
clothing during a stalking exercise.
U.S. Army/Sgt. David William McLean
Tip of the Spear: Small Units, Big
Impact
By Col. Richard D. Hooker Jr., USA Ret.
Page 12
Civil Affairs in an Era of Engagement
By Col. Christopher Holshek, USA Ret.
Page 14
A ‘First Principles’ Approach to
Readiness
By Col. Thomas P. Galvin, USA Ret.
Page 16
SHE’S THE ARMY....................................19
NEWS CALL ............................................55
SOLDIER ARMED....................................59
THE OUTPOST........................................61
SUSTAINING MEMBER PROFILE...........64
HISTORICALLY SPEAKING .....................65
SEVEN QUESTIONS................................67
REVIEWS.................................................69
FINAL SHOT............................................72
FEATURES
20
Going Off-Duty Doesn’t
Protect Online Behavior
By Karen E. Boroff, Maj. John
Spencer and Col. John Via
The communications
revolution has brought
profound changes to the
work environment. Can a
line be drawn between a
person’s on-the-job and offthe-job
personas? For those
in uniform, the answer is
clear. Page 24
Seriously, Let’s Inject
Humor Into Leadership
By Col. Eric E. Zimmerman
Humor is a uniquely human
quality that increases
resilience, creativity and
trust while decreasing
stress, fear and power
distance—attributes that
are arguably the very
antithesis of toxic
leadership. Page 20
24
August 2016 ■ ARMY 1

It’s Back to Basics With Expeditionary Warfare
By Maj. Nathan A. Jennings
As the Army’s first successful major campaign far beyond home
territory, the Northwest Indian War of 1794 set a precedent for the
expeditionary warfare the Army is now embracing. Page 26
26
44
Remote System Provides
Protection in Egypt
By Capt. Mark D. Bedrin
Silent, stoic sentinels at the
corners of the wire, a new
weapons system is providing
persistent surveillance, early
warning and lethality for an
enduring and successful
Middle East peacekeeping
mission. Page 44
29
Former Soldiers
Serve in TV Series,
Films
By Laura Stassi
There’s money to
be made in the
entertainment industry
on both sides of the
camera, as many former
soldiers have found out
firsthand. Page 29
For Kids, Living
Room Can Be a
Classroom
By Rebecca Alwine
When an Army
family with schoolaged
children
receives orders
to move, the first
concern is often
the quality of
public schools in
the new location.
For that reason
and others, some
are choosing to
home-school
instead. Page 46
46
Role of Land Power Is
Pivotal in Pacific
By Maj. Gen. Todd B. McCaffrey
Conventional wisdom says the
Indo-Asian-Pacific region is a
maritime theater. But any
strategic security framework
that defines the contributions
of land power as a solely
supporting capability risks
missing opportunities critical
to ensuring the U.S. achieves
its objectives. Page 32
32
50
A Staff Ride to Remember: Hodges
Hosts Junior Officers Following
History’s Footsteps
By Lt. Col. Jim Dorschner, USA Ret.
Thirty junior Army officers and their counterparts
from three allied armies followed the
course of two major actions fought by
German officer Erwin Rommel and the
Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion during
World War I. Page 50
Making the Case for Army Data Scientists
By Maj. Gen. John W. Baker and Lt. Col. Steven J. Henderson, USA Ret.
Never before has the
Army faced threats of
the scale, persistence
and reach as it does
today in the cyber
domain. To fight and
win, game changers are
needed not just in the
complex methodologies
and systems of the cyber
41
domain, but also in the
science of data. Page 41
Body Matters: Take Care to Avert Musculoskeletal Injuries
By Julie Johnson
53 With soldiers typically
functioning under
heavier, more
unrelenting and
consistent loads,
a perfect storm is
created for injury
and long-term
debilitation. That’s
why prevention,
not just treatment,
is critical. Page 53
2 ARMY ■ August 2016

Letters
Diversify Leader Development
■ Col. Eric E. Aslakson’s May Front
& Center article, “The Army is Falling
Short in Developing Creative Leaders,”
is worthy of thoughtful reading and careful
digestion by Army leaders overseeing
senior leadership programs, especially
our sergeants major, field grade and general
officer professional development
schools and programs. Aslakson’s central
observation is profound: Innovation is
fostered most directly by “what a leader
does … developed through schooling,
training, experience and progressive
leader development programs.”
The implication is that we need many
more instructors active in Army professional
development with diverse backgrounds;
in other words, qualified both
traditionally and with service in joint, interagency,
intergovernmental and multinational
assignments with industry/
academia, and overseas with co-partner
foreign militaries.
The military service academies took
steps decades ago to bring many civilian
and multinational exchange professors
into academic classrooms to instruct our
cadets and midshipmen. Now it’s time
that the rest of the Army similarly diversify
faculties at its senior doctrinal
schools in a profound—50 percentplus—way.
Additionally, if we are ever to build a
cohesive and self-perpetuating cyberand
information-age force, we desperately
need immersion of our upcoming
leaders with industry partners who are
making progress in genuine talent development.
Secretary of Defense Ash
Carter’s push to more completely engage
DoD with leading civilian information
technology (IT) companies is commendable.
Consider vastly increasing the
number of assignments with industry
that fully count for senior service, Capstone
and U.S. Army Sergeants Major
Academy equivalency.
More than half of our future senior
Army leaders need to be steeped in the
essentials of their branches, but nearly
half also need to be products of Brownian
motion-style immersion with the rest
of the 21st-century world, where talent
development suited to real-world macroenvironments
resides. For example, the
best IT/cyber talent derives not from traditional
linear development, but from a
zigzag layering of work exposure where
up-and-coming thinkers and doers are
exposed to a multiplicity of assignments
that require their bumping into others at
different stages of simultaneous professional
development engagement.
Contrary to the current push to roll
back the Goldwater-Nichols Department
of Defense Reorganization Act of
1986 so future Army leaders are not
“distracted” by joint and multinational
assignment requirements, we need to
adopt more of an “and” philosophy instead
of returning exclusively to the single-track
leader development model of
the 20th century. Myopia, however refined,
is no substitute for active crosssector
engagement and adaptation.
Maj. Gen. Chuck Rodriguez,
USA Ret.
San Antonio
Another ROTC Notable
■ A nice piece on ROTC (“ROTC
Turns 100: Future Leaders Trained; the
Nation Benefits,” June). However, it was
disappointing to see that missing from
the list of “Notable ROTC Grads” was
former Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen.
John M. “Jack” Keane, USA Ret. (Fordham
University, 1966). Makes me wonder
what other notable ROTC grads
were overlooked.
Col. Neal J. Delisanti, USA Ret.
Carlisle, Pa.
Overthinking Megacities
■ The article on megacities in the
June issue of ARMY caught my attention
and just would not let go (“Megacities:
Military Operations There Not Business
as Usual”). Here is a possible case of
George Orwellian overthink. It is either
that or a failure to recognize the exceedingly
complex and delicate system it
takes to support a megacity. Shutting off
electricity, natural gas, gasoline, water,
pharmaceuticals and groceries to a city of
10 million would practically make the
place go cannibalistic.
A big city today somewhat resembles
the castles and forts of yesteryear, where
it was possible to simply starve the inhabitants
out. Open warfare in the
streets would be a terribly destructive
and ineffectual course of action in
downtown Atlanta, for example. Better
to simply surround the place, cut off
support, and let nature take its course.
To rework an old saying, for the want
of a nail, the battle was lost. We have to
think of our own logistics. Sometimes, it
pays to also consider those of the enemy.
Maj. Gen. Chet McKeen, USA Ret.
Fort Worth, Texas
West Point Should Lead Way on
Developing Multilingual Troops
■ I agree completely with 1st Lt.
Nicholas B. Naquin’s position in his
April article (“Multinational Success
Requires Multilingual Troops”). Language
skills are a huge benefit to anyone
in the military and can come into play
regardless of service or specialty. With
Naquin’s article and the letters in response,
the value to our forces and our
nation has been well-stated and should
be obvious.
I would like to add one suggestion for
something we can and should do. It is
something I believed over 40 years ago,
and I still believe it to be true.
The U.S. Military Academy is one
way the Army gets its officers and has
some unique characteristics as a commissioning
source. The most obvious advantage
West Point offers is that from Day
1 of the four-year program, the Army
and the academy can structure curriculum
and activities to get what should be
on the other end: the most qualified second
lieutenants possible.
There are many competing needs, and
there has always been a lot of debate
about the whole program and all its component
parts. It is not an easy task to
match the needs of a four-year academic
August 2016 ■ ARMY 5

Gen. Carter F. Ham, USA Ret.
President and CEO, AUSA
Lt. Gen. Guy C. Swan III, USA Ret.
Vice President, Education, AUSA
Rick Maze
Editor-in-Chief
Liz Rathbun Managing Editor
Joseph L. Broderick Art Director
Chuck Vinch
Sr. Staff Writer
Toni Eugene
Associate Editor
Christopher Wright Production Artist
Laura Stassi Assistant Managing Editor
Thomas B. Spincic Assistant Editor
Contributing Editors
Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, USA Ret.;
Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, USA Ret.; Lt.
Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, USA Ret.; and
Brig. Gen. John S. Brown, USA Ret.
Contributing Writers
Scott R. Gourley and Rebecca Alwine
Lt. Gen. Jerry L. Sinn, USA Ret.
Vice President, Finance and
Administration, AUSA
Desiree Hurlocker
Advertising Production and
Fulfillment Manager
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degree with the field, leadership and
management skills we want our new officers
to have. But it always struck me that
within the academic curriculum, we never
paid enough attention to language skills.
We are missing an incredible opportunity.
When I was a cadet, we had to take
two years of a foreign language; I think
at one point that dropped to one year.
None of that is enough. I believe every
cadet should take four full years of a foreign
language, with the goal to graduate
as near to fluency as possible in at least
one other language.
West Point always focused on math
and engineering as the foundation of its
program. The theory and dogma was
that West Point engineers were critical
to the nation, and that math and engineering
as academic subjects provided
graduates a strong foundation in analytical
skills and problem-solving. Since I
was a cadet in the 1970s, that focus has
loosened considerably; now, the program
allows for a focus on many other majors
and minors. I applaud that transition,
and I think both the Army and individuals
benefit from a broad curriculum with
many choices.
West Point is nevertheless an institution
to produce Army officers and should
figure out that hard compromise between
a minimal academic program to
commission a new second lieutenant and
all these various academic choices can
lead in a variety of other directions. I
would argue that four years of language
training belongs in that bucket of “minimum
required training” along with what
I remember as introductory courses on
leadership, military law, physical fitness,
military history, geography, and some
others I have probably forgotten.
That would naturally eat into someone’s
academic interests in other areas
and probably regress the overall academic
program back to a strong core of required
courses. However, I would argue
it would produce second lieutenants better
able to function in the “real” Army,
and better able to serve our nation.
Another way to state the argument is
to champion academic courses and programs
with clear and direct applicability
to the profession of arms, rather than
some that might only have a theoretical
advantage. Language training is real,
valuable and needed in our armed forces;
it is also absolutely credible as an academic
minor, which I think everyone
graduating from West Point should have.
As with Naquin’s experiences, I used
my language skills throughout my 21-
year career. Even though I tested out of
needing to take any language at West
Point, I chose to take two years of another
language and then added one year
of a third (actually as an academic overload).
I concentrated in military history,
taking most of my electives in that area
because I thought that would be valuable
for what I hoped would be a long Army
career.
Those two academic areas ended up
being by far the most useful to me as an
officer, and I wish I could have taken
more of both. My language training was
not only generally useful in some fairly
obscure situations, but it also at times
molded my assignments when the Army
had need of these skills.
The Army has a unique chance with
the four years someone spends at West
Point to dramatically improve the ability
of our entire force to operate around the
globe. It would obviously take some time
but after a decade or so of such training,
it could not help but have a very direct
impact.
Lt. Col. Gregory Banner, USA Ret.
Tiverton, R.I.
‘Kiowa-Filled Sky’
■ I chuckled at the picture showing
32 OH-58 Kiowa Warriors filling the
sky (Washington Report, June). The
caption noted that the group “set what
may be a world record for the largest helicopter
formation.”
I flew as a member of the 101st Airborne
Division (Air Assault) during Exercise
REFORGER (Return of Forces to
Germany) in 1976. To close out one of
the exercises, I flew in an AH-1G Cobra
as part of a 101-aircraft formation.
It was an awesome sight to behold.
Col. Samuel J.T. Boone, USA Ret.
Elgin, S.C.
6 ARMY ■ August 2016

Washington Report
Budget Relief May Not Come Until Early 2017
Election-year gridlock and presidential vetoes looming over
the defense budget have Army leaders and key members of
Congress looking to 2017 as their earliest opportunity to address
critical needs.
Holding the Army back are spending limits of the Budget
Control Act of 2011 that cap defense spending at $551 billion
for fiscal year 2017 and $549 billion for fiscal 2018.
A standoff over the fiscal 2017 budget, now pending before
Congress, centers around efforts by some lawmakers to get
around the Budget Control Act limits by diverting off-budget
money allocated to overseas contingency operations to pay for
programs not directly related to current operations. Under a
2015 agreement, part of the Bipartisan Budget Act that delayed
sequestration for two years, the White House and Congress
agreed to spend $5.2 billion of overseas contingency
funds in fiscal 2017 on the base defense budget. However,
some members of Congress have proposed an $18 billion diversion,
a level so large that the Defense Department estimates
it would run out of money in April 2017 to pay for ongoing
operations.
Leaving DoD only partly funded is of concern to military
leaders who are worried about uncertainty in spending levels,
and many Democrats in Congress don’t want to provide extra
money to the military unless there is also some relief from
budget caps for nondefense programs.
How the 2017 budget plays out seems likely to be shaped
by results of the November elections. The outcome of the
presidential election will be important in shaping future national
security policy, but a key factor in adjusting budget priorities
will be who controls the House and Senate, and especially
whether the party controlling the Senate has a 60-vote
majority that can overcome a filibuster threat.
Two key senators on defense policy, Republican Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina and Democrat Jack Reed of
Rhode Island, predicted there will be a brief opportunity early
next year to fix budget problems that are creating uncertainty
for defense. Speaking in June at a forum sponsored by the
Center for a New American Security, the two Senate Armed
Services Committee members said they see an opportunity
when a new Congress convenes to permanently repeal sequestration
and to lift or eliminate budget caps. Sequestration—
automatic budget cuts that occur if Congress and the White
House fail to agree on a spending plan—has been cited by
Army leaders as a major threat to advance planning.
“The next president, whomever he or she … is going to be,
needs to get these defense cuts set aside,” Graham said.
Reed agreed. “This is the first thing that must be done, and
I don’t think the window is long. I think this is something
where the new administration has to come in ready to go on
Inauguration Day.” That day is Friday, Jan. 20.
Army leaders have made no secret of budget instability
hurting their ability to plan and that budget constraints are
forcing them to put off some important programs, especially
weapons modernization.
“It would be really, really good if Congress would pass the
budget so we’d at least have predictable, sustained funding to
deliver the best capability that we can,” Army Vice Chief of
Staff Gen. Daniel B. Allyn told the Defense Writers Group
in June.
“Our soldiers deserve predictable funding,” Allyn said.
“Our soldiers deserve a level of commitment commensurate
with what they make to lay it all on the line, every day, for the
nation.”
“It would be really, really
good if Congress would pass
the budget so we’d at least
have predictable, sustained
funding to deliver the best
capability that we can.”
—Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Daniel B. Allyn
Without more resources, the Army cannot do everything,
he said. “We have to strike a balance,” he said. “It is a matter
of balancing modernization and making some very hard calls
on timelines.”
“We can’t have it all—that’s just a raw fact,” Allyn said in a
June discussion hosted by the Heritage Foundation think
tank. “In a suppressed fiscal environment, readiness must remain
No. 1. That means we have a tendency to consume our
readiness as fast as we can generate it and in many respects,
we mortgage our ability to build the force we will need in the
near future.”
It is not clear where the Army would spend additional
money. Force size is a concern, especially considering the
Army has dropped by 120,000 soldiers since 2010 and won’t
reach bottom for two more years under current plans. However,
soldier-related costs take up about half the current $147
billion annual Army budget, with 22 percent allocated to operations
and maintenance, 18 percent to weapons and 10 percent
to civilian personnel, Allyn said.
“Our expectation is this picture we are currently facing is
not going to change in the near future,” he said.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 7

Front & Center
Commentaries From Around the Army
Public’s Support in Sharp Contrast to Lawmakers’
By Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, U.S. Army retired
Memorial Day weekend was a heartwarming
demonstration of American
appreciation of the sacrifices of
members of the armed forces in our past
wars. The ceremonies, parades, testimonials
and other public events spread
across the nation, highlighted by flyovers
and four days of Rolling Thunder
delivered by hundreds of thousands of
motorcyclists in the nation’s capital.
Countless numbers of visitors paid
homage at monuments and cemeteries;
veterans who attended were saluted,
thanked and recognized as heroes. The
soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and
Coast Guardsmen serving today were
remembered with solemn and prayerful
demonstrations of support and encouragement.
This public display of allegiance and
support was in sharp contrast to the relationship
between today’s armed forces
and the government. Since the end of
the Cold War, which essentially was
won by the “peace through strength”
policies of our country, the armed forces
have suffered continuing reductions and
limitations on size, budgetary support
and long-term capabilities. The overcommitment
of land power forces has
been the most worrisome, wearing out
people as well as equipment, but air
power is losing its once global dominance
and our naval command of the
seas is far more difficult to guarantee
than it was a few short years ago.
All forces can still provide high-quality
emergency reaction to a national security
crisis, but none can promise sustainment
of such capability over an
extended period. None has the force
structure for long-term commitment,
and all are equipped with worn and obsolescent
materiel. Those inadequacies
established the requirement for civilian
firms to contract for support roles in
Iraq and Afghanistan that reached a
strength equaling or surpassing the
numbers of military personnel committed.
The comparative costs of those
mercenary forces have never been calculated
publicly.
No service has a research and development
program that will ensure the
forces and weaponry needed for battlefield,
air and naval dominance even in
the near future. Considering any NATO
crisis requiring American participation
would, in my opinion, find us outgunned
in field artillery, midrange missiles and
short-range, low-yield battlefield nuclear
weapons. The opinion comes from reading
only unclassified news releases and
reports that have become public information.
But it is even more in the effects on
personnel welfare and well-being that
government decisions are impacting the
services. In the decade after the Cold
War, military pay suffered a growing
gap as the services made their contribution
to the peace dividend. That gap
was eventually overcome, only to be resurrected
three years ago when the services
accepted a decrease of 1 percent
below the cost of living allowance provided
to all others on the government
payroll, a decrease repeated for the two
years following as well.
Additionally, studies are underway or
in effect that change recruiting systems;
retirement pensions; lifetime medical
care; and the fringe benefits of commissaries,
exchanges, athletic facilities, family
medical care and more. All are designed
to save money, not improve the welfare
of military personnel or their families,
who effectively are paying for the savings.
There are also requirements that
DoD funds underwrite solar and wind
energy projects, continue to buy unneeded
equipment, and adopt social
programs that make no contribution to
readiness or the combat effectiveness of
the forces. All in all, a less-than-attractive
or career-enhancing proposition. ■
Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, USA Ret., formerly
served as vice chief of staff of the
U.S. Army and commander in chief of
U.S. Army Europe. He is a senior fellow
of AUSA’s Institute of Land Warfare.
DoD/Marvin D. Lynchard
August 2016 ■ ARMY 9

Strategic Competence Has Moral Dimension
By Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, U.S. Army retired
Every soldier and leader knows that can be won, but not the war. Tactical,
moral principles govern our behavior even operational, progress can be made,
in war. In combat, we are responsible for but not strategic progress. Lives can be
attending to the difference between used, but not used well. The coin of
combatants and noncombatants, using war’s realm is very much at work at the
proportional force even in the pursuit of operational and strategic levels of war,
legitimate targets and objectives, providing
due care to the innocent even if do-
level.
even if less apparent than at the tactical
ing so requires risk to ourselves, and assuring
that we limit collateral damage as strategic levels of war appears antiseptic:
The language at the operational and
much as possible. Application in combat Identify strategic aims; outline military
is part of our tactical competence. and nonmilitary policies, strategies and
But what about the moral dimension campaigns that contribute to achieving
of strategic competence? This dimension
is clearest at that intersection of a sure progress; plan, integrate and adapt
these aims; identify metrics and mea-
proper understanding of war and of campaigns as the war unfolds; set the
moral agency.
right conditions for both operational
The coin of war’s realm is life itself. and tactical success.
Sometimes it is the life of a citizen who But the reality is far from antiseptic.
became a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine.
Sometimes it is the life of an innogic
and operational levels of war are as
From the moral perspective, the stratecent
caught amid a battle; perhaps it is much about using lives well, or poorly,
of a family member far from the battlefield.
And sometimes war ends, dam-
as is the tactical level. It’s just that we
and about not risking lives unnecessarily
ages, destroys or changes the life of a don’t often talk about the strategic and
political community itself. This is war’s operational levels of war in that way.
norm; in war, the morally abhorrent and Perhaps we should.
the morally justified can exist in the very Operational and strategic distance
same act. War can’t be otherwise. from the battlefield can cause some to
Over 15 years of war has made this overlook the fact that life—of citizens
clear. War ends, damages, destroys and who become soldiers, of the innocent,
changes lives. That’s part of the hellishness
of war. No matter how careful a stake. Every strategic and operational
and of the political community—is at
soldier or leader is, no matter how wellplanned
the mission and how prepared policies and campaigns, and the time it
decision concerning aims, strategies,
a unit is, and regardless of how carefully takes to reach that decision or take the
rehearsed a battle is, fighting reveals consequent coordinated action, affects
war’s true coin.
lives. Further, life is also at stake when
It’s not a stretch to say that America’s strategic or operational adaptations
national imagination equates war with called for by the dynamics of war are either
ignored or carried out too slowly.
fighting. Most public discussions of war
concern tactics, weaponry, and effects What comes to the fore at the operational
and strategic levels is the impor-
or results of battle. Such an equation,
however, leads one to miss an important tance of the quality of decisions and actions—initial
and adaptive—and the
aspect of war: that combat gains its
meaning and worth in relationship to its quality and integrity of the processes associated
with both. From this point,
operational and strategic contexts; that
is, how a particular battle contributes to three war-waging responsibilities emerge.
achieving a campaign objective and Each is related to using and risking lives,
how, in turn, the campaign contributes and each is a civil-military responsibility
to achieving a war’s ultimate political of those occupying relevant strategic and
strategic aims.
operational positions.
Without this context, war can be First, achieve and sustain coherency.
fought well, but not waged well. Battles This responsibility involves setting war
aims and identifying civil and military
strategies, policies and campaigns that
increase the probability of achieving
those aims. Second, generate and sustain
organizational capacity. This responsibility
recognizes that execution matters.
Civil and military leaders at the operational
and strategic levels of war must
translate their decisions into coordinated
actions and adapt initial decisions as
necessary. Finally, create and maintain
legitimacy. This responsibility involves
going to war for the right reasons, observing
the laws of war, sustaining public
support, and ensuring the proper integration
of civil and military leadership.
A close look at this set reveals that
meeting these responsibilities requires a
healthy civil-military dialogue, quality
and integrity in both the decisionmaking
and execution processes, and a
proper military subordination to civil
leadership. Deciding and acting at the
operational and strategic levels of war is
inherently a civil-military affair. More
so at the strategic level than operational
level, there’s no “line” or “wall” between
civil and military functions.
Final decision authority, which rests
with civil leaders, is the only strict, roledifferentiated
responsibility. All others
are co-responsibilities because both civil
and military perspectives and leadership
are necessary to wage war. Neither is
sufficient alone.
Furthermore, for a civilian leader to
use his or her final decision authority
well, that leader must rely on the quality
and integrity of the decisionmaking and
execution processes. Those included in
such processes are co-responsible for
their quality and integrity and consequently,
are also co-responsible for the
lives used and risked in execution.
Every one of us is a moral agent. Unless
one is handicapped in a way that incapacitates
one’s judgment or prevents
one from acting based on judgment, part
of what it means to be human involves
being free to make moral decisions and
to be held accountable for these decisions
and the actions that flow from them.
Of course, no one is completely free;
our roles and situations often bind our
10 ARMY ■ August 2016

can be deaf to criticism. Other organizations
avoid important but uncomfortable
realities and discussions, or co-opt those
who dissent or present alternative views
so as to discount what they say. Still
others are blind to facts that don’t fit biases,
or simply deny that they have any
deficient policies or ineffective strategies.
Some organizations display more
than one of these pathologies.
Hirschman describes exit as always a
last resort. However, in these types
of organizations, exit may be the only
way to get an organization’s attention,
help it understand that something serious
is awry, or help it focus on what it prefers
to ignore, even to its own detriment, he
says. And exit may be the only alternative
to salvage one’s integrity and keep from
simply going along with a serious wrong.
According to Hirschman, an organization
that limits voice or exit, whether
overtly through formal policy or more
subtly through culture or innuendo,
may make it easier on itself in the short
run, but not better in the long run. Certainly
there are personal and institutional
risks associated with both voice
and exit—especially exit. But there are
also risks associated with remaining
silent, providing weak input, or staying
in position in the face of serious organizational
failure or substantial and avoidable
ineffectiveness.
Judging what decisions to make amid
conflicting risks is what moral agency is
all about. Neither voice nor exit should
be used for petty, petulant or parochial
reasons. And neither voice nor exit
should be used to undercut the proper
subordination of the military to civil
leadership. Exit is a final resort, to be
avoided at nearly all costs. Voice should
be used to prevent exit from becoming
necessary. But exit must remain an option—for
the good of the organization,
the good of those lives used and risked,
and the good of the moral agent.
The highest stakes in war are not organizational
or institutional or personal.
The highest stakes concern life itself—of
the citizens who become soldiers, of the
innocent, and of the political community.
Much more can, and should, be said
on the relationship of morality to strategic
competence. A proper understanding
of war, and a proper understanding of
moral agency, intersect. And it is at that
intersection that the moral dimension of
strategic competency is clearest. ■
Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, USA Ret.,
Ph.D., is a former commander of Multi-
National Security Transition Command-
Iraq and is a senior fellow of AUSA’s
Institute of Land Warfare. He has a
bachelor’s degree from Gannon University;
a master’s degree from the U.S.
Army Command and General Staff College;
and a master’s degree and Ph.D.
from Johns Hopkins University.
Tip of the Spear: Small Units, Big Impact
By Col. Richard D. Hooker Jr., U.S. Army retired
The Army finds itself almost in free history but still faced many challenges.
fall as end strength continues to Much of the great work done in the
plummet, funding for new systems is cut, 1980s on “the soldier’s load” was set
and missions expand. Lawmakers and aside as the needs for body armor, increased
water supplies and other require-
political leaders seem to forget that the
massive drawdown now underway followed
a similar reduction in the 1990s, The soldier in what’s been referred to
ments ballooned.
when the Army lost 40 percent of its as the long war—the global war on terrorism—carried
as much or more as
force structure, falling from 18 to 10
divisions. Deep cuts from a baseline any in history and as a result, tactical
that proved demonstrably unfit for the mobility was reduced and injury rates
post-9/11 era seems clearly unwise— were increased. Soldiers operating outside
the wire carried a bewildering array
but meanwhile, the Army must make
the best of its limited resources. of technology including day and night
One way to do that is to take a hard, optics, night-vision equipment, communications
systems and GPS naviga-
careful look at small units. To a large extent,
their success or failure determines tion systems, all powered by different
winning or losing. Therefore, supporting batteries.
and nurturing small units is critical to Light units became fully “motorized,”
land power and to victory.
only to see most of their vehicles left behind
upon redeployment. The standard
How are we doing in this regard? A
close look suggests there is much we can weapon, the M4 carbine, was light and
do to empower and enable small units in easy to handle in vehicles but lacked reliability
and stopping power.
order to maximize the punch of those
units that will survive the drawdown. These are key lessons learned that bear
Let’s start with the soldier. The combat
soldier who fought in Iraq and soldier needs a kit that is lighter, simpler,
careful attention. In general, the combat
Afghanistan was the best-equipped in cheaper, hardier and better.
The technology is here. On the commercial
side, technology trends toward
more capability, faster processing speeds,
ease of operation and lower cost. But for
defense industries, the reverse seems to
be the case. Lurking behind every acquisition
decision is a steep profit motive.
Strapping multiple complex systems on
the weapon and the trooper generates
revenue for defense industries but is a
nightmare for the soldier and small-unit
leader, who must master different boresighting
techniques and power sources.
A single, rugged, inexpensive lightweight
system with 3X magnification
and red dot and laser capabilities—suitable
for both combat and training environments
in lieu of the antiquated multiple
integrated laser engagement system
—would be a godsend to our harried
troopers.
Similarly, we should look for ways to
collapse systems for simplicity and ease
of operation. For example, new technology
should enable fielding of an inexpensive,
lightweight helmet that combines
GPS navigation, communications, night
vision and video/audio streaming into a
12 ARMY ■ August 2016

leaders for extended periods builds resilience
to combat stress as well as high
performance.
A conscious focus on small-unit cohesion
might usefully begin in the training
base. In the 1980s, the Army attempted
to address these issues through largescale
testing of the COHORT—Cohesion,
Operational Readiness, and Training—initiative,
which brought soldiers
together during initial training and kept
them together throughout their first enlistment.
Results were positive but running
individual and unit personnel systems
in tandem was challenging, and the
lengthy period needed to bring a CO-
HORT unit to full operational readiness
was problematic.
A more practical approach might be to
send “packages” of soldiers from the
training base to a battalion or squadron,
as was often done during the long war
under the Army Force Generation model
for units in the runup to deployment.
There, unit commanders would focus on
keeping squads, teams and crews stabilized
for as long as possible. Qualified
soldiers and leaders would be encouraged
to remain with the unit after the first
term of assignment, using typical incentives
such as education and bonuses.
Stabilizing soldiers and leaders offers
many advantages. Families can build
equity in a home. Spouses can more easily
find and keep employment. Family
disruption and moving costs can be minimized.
Most importantly, small units
are nurtured and strengthened through
long association, habitual relationships
and continuity.
This approach will face resistance from
personnel managers, who prize ease and
flexibility in managing the force. But
few things are more important than
well-trained, cohesive small units. Many
armies have recognized and employed
this process for decades or even centuries,
and for good reason. It works.
All of this is not to say that mass and
advanced technology are not important.
They are. If the campaigns in Iraq and
Afghanistan—both regional contingencies
falling well short of the numbers required
for Korea, Vietnam and Desert
Storm—taught us anything, it is that an
active Army falling below 500,000 or so
is simply too small to meet the needs of a
global power.
But at any end strength, an Army
made up of cohesive, highly trained, mobile
and resilient small teams is a much
better Army. Armed and equipped with
lighter, better, more standardized gear
will pay huge dividends. That’s an Army
that good soldiers will fall in love with,
fight hard for, and stay in. ■
Col. Richard D. Hooker Jr., USA Ret., is the
director for research and strategic support
and director of the Institute for National
Strategic Studies at the National Defense
University, Washington, D.C. His Army
career spanned 30 years as a parachute infantry
officer in the U.S. and Europe, including
tours in the offices of the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, the secretary of the Army
and the chief of staff of the Army. He participated
in combat operations in Grenada,
Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. A
graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he
has a master’s degree from the National
War College, and a master’s degree and
Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.
Civil Affairs in an Era of Engagement
By Col. Christopher Holshek, U.S. Army retired
If the conflicts of the 21st century have tivating the 85th Civil Affairs Brigade.
made anything more apparent, it’s The Navy entirely disbanded Maritime
America’s pathological problem with Civil Affairs. Only the Marine Corps is
ending or preventing wars rather than bucking the trend by strengthening its
with fighting them. This is largely because
of inconsistent investment in na-
With no real singular ownership of
civil affairs groups.
tional civilian and military land power Army civil affairs—as there is for maneuver,
fires or intelligence capabilities,
capabilities to translate military into political
gains and “win the peace.” for example—the talents, skills and
Nowhere is this better played out hard-earned wisdom of the most operationally
experienced CA force since
than with civil affairs. We’ve seen this
movie many times: After the outbreak World War II is evaporating more
of war, civil affairs forces—which act as quickly than it was built.
liaisons between the Army and civilian Funding for reserve component civil
authorities and populations—are hastily affairs, comprising 85 percent of the
assembled and deployed, only to be Army civil affairs force and all of the nation’s
strategic and operational CA ca-
largely cast aside until the next crisis.
In this latest sequel, the Army has cut pacity, has dwindled to individual readi -
reserve civil affairs proportionate to that ness-related training. As a result, there
component, as if strategic and operational
values were equal to other “en-
combat training centers and in overseas
is little left for reserve CA rotations at
ablers.” On the active side, the Army is engagement operations. These rotations
deactivating all its general-purpose CA would help this CA mainstay remain integrated
with supported commands capability and half its CA force by deac-
and
stay regionally plugged in. They also are
vital to building and maintaining relationships
and networks critical to understanding
and mitigating drivers of conflict
and instability. That, in turn, helps
counter the threats that emanate from
them before they metastasize.
The larger impact: The U.S. continues
to get what it pays for. Or as Army
CA officers Maj. Arnel P. David and
Maj. Clay Daniels wrote in a May Foreign
Policy blog post: “Preventing and
winning wars require constant, effective
engagement, an understanding of the
local political and cultural context, and
a cohort of military professionals dedicated
to employing the full range of national
capabilities.”
Many commanders have come to appreciate
the value of civil affairs in the
field. But given the largely tactical
mindset that still pervades the American
way of war and peace, CA remains
widely misconstrued as a “force multi-
14 ARMY ■ August 2016

plier” in the pursuit of “winning hearts
and minds” and other public relations
gimmickry rather than as a strategic enabler.
Yet since its inception nearly two
centuries ago in military government,
civil affairs has long been the major
method the nation—let alone the Army
—has for transition management from
conflict to peace, and from military to
civilian administration. Its mission to
“secure the victory” after major wars has
steadily evolved to where its role in conflict
analysis and prevention is as important
as in conflict management.
Beyond its post-conflict civil administration
legacy, civil affairs is ideally
suited for the 21st century peace and security
environment. As Lt. Gen. H.R.
McMaster, director of the Army Capabilities
Integration Center and deputy
commander, futures, at the U.S. Army
Training and Doctrine Command, explained
in Impunity, a National Defense
Center for Complex Operations
study, “Effective strategies to address
the challenge of weak states must begin
with an understanding of the factors
that drive violence, weaken state authority,
and strengthen illicit actors and
power structures.”
CA has long inhabited the horizontal
world of collaborative leadership and
working “the spaces between” that retired
Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s book
Team of Teams exhorts much of the rest
of the Army to join. Or, as former civil
affairs officer Jeff Danovich blogged in
The Huffington Post, “Civil affairs embodies
smart power.”
The low-tech solu tion to low-tech
problems, civil affairs remains the force
of choice to work with civilian agency,
nongovernmental, civil society and private-sector
actors whose capacities best
mitigate drivers of conflict and instability
and promote peace. Especially at the
theater strategic level, civil affairs is most
useful to political-military strategies in
operational preparation of the environment
as well as planning and conducting
peace and stability operations; supporting
humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief operations; countering violent extremism;
and performing security cooperation
and security assistance missions,
including building partnership capacity
for regionally aligned forces.
CA is both general purpose and special
operations. In addition to synchronizing
with other military engagement
capabilities such as military information
support, information operations and
foreign area officers, it is the only part
of the joint force specifically suited for
peace and stability operations under
joint stability operations doctrine and
the U.S. Army Functional Concept for
Engagement. (The total sum of all these
forces, by the way, is not more than
one-half of 1 percent of the entire U.S.
military. The rest is dedicated to more
industrial, kinetic forms of warfighting,
or to supporting them.)
In addition to enabling the strategic
end state, civil affairs helps minimize the
expense of large-scale use of conventional
forces for low- or high-intensity combat
operations. This is especially true of “persistent
engagement” missions such as
Joint Special Operations Task Force-
South in the Mindanao area of the
Philippines, which for decades has been
steadily eroding the base of power of extremist
insurgents there as well as in
Africa and Latin America.
Around the world, civil affairs operates
to extend the reach of U.S. embassy
country teams in remote and contested
areas, serving as a political-military multiplier.
This unique strategic economyof-force
impact, paradoxically, helps
preserve combat forces for their core
missions. In many ways, then, civil affairs
is an essential instrument of American
strategic land power.
Citing his own experiences in the
Balkans, Iraq and Africa, retired Gen.
Carter F. Ham, president and CEO of
the Association of the U.S. Army, recalled
at a Civil Affairs Roundtable at
West Point, N.Y., in the spring of 2015
how a small number of civil affairs professionals
had a “disproportionate effect”
on leveraging “positive outcomes
with relatively minor investment.” Because
“war and conflict are inherently
human endeavors,” he said, the out-ofthe-box
mentality and civilian-acquired
proficiencies and cross-cultural and regional
understanding of CA describe
“the forces needed well into the future”
in people-centric and political warfare.
Later, at a Civil Affairs Symposium
in San Antonio, McMaster cited war’s
immutable nature. In addition to being
fundamentally human and political, it is
also a contest of wills and, in essence, as
psychological as it is physical. It is also
uncertain, requiring adaptability, endurance
and a willingness to learn.
McMaster and Ham reached the same
conclusion: Civil affairs is an ideal interdisciplinary
learning organization in an
interdisciplinary environment requiring
adaptability and anticipatory play.
In this way, as Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Stability and Humanitarian
Affairs Anne Witkowsky
stated at the symposium, civil affairs
“remains more capable and relevant
than it was on 9/11, a key capability in
comprehensive, whole-of-government
transition management.”
CA needs development more than
dismantling. Because it is among the
least understood military capabilities,
both major commands and civil affairs
itself must do more to make it an integral
part of all joint and Army planning
and operations. Beyond the need for the
Army to better manage and resource
civil affairs, McMaster pressed civil affairs
to “help the broader Army think,
learn, analyze and implement solutions
to the Army’s Warfighting Challenges
that help the Army and the Joint Force
consolidate gains and achieve sustainable
outcomes in future conflict.”
To do that, CA must become more
conversant with the concepts and planning
and operations frameworks and languages
of the Army and the joint force it
supports. That comes best through constant,
well-programmed steady state engagement
with those commands through
training and current operations.
All of this requires greater interactive
learning among commanders and staffs
and CA, not just in training events but
also by greater inclusion in the core professional
military education curriculum.
It also requires an effort to overcome legal,
budgetary, and programmatic and
policy impediments to leveraging Reserve
civil affairs in particular, including
its functional specialists the Institute for
Military Support to Governance at Fort
Bragg, N.C., is currently revitalizing.
In response to McMaster’s challenge,
civil affairs is coordinating and collating
its contribution to the Army Operating
Concept, Functional Concept for Engagement,
Army Warfighting Chal-
August 2016 ■ ARMY 15

lenges, Joint Concept for Integrated
Campaign ing, and Human Aspect of
Military Operations. For the last three
years, it has begun to more purposefully
shap e discussion and analysis of doctrine,
organizations, training, materiel,
leader development and education, and
personnel interim solutions for the future
civil affairs force through an annual
cycle of professional development seminars
and workshops, beginning each fall
with a symposium and ending each
spring with a roundtable. The main deliverable
from these exercises is the annual
volume of Civil Affairs Issue Papers,
available for download at the Civil
Affairs Association and Army Peacekeeping
and Stability Operations Institute
websites.
“The objective of employing this
crowdsourcing method is to give young
leaders and the upcoming generation
something not previously done in a systemic
way, an opportunity to have a voice
in the future of a force in which they have
arguably the greatest interest,” said retired
Col. Joe Kirlin, Civil Affairs Association
president, in the latest volume.
“So far, it’s been paying off very well.”
Additionally, the operational and
strategic capabilities of civil affairs
have gone fallow and require restoration.
By improving its own understanding of
the strategic context for its work, civil
affairs can provide comprehensive support
to commanders at all levels by striving
to identify the sources, distribution,
and use of political and informal power
in order to mitigate the drivers of conflict
and instability, not just threats. This
helps civil affairs further its longtime
role as a major national strategic capability
for ending and preventing wars.
Given the constraints of a complex
and dynamic peace and security environments
that are inducing new thinking
about applied power, along with
budgetary restraints forcing national security
leaders to consider capabilities
that, dollar for dollar, do more to win
the wars of today and the peace of the
future, both the nation and the Army
would do well to take civil affairs more
seriously as well as strategically.
Restructuring civil affairs forces in a
big way is imminent, unavoidable and,
indeed, necessary. But unless American
and Army leaders learn to see the
national strategic value of civil affairs,
history will not only repeat itself, but
the consequences in a far more interconnected
world could be much less
forgiving.
■
Col. Christopher Holshek, USA Ret., is a
senior civil-military adviser to the International
Peace and Security Institute and
the Alliance for Peacebuilding. He is also
program director for the annual Civil Affairs
Symposium and Roundtable and
edits the Civil Affairs Issue Papers. He
has bachelor of arts degrees from George
Washington University, Washington,
D.C.; and master’s degrees from Boston
University and the U.S. Army War College.
He is the author of Travels With
Harley: Journeys in Search of Personal
and National Identity, about his experiences
in civil-military operations in
Army, joint and multinational settings.
A ‘First Principles’ Approach to Readiness
By Col. Thomas P. Galvin, U.S. Army retired
Readiness is answering questions about describes eight enduring conditions of
what the Army can do where, and readiness that harmonize the strategic,
when. The new Army Readiness Guidance
for 2016–17 calls for “the capabil-
activity. This approach also provides a
operational and tactical levels of readiness
ity of our forces to conduct the full ready interface with Army activities and
range of military operations to defeat all those of others upon which the Army depends
such as other services, defense
enemies regardless of the threats they
pose,” based on combatant commander agencies and interagency. Thus, the “first
requirements. The natural complexity principles” approach applies to the national
effort as much as it does to any of
of land warfare means these requirements
continuously shift.
the services.
Consequently, the Army undertakes a Institutionally, measuring readiness is
tremendous effort to translate national as complex as land warfare itself. Unreadiness
is not limited to lacking equip-
strategic direction and priorities into a
wide range of capabilities to provide an ment, training or staffing at unit level. It
Army with both expeditionary and includes the inability to deploy or employ
the force; lack of interoperability
campaign qualities. Army Chief of Staff
Gen. Mark A. Milley’s message is clear: with joint, interagency or coalition partners
in theater; and inability to sustain
Readiness is the Army’s No. 1 priority.
Because 96 percent of the Army’s budget
goes to activities directly contributing readiness is perishable, because our own
the effort as long as required. Plus,
to readiness—including staffing, modernization
and training—any programcause
adversaries continuously adapt.
capabilities degrade over time and beming
shortfall incurs strategic risk. I The following “first principles” were
propose a “first principles” approach. It originally conceived for the post-Cold
War era and have been adapted to the
modern context. They are equal in importance;
taking risk in any one presents
a strategic vulnerability.
■ Alignment with roles and missions.
Being aligned means organized, equipped
and trained to fulfill assigned responsibilities.
Because readiness is perishable
and environment is dynamic, alignment
goes beyond the specified capabilities
defined in the organizational structure
to include regional expertise, interoperability
and versatility.
■ Sufficiency. This principle concerns
how personnel and materiel must be
numerically sufficient to fulfill assigned
roles, functions and missions in designated
regions. The raw numbers of
ready units are only part of the answer,
which includes how many soldiers the
Army can deploy where needed to influence
a situation and seize initiative.
In this light, Milley’s readiness guidance
speaks to the need to change the narrative
to “entire Army” and “not brigade
16 ARMY ■ August 2016

combat team-centric,” to include strategic
capabilities that provide reach such
as intelligence, communications, cyber
and sustainment.
■ Regional expertise. Army organizations
must be organized, equipped and
trained to accomplish missions in specific
geographic regions. Today, steadystate
shaping and cultural awareness are
recognized as vital enabling activities,
ideally to preclude future conflict. Regional
expertise is highly perishable.
Bona-fide investments in its sustainment
improve our abilities to project national
power where and when needed.
■ Overmatch. The Army’s human
power, weapons, equipment and supplies
are superior to those of prospective
opponents. Modernization brings new
materiel capabilities to sustain such
overmatch, but there is also a human
dimension. Leader development, education,
soldier resiliency and fitness also
are contributors.
■ Interoperability. The force mix
must maximize the strengths and minimize
the weaknesses of its parts. Most
interoperability efforts focus on one dimension
at a time; for example, activereserve,
interservice or coalitions. As a
principle, interoperability is about pursuing
plug-and-play capabilities versatile
enough to adapt to any situation.
■ Mobilization and sustainability. Diversified
installations facilitate essential
training and furnish critical support.
Along with daily installation support
and peacetime support capabilities, this
principle also addresses surge capabilities
necessary to set the theater and project
national power. A strong and flexible
industrial base provides additional
generating capacity toward urgent operational
needs. Host-nation access and
support are vital for establishing and
sustaining lines of communication.
■ Foresight. The military balances
short-term with long-term requirements,
such as ensuring proper staffing and
equipping for present needs while continuously
modernizing for the future. This
principle speaks directly to risks associated
with trading current unit readiness
for modernization. Balance is critical.
■ Will to be ready. This intangible
means that the nation and the defense
enterprise are postured for readiness—
in other words, acquiring, operating,
maintaining and otherwise supporting
the Army’s ability to be ready. This is
more than financial sufficiency. It includes
all peacetime diplomatic, economic
and institutional enablers from
international agreements to strong civilmilitary
relations that communicate the
nation is committed to uphold strategic
interests and will employ military means,
if necessary. All of these tangibles and
intangibles represent the will, in times
of peace, to be ready.
Readiness takes time to build, but
times of peace often come with calls for
peace dividends, or potentially diverting
resources to other national priorities. If
there is failure to adhere to any one
principle, the other principles will not
make up the difference. For example,
one cannot assume an overmatch of capability
will compensate for a lack of
sufficient capacity.
The U.S. Army Heritage and Education
Center at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., recently
developed a series of case studies
to illustrate the complexity of land war-
Recent Publications
from the Institute of Land Warfare
All publications are available at:
www.ausa.org/publications-and-news
Land Warfare Papers
• LWP 109 – The Uncertain Role of the Tank in
Modern War: Lessons from the Israeli Experience
in Hybrid Warfare by Michael B. Kim (June 2016)
• LWP 108 – Are U.S. Army Capabilities for
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction at
Risk? by Thomas C. Westen (September 2015)
• LWP 107 – Integrating Landpower in the Indo–
Asia–Pacific Through 2020: Analysis of a Theater
Army Campaign Design by Benjamin A. Bennett
(May 2015)
• LWP 106 – American Landpower and the
Two-war Construct by Richard D. Hooker, Jr.
(May 2015)
National Security Watch
• NSW 16-1 – African Horizons: The United States
Army Working Toward a Secure and Stable
Africa by Douglas W. Merritt (February 2016)
• NSW 15-4 – These Are the Drones You Are
Looking For: Manned–Unmanned Teaming and
the U.S. Army by Richard Lim (December 2015)
• NSW 15-3 – Innovation and Invention: Equipping
the Army for Current and Future Conflicts
by Richard Lim (September 2015)
NCO Update
• Lead Story: Senior NCO Punches PTSD in the
Face (2nd Quarter 2016)
• Lead Story: Brainpower is the Next Frontier in
Army’s Arsenal (1st Quarter 2016)
Special Reports
• AUSA + 1st Session, 114th Congress = Some
Good News (December 2015)
• Profile of the U.S. Army 2014/2015: a reference
handbook (October 2014)
• Your Soldier, Your Army: A Parents’ Guide
by Vicki Cody (also available in Spanish)
Torchbearer Issue Papers
• Delivering Materiel Readiness: From “Blunt
Force” Logistics to Enterprise Resource
Planning (June 2016)
• The Mad Scientist Initiative: An Innovative
Way of Understanding the Future Operational
Environment (May 2016)
• Sustaining the All-Volunteer Force: A Readiness
Multiplier (April 2016)
• Strategically Responsive Logistics: A Game-
Changer (October 2015)
Defense Reports
• DR 16-3 – Strategic Readiness: The U.S. Army as
a Global Force (June 2016)
• DR 16-2 – National Commission on the Future of
the Army: An Initial Blueprint for the Total Army
(February 2016)
• DR 16-1 – Until They All Come Home: The
Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action
Accounting Agency (February 2016)
Landpower Essays
• LPE 16-1 – The State of the Cavalry: An Analysis
of the U.S. Army’s Reconnaissance and Security
Capability by Amos C. Fox (June 2016)
• LPE 15-1 – Strategic Landpower in the 21st
Century: A Conceptual Framework by Brian M.
Michelson (March 2015)
August 2016 ■ ARMY 17

fare and risks of the U.S. not being fully
prepared for military operations. Many
of the studies demonstrate the risks assumed
by forsaking the principles or
taking undue risk in one for another:
■ World War II mobilization. After
World War I and amid calls for a “return
to normalcy,” the Army suffered
under benign neglect—skeletonized,
structured with little modernization,
tied down with numerous constabulary
missions, and lacking a suitable industrial
base for equipping. In short, the
will to be ready was absent. The lesson
learned from having to remobilize to
meet World War II needs was the requirement
to maintain strategic readiness
capacity to ensure sufficiency, mobilization
and sustainability.
■ Operation Urgent Fury, Grenada.
Significant problems of joint interoperability
among conventional forces
and special operations forces plagued
Urgent Fury, demonstrating the criticality
of being ready for unplanned
contingencies at any time and that
maintaining joint—and therefore, interagency,
multicomponent and coalition—capabilities
requires continuous
practice.
■ Reserve integration during Operation
Desert Storm. Transitioning reserve component
combat units from strategic to
operational reserves—premobilization
training, personnel readiness, unit collective
training and professional development—were
all problematic. The enduring
lesson learned was the importance of
interoperability, a key goal in the Army
transformation that followed.
■ Task Force Smith, Korean War. After
World War II, the 24th Infantry Division
occupied Japan as a constabulary
force but was poorly equipped, badly understrength
and insufficiently trained for
a conventional fight. Still, the U.S. sent
it into battle in response to the North
Korean attack along the 38th Parallel.
The difficulties and heavy casualties experienced
showed the risks involved with
employing units that are neither aligned
nor sufficient for the mission.
In all four cases, strategic decisionmakers
accepted readiness risk to conserve
resources, ostensibly ignoring
some principles to favor others. The
complexity of future warfare demands a
sustained and holistic readiness posture
to ensure land power forces can get to
the fight where and when needed. That
complexity, however, makes decisions
very difficult.
In a commentary in the March–April
2015 issue of Military Review on the future
of warfare, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster,
director of the Army Capabilities Integration
Center and deputy commander,
futures, at the U.S. Army Training
and Doctrine Command, identified
four fallacies he encounters in strategic
discourse. Using the “first principles”
as a lens, his fallacies also highlight
dangers of trading one principle for
another.
His “vampire fallacy” of “promising
victory delivered rapidly from standoff
range” that, for example, produced the
“shock and awe” concept from Operation
Desert Storm allowed Army leaders
to ignore sufficiency in favor of
overmatch.
Decisionmakers often assume that
lots of standing capacity is unnecessary,
but this assumption has been proven
wrong time and again. McMaster’s
“Zero-Dark 30” fallacy expresses how
taking risk in sufficiency and willingness
to be ready for mobilization is similarly
flawed. His complaints about raids being
elevated “to the level of [a defense]
strategy” show how quick tactical actions
do not lead to lasting results because
they “are often unable to effect
the human and political drivers of
armed conflict.”
Both the “Mutual of Omaha Wild
Kingdom” fallacy of relying on proxies
and “RSVP” fallacy of opting out of
conflict forsake most of the principles—
lacking willingness to be ready while assuming
away regional expertise by losing
touch with the strategic environment
and interoperability to plug-and-play
with partners in theater.
The “first principles” approach helps
communicate the strategic readiness
posture to stakeholders in plain terms.
The principles describe how well the
military’s capabilities and capacity align
with requirements, and help describe
what would be needed to mobilize the
nation to employ the Army.
The approach also nests operational
and unit levels of readiness, as the principles
apply equally to each level. Operational
readiness, the ability for the nation
to provide trained and ready forces
to serve combatant command needs, is a
function of reach. Are the active and reserve
components postured and accessible?
Are the communications networks,
intelligence capabilities, survivability and
sustainability assets similarly ready to set
the theater and project power?
At unit level, the nature of readiness
reporting would not necessarily change.
Existing measures of unit readiness still
provide the important data and analysis
to assess proven readiness indicators for
personnel, equipping, servicing, training,
and facilities and installations.
The principles also provide ways to
exercise stewardship of resources in a
risk-informed way. Priorities and designation
of excess come from a thoughtful
national and joint risk-based analysis.
The principle of interoperability is particularly
vulnerable when budgets are
tight and priority programs are at risk,
but failing to provide complementary
capabilities across services presents a
critical strategic vulnerability that the
nation must avoid. Adjustments to
readiness management and reporting
systems should foster capturing of crossservice
and other dependencies.
The nation places significant requirements
on the Army to be ready for the
complex and unpredictable environments
of land warfare where and when
needed. Achieving readiness involves the
thoughtful allocation of resources toward
Army, joint and national capabilities employable
across the spectrum of operations.
On land, any shortfall in readiness
induces risk, which is measured in lives.
A principled approach to readiness makes
communicating capabilities and risk both
easier and more holistically assessed for
future success.
■
Col. Thomas P. Galvin, USA Ret., is assistant
professor of leadership studies at
the U.S. Army War College. He served
29 years on active duty, including assignments
in commander’s action groups
in service component, joint and combined
commands. He holds a bachelor’s
degree from Carnegie Mellon University,
Pa.; master’s degrees from the U.S.
Army War College and the Naval Postgraduate
School; and a doctorate from
George Washington University, Washington,
D.C.
18 ARMY ■ August 2016

She’s the Army
Presented With New Opportunity, NCO Jumped
Staff Sgt. Sherri Jo Gallagher has
logged more than 2,600 freefall
jumps and competed in numerous
competitions as a member of
the U.S. Army Parachute Team,
the Golden Knights. But it was her
historic achievement in another
venue that led to her jumping out
of planes in the first place.
Gallagher won the 2010 Army
Soldier of the Year Competition,
the first woman to achieve this
honor. As best warrior, Gallagher
—then a member of the Army
Marksmanship Unit—was afforded
the opportunity to try parachuting.
“I had no ambition to jump out
of a plane until they had me do the
tandem with the Golden Knights,”
Gallagher said. “As soon as I did
it, I fell in love immediately. It’s
very addicting.” She was reassigned
from the marksmanship unit to the
Golden Knights in 2012.
Originally from Prescott, Ariz.,
Gallagher practically grew up with a
gun in her hand. “My mom taught
me how to shoot,” she said. “I’ve
been doing competitive target shooting
since I was 5 years old.”
Gallagher holds more than 20 national rifle shooting records.
In 2002, when she was 19, she won the Individual Long Range
World Championship. She is believed to be the only American
and only woman to do so. In the long range discipline, targets
are so far away that shooters must take into account wind drift
and other ballistics.
“The longest shot I’ve ever made was from 1,600 yards,” Gallagher
said. “The target I was aiming at was about 10 inches
wide, which is about the size of a dinner plate. At that distance,
it is like shooting at the period at the end of a sentence.”
In 2008, Gallagher enlisted in the Army. After attending
basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., she attended Advanced
Individual Training to become a truck driver. She
never actually drove a truck, though. Instead, she was stationed
at Fort Benning, Ga., where she served for five years in
the marksmanship unit. She also served as an instructor for
soldiers in long range rifle engagements.
When Gallagher won the NRA High Power Championship
in 2010, she became the first U.S. military shooter
U.S. Army/Mike Swanson
Staff Sgt. Sherri Jo Gallagher
since 1987 to achieve the distinction.
She also became the second
woman ever to win. The first was
her mother, Nancy Tompkins, who
earned the award in 1998.
In 2011, Gallagher won the NRA
Long Range Championships. Her
mother, sister and stepfather have
also taken home this prize.
As a member of the Golden
Knights, Gallagher has competed
as a member of the eight-way freefall
formation team, and also has
trained and traveled with one of
two demonstration teams. She is
now on the women’s four-way
team, which will be competing in
the World Championships in Chicago
in October.
“The necessities of the teams
change, so I just go wherever is
needed,” she said. “I am hoping to
stay on the four-way team for a
while.”
Gallagher said she is having “an
amazing” time with the Army and
would like to continue serving with
the Golden Knights.
“I’ve jumped into Yankee Stadium,”
she said. “I also got to jump
a few times in Dubai. We’ve jumped near the Statue of Liberty.
We’ve even jumped through the arch in St. Louis. We
perform in some pretty awesome places.”
However, she is already looking ahead to other goals she
wants to accomplish. She is working on an undergraduate degree
with an emphasis on ministries from Liberty University,
Va. After she completes that, she plans to continue studying
evangelism and missionary work.
“I’m also saving up to adopt a child when I retire,” she said.
“At some point, I want to settle down and raise a family. I
don’t want to put on the brakes just yet but one day, I want to
do these things.”
Meantime, she’ll keep jumping even while downplaying
her accomplishments.
“For me, shooting and skydiving are things I believe anyone
can do,” Gallagher said. “In life, it’s about how much
you want something and if you want it bad enough, you’ll go
after it.”
—Staff Report
August 2016 ■ ARMY 19

Seriously,
Let’s Inject
Humor Into
Leadership
By Col. Eric E. Zimmerman
If you happen to be a professional academic, a stoic or just
generally cantankerous, please promise you won’t stop
reading after the next sentence.
This article is about humor as an element of Army leadership.
That’s right, humor. It’s a uniquely human quality that increases
resilience, creativity and trust while decreasing stress,
fear and power distance—attributes that are arguably the very
antithesis of toxic leadership. Despite these well-documented
benefits coupled with the seemingly ubiquitous senior leader
guidance that having fun or a sense of humor ranks among the
most important aspects of leading and serving in the Army, isn’t
it curious that humor doesn’t get even an honorable mention in
the more than 300 pages of current Army leadership doctrine?
Some dismiss any serious consideration of humor as a leadership
or management tool as incompatible with organizational
culture, a distraction from organizational purpose and productivity,
and even blatantly irresponsible. Others dismiss its value
on the grounds that good leaders have an innate understanding
of the value of positive humor and intuitively incorporate it
into their leadership style and day-to-day activities.
Humor isn’t something that can or should be taught. And I
am certainly not suggesting that the artful use of humor will
usher in a revolution in leadership affairs. However, we should
consider whether the Army is missing a small but powerful
tool in leader development.
That gets us to the primary purpose of this article: the value
of a leader’s deliberate use of positive forms of humor, also
known as adaptive humor. (Yes, that’s really a thing—and
how could the Army not embrace that moniker?) Adaptive
humor provides tangible social, emotional and cognitive benefits
that positively impact individuals and organizations and
the overall performance of both.
Finding the Funny Bone
Because of the enigmatic nature of humor, there is little
agreement on an academic definition of it. However, leading
humor researcher John Morreall offers a useful perspective.
DoD/Lt. j.g. Matthew Stroup
He contends that humor is not merely something that makes
us laugh; rather, it “is liking the mental jolt we get when
something surprises us.” He further characterizes the sensation
as simply “enjoying incongruity.”
We should also consider the four different styles of humor,
which are based largely on the research of Rod Martin, author
of one of the few collegiate-level texts on the subject, The Psychology
of Humor: An Integrative Approach. They are:
■ Self-enhancing: the ability to laugh at oneself or circumstances.
■ Affiliative: enhancing relationships in a benevolent and
positive manner.
■ Self-defeating: making oneself the butt of a joke.
■ Aggressive: using sarcasm, teasing, criticism and ridicule.
Self-enhancing and self-defeating are inwardly focused
types of humor, while affiliative and aggressive are outwardly
focused. Self-enhancing and affiliative are adaptive, or positive;
self-defeating and aggressive are maladaptive, or negative.
A growing body of research suggests that instead of dismissing
the value of humor, leaders may benefit from taking a
more constructive and practical approach to the topic. First,
given the paradoxical nature of humor coupled with its inevitable
presence in the workplace, leaders should establish an
organizational climate that encourages adaptive styles of hu-
20 ARMY ■ August 2016

Pfc. Lorne Coleman,
left, and Sgt. Jason
Klawuhn share a
laugh in Afghanistan.
mor—self-enhancing and affiliative—and discourages maladaptive—self-defeating
and aggressive—styles.
Martin says with humor typically ubiquitous in the workplace,
“the task for managers seems to be not so much to increase
the level of fun and laughter, but to understand the
meaning of the humor that already exists and to attempt to
channel it in productive directions.”
Second, leaders should be aware that their own deliberate
use of adaptive styles of humor is a powerful communication
tool. Several studies suggest that leaders who are perceived by
their subordinates as having a positive sense of humor are
viewed as more effective than leaders who are perceived as
having a poor sense of humor.
For example, in the article “Growing Strategic Leaders for
Future Conflict,” which was published in the Spring 2010 issue
of the U.S. Army War College’s Parameters, “Interviewees
noted humor as a defining characteristic of their successful seniors,
with one combatant commander seeing humor as helping
leaders to embrace an ‘output orientation … through a
spirit of collaboration’ driven by ‘social energy.’”
Humor in Uniform
Humor and the Army have a long-standing and complex relationship.
American popular culture reveals many examples
across several mediums, including books such as Catch-22; cartoons
such as Willie and Joe and Beetle Bailey; TV shows such as
M*A*S*H* and Hogan’s Heroes; and movies such as 1941 and—
of course—the quintessential military comedy Stripes. But beyond
these romanticized fictional examples, the historical
record of humor in the Army is worthy of a deeper look.
While not without critics of his research methods, it is indisputable
that over the course of five decades and four wars,
S.L.A. Marshall observed many noteworthy Army leaders
firsthand, both as a soldier and later as an official Army historian.
A prolific writer, he published more than 30 books on
warfare and leadership.
In the Military Tradition
Consider these observations from The Armed Forces Officer:
“To speak of the importance of a sense of humor would be unavailing,
if it were not that what cramps so many men isn’t
that they are by nature humorless but that they are hesitant to
exercise what humor they possess,” Marshall wrote. “Within
the military profession, it is as unwise as to let the muscles go
soft and to spare the mind the strain of original thinking.
Great humor has always been in the military tradition.”
While current Army doctrine doesn’t even mention humor, it
is interesting to note that this has not always been the case. De-
August 2016 ■ ARMY 21

Pfc. Francesca
Wolman of the Army
Reserve’s 476th
Chemical Battalion,
416th Theater Engineer
Command
U.S. Army/Sgt. 1st Class Michel Sauret
partment of the Army Pamphlet 22-1: Leadership, published in
December 1948 under then-Chief of Staff of the Army Gen.
Omar Bradley’s signature block, explicitly addressed both the
negative and positive aspects of humor in leadership. While it
cautioned heavily against the use of sarcasm, irony, profanity—
providing an exception, however, for “men whose use of profanity
is so habitual that it is recognized as entirely impersonal”—
and excessive “wisecracking”—ostensibly, maladaptive humor—
the manual encouraged the use of adaptive humor:
When there is discouragement in the air, when exhausted
troops must be called upon for another effort, a flash of humor
helps greatly. It tends to give confidence in times of stress, even
in the midst of the most confused and strenuous combat. Indeed,
it is often the American way of implying sympathy and
understanding and even cooperation in the midst of difficulty.
The endorsement of humor as an element of leadership also
found its way into Field Manual 22-100: Army Leadership:
Be, Know, Do, which was published in 1999. Humor’s importance
is addressed in two separate areas dealing with direct
leadership actions. Army leaders are reminded “that optimism,
a positive outlook, and a sense of humor are infectious” and
invaluable in dealing with adversity and unpopular decisions.
The manual goes on to assert that “despite the pressure of too
much to do in too little time,” effective leaders “keep their
sense of humor and help those around them do the same.”
Given the history of humor in Army leadership doctrine,
the long-standing traditions of humor in the military, the
demonstrated effectiveness of the artful application of humor
in leadership, and greater understanding of the benefits associated
with adaptive humor, it is time to bring humor as a tool
back into Army leadership doctrine. Adaptive and maladaptive
forms of humor should be defined, and adaptive uses
should be encouraged.
The potential benefits of using humor as a leadership tool
should also be conveyed, linking it to other important Army
concepts such as the development and maintenance of trust
and cohesive teams, resiliency, and critical and creative thinking.
Further, the enduring and demonstrated importance of
Army leaders maintaining a good sense of humor should be
enforced through relevant examples.
These ideas can be easily and clearly communicated through
a relatively modest investment of two or three pages in the
Army’s leadership doctrine publications. While this addition is
not likely to usher in a revolution, it would certainly increase
awareness, spark discussion and foster a deeper understanding
of humor as an effective and accessible leadership tool.
Clearly, the value of humor is no joking matter. ✭
Col. Eric E. Zimmerman, an infantry officer, is the G-3 for the
Pennsylvania Army National Guard. He holds a bachelor’s degree
from Shippensburg University, Pa., and master’s degrees
from Duquesne University, Pa., and the U.S. Army War College.
22 ARMY ■ August 2016

Going Off-Duty Doesn’t
U.S. Army/C. Todd Lopez
By Karen E. Boroff, Maj. John Spencer and Col. John Via
The communications revolution—smartphones, the internet,
social media and other technologies—has
brought profound changes to every work environment.
Nowhere is this truer than in the U.S. military.
Constant access to work communications, coupled with intrusions
on what once was considered off-duty hours, are blurring
the lines between professional and personal time.
Consequently, many military members feel like they are always
on duty. Recent studies have shown that this constant
on-duty life may impact morale, perceptions of the military,
and the physical health of military professionals.
As technology connects us to one another more and more,
there is also a growing concern about individual privacy. Ubiquitous
media technology with its images and text—sometimes
hastily written and emotional—have diminished the boundaries
of what is private and what is not. And what others know
about us and our opinions can present a quandary for employers.
Furthermore, what is “out there” is out there forever.
Can a line be drawn between one’s off-the-job persona and
one’s on-the-job persona? The answer is pretty clear for those
in uniform: No.
Serious Implications
The implications for the military are serious. Henry
Mintzberg, in his seminal 1973 book The Nature of Managerial
Work, discusses the roles of all managers, regardless of profession
or industry. These roles include the interpersonal and the
informational. Managers are the face of their organization,
and increasingly so as they move up the hierarchy. Under
Mintzberg’s schema, the notion that the one’s off-the-job persona
is one’s own business becomes increasingly tenuous.
Human resources management practice has historically
maintained that off-the-job behavior has no bearing on maintaining
one’s employment, unless there is a nexus between the
employee’s job and the off-the-job behavior. If an employee’s
off-the-job behavior can affect the employer’s reputation or
impede the employee’s ability to do his or her job, then the
distinction between the two behaviors is, in fact, not distinct.
If other employees no longer want to work with someone because
of his or her off-the-job behavior, that too may cause a
manager to take action.
In an October 2014 panel discussion, then-Army Chief of
Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno gave clear guidance for soldiers:
“The professional ethic is not a 9-to-5 ethic. It’s a 24-
hour, seven-day-a-week ethic.”
He continued, “Our profession is one that requires you to
understand that everything you do reflects on your profession,
reflects on who you are, reflects on those who rely on you to
do very difficult missions.”
The Army’s written policies and doctrine are clear on the
24 ARMY ■ August 2016

Protect Online Behavior
topic of the 24/7 life of the soldier. Army Doctrine Reference
Publication 1: The Army Profession notes that those in the profession
of arms have a unique duty to perform: to “provide the
security—the common defense—which a society cannot provide
for itself but without which the society cannot survive.” By
taking a solemn oath of service, soldiers voluntarily incur an
obligation to live the Army Ethic and accept that being a soldier
“is far more than a job; it is a calling—a way of life.”
Continued Blurring of Time
The expectations of conduct for soldiers have always been
high. This is not new. What is new, and of concern, is the
continued blurring of personal with professional time and
space. Despite the 24/7 rules of military service, there has always
been some separation between the professional and personal.
Whether it was at social gatherings or behind closed
doors with family and friends, there was a tacit understanding
of what constituted a soldier’s personal life.
Information technologies have essentially ended any separation
between a soldier’s professional and personal time. Rules
about involvement in the political process used to be straightforward:
Don’t wear your uniform to a political event, and
don’t make assertions on behalf of the government. Social media
has blurred those lines, because our Facebook profiles usually
informally identify us as soldiers even if we post a message
while wearing pajamas.
In the past, soldiers—especially those in leadership roles—
who were not deployed and not at work were on off-duty status.
Today, that is not true. Most soldiers have smartphones
that tether them to the work environment. Soldiers are now
only a text, call or email away from professional space.
It is not only the technology-aided injection of professional
obligations into personal time that is an issue. Also of concern
is the redefining of the personal environment. With the expansion
of social media, a soldier’s personal space includes a
considerable amount of time spent on social media forums
such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
As Odierno noted, there is no separate life online; soldiers
are held to the Army Ethic 24/7. This includes possible punishment
for comments made on social media. Even if you believe
you are connecting only with family and friends, the
communication is not private. An off-duty officer is still professionally
accountable if he or she appears on Instagram engaged
in behavior that may not be illegal but is at odds with
the 24/7 ethic of the soldier.
Health, Readiness at Stake
It is not just reputation, promotion or disciplinary actions
that are at stake. This 24/7 world may very well be impacting
health and degrading readiness. A recent article in the Journal of
Occupational Health Psychology examined “extended work availability,”
or the ability to be productive at nearly any time and in
nearly any place. When leisure time no longer is really leisure
time, we feel the impact subjectively and also physiologically in
the form of elevated cortisol levels, a product of increased stress.
Further, a European Union study of working at home found
that it is harmful to our health when we use leisure time to accomplish
work activities.
Another study looked at work-related smartphone use and
found that employees who are issued smartphones lose the
ability to “psychologically detach,” which in turn has been associated
with increased “work-related exhaustion.”
Interestingly, it might not be just the extra work that impacts
our health. A 2012 article in Applied Psychology: Health and
Well-Being suggests that merely being available for work produces
added stress, even if employers never actually contact employees
during their “leisure time.” Just knowing that we could
be asked to perform work is stressful, even if that request never
comes. Similarly, an article in Academy of Management Review
says workers’ choices are between segmenting, or keeping roles
discrete, and integrating, or blurring, their various roles.
From a productivity standpoint, integrating might be best
in the short term, but being available 24/7 comes at a cost to
health.
Countering Negative Impacts
There are steps that both individuals and institutions can
take rather than wait for the negative impacts of technologyenabled
24/7 life to grow. Institutional measures include a
more prominent education program about the meaning of
commitment to a professional ethic, the dangers of online or
off-duty personas not in accordance with the professional
ethic, and the health risks of not detaching from the work environment.
A growing body of evidence indicates that technology can
impact the health and well-being of any user. There is a
greater tendency to post material that, but for the expanded
use of technology and connectedness, would never have been
made public, much less shared with the world in a few seconds.
This can result in a degradation of force readiness, a reduction
in unit discipline and cohesion, and a concomitant diminishment
of the public’s significant trust in the Army to
fight and win our nation’s wars.
Technology presents unique challenges for the profession,
and the Army must respond to them. We must leverage new
technologies to increase productivity with an eye toward readiness
and morale. It is time for the Army to come to grips with
this new world, and promulgate relevant policies for the betterment
of the profession.
✭
Karen E. Boroff is professor and dean emeritus at the W. Paul
Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University, N.J. Maj.
John Spencer is a scholar with the Modern War Institute at the
U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Col. John Via, a licensed
clinical psychologist, is the psychology consultant to the
Surgeon General of the Army.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 25

It’s Back to Basics With
By Maj. Nathan A. Jennings
After more than a decade of expansive stability operations in the Middle
East, the U.S. Army is embracing a more expeditionary posture. This
shift finds America’s primary land power institution returning to its origins
as a more modestly sized, but tactically effective, fighting force.
During the final decade of the 18th century and throughout the 19th—with the exception
of the Civil War—the Army predominantly operated in small garrisons
across expanding frontiers while occasionally massing in distant theaters.
As the Army’s first successful major campaign far beyond home territory, the
Northwest Indian War of 1794 set a precedent for the expeditionary warfare the
Army is embracing now. In this conflict, a combined arms brigade under Maj.
Gen. Anthony Wayne, a Revolutionary War veteran, deployed to the Ohio territory
to prosecute national interests.
Called the Legion of the United States, America’s first standing Army formed in 1792
to contest British influence and Native American control of the lower Great Lakes region
after two previous militia offensives suffered devastating defeats. Under orders from Secretary
of War Henry Knox to “make those audacious savages feel our superiority in
26 ARMY ■ August 2016

Expeditionary Warfare
Arms,” Wayne trained a professional force of approximately 5,000
infantry, dragoons and artillerymen in Pennsylvania.
The Legion then marched west beyond support range, secured
extended lines of communication, defeated a confederation
of Native American warriors at the Battle of Fallen Timbers,
and ultimately established American dominance in Ohio.
The war ended as an instructive, if nakedly aggrandizing, example
of the U.S. Army enabling strategic gains abroad and
preceded more than two centuries of foreign campaigns.
U.S. Army Center of Military History/H. Charles McBarron
Small Forces, Distant Theaters
The Legion’s victory on the Ohio frontier is relevant for today’s
paradigm and holds lessons for future campaigns where
modestly sized American joint forces will again unite in distant
theaters. The Army’s tenets of unified land operations contained
in Army Doctrine Publication 3-0: Unified Land Operations
offer a modern doctrinal framework that can place its
first, and largely forgotten, foreign expedition in a comparable
and understandable context. Though separated by hundreds of
years and dramatic technological advances, the Northwest Indian
War is a valuable case study for modern military leaders
when it is assessed against the six tenets of flexibility, integration,
lethality, adaptability, depth and synchronization.
The first tenet, flexibility, is defined as “a versatile mix of
capabilities, formations, and equipment for conducting operations.”
The American Army that invaded the Ohio territory in
1794 embodied this fundamental by adopting a unique combined
arms profile. While standard European armies were typically
structured with pure regiments, Wayne designed his
brigade with combined arms “sublegions” that each comprised
two battalions of assault infantry, one rifle battalion of skirmishers,
one dragoon troop and one light artillery battery.
Similar to the Army’s current modular brigade combat
teams, Wayne created a versatile command that could fight
both centralized and decentralized. When put to the test, this
flexibility allowed him to defeat hybrid indigenous forces
throughout the advance, at the decisive engagement and during
subsequent clearing operations.
The second tenet centers on integrating Army forces with
other elements of military and national power. Though the Ohio
expedition lacked joint cooperation with naval forces, it included
a different kind of unity: augmentation by state militia and allied
Native Americans. While the Kentucky volunteers provided a
highly mobile, if undisciplined, mounted force to augment
Wayne’s dearth of cavalry, Native American contingents contributed
indigenous reconnaissance to guide his advance into the
Northwest frontier. This “total force” and multinational cooperation
consequently negated the Legion’s structural inadequacies
in tactical mobility and intelligence collection while preserving
assault battalions for decisive maneuvers.
Technological, Tactical Overmatch
Modern U.S. Army doctrine defines the third tenet of
lethality as “the capacity for physical destruction.” It “is fundamental
to all other military capabilities.” Like the tactical overmatch
enjoyed by American forces in recent decades, the Legion
relied on technological and tactical overmatch to allow it
to win convincingly at the culmination of the campaign.
At the Battle of Fallen Timbers on Aug. 20, 1794, south of
then British-held Detroit, Wayne unleashed forward skirmishers
with precision rifles, main force infantry with musket volleys,
light field artillery fires, and charging horsemen armed with
sabers and pistols. This lethality distribution, which surpassed
the Native American armament, allowed the Americans to attrite,
fix, flank and overwhelm with combined arms attacks.
Troops led by Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne routed the Native Americans
who met them at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 27

and effects. As a veteran of numerous battles, Wayne knew
the value of applying combat power at the ideal time and
place. When the Legion approached the Native Americans’
strongpoint, the veteran commander arrayed his forces to integrate
each subordinate elements’ strengths in reconnaissance,
marksmanship, close combat assault and mobility
while converging their effects at the decisive point.
This reinforcing scheme, in addition to the synchronization
of advance, main body and logistical elements during the
preceding march into Ohio, created favorable conditions for
operational, and ultimately strategic, success.
Library of Congress
Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne
The fourth tenet, adaptability, is a crucial quality that expeditionary
forces must possess as they enter, sometimes
forcibly, into unpredictable and unfamiliar environments.
Though he anticipated fighting a “Heterogeneous Army
composed of British troops, the militia of Detroit, & all the
hostile Indians NW of the Ohio,” Wayne carefully engaged
the Native Americans while only intimidating, and thus preventing,
unwanted escalation with the more powerful British
Empire. This ability to defeat one enemy while deterring another
stemmed from his nuanced appreciation of the strategic
setting and President George Washington’s intent to secure
Ohio while avoiding a larger nation-state conflict.
Previous Armies Defeated
Fifth, Army doctrine defines depth as “the extension of operations
in time, space, or purpose … to achieve the most decisive
result.” In the Ohio campaign, American ground forces
advanced steadily and securely into hostile territory where
two previous armies had recently suffered costly defeat. When
the Native American alliance attacked the Legion’s forwardmost
outpost at Fort Recovery on July 1, the defenders repelled
a force 10 times their size through superior firepower
and preserved Wayne’s operational reach.
This ability to secure extended lines of communication indepth
allowed the American main force to rapidly advance
deep into the heart of Native American territory—similar to
the coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003—and ultimately compelled
the Native Americans to accept a general engagement
to protect their domestic centers.
The final tenet of unified land operations is the requirement
to synchronize military actions to maximize capabilities
21st Century Lessons
The Army’s victory at Fallen Timbers opened the way for
American settlement across the lower Great Lakes region. After
the battle, Wayne and the Legion remained in Ohio to clear the
immediate area of Native American resistance. While the tactical
gains were crucial, Wayne’s success in separating the Native
Americans from their British sponsors held even greater import.
The Europeans, who had encouraged Native American militancy
by providing armament and promises of support, abruptly
closed their forts to the retreating warriors largely because of
demonstrated American resolve. In a book published several
years before he became president, Theodore Roosevelt wrote
that the campaign “was one of the most striking and weighty
feats in the winning of the West,” assessing it with little sympathy
for the Native Americans who lost their ancestral lands.
Since the Legion’s decisive victory in 1794, the Army has
conducted dozens of expeditionary campaigns. However, the
fundamental tenets that made America’s first standing Army
successful in its first foreign war remain unchanged. By incorporating
flexibility, integration, lethality, adaptability, depth and
synchronization, Wayne’s combined arms team managed to, as
defined by Army doctrine, “gain and maintain a position of relative
advantage in sustained land operations through simultaneous
offensive, defensive, and stability … operations.” Like
nearly all victorious expeditionary armies, it achieved this by arranging
tactical actions to enable strategic ends in a distant theater
while fighting on unfamiliar terrain with limited support.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley recently stated
that America’s premier land power institution “must be lethal,
agile, adaptive, innovative and expeditionary” and “armed with
leader, technological and training overmatch” to achieve success
in the contemporary security environment. As the U.S.
enters an era of evolving complexity and instability, its ground
forces must incorporate these qualities as they deploy across
oceans and continents to serve national interests. ✭
Maj. Nathan A. Jennings, an armor officer, is a student at the U.S.
Army Command and General Staff College’s School of Advanced
Military Studies. His previous positions include assistant professor
of history at the U.S. Military Academy, and headquarters troop
and cavalry troop commander in the 1st Cavalry Division. He
served in Operation Iraqi Freedom with tours in Baghdad and
Kirkuk. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern State
University of Louisiana and a master’s degree from the University
of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Riding for the Lone Star:
Frontier Cavalry and the Texas Way of War, 1822–1865.
28 ARMY ■ August 2016

Former Soldiers Serve
in TV Series, Films
‘It’s a Good Time to Be a Veteran in Hollywood’
A location outside Los Angeles fills in for
Afghanistan as director Kyle Hausmann-
Stokes, an Army combat veteran, briefs the
cast and crew of a national VA commercial.
Mike Moriatis
By Laura Stassi, Assistant Managing Editor
Whenever former Sgt. Aaron Carew had free time
during the first of two deployments to Iraq, he
binge-watched DVDs of TV programs. After
discovering 24, the critically acclaimed counterterrorism
drama, “I knew I wanted to be a television writer,”
said Carew, who had committed to the Army in 2002 as a
high school senior. Today, the former logistics specialist who
served for seven years is a staff writer for the Fox TV series
Lethal Weapon, which premiers in the fall.
Former Cpl. Jeff Reyes was a criminal science major when
he left college in 2004 to join the Army and “do my part.”
Deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005 as a designated marksman
and team leader, he earned a Purple Heart. After separating
from the service in 2008, he chose the business side of filmmaking
over criminal science. He has since worked in the art
department/props for several films and is also a director, producer
and videographer with his own production company,
Echosworld Entertainment.
Retired Col. Lisa Costanza was on active duty with the
Army and Army National Guard for 24 years and deployed to
Kosovo and then in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom/
Operation New Dawn, commanding the 224th Sustainment
Brigade. For her second career she tapped into her first love,
acting, and has landed roles in the acclaimed TV series Transparent
and Her Only Living Son, a feature film by indie director
Karyn Kusama.
Not every actor will be as successful as Robert Downey Jr.,
who raked in $80 million in 2015, according to Forbes magazine.
And it may also be a stretch for an aspiring director to
earn The Hollywood Reporter’s estimate of $250,000 minimum
August 2016 ■ ARMY 29

for a major feature film. Still, there’s money to be made in the
entertainment industry on both sides of the camera, as many
former soldiers have found out firsthand.
“This business is rough and tough on beginners and even
rougher and tougher on older folks,” said Karen Kraft, a former
first lieutenant and adjutant general in the Army Reserve
and an award-winning writer, director and producer.
But the entertainment industry’s “attitude toward veterans is
shifting,” said Kraft, whose “favorite credit” was working with
comic book writer and editor Stan Lee on the 2004 Travel
Channel special Marvel Superheroes’ Guide to New York City.
“It’s a good time to be a veteran in Hollywood.”
Begin at the Beginning
Former soldiers seeking to break into show biz can hope to
be as lucky as Mark Valley, a 1987 U.S. Military Academy
graduate who was serving in Germany when his rugged good
looks caught the attention of a Berlin talent agent. Valley, a
former first lieutenant whose five years of service included an
Operation Desert Storm deployment, went almost directly
from the Army to soap opera acting gigs and from there, leading
roles in films and TV shows including ABC’s Boston Legal,
Fox TV’s Fringe, NBC’s Harry’s Law and Bravo’s Girlfriends’
Guide to Divorce.
“Everyone wants to be the next big actor, director or writer,”
said Kraft, who left the Army during Clinton administrationera
downsizing and enrolled in a graduate film program at
American University in Washington, D.C. “But even for the
most talented, it takes years to hone your craft.” She advises
those seeking work in the entertainment
industry to “read everything on the career
you are pursuing. And remember,
you are starting from the bottom in a
new career so be polite, patient and persistent—and
ask a lot of questions.”
Carew finished his undergraduate
degree after leaving the Army and then
earned an MFA from the University of
Southern California’s School of Cinematic
Arts-Peter Stark Producing Program.
He interned with Overbrook
Entertainment, a production company
co-founded by actor Will Smith, and
others before collecting professional
credits including assisting director
Michael Mann on the 2015 feature film
Blackhat. Carew is also teaching online
film courses for Hopkinsville Community
College, Ky.
Costanza started acting when she was
17, and worked steadily enough to earn
membership in the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation
of Radio and Television Artists in 1978. Then she went to
college and subsequently joined the California Army National
Guard and then the Regular Army. “So I have been an actress a
lot longer” than a soldier, Costanza said, adding that her military
retirement pay “allows me to pursue my acting career.”
It’s Also Who You Know
As Carew “started to climb the ladder in the entertainment
business, I wanted to find fellow veterans” in the industry, he
said. He discovered Veterans in Film & Television (VFT), an
educational and networking organization for current and former
service members.
VFT was co-founded in 2012 by Mike Dowling, an actor
and former Marine Corps working dog handler, and Army
veteran Kyle Hausmann-Stokes. A grandson and nephew of
military veterans, Hausmann-Stokes joined the Army after
graduating from high school. He served for three years and
separated in 2004 to go to film school, but was recalled to
active duty in 2006 as part of the Surge. He served about two
additional years including a yearlong deployment to Iraq.
After separating as a staff sergeant, he returned to the University
of Southern California’s film school.
About a year after graduating, he met Dowling, who’s also
an Iraq War combat vet. “When we determined that there was
not an organization that united other vets in this space, we decided
to create one,” Hausmann-Stokes said. The mission of
VFT is to provide a platform for current and former military
members working in the film and television industry to network
Jeff Reyes, a former corporal, makes a camera
adjustment during the shooting of a music video.
Ciley Carrington
30 ARMY ■ August 2016

with each other as well as with industry leaders. Kraft became
a founding board member after hearing a presentation about
the new group.
VFT is a 501(c)(3) based in Los Angeles. It has a chapter in
New York City and also plans to establish a presence in
Atlanta and Washington, D.C., all through volunteer efforts.
It has forged partnerships with various casting agencies, directors
and others who are looking to fill positions on both sides
of the camera. The organization has grown, Hausmann-
Stokes said, to an “endless amount of enthusiastic member
volunteers [and] thousands of members across the country,
dozens of events with celebrities and studios, hundreds of vets
hired and cast in the industry, and too many other random
and awesome things to mention.”
Hausmann-Stokes stepped back from VFT in 2015 to concentrate
on his directing career. He has directed national TV
spots for brands including Dunkin’ Donuts and Audi, and recently
was in Lisbon shooting a commercial for Bayer. He also
has won three Telly Awards—“like Oscars, for commercials”
and other visual content—for veteran-related public service
announcements.
Seek Opportunities
Membership in VFT, which is free for current and former
service members, provides opportunities to connect with mentors
such as Tucker Smallwood, a television news director in
Baltimore who was drafted into the Army in 1967. After serving
in the Vietnam War, Smallwood resigned his first lieutenant
commission in 1970 and moved to New York to study
acting.
Smallwood thought learning about acting would help him
become a better director, but “I fell in love with the process,”
he said. “I worked constantly” as an actor for 10 years before
post-traumatic stress disorder “began unraveling my life.”
After receiving treatment, Smallwood moved to Los Angeles
in 1991. He’s had featured roles in Broadway productions and
regional theater; and guest spots in TV shows including The
X-Files, Seinfeld, Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Friends,
Malcolm in the Middle and My Name is Earl.
“When I finally asked for and received help, I pledged to
advocate for treatment to other veterans troubled by their service,”
Smallwood said. So along with sharing advice about the
entertainment industry, he has spoken nationally about the
need for counseling for the veteran population.
Tibrina Hobson
Former Sgt. Aaron Carew confers with an assistant director during
production of his short film A Final Gift.
‘A Rough and Treacherous World’
“It’s pretty well-known that show business can be a rough
and treacherous world,” said Frank Sharp, who enlisted in the
Army in 1994 after spending the previous seven years in Los
Angeles pursuing an acting career. “The opportunity to help
people avoid the sorts of errors I made … is golden.”
Sharp served in the 3rd Ranger Battalion before separating
as a specialist in 1999 and returning to California. After about
three years, he said, “the on-camera end of my work had
slowed to practically nothing, but I had the opportunity to
start full time in post-production.”
“I worked on more than 100 shows as an assistant, coordinator
and supervisor, then began doing background and featured
voices” for TV shows and movies, Sharp said. “I finally
had a career.”
Sharp also has written screenplays, including Lone Rider, a
2008 made-for-TV Western starring Lou Diamond Phillips
and Stacy Keach; and the 2015 film It Had To Be You. He
works as a voice actor and is a consulting producer for projects
including a film in development called Wyoming Sky.
“Veterans tend to have the kind of skill set that is necessary
to succeed in Hollywood, but those skills need honing to specific
purposes,” Sharp said.
Kraft said companies such as Disney, DreamWorks, NBC
and Lionsgate, among others, have initiatives to hire veterans.
More opportunities for show biz seekers can be found
in organizations such as the Writers Guild Foundation’s
Veterans Writing Project, which pairs veterans interested in
the industry with professional writer-mentors with military
backgrounds. Katie Buckland, the foundation’s executive director,
has described the project as a job training program
for current and former service members “who want to work
in this industry.”
And Sharp, among others, thinks the entertainment industry
is a good fit for soldiers.
“I got far more out of the Army than the Army could have
ever gotten out of me,” he said. “The Army prepared me both
professionally and personally for the rest of my life. Any success
I’ve enjoyed since … is directly linked to my time in service.”✭
August 2016 ■ ARMY 31

Role of Land Power Is
By Maj. Gen. Todd B. McCaffrey
Conventional wisdom defines the Indo-Asian-Pacific
region as a maritime theater. Looking at a map, it’s
hard to argue the characterization: Vast ocean spaces
seem punctuated only by individual islands, archipelagoes
and jagged shorelines. So it’s easy to understand why
many planners see our most pressing regional security concerns
as air and maritime challenges.
However, this is a shortsighted viewpoint and risks vastly
oversimplifying the complexity of the area. Any strategic security
framework that defines the contributions of land power as
a solely supporting capability to naval and air operations risks
missing opportunities critical to ensuring that the U.S.
achieves its regional objectives.
To be sure, the security of air and maritime spaces is essential
to our national interests, and to the interests of our regional
partners. But the role land power serves in the Pacific,
and the role of the U.S. Army in particular, is an often underrecognized
yet longstanding pivotal contributor to the Pacific
security environment.
A 2nd Infantry Division rifleman during
Exercise Lightning Strike in Singapore
Dominant Military Interest
From the perspective of our regional partners and allies,
land forces and the land domain are their dominant military
interests. Without question, the security of maritime trade
routes and the airspace that adjoins them defines the economic
lifelines upon which Indo-Asian-Pacific nations rely. For
most of these countries, however, it’s their armies that drive
both the internal and external security equation.
Of the 36 nations comprising the Indo-Asian-Pacific region,
22 have chiefs of defense with an army background. This
is not coincidental. It reflects these countries’ prevailing interests
and presents an opportunity U.S. security planners must
appreciate and capitalize on when developing strategy to
achieve our regional security objectives.
DoD’s research and investment in complex and expensive
military capabilities for the Pacific are based largely on an implicit
objective to deter a potentially aggressive China and encourage
responsible behavior within international norms.
Should that deterrence fail, those superb capabilities ensure we
are prepared to win in high-end regional conflict.
Winning the fight that we hope never comes will always be
the first priority and frame much of our approach to regional
activities. However, prevention or de-escalation of crisis or
conflict remains the first principle of U.S. Pacific Command
strategy. It’s in this “shaping, deterring and de-escalatory”
space that the role of land power, and the U.S. Army in particular,
can have significant and lasting effects.
The crucial deterrent and de-escalatory role of land power has
long been apparent on the Korean Peninsula. Sixty years of occasionally
restive peace has been maintained through the presence
and readiness of significant U.S. and Republic of Korea
ground forces, reinforced by equally capable air and naval forces.
However, off the peninsula, this aspect of military power is often
overlooked by staff planners focused on developing approaches
oriented on securing sea lanes and their adjoining airspaces.
Don’t Miss Opportunities
Many of these same planners will contend that the principal
role of U.S. Army forces in the Pacific is to “support the fleet”
in its warfighting role. Undoubtedly, the Army would play a
vital role in doing just that should conflict arise in the South
China Sea or East China Sea. But focusing primarily on this
32 ARMY ■ August 2016

Pivotal in Pacific
U.S. Army/Staff Sgt. Justin A. Naylor
high-end combat aspect risks missing opportunities that could
vastly improve the chances of reducing crisis before conflict, or
at least set better conditions for victory should conflict arise.
U.S. Army Pacific provides the U.S. Pacific Command a
critical and decisive capability to conduct sustained engagement
with partners and allies whose primary security investments
remain in the land domain. These engagements are
rooted in long-standing historical connections, personal relationships
and land-based interoperability and contribute directly
to Pacific Command’s standing focus on crisis prevention
and de-escalation. Army units—those assigned to Pacific
Command and others aligned from continental U.S.-based locations—can
“talk the talk” with regional partners in ways that
resonate with their political leadership.
U.S. Army engagement improves partner nations’ security capabilities
in the areas where those nations see the most need.
Whether through advances in technical interoperability or simply
working toward similar approaches to operating, the improvements
help establish and maintain critical relationships
with regional leaders along a common security foundation.
Strong Foundation
That foundation, the very real cultural alignment soldiers
have across country and cultural boundaries, shapes the region
August 2016 ■ ARMY 33

U.S. Army/Spc. Jordan Talbot
Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division patrol during a Pacific Pathways exercise in Queensland, Australia.
in ways unachievable through naval and air engagements.
Those bonds provide a strong foundation upon which to build
the rest of the regional security network. When friction arises
in contested waters or airspaces, those bonds ensure a level of
resilience in relationships even with potential adversaries, allowing
avenues of engagement in crisis.
With budgets contracting, DoD and Pacific Command
must make hard choices on future investments and recognize
that our regional partners are equally impacted by increasing
costs and are confronted by equally vexing choices. An increasing
demand for U.S. Army forces in Europe and once
again in the Middle East, even while the Army gets smaller,
could be viewed as a more pressing issue and raise the volume
on calls for cuts to Army forces in the Pacific so troops can be
shifted to other theaters.
It’s against this backdrop that analysts must recognize the
long-term strategic gap such realignments away from the Pacific
would create, and advocate strongly for the critical role Army
forces serve not only on the Korean Peninsula but also across a
region some continue to view as the natural
purview of naval and air forces.
U.S. Army Pacific’s innovative but
highly effective operational approaches
—including Pacific Pathways and the positioning
of humanitarian relief and disaster-response
equipment in the region—
are examples of how Army forces, used
in coordination with Marine, naval and
air engagements, can achieve sustainable
improvements in regional security.
Pacific Pathways helps thicken the bonds
of security relationships through extended
engagements west of the international
date line while simultaneously
exercising Army units along extended
lines of communications and sustainment.
These multiechelon deployment
and activities drive real improvements
in operational-level readiness at echelons
normally exercised only in simulation,
and unachievable in mainlandbased
activities.
The Army in the Pacific continues to
explore how existing land component capabilities
can be evolved, even repurposed,
to better support military requirements
in the region whether they be on
the area’s landmasses or in the maritime
littorals or airspaces above them. Facilitated
and influenced through exercises
and engagements, regional partners increasingly
seek out U.S. capabilities as
their own. These foreign military sales
further tie this network of commonality
together, and speak volumes to the effects
that only sustained land force engagements
can deliver.
Evolving our strategic appreciation of
the Pacific from a principally maritime viewpoint toward one
that’s more aligned with the way the region views itself—as
distributed but culturally interdependent landmasses—opens a
range of security opportunities to better prevent crisis, both
today and decades into the future.
Army engagements and exercises build networks that can
help prevent crisis escalation. Even if conflict becomes inevitable,
the capability improvements for both U.S. and partner
nations that are garnered by land force engagements help
set conditions for ensuring favorable resolution. ✭
Maj. Gen. Todd B. McCaffrey is commanding general of First
Army Division East. He most recently served as deputy commanding
general of U.S. Army Pacific. Previous assignments include
executive officer to the director of the Army Staff and the
25th Infantry Division’s deputy commanding general for support
and operations. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy
and holds master’s degrees from the U.S. Army War College
and the Colorado School of Mines.
34 ARMY ■ August 2016

2016 ARMY Magazine
SFC Dennis Steele Photo Contest
Sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army
The Association of the U.S.
Army is pleased to announce
our annual photo contest.
Amateur and professional
photographers are invited
to enter.
The winning photographs
will be published in ARMY
magazine, and the
photographers will be
awarded cash prizes. First
prize is $500; second prize
is $300; third prize is $200.
Those who are awarded an
honorable mention will
each receive $100.
“Jacob Deployed to Afghanistan” by
Sgt. Maj. Victor J.A. LaBier, USA Ret.,
was the 2015 SFC Dennis Steele Photo
Contest third-place winner.
Entry Rules:
1. Each photograph must have a U.S. Army-related
subject and must have been taken on or after July
1, 2015.
2. Entries must not have been published elsewhere.
3. Each contestant is limited to three entries.
4. Entries may be 300-dpi digital photos, black-andwhite
prints or color prints. Photographs must
not be tinted or altered or have watermarks.
5. The minimum size for prints is 5 x 7 inches; the
maximum is 8 x 10 inches (no mats or frames).
6. The following information must be provided with
each photograph: the photographer’s name,
address and telephone number, and a brief
description of the photograph.
7. Entries may be mailed to: Editor-in-Chief, ARMY
magazine, 2425 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22201,
ATTN: Photo Contest. Send digital photos to
armymag@ausa.org.
8. Entries must be postmarked by Sept. 15, 2016.
Winners will be notified by mail in October.
9. Entries will not be returned.
10. Employees of AUSA and their family members
are not eligible to participate.
11. Prize-winning photographs may be published in
ARMY magazine and other AUSA publications up
to three times.
12. Photographic quality and subject matter will be
the primary considerations in judging.
For more information, contact Thomas Spincic (armymag@ausa.org), ARMY magazine,
2425 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22201; 703-907-2419.

Cover Story
36 ARMY ■ August 2016

No Need
For Speed
Slow and Steady Are
Hallmarks of Army Snipers
By Chuck Vinch, Senior Staff Writer
From a rooftop, a sniper team provides
security in Afghanistan in 2013.
U.S. Army/Staff Sgt. Shane Hamann
Ask the U.S. Army Sniper School’s master trainer what it
takes to be a great sniper, and he doesn’t immediately mention
marksmanship.
“You have to be confident, committed, and cool under pressure,”
said Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Fox.
On the forward edge of the battle space where snipers usually ply
their trade, “you don’t have time to call back to headquarters. You
have to make the decision on the spot.”
Each year, several hundred soldiers come to the Fort Benning,
Ga., school from the infantry, cavalry scout and special operations
communities. Training them to become snipers falls to the 18 seasoned
instructors on the school’s staff.
Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Hammond, the school’s first sergeant, confirms
that marksmanship is only about 20 percent of a sniper’s skill set.
“The other 80 percent is stalking, camouflage and concealment, observing,
collecting and reporting battlefield data as the eyes and ears of
the commander,” he said. “That’s just as important, if not more important,
than long-range precision fire.”
For the observational aspect of the profession, “the most difficult
thing to master is nerves,” said Staff Sgt. Beau Rushing, an instructor.
“Keep calm at all times and don’t freak out to make sure you can
get in, collect your intel, and get out without being detected.”
Think Three Steps Ahead
On the marksmanship side of the job, disciplined thinking is every
bit as crucial as steady hands and a clear eye. “You can’t just see the
enemy and shoot him,” said Staff Sgt. Guillermo Roman, the
school’s team sergeant. Instead, “It’s: Can I shoot him? When can I
shoot him? What will happen after I shoot him? What are the repercussions
of shooting him now versus waiting another hour? You always
have to be thinking three steps ahead,” Roman said.
Then there’s the emotional steel required to sight down on and kill
a person.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 37

A sniper at the Yukon
Training Area, Fort
Wainwright, Alaska
U.S. Army/Capt. John Farmer
The bottom line? “You definitely have to have a solid mental
state to come into this world,” Hammond said.
Instructors lead students for seven weeks through three
course phases: fieldcraft, marksmanship and operational employment.
“That’s not a lot of time to hone so many different skill sets,”
said Fox. “We have 75 lesson plans covering a wide range of
New Tool for Snipers
The U.S. Army is buying a new rifle for its longrange
sharpshooters.
Heckler & Koch recently confirmed that a contract
has been finalized to provide the Army with a modified
version of its Gewehr-28 Designated Marksman Rifle
as a shorter, lighter replacement for the M110 Semi-
Automatic Sniper System.
Service officials have offered few details about what’s
being called the Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System,
or CSASS. But under the contract, potentially
worth $44.5 million, the Army could order up to 3,643
weapons over two years.
In its 2014 contract presolicitation notice, the Army
said it wanted a rifle that would “more effectively execute
a broad spectrum of missions” than the M110 while
providing “improved reliability, improved accuracy, and
improved ergonomics; reduced weight and length; advanced
coatings; improved optics; reduced felt recoil;
enhanced suppressor performance; enhanced modular
rail capabilities; an improved bipod, trigger, pistol grip,
and butt-stock.”
things,” including advanced camouflage and concealment,
countertracking, range estimation, target detection, sniper deployment,
long-range marksmanship and target engagement.
Each phase builds on the previous one; soldiers who fail
any one phase are out altogether. They are allowed to try
again, and there’s no restriction on how long they must wait
before returning to Sniper School. However, they must start
all over again, regardless of which phase they failed.
“A sniper has to show proficiency in fieldcraft” before moving
on to marksmanship, Fox said. “And then he can be the
best shot in the world, but that doesn’t really matter if he can’t
get to his final firing position without being compromised.”
That high bar keeps the school’s average attrition rate at 56
percent. Still, about 200 soldiers make it to the finish line
each year to emerge as fully qualified U.S. Army snipers.
Staying Stealthy
The initial two-week fieldcraft phase focuses on advanced
camouflage techniques, observation and reporting, fundamentals
of reconnaissance, range estimation and target detection.
The primary exercise is the “stalk.” Students start at an objective
rally point, get briefed on their target area, and then
must move undetected into that area. Then they must engage
the target without being seen and leave, undetected, to return
to the objective rally point for extraction.
“We teach them techniques to better conceal themselves
from trained observers, which sounds easy,” Fox said. But
some of the instructors looking for them “are the absolute
best observers in the world.”
“We’re trained to find things out of the norm, things that
just don’t belong,” Roman said. “If somebody doesn’t cover
the lens on his scope, we can see that from 600 meters away.”
“We’ll bust people on buttons being too dark—just quarter-sized
buttons, that small, round circle,” said Rushing.
38 ARMY ■ August 2016

“Almost nothing in this world is naturally black. So anything
you have on that’s black, you need to cover it with something,
like vegetation.”
Students may inadvertently put their vegetative cover on
upside down, not realizing the underside is lighter than the
topside that’s been sitting in direct sunlight. Or they may fail
to replenish their cut vegetation before it starts to wither,
which also makes it stand out.
‘Not What You See in the Movies’
“It’s definitely an art,” Roman said. “It’s not what you see in
the movies. Yes, our primary mission is to fire long precision
shots, but there’s much more that leads up to … this,” he
said, sweeping his hand across the firing line where students
were sending rounds downrange.
Fox said the job requires a lot of patience, which can prove
difficult for some students, most of whom come from an infantry
community that tends to operate at slightly higher
speeds.
“They have a little more of that dynamic, direct-action
personality,” he said with a laugh. “We have to instill tactical
patience in them, that need to be slow and methodical.”
The instructors also stress that fieldcraft is not designed
simply to pave the way for getting into position for a shot.
“Observation is one of the biggest things you’re going to do
in the sniper community nowadays,” Rushing said. “Afghanistan,
Iraq—nine times out of 10, you’re not pulling your trig-
Additional Billets May Fly
The Army is rethinking how its snipers are organized,
according to Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Fox,
master trainer at the U.S. Army Sniper School at Fort
Benning, Ga.
All infantry battalions have designated sniper sections,
but the Army also sends soldiers to the school
from the 19D cavalry scout and 18 series Special
Forces MOSs.
Yet those units have no designated sniper billets,
Fox said.
“If a 19 Delta comes through the school and graduates,
he gets a certificate of training, but he doesn’t get”
the official sniper additional skill identifier, Fox said.
So when that soldier returns to his cavalry squadron,
he can be employed in a sniper role in the field—but
only unofficially.
Fox said an Army working group is discussing how
to formally build sniper sections into cavalry scout
squadrons.
“Probably within the next year or so, you’ll see” the
sniper additional skill identifier awarded to other
MOSs other than 11B infantryman, he said.
Spc. Bruno Estevao from Fort Carson, Colo., trains at the U.S. Army Sniper School, Fort Benning, Ga.
Chuck Vinch
August 2016 ■ ARMY 39

off your rounds by 8 to 10 inches—which is kind of a huge
deal in our community.”
It’s specialized weaponry, after all. Shooters usually carry
the big, ominous M2010 sniper rifle while spotters carry the
smaller, but still imposing, M110 rifle. Snipers also may use
the M107 .50-caliber semiautomatic long-range rifle, and
they carry the Beretta M9 pistol “for close-in work,” said
Staff Sgt. Dane Lentz, another instructor.
One of the more specialized supporting skills for the
marksmanship aspect of the job is being good at math. “We
have equations for everything,” Roman said. “Each of these
guys carries two calculators for a reason: Everything they do,
some kind of math is involved.”
When shooting a bullet downrange at long distances,
“every variable comes into play,” Hammond noted, including
wind, bullet spin drift, and even the rotation of the Earth.
The instructors say most students pick up this aspect of the
craft fairly quickly. Still, they’re given cheat sheets. “And we
tell them to carry two pens, because they’ll be writing and using
their calculators like madmen here,” Rushing said.
U.S. Army/Susanna Avery-Lynch
A soldier during a stalking exercise at the U.S. Army Sniper School, Fort
Benning, Ga.
ger. You’re collecting battlefield intel: drawing range cards,
sketches, patterns of live movement.”
“It sounds boring, but what you’re sending back to your
higher-ups tells your guys going into the fight, ‘Hey, this is
what you’re getting in that village,’ so they’re not going in
blind. That’s a very, very big deal.”
“The fieldcraft is what makes a sniper,” Hammond added.
“Otherwise, he’s just a trained marksman.”
Sighting Downrange
That is not to say marksmanship is neglected. Far from it:
Up to 53,000 rounds are expended during each seven-week
course, and one of the prerequisites to attend the school is being
qualified as expert on the M4 rifle.
“Fundamentals are fundamentals,” said Hammond, who
had previously been assigned as an instructor and is now back
for a second tour as the school’s first sergeant. “If you have a
good grasp of basic rifle marksmanship fundamentals, it
translates over into our world very well.”
That said, the fundamentals are just a launching pad for
the sniper art. “When you introduce a scope, most people
think, well, I can see a target, I can shoot a target,” he said.
“It doesn’t really work that way. Any weakness you have will
definitely show when you jump on a scope. Every millimeter
you’re off is exaggerated downrange.”
Rushing explained that when “you start pushing out to 800
meters, just your breathing or your trigger squeeze can throw
Put to the Test
Everything students learn during the first two phases of the
sniper course is put to the test in the third, or operational,
phase.
“They have to understand op orders, troop-leading procedures,
sniper employment, how the composition of a sniper
team can be employed to support the commander’s intent and
accomplish the mission,” Fox said. “This is where the tactical
aspects come in.”
It all comes to a head in a 72-hour field training exercise
that involves a live scenario with role-players in a mock village.
“They have to be able to pick out, for example, who the key
leaders in the village are, what the dynamic is, the baseline
pattern of life inside the village, things like that,” Fox said.
An important aspect of the course is that the nature of the
work, done in very small teams, leads snipers to forge incredibly
close bonds.
“You become very tight-knit,” Fox said. “The same thing
can happen in infantry platoons, but I think with snipers it’s
even a bit stronger, because we’re forward of everybody else.
You’re in a little bit more danger. You know your friendlies
are 35, 40 minutes behind you and if something goes wrong,
you have to rely on each other to get out of it. There’s no immediate
backup.”
As the course rolls on, there’s one more facet of being a
sniper that the instructors seek to hone in their charges: the
hungry hunter mentality.
If Cpl. Levi Schmitt, a recent graduate of the course, is any
example, the staff is doing well on that score. When asked
why he wants to be a sniper, Schmitt, with the 3rd Battalion,
75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, replied: “I just want
to eliminate all the targets my command gives me.”
When that exchange is later recounted to Fox, he can’t
hide a smile. “That’s something we definitely try to instill in
these guys,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. Get in position,
hit the target without being seen, get out—and then get
ready to do it all over again.”
✭
40 ARMY ■ August 2016

Shutterstock Illustrations; U.S. Army Photo
Making the Case for
Army Data Scientists
By Maj. Gen. John W. Baker and Lt. Col. Steven J. Henderson, U.S. Army retired
Never before has the Army faced threats of the scale,
persistence and reach as it does today in the cyber
domain. These threats produce and seek control of
an endless supply of data that defines the very contours
of the cyber battlefield.
In order to fight and win, we require game changers not just
in the complex methodologies and systems of the cyber domain,
but also in the science of data. It’s all about the data,
and that is why the Army needs data scientists.
The world is generating data at an explosive rate. One estimate
claims that by 2020, the world’s data universe will expand
to 40 trillion gigabytes, which will be 300 times the size
it was in 2005. Half of this projected growth will occur in the
next four years. This deluge of data and its rich nature presents
great opportunities and challenges for the Army. Leveraging
this data represents a new capability and a potential competitive
advantage over our adversaries. This capability will power
how well we derive intelligence, monitor operations, maintain
readiness and communicate.
A competitive data advantage is not guaranteed to emerge
naturally from existing systems and processes. The Army needs
a deliberate approach to bridge emerging gaps in the area of
large-scale, near-real-time data analytics in the areas of cyber,
logistics, weapons systems and personnel management, among
others. This approach must be led and coordinated by a new
type of leader—an Army data scientist—who has the expertise,
education and dedicated task to master the Army’s data.
Unique Discipline
Data science is already being embraced as a unique discipline
by industry and by pioneers in the Army. We recommend
that the Army begin work to create formalized data science
opportunities. Our recommendations are based on efforts
with ad hoc, large-scale data analytics within the 7th Signal
Command (Theater), headquartered at Fort Gordon, Ga. The
command’s mission is to install, operate, maintain and defend
network and Mission Command capabilities for joint, interagency,
intergovernmental and multinational forces within the
Western Hemisphere in support of unified land operations, 11
major commands, and over 417,000 people operating 493,000
devices at 89 locations. Collectively, these users and their machines
generate 20 terabytes of data daily.
This battle space is not uncontested. Army networks face a
constant barrage from a highly persistent, dynamic and committed
set of adversaries. As detailed in an illuminating report
by the Mandiant Corp., these adversaries are sophisticated,
well-equipped, and determined to use cyberspace to secure
their own objectives while weakening our national security.
They are located globally and attack from distant, remote
strongholds and from sanctuaries within our borders, yielding
August 2016 ■ ARMY 41

U.S. Army/Claire Heininger
direct and indirect effects on the warfighter.
The 7th Signal Command has limited expertise in data analytics
and how to connect information captured at the regional
cyber centers in ways that dynamically inform the defensive
posture of the network while also supporting ongoing combined
arms operations. DoD provides a national cyber defense-in-depth
approach to network security with capable
strategic-level protection.
However, like any defense in depth, threats get through. As
they do, lower headquarters at theater, division and corps levels
are faced with the task of protecting their networks. These
lower-level headquarters are not resourced to provide state-ofthe-art,
large-volume, near-real-time data analysis.
One of the challenges in detecting, identifying and preventing
threats on networks is sifting through the large volume of
data our networks use and produce. Fully leveraging this data
and putting it to work is essential to defeating adversaries on
the networks and to ensuring security. That is, data should not
be viewed as the problem, but as the key. However, this will
involve educating, equipping and retaining a new breed of expert
leaders. These leaders can bring to bear the very latest in
mathematics, computer science, statistics, economics and machine-learning
technology to save time and manpower.
‘Big Data’
The trending term Big Data has emerged to describe the
daunting challenges and potential solutions brought by the
data-driven technological revolution. There is no single accepted
definition for a Big Data problem. Some popular descriptions
define Big Data as high levels of one or more Vs,
such as high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety. Others
describe it as a capability to gain insights that simply don’t exist
at smaller scales of data.
A soldier trains on mobile communications technology.
On the solution side, Big Data technology is often used to
describe a new data ecosystem that uses multiserver parallel
processing to achieve linear cost scaling. It is tempting to assume
the Army will naturally inherit and benefit from whatever
innovation occurs with such technology.
We challenge this assumption. The scope and nature of the
Army’s mission make its data challenges unique. Detecting,
in near-real time, a highly adaptive threat that operates with
near-perfect anonymity and secrecy is critical. Additionally,
turnkey technologies, while helpful, will not solve this problem.
New processes are needed to govern Army decisionmaking,
operations and procedures. These processes must be
led by a new breed of thinkers and leaders who are vested in
the Army and fluent in the Big Data problem, its theoretical
underpinnings and current state-of-the art technologies.
Rather than focus on Big Data—which tends to lead to specific
technologies and material solutions—the Army needs to
address the broader required capability: data science.
Interdisciplinary Field
Data science is an interdisciplinary field defined as “the
ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex
data sets.” Data science is often described as the intersection
of three disciplines: domain expertise (operations and intelligence),
mathematics and computer science. Domain
expertise is crucial to asking the right questions. Mathematics—probability
and statistics, in particular—is essential to
modeling relationships, risk and uncertainty. Computer science
is required to manage the data, and to design algorithms
to automate and parallelize the mathematical models. An effective
data scientist needs expertise in all three areas to perform
the critical functions of data acquisition, data “munging”
(mapping), modeling and visualizing while designing new
tools that turn analysis into analytics.
Instead of treating data science as a
unique discipline, can the Army solve
the problem by cross-training people in
the component domains? Cross-training
is a good start, but it will get us only so
far. Fully realizing the opportunities and
negotiating the challenges posed by the
current data revolution require a holistic
approach to provide the required depth
of knowledge and appropriate blend of
all three domains. This will require reconsidering
how a person is educated,
trained and developed in each of the
three areas.
Moreover, effective integration of operational,
mathematical and computational
perspectives will require highly
specialized skills and experience. Competent
scientists in this area will need to
be carefully recruited and managed, and
professionally developed.
The Army already enjoys a large cadre
of talented operators, mathematicians
and computer scientists across its officer,
42 ARMY ■ August 2016

Soldiers from the 25th Infantry
Division and the U.S. Army
Training and Doctrine Command
assess transmissions in
a tactical command post.
U.S. Army/Kristen Kushiyama
enlisted and civilian ranks. Residing in the Army operations
research and systems analyst and intelligence communities as
well as the signal and cyber branches, these people could help
seed a pool of data scientists.
However, no formal Army personnel system is necessarily
producing someone who is steeped in all three components of
data science. With the notable exception of a pioneering group
of officers and civilians leading a data science professional development
effort, the Army has been slow to seize the moment.
Compare this with industry and academia, which are rapidly
expanding data science career and education opportunities.
‘We Own the Data’
A new motto is ours for the taking: “We Own the Data.”
Much like the Army owns the night and thus a key advantage
in the physical domains, we must also own the data to gain a
competitive advantage in the cyber domain. But we need to
move swiftly and boldly to commission Army data scientists to
lead this effort.
In the short term, the Army G-1 should establish a working
group to define the skills, requirements and actions to develop
data scientists while the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command defines their necessary training, education
and expertise. Once these credentials are established, the
Army should leverage an alternate skill identifier to identify
and track qualified data scientists across various communities
and branches. The operations research career field and intelligence
and cyber branches are likely sources of existing data
scientists.
Once identified, these experts should fill critical and dedicated
billets in combatant commands, Army service component
commands, the U.S. Army Cyber Command, the U.S.
Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, regional
cyber centers, and corps and divisions where they will have an
immediate impact. Similar efforts should be made to identify
data scientists from among the civil service ranks.
Next, the Army should
move to implement nearterm
measures to educate
and train this growing set of
data scientists. The Army
should ask Army University
to work with partner universities to provide specific programs
to soldiers and Army civilians in data science, mathematics,
computer science and economics.
The Army should also reinforce and expand the continuing
education efforts of the Data Science Center of Education. In
order to provide realistic training and exercises, the Army
should integrate the Defense Information Systems Agency/
Cyber Command Big Data Platform into persistent cyber
training environments, such as Carnegie Mellon’s Private Cyber
Training Cloud. Finally, the cyber, military intelligence
and signal branches, along with the operations research and
systems analyst career field, should start or continue designating
certain advanced civil schooling slots specifically for data
science programs at top universities.
In the long term, the Army must create career opportunities
for officer and civilian data scientists with standards for accreditation
and talent management. This is the best way to recruit,
educate, mentor, retain and professionally develop data scientists.
Their highly specialized, constantly evolving and perishable
skill sets require that they remain in dedicated data scientist
positions throughout their careers in order to be effective.
The Army must move boldly and swiftly to seize the opportunities
presented by the data-driven technological revolution.
We cannot fight effectively, either in cyberspace or beyond,
without mastering the data.
✭
Maj. Gen. John W. Baker is commanding general of the 7th Signal
Command (Theater). A graduate of Norwich University, Vt.,
he holds master’s degrees from Central Michigan University
and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. Lt. Col. Steven
J. Henderson, USA Ret., is a senior cyber researcher with the
Software Engineering Institute’s Computer Emergency Response
Team Division at Carnegie Mellon University, Pa. He
has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy, a
master’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D.
from Columbia University, N.Y.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 43

Remote System Provides
They are silent, stoic sentinels at the
corners of the wire. A new weapons
system is providing persistent
surveillance, early warning and
lethality for an enduring and successful
Middle East peacekeeping mission.
The introduction of the containerized
weapons system to the Multinational Force
and Observers’ North Camp is a benchmark
for this independent international organization,
which was jointly created by
Egypt and Israel and charged with peacekeeping
responsibilities on the Sinai Peninsula,
Egypt. Acquisition of these remotely
operated weapons platforms is another step
taken by Task Force Sinai, the U.S. contingent,
toward increasing the security level at
the camp. Currently, few of these expeditionary
systems are used by DoD, but they
are proving their value in Sinai by increasing
protection to soldiers and civilians.
The Multinational Force and Observers
(MFO) has steadily improved protection as
the Egyptian Armed Forces have fought
against a local insurgency in the North
Sinai over the past several years. Since
2011, the insurgency has drawn strength from the region’s disaffected
Bedouin tribes and is focused on the redress of grievances,
old and new.
There is growing concern that this local insurgency can and
will boil into another outlet for global jihad. This concern solidified
when Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, a local Islamist insurgency,
reflagged to Wilayat Sinai in 2014. The shift was assessed primarily
as a means to gain financial aid. Though bolstered with
weapons and money, Wilayat Sinai still conducted operations
primarily against local Egyptian security force targets in Northern
Sinai. In early to mid-2015, the group began showing behaviors
and propaganda more closely aligned with the Salafist
motivations of the Islamic State group.
Westerners Targeted
Where Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis was careful to target Egyptian
security forces, the series of attacks in 2015 preyed on locals
helping the government and even targeted Westerners in
Egypt. The escalations increased the Egyptian government’s
aggressive counterterrorism response; so far, the Wilayat
Sinai militants have been contained to the northeastern Sinai.
However, it is in North Camp’s backyard where fights between
Egyptian security forces and militants regularly play
out. The MFO is not currently a target, yet collateral damage
from either side is a real and growing concern.
The need to protect soldiers and civilians is driving change.
The nonpermissive environment where soldiers cannot roam is
A Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station
is part of a containerized weapons system.
being addressed through a series of force-protection upgrades
and equipment fielding combined with substantial changes in
the organization’s force array. Over the past year, these changes
have included the addition of the MFO-integrated Counter
Rocket, Artillery Mortar systems, Rapid Aerostat Initial Deployment
cameras and MRAP all-terrain vehicles.
The containerized weapons system has driven further
changes since it was acquired earlier this year. The combination
of these assets has changed the Force Operations Center
from functioning as a routine logistics authority to something
that emulates Regional Command South’s Combined Joint
Operations Center in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
In Egypt, commanders and staff officers at various echelons
have pooled their collective knowledge from previous expeditions
to develop a refined and comprehensive defense plan for
the MFO’s North Camp enabled by the integration of these assets.
While refining engagement-area development, the MFO
emplaced the containerized weapons system as a direct fire system
and developed techniques to enhance its advantages. The
system lifts weapons to a position of dominance, and even more
accurate fields of fire are gained when the shipping container
holding the system is stacked atop other cargo containers.
There are a number of options to power the containerized
weapons system after it is emplaced. The container has a builtin
diesel generator that charges the system’s batteries and can
cycle for 24 hours before refueling is required. In sunny locations
such as Egypt, solar panels are more than adequate to meet
U.S. Army
44 ARMY ■ August 2016

Protection in Egypt By
Capt. Mark D. Bedrin
power demands. But the best option is a stable power
supply from existing local infrastructure or even shore
power, where possible. Shore power is used in Egypt.
U.S. Army/1st Lt. Maxwell Flanagan
2nd Cavalry Regiment soldiers prepare a containerized weapons system at the
Multinational Force and Observers’ North Camp on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt;
below: a fully installed system at North Camp
Elegantly Simple
The containerized weapons system is elegantly simple.
It is essentially a Kongsberg Common Remotely
Operated Weapon Station (CROWS), which is
stored in an 8-foot International Standards Organization
shipping container and operated from a separate
location significantly farther away. The platform can
be weaponized with a number of armaments up to
and including advanced anti-tank weapons systems.
The remote operation of the platform is the biggest
boon to the MFO. The containerized weapons system
can be emplaced and moved with moderate ease. It
provides a commander with the flexibility to develop a
defense that can adapt to changes in the enemy situation.
It lends itself to defense in depth and provides
critical early warning sensors. The system camera’s
thermal imagery can detect threats at distances that a
soldier in a tower at night simply cannot.
Training soldiers is an important aspect of equipment
fielding. The field service representatives from
Invariant Corp., which provides the software, and the
Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command
Life Cycle Management Command can train service
members who are unfamiliar with the system through
a 40-hour course that is recorded in their military personnel
files.
Commanders must also account for other tasks such
as regular weapons maintenance and reloading the system
for a defensive battle drill. The system’s 360-degree
situational awareness computer can be networked
to the force operations center or other Mission Command
nodes, providing battle staff with a greater understanding
of the common operating picture. Soldiers
already trained on CROWS from previous deployments,
or trained on the Stryker remote weapon station,
will find the system and its controls easy to learn.
While the defense of North Camp will require
constant refinement, the integration of a containerized
weapons system is making the right move at the
right time. Its capabilities have helped make the
MFO’s largest installation a harder target. ✭
Capt. Mark D. Bedrin
Capt. Mark D. Bedrin is the commander of Troop A, 1st
Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, deployed to Sinai,
Egypt. He previously served in the 1st Battalion, 32nd
Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division
(Light Infantry). He deployed twice to Afghanistan
in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He holds a
bachelor’s degree from Penn State University.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 45

For Kids, Living Room
By Rebecca Alwine, Contributing Writer
When an Army family with schoolaged
children receives orders to
move, the first concern often is
the quality of the public schools
in the new location. Because of inconsistent
standards across educational systems, some
military families choose to home-school their
children. Indeed, the percentage of military
children who are home-schooled was about
twice the national average of 3.4 percent in
2012, according to the National Center for
Education Statistics.
According to the center, the most common
reasons parents give for home-schooling include
a substandard social or academic public school
environment, objections to mandated curriculum,
a desire to place more emphasis on a child’s
character and moral development, and the hope
to achieve stronger academic outcomes.
Parents of children with special needs, either
academically or medically, also turn to
home-schooling as the preferable option, the
organization notes. For example, Helen Paglio
plans to home-school her 5-year-old in the fall
because he received a kidney transplant when
he was 2, and she wants to protect him from
exposure to germs from classmates. She and
her husband, a field grade officer, are stationed
at Fort Meade, Md., and have five other children;
the oldest is 14.
“All the other kids will go to public school
next year,” said Paglio, who has homeschooled
many of her children. “We make the
decision based on the needs of each child during
any given year.”
Flexible Schedules
A key reason military families give for
home-schooling is the flexibility of scheduling.
With deployments, long hours and rotating
shifts, home-schooling gives families the
ability to spend time together whenever possible,
without the confines of traditional school
schedules.
Christy Denman and her husband, 1st Lt.
Bryan Denman, live in Ohio with their four
children, ages 10, 8, 6 and 4. Bryan Denman
is attending seminary to become a military
chaplain.
Shutterstock/Iakov Filimonov
46 ARMY ■ August 2016

Can Be a Classroom
“We started informal schooling when my
oldest was 3 and continued on from there,”
Christy Denman said. “We looked into homeschooling
because I felt the traditional school
system couldn’t give my kids the same amount
of attention I could.”
Their children are thriving, Denman said,
and the reasons to continue home-schooling
are growing. “We love the flexibility it gives us
to travel and explore, the continuity across
many [permanent change of station] moves,
and the social development they get from realworld
experiences,” she said.
Amanda Clarke, an Army spouse whose
husband is stationed at Fort Gordon, Ga., has
considered home-schooling her daughter,
who is academically ahead of her peers.
“There were many times we thought she’d be
better off at home, learning at her own pace,”
Clarke said. Her daughter recently finished
third grade but is skipping fourth grade and
will be a fifth-grader at her public school in
the fall, in the school’s attempt to make a
good fit.
“If that doesn’t work,” Clarke said, “we’ll
revisit the home-school discussion.”
Issues With Moving
Record-keeping is important for parents
who home-school, particularly when it’s time
to produce transcripts for college admission.
This can be especially burdensome for military
families because of the frequent moves.
Moving can affect other aspects of homeschooling.
Ten states have no notification requirements
for parents who desire to homeschool.
More than 30 states require notification
only; or notification as well as test scores and/or
professional evaluation of home-schooled students’
progress. The six states with the strictest
home-school rules—including New York,
Pennsylvania and North Dakota—have additional
requirements that may include teacher
qualification of students, home visits and curriculum
approval.
For military families living overseas, there
are no specific rules requiring notification or
seeking permission of the garrison commander
to home-school. However, command policies
may include a notification request. According
to DoD Directive 1342.13, while the law authorizes
schools for children stationed over-
August 2016 ■ ARMY 47

Shutterstock/Blend Images
seas, there is no federal mandatory attendance requirement in
Department of Defense Dependent Schools.
The Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission
is a helpful tool for Army families who home-school. All 50
states and the District of Columbia signed onto the compact
as of August 2014. It eases the transfer of school credits from
state to state and also helps families navigate varying rules
concerning their home-schooled children’s participation in
sports and other extracurricular activities that are facilitated
through the public school district.
Presently, about 30 states have adopted so-called Tim
Tebow Laws, and more than a dozen other states are considering
adopting similar legislation. The laws are named for the
University of Florida’s 2007 Heisman Trophy winner, Tim
Tebow, who also played football professionally. Tebow, who
was home-schooled, was allowed to participate in sports at
his local public high school.
Staff Sgt. Bryan Koepl and his wife, Jennifer, are stationed
at Fort Meade, Md. Jennifer Koepl has home-schooled their
children since the oldest, now 8, was of kindergarten age.
“We chose to home-school for so many reasons,” she said.
“The major one was the state law in Texas saying a child had
to be 5 by Sept. 1 to be enrolled in kindergarten.”
The Koepls didn’t want to hold their son back from learning
at his own pace, so they decided to home-school him as well as
their two other children, now ages 6 and 3.
“We also like that there will be no stress
with moving at odd times or having a new
teacher at each duty station,” she said.
The Koepls use curriculum from Seton
Home Study School, which has been accredited
by the nonprofit Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools.
“It is an accredited program so no matter
where we go, my kids will gain their diploma in
the end,” she said. It also makes their annual
review easy, Koepl said, because Seton does it
for them.
She noted that Maryland requires attendance
at an annual review board, where
home-schooling parents must present a portfolio
of their children’s work. When they
home-schooled in Texas, though, “we didn’t
even have to report to anyone or send in a letter
of intent.”
Denman sets her kids’ curriculum by
choosing among various publishers and the
local library, among other resources. “I love
that we can use different items for each of my
kids, as they learn differently,” said Denman,
who has home-schooled in Tennessee and
Ohio as well as in Germany.
Tried It, Didn’t Like It
Not all military parents who have tried
home-schooling have liked it. Dave Etter, who
was named 2016 Armed Forces Insurance
Army Spouse of the Year, said he and his wife,
Stephanie, a sergeant, home-schooled one of their six children
for 1½ years in elementary school. They swear they will never
do it again.
“Home-schooling is the hardest thing on the kid, on the
parent, and on society once they graduate,” he said. “There
are no valid reasons, in my opinion, to voluntarily or willingly
home-school your child. You make it even harder for the
child to make it in the world.”
The Etters are stationed in Germany; their youngest will
graduate from high school in a few years. “He survived homeschooling—barely,”
Etter said.
Koepl, on the other hand, is a fan.
“If we need to take some time off, we can,” she said in describing
one of the benefits for her family. “We just took a
Monday off after a very busy weekend away at a Strong
Bonds [Army family] retreat. Every moment is a teaching
moment when you home-school, and it has opened so many
doors for our family.”
Denman said while home-schooling can be isolating to a
family, each duty station is what you make of it.
“Like any military family, we have to make a deliberate effort
to get involved in the community and form relationships,”
but that can often be easier when home-schooling because
of cooperatives that spring up in the home-schooling
community, she said.
✭
48 ARMY ■ August 2016

A Staff Ride
To Remember
Hodges Hosts Junior Officers
Following History’s Footsteps
By Lt. Col. Jim Dorschner, U.S. Army retired
Over two days in April, 30 junior Army officers and their counterparts from
three allied armies followed the course of two major actions fought by
German officer Erwin Rommel and the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion
during World War I. The staff ride was hosted by U.S. Army Europe
commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges and led by the command historian, Andy Morris.
The cadre of young officers, mostly company commanders from a cross-section of
U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) units plus counterparts from the Italian, German
and Slovenian armies, walked the harsh terrain of the Julian Alps in northern Italy
and Slovenia. They experienced the 12th Battle of the Isonzo as it was portrayed in
Rommel’s 1937 memoir, Infantry Attacks, and in Rommel and Caporetto, by John and
Eileen Wilks; both books were on the staff ride reading list. The decisive battle was
fought from Oct. 24 to Nov. 7, 1917.
The staff ride’s theme of “Adaptable Leaders” reflected one of the central pillars
Hodges said he sees as sustaining USAREUR effectiveness in an era of tremendous
U.S. Army photos/Elena Baladelli
50 ARMY ■ August 2016

Clockwise: Junior officers gather in Longarone, Italy,
during a staff ride tracing the battle movements of
German officer Erwin Rommel in 1917; German Brig.
Gen. Markus Laubenthal, U.S. Army Europe chief of staff,
describes Rommel’s breakthrough in Italy; command
historian Andy Morris, left, and USAREUR commander
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges discuss how the action unfolded.
challenges. Inviting officers from NATO partners touched on
another key pillar: allied forces support.
The staff ride was designed to address the operational and
self-development domains of Field Manual 7.0: Training for
Full Spectrum Operations. Each participant was required to
establish what happened and then, while standing on the
ground where the action occurred, critically analyze plans, orders,
events, decisions, and the actions of leaders that had
performed under severe stress.
650-Kilometer Alpine Front
World War I began when Austria-Hungary declared war
on Serbia on July 28, 1914, with the support of Germany. A
few days later, Germany declared war on Russia and France,
and then Great Britain declared war on Germany.
Italy entered the war on the Allied side in May 1915 and immediately
launched an offensive against Austria-Hungary along
a 650-kilometer alpine front in northeastern Italy. The front ran
from the Stelvio Pass in the west to the northern end of the
Adriatic Sea just west of the port of Trieste. Taking advantage
of the fact that Austria-Hungary’s forces were heavily committed
against Russia on their own eastern front, Italian forces led
by Alpini mountain troops gained control of a deep bulge into
Austria-Hungary territory along the Isonzo River. For the next
two years, both sides launched a series of back-and-forth battles.
By the late summer of 1917, a weakened Austria-Hungary
was concerned that the next Italian offensive would break
through, cutting critical lines of communication behind the front
along the upper Isonzo in the area of Caporetto and precipitating
a full-scale withdrawal and an Italian pursuit that could potentially
go all the way to the imperial capital of Vienna.
To forestall Italy, Austria-Hungary called on Germany for
assistance with the pre-emptive offensive later known as the
12th Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto.
It was an overwhelming Italian defeat.
The detachment of the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion
commanded by Rommel played a decisive role in the battle
over 18 grueling days of near-constant offensive action
against more numerous enemy forces in challenging mountain
terrain and adverse weather.
Ultimately, Rommel’s detachment, variously consisting of
two or three rifle companies and a machine gun company,
seized a series of key terrain objectives and captured over
12,000 Italians, including an entire infantry regiment and
most of the 1st Infantry Division, for a loss of less than 25
Wurttembergers.
Laser Depicts Offensive
The staff ride consisted of six stands each on April 4 and 5.
The first stop was the Kobarid Museum in Slovenia. Directed
by Joze Serbec, the museum displays an extensive collection
of World War I artifacts, documents, photographs, weapons
and equipment. A terrain model dominating one room uses a
laser to depict the course of the offensive by Germany and
Austria-Hungary across and through the mountains during
the 12th Battle.
The junior officers were divided into four groups, each led
by a general officer senior mentor. Group A was led by the
August 2016 ■ ARMY 51

Participants in the two-day leader-training event
commander of USAREUR’s 21st Theater Sustainment
Command, Maj. Gen. Duane A. Gamble. The Group B senior
mentor was Brig. Gen. Markus Laubenthal, the first
German army officer to serve as USAREUR chief of staff.
Brig. Gen. James J. Mingus, deputy commander of the U.S.
4th Infantry Division and head of the forward-deployed 4th
Infantry Division Mission Command Element, led Group C.
Brig. Gen. Phillip Jolly, the USAREUR Army Reserve Engagement
Cell director, led Group D.
Several guests added a range of different perspectives. These
included Brig. Gen. Alexander Sollfrank, commander of Germany’s
Mountain Brigade 23; Maj. Mario D’Angelo, the Italian
army liaison officer to USAREUR; Maj. Christopher
Swickward, a U.S. Army engineer serving an exchange tour
with the Italian Julia Alpine Brigade; and Frankfurt, Germany-based
social scientist Alexandra Schwarzkopf. Building
on their partnership with the Slovenian armed forces, the Colorado
Army National Guard provided a number of junior officers
and deputy G-3 Lt. Col. Brey Hopkins III.
‘Take the Heat’
Hodges firmly believes that junior leaders serving in Europe
have to be able to “take risks and take the initiative.”
This also means being able to “take the heat” that comes with
the risks inevitably associated with exercising Mission Command
and initiative.
To reinforce the point, at each stand, Morris, assisted by
Blaž Torkar, historian of the Slovenian armed forces, presented
a detailed description of the action, focusing on the tasks and
conditions faced by Rommel and his detachment. Then a
question was posed to all the participants, with each group retiring
for a discussion and to develop a position for presentation
to the larger group. Themes included operations in mountainous
terrain and weather, but the common thread at nearly
every stand was the issue of Mission Command and initiative.
For example, Stand 2 on Day 2 involved how Rommel
chose to break through the mountain pass at Cimolais, Italy,
to continue the pursuit of retreating enemy forces and obtain
the next objective, the town of Longarone on the Piave River.
Halted by Italian machine gun positions in higher terrain
blocking advance into the pass, and with his battalion commander
having reduced detachment strength by sending elements
away on an alternate axis, Rommel came up with a
novel scheme. Six light machine guns were manhandled up a
steep slope to take the Italian guns under fire, driving them
off and clearing the way for a rifle company to work through
wire entanglements into the main Italian infantry positions,
outflanking other defenders in the process and leading to the
surrender of over 200 Italians.
No Hesitation
With USAREUR regularly deploying company-size detachments,
particularly along NATO’s eastern flank in the
Atlantic Resolve countries, Hodges stressed the need for junior
leaders to be ready to exercise Mission Command and
initiative without hesitation. In these circumstances, where
the next higher level in the chain of command may be in another
country, and where situations requiring decisive action
can develop quickly, the positive execution of Mission Command
and initiative can be decisive.
While the conditions and circumstances faced by Rommel
in 1917 are not exactly the same as those potentially facing a
2nd Cavalry Regiment Stryker troop commander in the
Baltics, the need to exercise adaptable Mission Command
and initiative is ever present.
Everyone participating in this staff ride benefited. The
demonstrated examples of how a young Rommel exercised
decisive Mission Command and initiative were clearly relevant
to these junior officers while the senior leaders involved,
including the commanding general, were able to step away
from their daily responsibilities and interact directly with
young captains, obtaining their ground-level perspectives as
U.S. Army Europe tackles one of its most challenging periods
since the end of the Cold War.
✭
Lt. Col. Jim Dorschner, USA Ret., served 24 years in military
intelligence. From September 2015 to June 2016, he was a research
fellow at the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations
Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pa. His writing has appeared
in 18 publications since 1989, including IHS Jane’s
Defence Weekly, where he is a special correspondent. He has a
bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona.
52 ARMY ■ August 2016

Body Matters
Take Care to Avert Musculoskeletal Injuries
By Julie Johnson
awareness, education and access necessary
to lead to better outcomes under
these burdens of such stressful and
complex situations, is required.
These issues are not just structural.
There are mental, chemical and emotional
factors that tip the balance between
success and failure of the mission
that is sustainment of human health.
There are no easy or immediate answers
when it comes to the dynamic nature of
the body but unless all factors are considered,
examined and supported, there
is no win here.
Shutterstock/Sebastian Kaulitzki
It’s said that readiness wins wars, but the ability to define and align resilience in
each soldier is dramatically influenced by the demands placed upon the human
body.
One of the greatest challenges facing modern warfare is the exacting cost of musculoskeletal
dysfunction. What’s known as disease and non-battle injury results in significantly
greater reductions to our nation’s fighting forces than combat incidents, then-
Maj. Gen. James Peake wrote in the April 2000 issue of the American Journal of
Preventive Medicine. The Bone and Joint Decade Global Alliance for Musculoskeletal
Health has identified disorders in this area as a major cause of morbidity worldwide.
With respect to the life of a soldier, who typically functions under heavier, more
unrelenting and consistent loads than does a civilian, a virtual perfect storm is created
resulting in even greater occurrence of musculoskeletal injury and long-term
debilitation risk. When considering the inevitable acute injuries and countless other
musculoskeletal conditions that adversely affect the health and readiness of our
troops, musculoskeletal issues account for more than any other single diagnosis, according
to the National Institutes of Health. Efforts of prevention and treatment
will always be critical, but never enough to complete the triad necessary to reduce
reliance on a reactivity that robs readiness of its power.
A salutogenic model of health, or the creation of health, as a way to embed the
The Way You Carry Yourself
It’s true that active investigation into
ways to lighten the burden on the knees
and backs of those in service is logical
and necessary, as is reassessing each job
a soldier is asked to do to maximize fluidity
and strength in function. However,
allostatic load, or wear and tear
that builds in the human body over
time, is also influenced by an adaptive
physiology that feeds on the impact of
stress hormones, nourishment and individual
thought processes.
There is a science and an art to the
creation of resilience in each soldier.
The inherent differences in reasoning,
physiology, structure and function in
all of us demand a comprehensive
approach.
With readiness as the primary objective
for soldiers, it’s inherent that cortisol,
or stress hormone, levels will be increased.
That fight-or-flight mechanism
in our soldiers ensures mission success
but over long periods of time, that response
suppresses a natural feedback loop
meant to control it. Such chronic impact
affects REM sleep; decreases immune
function; and increases the formation of
fat around the abdomen, face and trunk.
It also challenges the way the body metabolizes
blood sugar and increases spinal
muscle degeneration.
This deconditioning of the integrity
August 2016 ■ ARMY 53

of the soft tissues around the spine and remainder of the joints
in the body leads to increased risk for injury and deterioration.
Stress hormones are known to cause heart disease, cancer, hypertension,
depression, obesity and diabetes. The question becomes:
How do you efficiently measure, monitor and enhance
the stress response while simultaneously mitigating the effects
of it? The nature of the job isn’t going to change, but the way
this critical component is addressed can be.
Proof Is in the Pudding
Each of us is on a diet of sorts. We make choices all day,
every day about whether we’re going to feed health or systematically
destroy it. Soldiers may be limited, however, by sheer
access to nourishing whole foods and faced with having to simultaneously
overcome inherent challenges in their bodies
because of the job. Stress hormones drive addiction to foods
that provide quick and easy energy, but empty calories.
To further complicate nutrient needs, gut health may be
disrupted as a result of exposure to pathogens, poor-quality
foods and stress. The potential disruption of an appropriate
gut flora or microbiome environment is also a risk. This is a
problem because science is clear that the bacteria in our gut
not only drive our food choices, but a direct link exists between
gut health and both cognitive and emotional function.
The majority of serotonin, our internal “happy drug,” is also
made in the gut.
We must change the way soldiers can access nourishment
and their views on what nourishment is. Key nutrients are required
for musculoskeletal health and well-being in general.
Possessing even a cursory awareness of what these nutrients
are, why they’re important, and how they make it possible for
a soldier to be able to function and win can make a difference.
The challenge is addressing how people learn, the level at
which they learn, and what drives the likelihood that those
efforts will result in adherence to some type of positive health
regimen.
It could be argued that soldiers have a fiduciary responsibility
to protect the investment made in them and to honor the
trust they receive to be able to perform their duties as required.
It may also be fair to acknowledge a responsibility to
ensure a true shared decisionmaking process when it comes to
health care. This is achieved by providing patients with appropriate
and meaningful education materials in an environment
that encourages open dialogue.
The National Institutes of Health found that the experience
of pain, a major component of musculoskeletal dysfunction,
has a highly variable nature influenced greatly by the
emotional and cognitive context of the pain. We simply don’t
know why a sprain may heal in a few weeks in one person but
cause disabling chronic pain in another. Ensuring that the
pain cycle is appropriately and individually assessed, disrupted
and supported through the use of nourishment, musculoskeletal
health care and stress management are crucial.
No Absolutes
In a time of an ever-shrinking fighting force, there’s a call to
think outside the typical box of solutions to redefine how we
can support the framework created by now-retired Lt. Gen.
Patricia D. Horoho in the shift from a health care system to a
system for health in the Army. With no absolutes in the field
of health care, we look at what creates the most effectiveness
at the best cost with the lowest risk using the latest evidence.
It’s a dynamic system that requires flexibility and tactical
patience. Intervening early and often, defining the best levels
of intervention and even enhancing the way the health of new
recruits is assessed may help change the impact of musculoskeletal
dysfunction on the warfighter.
Awareness, education, and access to information and resources
to support not only structural care but enhancements
in stress management, nourishment and cognitive support
through health literacy matter a great deal.
Ultimately, there is no simple answer for how to stay ahead
of the game when it comes to the way musculoskeletal health
can take a soldier from the fight.
✭
Shutterstock/Sebastian Kaulitzki
Julie Johnson is the coordinator for clinic community relations at
Palmer College of Chiropractic, Iowa. She specializes in military
health care and established a clinical-care program through the
college for active-duty soldiers and veterans, as well as their dependents.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Western Illinois University,
and a doctor of chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic.
She is also a certified functional medicine practitioner.
54 ARMY ■ August 2016

News Call
Decades After War, Soldiers’ Remains Interred
Sixty-five years after vanishing in
combat in Korea, Army Cpl. George P.
Grifford has come home.
Grifford, who was from Grosse Point
Farms, Mich., was buried with honors
in June in Arlington National Cemetery
in the presence of family members
after U.S. military forensic experts performed
a fresh analysis on his previously
unidentified remains using relatively
new techniques.
Grifford’s remains were among 864
sets from the Korean War that the U.S.
received from North Korea shortly after
the 1953 cease-fire but could not positively
identify. They were buried as unknowns
in the National Memorial
Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting
Agency (DPAA) said that in recent
years, military forensic experts have
been taking another look at previously
unidentified Korean War remains using
new mitochondrial DNA processes and
other advanced techniques, and they’ve
had success in finally identifying some of
those troops. In June alone, the remains
of four soldiers who died in Korea were
identified. And of the 173 sets of remains
identified since 2014 as service
members who perished in World War
II, the Vietnam War or the Korean War,
83 were soldiers who died in Korea.
That’s about 48 percent of the total, by
far the largest subset of any service in any
of those conflicts.
Grifford was 18 when he went missing
on Nov. 30, 1950, after his unit, the
37th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry
Division, was hit hard by enemy
forces near Kunu-ri, North Korea. In
1953, the Chinese reported that Grifford
had been taken prisoner and had died
two years earlier.
In 1954, U.N. and communist forces
exchanged the remains of war dead in
Operation Glory. All of the recovered
American remains were turned over to
the Army for analysis, and those that
DoD
Cpl. George P. Grifford
in an undated family
photo
couldn’t be identified were interred in
the Honolulu cemetery.
In February 2015, the set of remains
designated X-14029 were exhumed for a
new analysis. Forensic scientists used circumstantial
evidence, dental tests and
chest radiographs to positively identify
the remains as Grifford’s.
The other Korean War soldiers recently
identified are Sgt. Bailey Keeton,
Master Sgt. Richard Davis and Sgt.
Harold Sparks. Keeton went missing after
his unit, the 31st Regimental Combat
Team, was overrun by Chinese forces in
late November 1950 in the Battle of the
Chosin Reservoir. His newly identified
remains were among at least nine sets
found in 2004 by U.S. and North Korean
recovery teams on the reservoir’s
eastern bank.
U.S. officials weighed circumstantial
and anthropological evidence and performed
several types of DNA analysis
that matched to Keeton’s sister and
brother. Keeton was buried June 25 in
his hometown of Oneida, Tenn.
Davis and Sparks both went missing
after their unit, the 8th Cavalry Regiment,
1st Cavalry Division, was attacked
by Chinese forces in early November
1950. In the 1953 POW exchange known
as Operation Big Switch, nine repatriated
American soldiers reported that
Davis had been held prisoner with them
and died in early 1951. Five repatriated
soldiers reported that Sparks also had
been taken prisoner and had died in
captivity.
Davis’ and Sparks’ remains were part
of a cache of 208 boxes of commingled
remains returned by North Korea to the
U.S. between 1990 and 1994. DPAA
said Davis’ remains were positively identified
using DNA analysis that proved to
be a match with a sister, niece, nephew
and great-niece. Sparks’ remains were
matched with a sister, two nieces and a
cousin. Davis was buried June 24 in
Blairsville, Pa. Sparks was buried June 16
in Kent, Wash.
Despite DPAA’s recent successes in
identifying the remains of service members
who died in the Korean War, more
than 7,800 Americans are still unaccounted
for in that conflict.
—Chuck Vinch
August 2016 ■ ARMY 55

Advocacy Group: School Standards
Benefit Military-Linked Students
Military families are joining the push
for nationwide education standards in
primary and secondary schools through
a new advocacy group, Military Families
for High Standards. The group’s
chairwoman is Christi Ham, a lifelong
educator who has taught at the middle
and high school levels and served administratively
at the elementary and
preschool levels.
The advocacy group says predictable
curriculum requirements nationwide are
especially beneficial to children of activeduty
service members because they usually
are uprooted multiple times during
their school years. Jim Cowen, of the
Collaborative for Student Success, said
military-connected children may move as
many as eight times over the course of
their school years.
Knowing what to expect at a new
school, and not having to worry about
immediately feeling out of sync among
new classmates who may be moving at a
faster or slower pace, can do much to
“lighten the rucksack” that military-connected
kids carry, Ham said. Ham is
married to retired Gen. Carter Ham,
president and CEO of the Association of
the U.S. Army.
“Army kids know what a rucksack is—
you put in only what you need,” Ham
said. “You don’t want to put in tutoring.
You don’t want to put in an extra book
of puzzles because the class you’re in is
boring.”
The current framework for standardizing
academic requirements is Common
Core, a defined set of reading and math
standards for all grades adopted by 46
states, the District of Columbia, four territories
and the Department of Defense
Education Activity (DoDEA). But legislatures
in 32 states have introduced bills
to repeal the standards, and three states
have actually voted to repeal.
Controversy over Common Core is
largely why DoDEA, in the early stages of
its five-year plan to implement those standards,
refers to them by a different name:
College and Career Ready Standards.
David Lapan, senior director of the
National Capital Region for the Military
Child Education Coalition, said that’s a
more apt descriptor of an effort designed
to ensure that the 1.2 million children of
‘
SoldierSpeak
’
On Pride
“I tell folks all the time I’m intensely proud of my heritage but at the end of
the day, I’m just prouder to be American without the hyphenation,” said
Brig. Gen. Viet X. Luong, director, Joint and Integration, Force Development,
Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8. He is the first U.S.
general officer of Vietnamese descent.
On Confidence
“The parachute wants to open,” Chief Warrant Officer 5 Tom Travis,
jumpmaster and rotary wing adviser for the U.S. Army Special Operations
Aviation Command, Fort Bragg, N.C., said about soldiers having
confidence in their training and equipment.
On the State of the Army
“What I’ve seen is an Army, to me, that looks tired,” said Secretary of the
Army Eric K. Fanning. “We haven’t been investing in installations like we
probably should have, and we’ve been deploying people nonstop for 15
years now.”
On Marksmanship
“Today, we find soldiers who think they know about marksmanship because
they were able to Google it,” said Sgt. 1st Class William D.
Crosby, drill sergeant with the Army Reserve’s Delta Company, 3rd
Battalion, 385th Infantry Regiment. “What they find out is when you
have the real deal in your hand, it’s a different story.”
On No Limits
“As a commander of my unit, I am powerful. I am dedicated. And it is important
that we recognize that gender does not limit us in the United
States Army,” said 1st Lt. Deshauna Barber, logistics commander for
the Army Reserve 988th Quartermaster Detachment, Fort Meade,
Md., during the interview portion of the Miss USA pageant. Barber went
on to win the crown.
On Four Stars
“Having four stars on your shoulder doesn’t automatically mean everyone
does everything you ask when you want it, how you want it,” said retired
Gen. Ann Dunwoody, the nation’s first female four-star general, during
a forum presented by AUSA’s Institute of Land Warfare.
On Ultralong-Distance Running
“It’s changed me fundamentally as a person,” said Sgt. Douglas Long of
the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Calvary Division, Fort Hood,
Texas, of the benefits of ultralong-distance running. “There’s a huge ego
loss. I’m a lot more patient and open to people.”
56 ARMY ■ August 2016

active-duty members who attend U.S.
public schools, and the 78,000 kids in
DoDEA schools, “graduate from high
school prepared for the challenges
ahead.”
“Why should I, as a mom, even have to
worry about whether my children are in
the right school?” said Patti Hunzeker,
an Army spouse of 35 years who raised
four daughters while also working as a
teacher in both public and DoDEA
schools.
“It would be nice to have consistency
and predictability,” Hunzeker said, and
know “they’re getting the best education
no matter where we live.”
“High-quality, consistent academic
standards help reduce the challenges
military children face by virtue of their
parents’ service,” Lapan said. “Military
kids are pretty resilient. They’re pretty
tough. They can handle a lot. But that
doesn’t mean they should have to.”
Ham agreed, saying the bottom line
behind the drive for national standards is
to give military-connected kids the right
opportunities “that will set them on a
road to real, true, actual success.”
High Times for Transferred Aircraft
Reassigned from the Army National Guard, an AH-64D Apache soars above downtown Honolulu
en route to its new home with the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division at Wheeler
Army Airfield, Hawaii.
Finding the Power to
Lighten a Soldier’s Load
In an effort to supply all the power
that’s needed for an expanding array of
electronic devices while also reducing the
weight of batteries and other equipment
carried into combat, the U.S. Army is
exploring a wide range of ideas including
an exoskeleton that harvests the kinetic
energy produced simply by walking.
Kinetic energy as a way of generating
power joins solar and wind generation
and advances in lighter, better batteries
as technological solutions to meet increasing
electrical needs without overburdening
or overcomplicating lives of
combat troops.
Mobile power initiatives were the focus
of a recent panel discussion sponsored
by Tandem National Security
Innovations, an Arlington, Va.-based
public-private partnership that seeks to
connect technology entrepreneurs with
national security opportunities.
Exoskeletons designed as knee braces
are seen as one promising way to reduce
the roughly 17 pounds of batteries
that troops now must haul to power all
their devices on a typical 72-hour combat
mission. It’s about “capturing and
storing the energy produced by motion,
instead of letting it go to waste,” said
Jose Collazo of the Army’s Communications-Electronics
Research, Development
and Engineering Center.
“The purpose is to reduce the soldier’s
burden, to tackle the soldier’s battery
load,” added Vijay Acharya of the
Army’s PEO Soldier program.
Initial designs were fairly bulky and
tight on the thighs, but the technology
has become “much lighter, sleeker and
slimmer,” Acharya said, adding that he
expects testing in operational environments
to begin within a year or so.
Kinetic-motion exoskeletons are not
the only new mobile power technology
being explored, the panelists said. Others
include flexible, lightweight solar panels;
next-generation fuel cells; and new forms
of hybrid batteries that are much smaller
and lighter than what troops now carry
in the field.
Briefs
New ROTC Hall of Fame
Includes AUSA Leaders
While a permanent location for the
Army ROTC National Hall of Fame is
still to be decided, 326 former cadets
were recently inducted at Fort Knox, Ky.
The ceremony also marked the 100th
anniversary of the founding of ROTC.
Among the inaugural inductees was
retired Gen. Carter F. Ham, president
and CEO of AUSA and the ceremony’s
keynote speaker. Also inducted was
AUSA’s former CEO and president, retired
Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the 32nd
chief of staff of the Army.
“Whether they serve for a few years or
many, ROTC graduates make a difference
across our Army, across our nation.
They have done so for 100 years and will
do so for another 100,” Ham said.
Inductees were nominated by ROTC
partner institutions. The nominees were
then reviewed and chosen by U.S. Army
Cadet Command. A smaller number of
new inductees will be added yearly.
To view a searchable timeline of Hall
of Fame members, go to http://www.
cadetcommand.army.mil/hof.
Pacific Commander:
Ties Will Bind in Crisis
The top U.S. Army general in the
Pacific said the value of building strong
peacetime relations is the payoff in a
crisis.
Gen. Robert B. Brown, who became
U.S. Army Pacific commanding general
in May, said the value of closely working
with other nations in the Indo-Asian-
Pacific Theater is being prepared when
the worst happens.
“You don’t want to develop a relationship
after a crisis,” Brown said during
LANPAC, a professional development
U.S. Army/Sgt. Daniel Kyle Johnson
August 2016 ■ ARMY 57

forum in Hawaii sponsored by the Association
of the U.S. Army’s Institute of
Land Warfare. “You have to scrimmage
and work together.”
Brown spoke at an event attended by
more than 1,700 people from 26 nations
that focused on stability and security.
“Here, we get to share common challenges,
and we get to develop solutions
together,” he said. “You develop these
relationships that will pay off in times of
crisis.”
Also at LANPAC, Navy Adm. Harry
B. Harris Jr., U.S. Pacific Command
commander, talked of the need for the
Army to do more than fight and win on
land. “The Army can project power in
other domains,” he said, citing the example
of expanding anti-air capabilities
from land sites to include the ability to
sink ships, fire at targets in space and defend
cyberspace.
“I know we are on the right track,”
Harris said. “We live in a world today
where we might fight and think jointly.”
Replacements Sought for
Nondeployable Soldiers
The readiness of individual soldiers
is one of the Army’s most pressing
problems and the “No. 1 variable in delivering
ready forces in the future,” Vice
Chief of Staff Gen. Daniel B. Allyn said
recently.
In a speech at the Heritage Foundation
think tank, Allyn noted that even as
Army end strength continues to shrink,
the service is “struggling” with about 10
percent of the Total Force categorized as
nondeployable, the vast majority for
medical reasons. That’s roughly 100,000
soldiers across the active Army, Army
Reserve and Army National Guard.
“We’ve got to find ways to ensure we
get them the help they need, and then
enable them to transition [out of the
Army] more quickly so that we can get
ready replacements into the system,”
Allyn said. “We know that we can gain
efficiency in terms of the speed at which
we transition these folks back to full
readiness or to another phase of their life
journey.”
He estimated that only about 10 percent
of soldiers categorized as nondeployable
can be brought back to full
readiness status. “We’ve got to … ensure
that we transition them to Veterans Administration
care as efficiently and effectively
as possible—again, so we can deliver
ready forces to meet the need.”
Army South Games to Train
Work is a game at the command responsible
for providing a core joint headquarters
to deploy when the U.S. responds
to disasters in Central and South
America and the Caribbean. U.S. Army
South has collaborated on a video game
that teaches soldiers how to respond to
foreign natural disasters.
Soldiers begin a one-hour session of
the game, called Disaster Sim, by responding
to an earthquake in Guatemala.
Faced with competing demands and
limited resources, players prioritize their
responses to deal with the most critical
needs and issues. Failure to do so leads to
second- and third-order crises. Trainees
also learn how to work collaboratively.
To create the game, Army South
worked with the Army Research Library;
COMMAND
SERGEANTS
MAJOR
and
SERGEANTS
MAJOR
CHANGES*
Command Sgt.
Maj. W.F. Thetford
from USSOCOM to
CENTCOM, MacDill
AFB, Fla.
■ CENTCOM—U.S. Central Cmd.; USSOCOM—
U.S. Special Operations Cmd.
*Command sergeants major and sergeants major
positions assigned to general officer commands.
Program Executive Office for Simulation,
Training and Instrumentation; the
Institute for Creative Technologies at
the University of Southern California;
and the U.S. Agency for International
Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance. It can be downloaded for
free via https://milgaming.army.mil.
Maj. Gen. R.D.
Clarke from CG,
82nd Abn. Div.,
Fort Bragg, N.C., to
Vice Dir., Strategic
Plans and Policy,
J-5, Jt. Staff, Washington,
D.C.
GENERAL OFFICER CHANGES*
Maj. Gen. S.G.
Fogarty from CG,
Cyber CoE and
Fort Gordon, Ga.,
to CoS, USCYBER-
COM, Fort Meade,
Md.
Maj. Gen. S.R.
Grove from Dir.,
J-2, CENTCOM,
MacDill AFB, Fla.,
to Dir., Army QDR
Office, ODCS, G-8,
USA, Washington,
D.C.
Maj. Gen. C.T.
Wins from Dir.,
Force Development,
ODCS, G-8,
USA, Washington,
D.C., to CG, RDE-
COM, APG, Md.
Brigadier Generals: C.A. Alex from Asst. DCoS, G-3/5/7 (Readiness), FORSCOM, Fort Bragg, to Asst. CoS, G-3,
USARCENT/Third U.S. Army, Shaw AFB, S.C.; M.R. Chitwood, USAR, from Dir., Rule of Law Field Force-
Afghanistan, USF-A, OFS, Afghanistan, to CG, TPU, USARLC, Gaithersburg, Md.; K.H. Gibson from Dep. CG,
JFHQ-Cyber, ARCYBER, Fort Gordon, Ga., to Dir., Intel., CJTF-OIR, Kuwait; R.G. Kaiser from CG, Great Lakes
and Ohio River Div., USACE, Cincinnati, to Cmdr., CSTC-A, OFS, Afghanistan; J.J. Mingus from Dep. CG,
Maneuver, 4th Inf. Div., Fort Carson, Colo., to Dir., MCCoE, USACAC, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.; R.K. Sele,
USAR, from Dep. Cmdr., TPU, 108th Training Cmd., IET, Charlotte, N.C., to Dep. CG, TPU, USACAPOC, Fort
Bragg; C.W. Stockel, USAR, from Dep. CG, TPU, USACAPOC, Fort Bragg, to Cmdr., TPU, 351st Civil Affairs
Cmd., Mountain View, Calif.; D.R. Walrath from Dep. CG (M), 1st Armored Div. and Cmdr., CJOC/Army
Forces-Jordan, OIR, to Dir., Force Mgmt., ODCS, G-3/5/7, USA, Washington, D.C. (previously announced as
Dir. of Materiel, ODCS, G-8); A.T. Walter, USAR, from Dep. Cmdr., TPU, 84th Training Cmd., Fort Knox, Ky.,
to CG, TPU, 100th Training Div., Ops. Spt., Fort Knox.
■ Abn.—Airborne; AFB—Air Force Base; APG—Aberdeen Proving Ground; ARCYBER—U.S. Army Cyber
Cmd.; CENTCOM—U.S. Central Cmd.; CJOC—Combined Joint Operations Ctr.; CJTF—Combined Joint Task
Force; CoE—Ctr. of Excellence; CoS—Chief of Staff; CSTC-A—Combined Security Transition Cmd.-
Afghanistan; DCoS—Dep. Chief of Staff; FORSCOM—U.S. Army Forces Cmd.; IET—Initial Entry Training;
JFHQ—Joint Force Headquarters; M—Maneuver; MCCoE—Mission Cmd. Ctr. of Excellence; ODCS—Office of
the Deputy Chief of Staff; OFS—Operation Freedom’s Sentinel; OIR—Operation Inherent Resolve; Ops.—Operations;
QDR— Quadrennial Defense Review; RDECOM—U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering
Cmd.; Spt.—Support; TPU—Troop Program Unit; USA—U.S. Army; USACAC—U.S. Army Combined Arms Ctr.;
USACAPOC—U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Cmd.; USACE—U.S. Army Corps of Engineers;
USARCENT—U.S. Army Central; USARLC—U.S. Army Reserve Legal Cmd.; USCYBERCOM—U.S. Cyber
Cmd.; USF-A—U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.
*Assignments to general officer slots announced by the General Officer Management Office, Department of the
Army. Some officers are listed at the grade to which they are nominated, promotable, or eligible to be frocked.
The reporting dates for some officers may not yet be determined.
58 ARMY ■ August 2016

Soldier Armed
Combat Vehicle Modernization Plans
By Scott R. Gourley, Contributing Writer
Against a global backdrop of continuing military operations,
U.S. Army planners are examining the capabilities
and potential gaps in the Army’s combat vehicle fleet.
The findings aren’t necessarily good news. To make a long
story short: The Army’s combat vehicle fleet is in desperate
need of modernization.
Representatives from the U.S. Army Capabilities Integration
Center (ARCIC) outlined this and other key findings
during the most recent Association of the U.S. Army Institute
of Land Warfare Global Force Symposium and Exhibition
in Huntsville, Ala. Col. William Chlebowski, maneuver
aviation and soldier division chief in ARCIC’s Capabilities
Development Directorate, said the development and implementation
of an Army combat vehicle modernization strategy
is mandated by a number of events during the past quartercentury.
“We just recently had our 25th anniversary of the ending of
the First Gulf War,” he said. “And if there was ever a demonstration
of the ability to overmatch the enemy, I would say
that the Gulf War showed that.”
He went on to highlight a number of subsequent milestones
and decisions, from the collapse of the Soviet Union
and subsequent peace dividend to a focus on operations over
the past 15 years.
“But now that those current wars have slowed down at
least, and we take a little bit broader approach and look out at
the world and the threat today, we typically see the Russians
and what they have done,” he said. “They have transformed.
They’re not the big, lumbering giant anymore. They’re now
more like us: an agile force.”
He identified more examples of changing combat realities
from the ongoing Syrian conflict.
“When you look at that technology and the armor battles
that have gone on [worldwide], you have to say that the threat
now justifies us looking at our formation,” Chlebowski said.
In terms of combat vehicles, ARCIC’s findings are somewhat
surprising. For example, Chlebowski said, it wasn’t too
long ago when 46 percent of the formations in infantry
brigade combat teams were mechanized. “We’re on a path
now to be at 13 percent in the near future.”
Making another comparison, he said that in 2004, 46
mechanized infantry companies were in Iraq. In the future,
there will be 36. “So we really need to
look at mobility and protection and
lethality across the formations,” he said.
In addition to highlighting the critical
need for selected vehicle upgrades,
ARCIC’s examination spawned a number
of ideas for future combat platforms,
including the Ground Mobility Vehicle,
the Light Reconnaissance Vehicle
and Mobile Protected Firepower. The
three platforms are seen as working together
to provide future Army operations
with enhanced expeditionary maneuver
capabilities.
“We know what our desired ends are,”
Chlebowski said. “But we also know
that we are in a time of fiscal restraint.
Oshkosh Corp.
Planners are looking at the Joint Light Tactical
Vehicle as a short-term fill-in for the Light
Reconnaissance Vehicle.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 59

Unlike Stryker slat armor, an active protection
system could defeat both chemical and kinetic
energy threats.
So even though we want all of this,
we’re not going to do all of it right now.”
He added that the combat vehicle modernization
strategy “lays out the ways
and means over time that allow us to
achieve those goals.”
As such, although the systems are
mutually supportive in envisioned operational
scenarios, the “ways and means”
recognition translates to clear understanding
that they will not be procured
at the same time. As one example of a
potential short-term solution, he said the Joint Light Tactical
Vehicle is being examined as a possible near-term fill-in for
the Light Reconnaissance Vehicle.
Chlebowski acknowledged that the strategy “is probably
going to change over time.” It already has had a few minor
changes since it was signed in November 2015.
For the near term, which is now through fiscal year 2021,
Chlebowski said the plan calls for exploring commercial offthe-shelf
options, followed by experimentation or pilot programs.
As examples of near-term goals, he highlighted possible
advances in Stryker infantry carrier vehicle lethality and
mobility for infantry brigade combat teams.
Lt. Col. Scott Coulson highlighted a portion of the Stryker
lethality effort, observing, “What does the Stryker brigade combat
team primarily lack? It primarily lacks the lethality to get
into close contact with a significant enemy force and survive.”
In addition to items like the double-V hull and an assortment
of power and mobility technology enhancements, another
near-term Stryker lethality enhancement involves the modification
of 81 Strykers in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment with a 30 mm
remote weapon station turret carrying the XM 813 30 mm cannon,
developed at the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development
and Engineering Center on Orbital ATK’s Mk 44
baseline.
“It will be capable of striking the enemy at ranges that are
roughly equivalent to the operational engagement range—not
the maximum effective range—but the operational engagement
ranges we’ve seen with anti-tank guided missiles across the
world over the last five years,” Coulson said. The system will be
upgradeable to fire air burst munitions, providing additional
capabilities against low flying aircraft, possible unmanned aircraft
system targets and a variety of other target sets, he said.
“Most importantly, this does not change the role of the vehicle,”
he said. “The vehicle itself will continue to carry a
nine-man squad. It will continue to have a two-man crew. It
will continue to have the same mobility as the existing Stryker
combat vehicle.”
Those 81 vehicles include roughly half the Strykers in the
2nd Cavalry Regiment.
“The other half of the infantry carrier vehicles will support
the Remote Weapon System-Javelin,” Coulson said. That is “a
fairly nondramatic improvement to the existing remote weapon
station that allows the Javelin missile system that is carried by
the crew—with rounds of ammunition already carried on the
vehicle—to actually be fired from the remote weapon station
on the vehicle. It will add an immediate response capability if
they are actually engaged by enemy armored vehicles.”
Initial production deliveries of the 30 mm lethality upgrade
by General Dynamics are planned to begin in the fourth
quarter of fiscal year (FY) 2017, with brigade fielding of the
81 systems slated for completion one year later.
Across the midterm of FY 2022–2031, and the long term of
FY 2032–2046, “we have developmental programs going on,”
Chlebowski said. He noted that the Stryker brigade combat
teams are also early candidates for future upgrade with a holistic
active protection system that might eventually offer protection
against both chemical energy and kinetic energy threats.
Stressing that “we will continue to sustain the existing fleet,”
Coulson told Global Force attendees that packages of engineering
change proposals were being implemented or assembled
“to dramatically improve the capability and the overall
mobility and protection of the armored brigade combat team.”
Looking even further into the future, he noted efforts to
examine concepts for a future tank as well as a future fighting
vehicle.
“Ground Combat Vehicle was not a complete waste at cancellation
as some people think,” he said. “A lot of the technologies
that went into that are going to carry forward into a
future fighting vehicle program. We are going to continue to
explore when we can actually ramp that up to a full program
of record and when the technologies, funding and capability
requirements are all in line to produce that vehicle.”
“We agree on ends,” Chlebowski said, summarizing plans
for now through FY 2046. “It’s the ways and means that will
need to be adjusted over time.”
✭
U.S. Army/Master Sgt. Michele Hammonds
60 ARMY ■ August 2016

The Outpost
ARMY magazine archives
A Merciless Foe, a Tree, and 2 American Deaths
By Lt. Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, U.S. Army retired
In war, the stuff you don’t see coming can get you killed.
That’s why it’s always a good idea to watch your enemy.
And one of our longtime adversaries is always up to something,
usually very bad things. American and South Korean
officers agree on that.
The North Koreans certainly bear watching. If the Americans
and the “puppets” of South Korea want a certain outcome,
the North Koreans vigorously oppose it. It has been
ever thus. Even among Cold War Communist hard-liners in
Moscow and Beijing, North Korea’s grim-faced soldiery defined
the hardest line of all.
The U.S. has certainly faced other merciless foes. The Nazi
Germans, the Imperial Japanese Army, Chinese Communists,
the Viet Cong, al-Qaida, the Taliban, the Islamic State
group—all bad enough. But even compared to that rogues’
gallery, the North Koreans stand out. Their cruelty and
treachery regularly plumb new depths. If you ever wonder
what it’s like to fight demons in human form, the North Koreans
will oblige.
Starting with their sneak attack into South Korea on June
25, 1950, the Northerners paid scant attention to traditional
wartime conventions designed to protect civilians, the defenseless
wounded and military prisoners. Instead, North Koreans
massacred their fleeing Southern countrymen, used T-
34 tanks to flatten farm carts full of people, and systematically
executed bound American POWs.
The North Koreans justified their atrocities because they
intended to erase the American-backed Republic of Korea
(ROK) and reunify the divided peninsula under Communism.
They believed that the ideological end justified the
means—any means, no matter how vicious.
At great cost, fighting in the hot, humid Korean summer,
the Americans slowed and then halted the North Korean invasion.
A brilliant amphibious attack at Inchon, deep in the
enemy rear, broke the back of the Northern forces. North
Korea might have joined the Nazis on the ash heap of history
if not for massive Chinese intervention in the winter of 1950–
51. More than 1 million Chinese helped the battered North
Koreans retake their capital of Pyongyang and brought the
war to a stalemate, roughly along the prewar dividing line.
The Chinese and Americans negotiated an armistice that
took effect on July 27, 1953. That ended the conventional
fighting, but it did not end the war. Far from it.
The final line of contact became the Demilitarized Zone
(DMZ), which quickly turned into the most heavily armed
frontier on Earth. Both sides dug in, strung up barbed wire,
and buried thousands of land mines. Day and night, squads
patrolled. The official armistice agreement limited heavy
weapons—machine guns, mortars, artillery and tanks—but
each force kept the smaller stuff hidden up front and the bigger
armaments just behind the boundary area.
In hopes of maintaining the uneasy peace and perhaps arranging
a long-term treaty, the two sides kept military delegations
at the truce talk site of Panmunjom. Against a reasonable
foe, the armistice might have worked, and unhappy
Korea could have settled down. The opponents just had to
follow some simple rules and show good faith. But the North
Koreans cared not a whit for these legal niceties. For Pyongyang,
it was just another front in the ongoing war.
The North looked for every opportunity to subvert the
South. Northern special forces tried to slip through, and sometimes
succeeded. When they got caught, firefights erupted with
casualties on both sides. Until 1971, the U.S. had responsibility
for 18 miles of the 160-mile-long DMZ. So American soldiers
also fought and sometimes died holding the line.
In 1966–69, when the bulk of the U.S. Army deployed to
Vietnam, joined by two-plus divisions of South Koreans, the
A North Korean border guard eyes Western observers in the joint security
area of Panmunjom between the two Koreas.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 61

North escalated the usual attempts, adding artillery barrages,
naval landings on the Southern coast, an attempt on the South
Korean president’s life, and the seizure of the USS Pueblo and
82 sailors. Sometimes called the Second Korean Conflict, this
wide-scale attempt at destabilization failed. So the North reverted
to the usual drip, drip, drip of isolated provocations.
The South was vulnerable. President Park Chung-hee, a
general in a business suit, ruled with a heavy hand, having
junked the ROK constitution to remain in power. Park’s
tough measures kept order in the face of the North’s 1966–69
irregular offensive, but his authoritarian style made him a
hard ally to like in Washington, D.C.
That especially held true in the wake of the American defeat
in Vietnam. Following the haunting, humiliating scenes
of crowded helicopters vacating the roof of the U.S. Embassy
in Saigon on April 30, 1975, most U.S. citizens had little interest
in propping up distant Asian states run by shady military
leaders. South Korea was yesterday’s war. Americans
grumbled: Why were our troops still out there?
Our soldiers don’t choose their missions. They just do
them. In America’s bicentennial summer of 1976, Park might
have been unsavory and keeping the Korean Armistice Agreement
may well have seemed unrewarding, but that was the assigned
task for the U.S./ROK/U.N. Command joint security
force. Armed with pistols, they secured the uniformed negotiators
in the truce village of Panmunjom. While the rest of
the DMZ rigidly split into Northern and Southern sectors—
and crossing it meant death—Panmunjom was a free-transit
area. Either side could go almost anywhere inside the joint security
area. With a rational enemy, that could have been helpful
in establishing some degree of trust. With the North Koreans,
it made you nervous. You couldn’t ever trust those guys.
So armistice or not, it made good sense to keep close track of
matters in Panmunjom. A big poplar tree, almost 100 feet tall,
blocked the line of sight between two U.S./ROK checkpoints.
Each summer, the tree leafed out a bit more. The high summer
of 1976 provided especially good growing weather. So the
spreading green poplar branches made it difficult to keep track
of Americans and South Koreans near the North Korean edge
of Panmunjom. And the Northerners made no secret of their
desire to grab an unwary soldier or two. The tree had to go.
Accordingly, the Americans and South Koreans notified
their North Korean counterparts that the tree would be cut
back on the morning of Aug. 18, 1976. At about 10:30 a.m., a
2½-ton truck entered Panmunjom bound for the base of the
poplar. On board were five Korean Service Corps workers who
would do the actual cutting. They carried axes and handsaws.
First Lt. Mark T. Barrett met the truck. He led a security
team of 11 U.S. and ROK soldiers. All carried .45-caliber
pistols. Capt. Arthur G. Bonifas and South Korean Capt.
Kim Moon-hwan supervised. They were unarmed. The captains
didn’t expect a fight. They figured on some kind of formal
verbal reaction from the Northerners. They were there to
handle the likely complaints.
One came almost immediately. North Korean Senior Lt. Pak
ARMY magazine archives
In August 1976, as U.S. and South Korean soldiers guarded workers pruning a poplar tree that obscured the border, North Korean soldiers attacked.
62 ARMY ■ August 2016

Three days after two U.S. soldiers were killed, a
joint U.S.-South Korean crew felled a poplar tree
without incident.
DoD
Chul and a 15-man detachment appeared right on schedule.
The Americans knew Pak. They called him “Lt. Bulldog.” He
lived up to his belligerent reputation that morning. After watching
the tree-trimmers a few minutes, he approached Bonifas.
Pak directed the American captain to stop cutting the tree “because
Kim Il Sung [the North’s dictator] personally planted it
and nourished it, and it’s growing under his supervision.”
Bonifas ignored him. Branch-chopping continued.
Minutes later, a North Korean truck appeared. About 20
enemy soldiers clambered out, carrying crowbars and ax handles.
Pak hollered an order, later said to be “kill them” or “kill
the bastards.” Pak knocked down Bonifas. Five or six North
Koreans beat him to death with blunt instruments, including
the axes dropped by the terrified ROK workers.
North Koreans swarmed the other U.S. and ROK guards.
Nearly every American and South Korean was wounded. Barrett,
too, fell mortally wounded, although his soldiers dragged
him away before he died. A U.S./ROK reaction force came in
and ran off the North Koreans. Both sides then backed off.
Not a shot was fired, but two Americans had been killed.
In most previous confrontations, that would have ended it.
The U.S. would submit a formal written protest, the North
Koreans would answer with lies and insults, and both parties
would move on. There was a reason the North pulled these
stunts. Diplomatic notes meant nothing in Pyongyang. Those
guys responded only to force.
This time, they got it. Maybe it reflected a presidential
election year in America. Perhaps the
sting of losing in Vietnam demanded a
better effort this go-round. Or it could
have been that having stomached and
rationalized “incidents” and “mishaps”
year after year, enough was enough.
President Gerald R. Ford talked to his
military commanders and drew up a
forceful response.
At 7 a.m. on Aug. 21, a 23-vehicle
U.S./ROK convoy—813 soldiers in
all—rolled into Panmunjom. Three
companies’ worth of security troops deployed,
including 64 South Korean special
forces soldiers. U.S. 2nd Infantry
Division attack helicopters, artillery,
tanks and infantry stood along the
nearby Imjin River, ready to reinforce.
Overhead, B-52 bombers flew along
the south trace of the DMZ. Other U.S.
Air Force squadrons and the USS Midway
carrier battle group flew missions,
too. The show of force was overwhelming.
The North Koreans assembled almost 200 men with automatic
rifles and machine guns, but they stayed outside Panmunjom,
well back.
Two squads of the 2nd Engineer Battalion rolled up. Soldiers
with chain saws stood in a 2½-ton truck bed and got to
work on the tree. It took 42 minutes to hack it down to a
misshapen stump. The Americans and South Koreans backed
out, task accomplished. It didn’t make up for losing Bonifas
and Barrett. But it was something.
There was more. On the afternoon of Aug. 21, a chastened
North Korean general offered a message to his American
counterpart: He said it was “regretful that an incident occurred
in the Joint Security Area, Panmunjom this time. An
effort must be made so that such incidents may not recur in
the future.”
That was close to an apology. Even 40 years later, that’s
still as good as it ever got. The standoff in Korea continues.
And we do well to keep our eye on this dangerous enemy. ✭
Lt. Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, USA Ret., was the commander of
Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan and
NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. Previously, he served as
the deputy chief of staff, G-3/5/7, and as the commanding general,
1st Cavalry Division/commanding general, Multinational
Division-Baghdad, Operation Iraqi Freedom. He holds a doctorate
in Russian history from the University of Chicago and has
published a number of books on military subjects. He is a senior
fellow of the AUSA Institute of Land Warfare.
August 2016 ■ ARMY 63

AUSA Sustaining Member Profile
VirTra Systems Inc.
Corporate Structure—Chairman and CEO: Bob Ferris. Headquarters:
7970 South Kyrene Road, Tempe, AZ 85284.
Phone: 480-968-1488. Website: www.virtra.com.
VirTra Systems Inc. began in 1993 as one of the first virtual
reality companies in the world. Today, the company is a global
leading provider of the world’s most realistic and effective
judgmental use of force simulators. VirTra has set the standard
for exceptional firearms training simulators and offers a variety
of simulator platforms, powerful gas-powered recoil kits and
the patented Threat-Fire simulated hostile return fire system.
The company also provides products and training content
to military, law enforcement, post-secondary education and security
agencies worldwide. VirTra is led by Bob Ferris, chairman
and CEO, from its offices in Tempe, Ariz. Ferris attended the U.S.
Air Force Academy and received a degree in systems engineering
from the University of Arizona with a minor in software.
Both experiences inspired him to create a new generation of
more realistic and effective simulators.
A career path in the military can be rewarding but dangerous.
Each service member plays a vital role on the military team
and takes on great responsibility to defend the country. Furthermore,
military members are expected to make the correct
decisions, with excellent marksmanship, in split-second, lifeand-death
situations. The better and more realistic the training,
the greater the chance the service member will succeed when
lives hang in the balance and threats are real. Internationally,
customers rely on VirTra’s simulators for real-world preparation
so trainees have a better chance to succeed in their missions
and survive lethal encounters.
A critical component of quality simulator training is the realism
it provides. Real-world performance is often directly related
to the realism and intensity of training. Simply stated, the more
realistic the training exercise, the more skills are transferable to
a real-world situation. Thus, realism is critically important to
any close combat tactical trainer.
One of VirTra’s primary missions is to make simulated training
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64 ARMY ■ August 2016

Historically Speaking
Park Service, Army: A Century of Partnership
By Brig. Gen. John S. Brown, U.S. Army retired
Aug. 25 marks the 100th anniversary of the establishment
of the National Park Service. This federal agency has
provided invaluable and diverse services to millions of Americans
while enjoying a long and mutually enriching relationship
with the U.S. Army.
Early on, soldiers assumed responsibilities that are now fulfilled
by rangers. Later, sizable programs managed by the
War Department transitioned into the National Park Service
purview. Throughout their shared century, the Army and the
National Park Service have partnered agreeably to advance
the mutual interests of both.
The idea of setting aside land to preserve nature’s beauty
has ancient precedents, and it gained momentum in the U.S.
during the 19th century. A number of states undertook initiatives
in this regard, the most famous and consequential probably
being California’s acquisition of the Yosemite Valley in
1864. Yellowstone, predominantly in Wyoming, became the
first U.S. National Park by an act of Congress in 1872. It was
soon followed by Mackinac, in Michigan, in 1875.
The new national parks required cadres for management
and security, and the Department of the Interior was insufficiently
staffed to provide them. The preserved land and
wildlife encountered immediate risks from poaching, logging,
grazing and illicit occupancy. The Army established a garrison
at Yellowstone in the 1880s and managed the park
through 1916. It already had a fort at Mackinac, and its garrison
took over that park.
Yosemite experienced encroachment as well, so the U.S.
4th Cavalry rode to the rescue and assumed responsibility in
1891. A similar pattern of Army supervision of federally preserved
land applied elsewhere. Incidentally, the “Smokey the
Bear” hat long associated with park rangers derives from the
Army headgear of this era.
Deployments associated with the Spanish-American War
and Philippine Insurrection reminded conservationists that
the Army was not without other commitments. Aspirations
for enlarged government roles during the Progressive Era argued
for a new federal agency dedicated to the purposes the
national parks served. This commitment was accelerated by
the so-called Big Burn of 1910, wherein a nascent cadre of
forest rangers showed well amid horrific conflagration. Urged
on by numerous conservation enthusiasts including former
Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft
and serving President Woodrow Wilson, Congress established
the National Park Service by law on Aug. 25, 1916.
A substantial overlap remained between War Department
National Park Service/Jim Peaco
The Lower Falls of
the Yellowstone
River at Yellowstone
National Park
August 2016 ■ ARMY 65

Additional Reading
Egan, Timothy, The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the
Fire that Saved America (Boston: Mariner Books, 2010)
Mackintosh, Barry, The National Parks: Shaping the System
(Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1991)
Rettie, Dwight F., Our National Park System: Caring for
America’s Greatest Natural and Historic Treasures (Urbana,
Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1995)
programs and the emerging National Park Service purview.
The Antiquities Act of 1906 had authorized the president to
declare national monuments on lands owned or controlled by
the U.S. government. A number of these, such as Fort Pulaski,
Ga., and the Statue of Liberty, were on military reservations.
Over time, significant portions of such historic battlefields as
Saratoga, N.Y.; Cowpens, S.C.; and Gettysburg, Pa., had been
preserved in the public domain.
By 1933, 20 such sites were constituent to a National Military
Park System supervised by the War Department. Many
of these had cemeteries associated with them, perhaps most
notably Gettysburg National Cemetery. Important wilderness
areas were on military reservations as well.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, empowered by a convincing
electoral mandate to thoroughly reorganize government in
the face of the Great Depression, greatly expanded the scope
and responsibilities of the National Park Service. In 1933, by
executive order, he consolidated under its control all of the national
military and capital parks as well as national monuments,
memorials and 11 national cemeteries. This transferred a considerable
array of facilities from the War Department (and also
the Department of Agriculture) to the National Park Service,
which is subordinate to the Department of the Interior. The reorganization
reflected both the maturation of the National Park
Service and a desire to have the War Department shed domestic
preoccupations when the international situation was becoming
increasingly unsettled.
Ironically, the Army acquired a new set of domestic responsibilities
related to the National Park Service even before
it had executed Roosevelt’s order transferring others. The
Civilian Conservation Corps, perhaps the most popular of the
New Deal work relief programs, poured hundreds of thousands
of young men (ultimately about 3 million) into America’s
“great outdoors.” They were organized, fed and housed
along military lines, and were paid a modest wage that proved
enormous relief to their families. They planted 3 billion trees
and undertook vast programs to refurbish and build roads, facilities
and infrastructure throughout the nation’s parks and
remote areas. A major fraction of the cadre that made the
Civilian Conservation Corps work was drawn from the Army
and its Reserve.
The events of 1933 had profound consequences for the National
Park Service. Its original mandate had focused on preserving
nature’s beauty for unborn generations. The transfer
of military and civilian historical sites also put it in the business
of preserving the nation’s human heritage. The exposure
of millions of Americans to the wilderness through the Civilian
Conservation Corps and park expansion whetted a national
appetite for outdoor recreation. Following World War
II, the responsibilities of the National Park Service continued
to expand and it increasingly sought to strike a balance of
natural, historical and recreation areas.
As the National Park Service added parkways, seashores
and recreation areas and increasingly sprawled throughout the
nation, it found itself working cheek by jowl with the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers. The corps is the pre-eminent federal
agency managing the nation’s hydrology. Rivers, waterways
and seashores lace the National Park Service’s holdings.
Many of its recreation areas derive from reservoirs and thus,
from dams. Indeed, the corps itself annually hosts over 25
million visitors at lakes, beaches and other facilities under its
control. The two federal agencies are inextricably intertwined.
The Army is an ardent consumer of National Park Service
offerings. Few graduates of the U.S. Army War College will
forget the impressions derived from touring Gettysburg’s battlefield.
Every tier of the battlefield staff ride program within
our Army educational system depends on access to historical
battlefields. Most of these are managed by the National Park
Service. Soldiers and their families frequent the National
Park System for education, training and recreation. Our military
history and heritage can be taught in the classroom, but it
is fully appreciated on the ground.
With respect to military heritage, some mention should be
made of honoring our dead. There are 148 U.S. national military
cemeteries, dominated by the graves of military personnel,
veterans and their spouses. Of these, 134 are managed by
the Department of Veterans Affairs. The National Park Service
manages 14 associated with historic battlefields and sites.
The Department of the Army manages Arlington National
Cemetery and the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National
Cemetery. In addition, the American Battle Monuments
Commission manages 25 permanent American military
cemeteries for our service personnel who have fallen overseas.
No mission is more hallowed than commemorating those
who have served their country. This responsibility is shared.
The National Park Service now manages 411 areas encompassing
over 84 million acres. Of these, 59 areas are designated
national parks, and 25 are military parks or battlefields.
Throughout the last 100 years, the interplay between the U.S.
Army and the National Park Service has been robust, recurrent
and durable. Both agencies can be truly proud of the
contributions each has made to the other—and to the American
people.
✭
Brig. Gen. John S. Brown, USA Ret., was chief of military history
at the U.S. Army Center of Military History from December
1998 to October 2005. He commanded the 2nd Battalion,
66th Armor in Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War and returned
to Kuwait as commander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry
Division in 1995. Author of Kevlar Legions: The Transformation
of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005, he has a doctorate
in history from Indiana University.
66 ARMY ■ August 2016

Seven Questions
New Challenges for Combat-Wounded Entrepreneur
Dawn Halfaker was a hard-charging Army military police
captain in Iraq in 2004 when she was seriously wounded in an
insurgent attack. Her right arm had to be amputated, and she subsequently
took medical retirement. Two years later, at age 26, she
launched her own company, Halfaker and Associates, by applying
the same perspective that had powered her Army career: “Adapt,
adjust and keep moving to accomplish the objective.” The Arlington,
Va.-based firm, now with about 170
employees, is a federal government contractor
specializing in information technology
services, and grants hiring preference to
veterans.
1. What drove you to want to start your
own company and be an entrepreneur?
I didn’t plan to get out of the Army.
Getting severely injured while serving in
Iraq at a fairly young age, fairly early in
my military career, to the extent that I
could not stay in was really hard for me.
But I wanted to continue to be part of the
mission and find opportunities to support
the military and my fellow soldiers.
The company was born out of the
idea that I wanted to continue my service.
This seemed like the best opportunity,
trying to do things differently and
better in terms of contractor support to
the military.
2. Why not just sign on with an existing firm?
I did interview with a lot of companies. The reason I decided
to go out on my own is that I didn’t feel a sense of urgency.
It was just kind of the same old, same old. Given everything
the country had been through after 9/11 and the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, what commanders and soldiers needed
to do their jobs on the battlefield had changed pretty dramatically.
I just felt a lot of companies were doing business the way
they always had, and we really needed a fresh perspective and
sense of urgency.
3. How did you go about launching your business?
I had some relationships with people at the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) who were working
on new initiatives focused on how we could save lives on
the battlefield, looking at traumatic brain injury and other issues
that were really near and dear to me. I connected with
one of the program managers and that led to my first consulting
gig, which enabled me to start building some expertise. I
consulted on some other DARPA projects, and the company
sort of launched off that.
Courtesy Dawn Halfaker
Dawn Halfaker
4. What knowledge did you apply from your Army experience
in launching your company?
Combat is really just a more intense form of business. You
have a plan; usually your plan doesn’t go according to plan. Then
you have to adapt, adjust and keep moving to accomplish the objective
no matter what the resources or conditions are. That’s
how I approached starting the company. There are all these challenges
to continuously overcome to get
everything set up, get the word out, share
your value proposition, your capabilities.
I modeled a lot of what I was doing
on the way you run a platoon—minus
the early-morning formations. Bring
people in, train them, deploy them to
different projects or clients, make sure
we’re accountable to deliver what we
promised. The military value system,
the integrity and accountability—I carried
all that into the business world.
5. What was your toughest personal
challenge?
Leading civilians is much more different
than leading troops. In the military,
you play the hand you’re dealt, always
inspiring the people who get
assigned under you to do the best job
they can. In the civilian world, people
come and go. They don’t have to work
for you. At the beginning, it was hard to grapple with that.
6. How is the company doing, and what does the future hold?
One big challenge is the cuts to the defense budget. It’s been
hard for all companies in this industry. But the future looks
good. We’ve positioned ourselves well, in terms of getting contracts
and creating opportunities to compete for contracts. We
have a lot of depth, some great people leading our different practice
areas, such as analytics and cyber. I’m very happy to be doing
what I’m doing, and thankful for the connection that I have to
still support the military and veterans. It’s incredibly rewarding.
7. What’s the most important thing you would say to other
transitioning soldiers who might want to follow your path
to entrepreneurship?
The military doesn’t teach you business, but I think it does
build the kind of character that can make successful entrepreneurs.
The determination you learn in the military about mission
accomplishment, not giving up, those kinds of things are
what entrepreneurship is—getting knocked down a thousand
times and getting up a thousand and one. So if you’re getting
out of the military, I’d say start writing your business plan.
—Chuck Vinch
August 2016 ■ ARMY 67

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Reviews
‘Tribe’ Is Shallow Dive Into Deep Topic
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging.
Sebastian Junger. Hachette Book
Group. 168 pages. $22
By Laura Stassi
Assistant Managing Editor
An increasingly affluent and urban
American society has led to emotional
disconnection and isolation among
individuals, making it more difficult for
men and women in uniform to reintegrate.
That’s the premise of Sebastian
Junger’s Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,
a slim volume on post-traumatic
stress disorder.
Junger is the best-selling author of
several books including 2010’s War,
which recounts the 15 months he spent
with an infantry platoon in Afghanistan’s
Korengal Valley in 2007 and 2008. He
based Tribe on a article he wrote for the
June 2015 issue of Vanity Fair magazine,
“How PTSD Became a Problem Far Beyond
the Battlefield.” The book is a
fleshed-out version of the magazine article,
but not by much. Tribe has only 168
pages, 30 of which are source notes.
Junger writes that anthropologists
have identified three factors affecting a
service member’s transition back into
civilian life: returning to a “cohesive and
egalitarian” society, not being perceived
as a victim, and feeling as productive in
civilian society as he or she did on the
battlefield. Junger notes that the U.S.
ranks low on all three.
In contrast, he offers examples from
Iroquois warriors to modern-day Israeli
citizens to bolster his point that “recovery
from war—from any trauma—is
heavily influenced by the society one belongs
to, and there are societies that
make that process relatively easy.”
With the Iroquois, for example, “the
entire society was undergoing wartime
trauma, so it was a collective experience—and
therefore an easier one.” And
Junger says the low rates of PTSD
among members of the Israel Defense
Forces can be attributed not only to the
proximity of war itself but also to the
shared national military commitment.
“Those who come back from combat
are reintegrated into a society where
those experiences are very well understood,”
Junger writes, describing it as the
“shared public meaning of war.”
American society “is alienating, technical,
cold, and mystifying,” he says.
“Our fundamental desire, as human beings,
is to be close to others, and our society
does not allow for that.”
Voices From the Front: An Oral History
of the Great War. Peter Hart. Oxford
University Press. 416 pages. $34.95
By Maj. Joe Byerly
The volumes written on World War I
could fill entire libraries. From the
causes of the outbreak of the war to criticisms
of its leaders, readers will have no
trouble finding a book that suits their
Soldiers who talk about missing combat,
Junger writes, are not missing war
and violence but rather, the strong emotional
bonds they develop with their unit
that are difficult to replicate after they return
home. Even so, the highest PTSD
rates are not among service members
who have experienced combat.
“Lack of social support has been
found to be twice as reliable at predicting
PTSD as the severity of the trauma
itself,” he writes.
In an author’s note at the beginning of
the book, Junger says he didn’t include
footnotes because Tribe is not an academic
tome. However, he included his
sources because some of the information
he presents “had the potential to greatly
surprise or even upset some readers.”
Some of Junger’s numbers seem questionable.
He writes that “roughly half of
Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have applied
for permanent PTSD disability.”
According to the VA, about half of Iraq
and Afghanistan veterans have filed
claims for service-connected disabilities,
and about 40 percent of those who
have filed claims are claiming a mental
health disability.
Still, there’s value in Tribe, particularly
as the drawdown results in even more
soldiers returning to civilian life. Junger
has offered a breadth of information
worthy of a deeper dive.
WWI View From the Trenches
particular interest. But many of these
histories fail to grasp the experience that
impacted the lives of millions of young
men and their families. What is missing
is the voice of those who experienced the
Great War firsthand.
British military historian Peter Hart
has written more than a dozen books,
several of which focus on World War I.
In his latest, Voices from the Front: An
Oral History of the Great War, he brings
August 2016 ■ ARMY 69

to life the horrors, triumphs and realities
of his countrymen who fought in that
war. The book is a compilation of about
200 interviews that Hart conducted with
veterans during the 1980s and 1990s,
when he was working for the Imperial
War Museum London.
Voices from the Front takes readers from
the early days of the war, when young
men rushed to recruiting stations to sign
up to fight for their country, to the reflections
of veterans years after the final shots
were fired. Each chapter covers a different
period and aspect of the war, with
Hart providing an introduction that supplies
context to the interviewees’ words.
While Hart devotes most of the book
to the Western Front, he also covers
events that took place in the Middle
East and at sea. Because of when he collected
these oral histories, most of the
men above the rank of field grade officer
were dead. So the viewpoints range from
private to lieutenant colonel, giving readers
a view of war from the ground up.
Hart’s work is of critical importance because
it provides intellectual depth to
those who wish to better understand the
Great War and its impact on the world
following 1918.
In his classic 1961 lecture, “The Use
and Abuse of Military History,” Sir
Michael Howard recommended that in
addition to studying war in width and
context, we study it in depth. According
to Howard, this will dissolve the tidy outlines
of history, allowing the confusion
and horrors of the actual experience to
rise to the surface. That is exactly what
Hart does in sharing the unedited accounts
of the veterans who spent years
living in the trenches of Western Europe.
One of the many themes that shines
through is the role that chance and luck
play in war. Several of the veterans Hart
interviewed described experiences that
bring this point home time and time again.
In combat, no one really knows when
the bullet that is fired will have their name
on it. For example, Pvt. Frank Brent recounted
his memory of Cpl. Robbie
Robinson during the Battle of Gallipoli:
He was laughing at the remark and I
can see him now grinning all over his
face—the next thing his head fell on my
shoulder and a sniper had got him
through the jugular vein. I really think
that was my baptism of fire, because
Robbie’s blood spent all over my tunic.
Pvt. Basil Farrer summed up the outlook
on life that many in uniform adopt
while they are in the midst of combat:
I was apprehensive—I wondered if
I’d be alive that night, I wondered
whether I was going to be killed. I accepted
the fact as a soldier; the thing
was, you had to be a fatalist. We often
said, ‘If it’s got your name and address
on it; it will find you—so what’s the use
of worrying!’ So you’ve just got to go
and you hope for the best.
Overall, Voices From the Front is an
emotional but enjoyable read that paints
the Great War in vivid colors. Hart
weaves the veterans’ stories through his
own exceptional writing, providing readers
with macro and micro views of many
of the great battles.
This book is perfect for World War I
history buffs seeking to gain greater
depth in their understanding of the war.
Additionally, this book is valuable for
soldiers serving today who seek a connection
with the warriors who came before
them.
Maj. Joe Byerly is an armor officer and the
operations officer for the 2nd Squadron,
1st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade
Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division,
Fort Carson, Colo. He holds a bachelor’s
degree from North Georgia College
and State University, and a master’s degree
from the U.S. Naval War College.
New Ground Uncovered In Truscott Biography
The Last Cavalryman: The Life of General
Lucian K. Truscott, Jr. Harvey
Ferguson. University of Oklahoma Press.
423 pages. $29.95
By Col. Gregory Fontenot
U.S. Army retired
Seventy years after World War II,
there remains much to learn about
the war and from it. Three biographies
of Gen. Lucian K. Truscott Jr. have
been published in the last decade. Harvey
Ferguson’s The Last Cavalryman is
the latest—and a happy surprise.
Ferguson, a draftee who served in the
3rd Infantry Division in 1965, used the
GI Bill to earn degrees in public administration
and English literature. Leavened
by a lifetime of experience with the
Seattle Police Department as an officer,
chief of operations and chief of investigations
and as a friend of Truscott’s
granddaughter, Ferguson took up the
task of writing the general’s biography
both to satisfy his own curiosity about
the man and to learn whether he could
write a book.
The Last Cavalryman proves that
Ferguson can, indeed, write and will
satisfy more than his own curiosity.
This is a good book that illuminates
Truscott from the vantage of time and
from the perspective of an author unencumbered
by assumption. He judges
Truscott fairly and in context.
What is surprising is that there is so
much yet to learn despite Truscott’s
demonstrated excellence as a writer in
70 ARMY ■ August 2016

his own right. Truscott’s memoir, Command
Missions, is an honest and wellwritten
account of his fears, mistakes and
choices. Historian Edward M. Coffman
believes it is one of the best World War
II memoirs. The general’s son, Lucian K.
Truscott III, completed his second
memoir, Twilight of the U.S. Cavalry. It
is an evocative narrative of the passing
of the horse cavalry that demonstrates
Truscott’s talent as an acutely observant
raconteur.
Sensitive, courageous and mercurial,
Truscott is no easy subject, yet Ferguson’s
grasp is sure. Truscott served in the
3rd Cavalry at Fort Myer, Va., when that
unit maintained the ceremonial standards
in Washington, D.C., and in Arlington,
Va.
Some of Truscott’s soldiers in E Troop,
3rd Cavalry Regiment plied the flat of
their sabers to World War I veterans
when the government ordered the bonus
marchers dispersed and their camp destroyed.
It was not a great moment in the
history of the Army. Nevertheless, the
general took pride in the restraint his
troopers showed.
Ferguson’s assessment of Truscott’s
handling of the mostly African-American
92nd Infantry Division is fair, if not flattering.
As Fifth Army commander in
Italy, Truscott found the 92nd’s black infantrymen
wanting without questioning
the leadership of their decidedly bigoted
division commander, Maj. Gen. Edward
M. Almond. Almond claimed African-
Americans simply were not up to the tasks
expected of combat infantrymen. Truscott
typically looked to leadership when units
failed. In this instance, he did not.
Ferguson is not as pointed in his criticism
as he might have been, given
Truscott’s positive experience working
alongside the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th
and 10th Cavalry. Truscott got it wrong,
but he understood the root of the problem.
African-American soldiers, he said,
were the product of “environment, education,
economic and social ills beyond
their control.”
Despite his mishandling of the 92nd,
Truscott demonstrated character and vision.
That vision served him and the
Army well. Assigned to develop a special
operations unit, he selected Col. William
O. Darby to form the first Ranger battalion.
Truscott followed their training
carefully and applied the same approach
when he commanded the 3rd Infantry
Division and produced one of the great
fighting units of World War II. He
learned amphibious operations from the
bottom up, beginning with command of
a task force during Operation Torch.
Later, he commanded at the division,
corps and Army levels, demonstrating
growth at each echelon.
Ferguson is effective when illustrating
Truscott’s evolution and growth in North
Africa, Sicily, Italy and during the invasion
of southern France, where he commanded
VI Corps during his fourth invasion.
Later, Truscott returned to Italy
to command Fifth Army. Finally, he
succeeded Patton in command of Third
Army during the early part of the occupation
of Germany.
Ferguson’s narrative of Truscott’s postwar
service with the CIA is first-rate.
Truscott’s first job at the agency was to
oversee covert operations in Berlin with
an eye toward quashing any that might
embarrass the U.S. He took the job seriously
and stopped several misbegotten
operations before they got underway.
Later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
expanded his portfolio. Truscott remained
with the CIA until failing health compelled
him to leave in 1959.
Ferguson’s biography is a useful companion
to Truscott’s excellent Command
Missions. Truscott would likely approve
of Ferguson’s assessment of him as a
genuine hero but, like us all, flawed.
Col. Gregory Fontenot, USA Ret., commanded
the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor
Regiment in Operation Desert Storm
and the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division
in Bosnia. He also served in the
U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command’s Command Planning Group;
as director of the School of Advanced
Military Studies; as commander of the
then-Battle Command Training Program;
and as director of the University of
Foreign Military and Cultural Studies.
An Army historian, he is co-author of
On Point: The United States Army in
Operation Iraqi Freedom.
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August 2016 ■ ARMY 71

Final Shot
U.S. Air Force/Alejandro Pena
Army Spc. Donald Shingleton of the
25th Infantry Division recovers his
parachute during training at Joint
Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.
72 ARMY ■ August 2016

REAP THE
REWARDS
the points
at restaurants
on gas
on everything else
Any time you spend, you earn more rewards. 1
Plus, pay no foreign transaction fees! 2
APPLY TODAY!
navyfederal.org 1.888.842.6328
Federally insured by NCUA. 1 GO REWARDS credit cards earn 3 points for every $1 of net purchases made at restaurants, 2 points for every $1 of net purchases
made for gas, and 1 point for every $1 of other net purchases. A GO REWARDS restaurant or gas purchase may only earn 1 point per dollar spent, depending on the merchant code
used to process the transaction. Restaurants located within another establishment (e.g., hotel, casino, commissary, grocery store, event venue) may be ineligible, in which case you
will receive 1 point per dollar spent at these locations. In addition, superstores, supermarkets and warehouse clubs that sell gasoline are not considered gas stations, so you will earn
1 point per dollar spent at these locations. Rewards only earned on eligible net purchases. “Net purchases” means the sum of your eligible purchase transactions minus returns and
refunds. Eligible purchase transactions do not include, and rewards are not earned for, the following transactions: cash advances, convenience checks, balance transfers, or fees of
any kind, including finance charges, late fees, returned check fees, and ATM transaction fees. In addition, Navy Federal cash equivalent transactions, such as the purchase, loading
or re-loading of Navy Federal gift and prepaid cards (e.g., Navy Federal gift cards, Visa® Buxx Cards, GO Prepaid Cards), are also not eligible purchase transactions and do not earn
rewards. For more information, view the GO REWARDS Program Description Guide. 2 Currently, rates range from 9.74% APR to 18% APR, are based on creditworthiness,
and will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate. ATM cash advance fees: None if performed at a Navy Federal branch or ATM. Otherwise, $0.50 per domestic
transaction or $1.00 per overseas transaction. © 2016 Navy Federal NFCU 13542 (5-16)

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