Army’s deep cuts
Chief Tango sends us a link from Stars & Stripes which reports that the Army is making even more cuts to the security of our nation by slashing 12 combat brigades from the force and slashing manpower by nearly 10%;
By reducing the number of headquarters and increasing the number of battalions per brigade, Odierno said the Army is “increasing our tooth to tail ratio.” He added that while there would be some civilian job losses, many civilian positions are in place to support the basic functions of a post, and won’t be affected.
Odierno said 10 BCTs would be cut from 10 Army installations: Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Knox, Ky.; Fort Riley, Kan.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Another two BCTs used for soldier training will also be cut, officials said.
An eleventh BCT in a location still undecided will be cut in the future, Odierno said.
So history is repeating itself, once again. Of course, we’ll have the reserve and Guard units to fill the holes, right? As long as the Guard and reserves don’t mind spending almost as much time in uniform as they would if they were active, then I suppose, retention and recruiting will suffer. Well, luckily, we can still depend on the draft, right? I’m sure no one would avoid the draft, despite the fact that the government has been largely unwilling to deal with draft dodgers and deserters in any meaningful manner.
And, oh, yeah, I’m sure the impact won’t be felt by communities who largely depend on military presence like Fort Drum & Jefferson County, NY. Although the defense issues are primary, the economy will also take a hit. I wonder if we can get the Constitution changed so we can get four more years out of this administration.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Big Army, Military issues
So post WWII or post Vietnam? or post Desert Shield/Desert Storm?
Seems we’ve had a few of these.
I for one welcome our new communist overlords….
“I wonder if we can get the Constitution changed so we can get four more years out of this administration.”
Nice.
I joined in 06. My unit was just reorganized out of our old med brigade into a new structure in the WE-MARS-G. THe first mobilization went out the door in 07, got back in 08. The next set went in 09, and returned in ’10. After the ‘mandatory minimum dwell time’ for reservists, they started asking for ‘X number of volunteers in 11, and the stoploss came down to prevent transfers out in Fall of 2012. They are now mobilized again.
I understand that as medical we have different requirements; but I saw excellent NCO’s, career men and women with civilian careers suffering because they were gone for so long.
We, as reservists, can do it; but it’s costing us in terms our civilian careers and time with families. I know there are people who look down at those of us who choose AR/NG…Us ‘weekend warriors’ and ‘ate up reservists’ who volunteered, but whine when they get mobilized. Yeah, yeah. But we AREN’T Active Duty for a reason. We chose not to for a reason. And this constant mobilization cycle is seriously depleting the strength of our reserve system.
The draft? Oh, that’s right, everything is going retrograde.
And here’s a mental exercise: For the great majority of our republic, and since the reorganization of our reserve guard system in the Militia Act of 1903, the Guard and Reserves have been a *strategic* reserve. Now that they are considered an integrap part of the force structure, what is the DoD’s plan if we need say….500,000 troops within six months? Is there anyone here that’s been to the War College that can tell me what our backup plan is if we get into a slugfest where we need our reserves, and turn to them and find out that they are already used up?
Right because reducing fraud or waste in the handout component of the budget is a definite no-no even though you could balance the cost of these BCTs with that waste reduction.
As the military become an ever smaller component of the population, and becomes somewhat inbred in the process (more and more soldiers are coming from families where others have already served) it will be ever easier for politicians to sh1t on the military. Even though it’s at the peril of the nation democracies never learn that lesson well enough, because each new generation thinks it is smarter than previous. In some ways that is true, in other ways not so much.
Can’t say I’m particularly surprised. I believe the Army added 50,000+ soldiers in authorized end-strength from the Clinton-era late-1990s lows for Iraq and Afghanistan. This will put us back at about that same point, or maybe even slightly higher.
Whether that’s a good idea or not is another discussion entirely.
ANCCPT: take a look at Korea, Jun-Dec 1950. That’s IMO about what we’d be looking at again under the scenario you propose.
Vietnam isn’t a good comparison, as the Army had a helluva lot more soldiers even before Vietnam got hot (972,000 in 1964) than we do today. During Vietnam, could play the “hollow force” game in some places while we ramped up and/or supported Vietnam.
We simply don’t have the bodies to do that today.
Hondo, if it’s ‘necessary’ to bump up the personnel rosters in the military on short notice, the people who have the most recent service are the most likely to be recalled, especially if they’re in crticial rates/MOSs. They have the experience and training already, and the government won’t care if they have something else to do.
I would also willingly lay odds that the draft will be reinstated on short notice and include women.
Hondo: Oh, I know. You know. Most of the senior and midlevel officers and NCO’s know. The Pentagon surely knows (one would hope). But, sadly the people cutting funding and finding ‘creative’ ways to stretch the force strength (repeat usage of our strategic reserves to support ongoing operations)…Those people appear not to have learned from their history. When the fires flare up again, as they surely will, we’re going to get burned. Again.
It’s tragic our men and women in uniform will pay for their lack of foresight in lives.
I heard an old Chinese proverb once that I’ve never forgotten: “A society grows strong when old men plant trees in whos’ shade they know they will never sit.”
I fear that our government’s lack of foresight is leaving us dangerously exposed, and aside from rucking up and being the best damn medical officer I can be, and enduring the coming sh*tstorm, I don’t know what the hell to do about it.
So basically, we’re going back to a 3 Maneuver Brigade per Division structure that we had pre-2001.
The personnel cuts were coming. That’s no surprise. But at least their adding a third maneuver battalion to the remaining BCTs.
We’ve all bitched about bloat in headquarters for years. This is actually a step in the right direction. And the three Bn BCT design will be better suited to any potential non-COIN conflict.
Holy shit. The army is going to need to have a QMP board doing some serious overtime to find something to do with all those Staff Sergeants. I am assuming they are going to deactivate all of the 4th BCTs that they stood up during the height of the Iraq war. The amount of money wasted to build all those Brigades from scratch is absolutely mind boggling. At Benning there is some serious scuttlebutt about 3rd BDE, 3rd I.D being deactivated which would turn Kelley Hill into a ghost town. If they are going to scrap a BCT from Stewart though I doubt that happens. These are going to be painful years to come for people in the military.
I joined during the post-Vietnam doldrums (1980) so I’ve seen this cycle a few times, most notably in the mid 1990’s when I ETS’d from active duty, only to find myself in the Balkans 18 months later with the USAR.
Honestly, Jonn, what SHOULD we do? We have an out of control budget as it is, why NOT cut the military when we are drawing down from Afghanistan? For that matter, why the hell are we even still IN Korea?
It’s not like this is 1953 and the ROK is a broken country that can barely stand on its own. The ROK of 2013 is one of the most dynamic and prosperous countries on the planet and has a first-class military that is more than capable of handling ND:TBF on their own without any help from the US. As I understand it, we’ve removed all or most of our combat troops from Europe (except for the 173rd in Italy) and it’s high time we did the same in the ROK.
“We’ve always done it that way” or “that’s the way it was when I got here” are terrible reasons to keep things the way they are. The military exists to fulfill a mission, and we need the troops to do that, and no more. As the mission changes, so will the size of the military. That’s the way it’s always been.
Final point: Sorry, Columbus, GA; Fayette-nam, NC; Watertown, NY; and Tacoma, WA, but the US Army does not exist to provide jobs for you. Of all the justifications to keep troop strengths high, “maintaining civilian jobs” is the absolute worst. I’d rather just send welfare checks to the strippers, pawn shop owners and rent-to-own furniture shop managers than keep a military base open just to keep them flush with sweet, sweet taxpayer provided cash.
Grunt r ze stpiid.
Gotta figure out how to pay for them ‘Bama phones and continue to enable the outrageous government fraud.
Think of the children. If it only saves on life. Fair share. Racists!!!
Ex-PH2: that’s not exactly how it works.
The Reserve Reserves have essentially two categories of personnel likely to be recalled: the Selected Reserve and the Ready Reserve (there are two other categories, the Standby Reserve and the Retired Reserve – but if they’re being recalled, we’re in truly in a world of hurt).
The Selected Reserve is the component that is subject to being recalled first. It includes Federal Reserve Units from all services; Army/Air National Guard units (USN and USMC don’t have a national guard component); and Individual Mobilization Augmentees (pinpoint augmentation assignments for individuals). In 2010, these categories totaled roughly 844,500 individuals.
Next in line would be members of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) and Inactive National Guard (ING). These individuals will generally not be involuntarily called up right away, except for maybe a few in critically short specialties. The reason for this is that these individuals do not generally have a training requirement other than one annual muster, and are limited by law in the amount of military training they can receive annually. The pool is also much smaller than you might think – in 2009, it was a bit under 222,000.
http://www.roa.org/site/DocServer/0906_nsr.pdf?docID=17281
Only about 14,000 IRR Army IRR members were mobilized for Desert Storm. A much larger number of USAR/ARNG soldiers in the Selected Reserve were mobilized – approx 70,000 from the Army Reserve, and approx 64,000 from the ARNG, or nearly 10x as many.
The bottom line is that the first folks recalled in an short-notice emergency almost certainly won’t be from the IRR. They’ll be from the Selected Reserve – Reserve/NG troop units – along with needed IMAs and a few IRR volunteers. IMO you won’t see many IRR types recalled immediately, because most will require substantial refresher training/retraining before they can deploy to combat – if for no other reason that in many cases to get back in shape.
In a more protracted continuing contingency, the IRR will indeed get tapped more. That’s been happening for the last few years – but we’ve been at war for close to a dozen years now.
On this anniversery of the Korean War we announce we are going back to that force structure. 2 Firing batteries per battalion, 2 Companies per Inf Bn, 2 squads per platoon etc. great
And in news from 2 1/2 months ago, a headline from USAToday:
“No changes seen in Army, Marine troop levels in budget”
In the above article, the CSA said he’d need “several years” to be able to absorb this big of a personnel reduction. Apparently either he changed this mind about how fast they could be implemented – or someone changed it for him.
Units are not Deactivated…they are Inactivated. As for the cut backs…with all of the technology, front line combat units are slated instead of Army Corps Commands, redundant schools, etc. Seen this too many times…
How’d that Jody go?
” here we go agan,
same ol $hit again,
marching down the avenue,
2.5 more years and he’ll be through –
I’LL BE GLAD AND SO WILL YOU!
SOUND OFF…..”
Now, just try and get that cadence out of your head today – your welcome 🙂
Same story; different democrat administration.
To bad we cant downsize some public office folks.
@21: Thanks, buddy, I appreciate that shit.
so wait, the whole Unit Of Action thing, where they took the brigades from 3 down to 2 maneuver battalions is going out the window and they are going back to the 3 BN formation? Glad ol’Former SF General what’s his name spent all that time and money convincing everyone that the Stryker and the UA were the way of the future.
Final point: Sorry, Columbus, GA; Fayette-nam, NC; Watertown, NY; and Tacoma, WA, but the US Army does not exist to provide jobs for you. Of all the justifications to keep troop strengths high, “maintaining civilian jobs” is the absolute worst. I’d rather just send welfare checks to the strippers, pawn shop owners and rent-to-own furniture shop managers than keep a military base open just to keep them flush with sweet, sweet taxpayer provided cash.
I can hear Lakewood & Pierce County crying the blues now, lol. Asian owned strip joints? Gone. Dime a dozen pawn and pron shops? Gone. Sleazy Stillacom and Lakewood motels? Partially boarded up, still have to have somewhere for the crack ho’s, ho’s and strippers to hangout.
@17 – Hondo, I’m going on what I was told by a PN2 (Personnelman, E-5, handles paperwork) at the car dealership just before Afghanistan heated up. She had processed a dozen people who had just gotten out of the service – didn’t specify if they were all Navy, or just military – and a few who had been out for almost 10 years. She was selling her car because she was being transferred to Guam to a sub tender. She said my rate was considered critical and it didn’t matter how long I’ve been out, if there is a shortage I would have to fill it.
I’d like to point out, also, that the younger people would certainly be called back ahead of me, but that was all out of the horse’s mouth.
It seems that rules don’t apply when Uncle Sugar wants your sorry butt back under his thumb. 🙂
Important things come first to the B. Hussein 0bama Administration. They have to make us vets sacrifice so they can keep giving every handout they can to every dropout, flunkie, and illegal alien in order to keep them voting demo-rat! OH, and this administration will spare no expense in keeping B. Hussein 0bama & Family in every bit of opulent luxury they can, we see that every day!
PH2: The first ones brought back in in terms of conscription will probably be hard to fill medical specialties. You can retrain a mechanic to be a rifleman….You can’t retrain a clerk to be a registered nurse, physical therapist or a surgeon.
Look up the ‘Healthcare Professional Delivery System’ (HCPDS)…It’s the spiritual successor to the ‘Doctor Draft’ made famous by MASH. But if we’re taking heat at a level to where we have to start drafting medical personal, we are screwed tight.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15101462
ANCCPT, the doctor draft went on during Vietnam.
I knew a doctor who got his draft notice and ran away to Canada. He was an idiot.
His specialty was cellular pathology. He could have had a long career at Walter Reed or Bethesda or wherever the USGOV does its research, but he was so convinced that he’d be sent over to Vietnam to carry a rifle and shoot people, he didn’t bother doing inquiries, he just beat feet out of the country.
Fox says the 173rd is on the chopping block. That’s a bit of a shock. So much for the four brigade division.
Yes, quite an idiot. But you know what they call the guy that graduates last in his medical school class, right? They call him ‘Doctor’. /smirk
And yes, it went on intermittently from the 50’s through the 70’s and was quietly reimplemented in the 90’s, I think. It’s on the books, like so many things are. The show MASH merely made HCP draft more common knowledge.
Right now, AMEDD is over strength in a lot of specialties, but with the downsizing going on, it won’t be before too long.
Something else to consider is how little civilian employers of reservists and Guardsmen are willing to accommodate mobed employees or even comply with USERRA. Granted, I don’t have any statistical data, to back this up, but the perception in a lot of Guard/Reserve units is that deploying is a civilian career killer.
The message seems to be: “You’re no longer needed-don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out”. I wonder what the Corps has planned?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
I just hope that they keep enough troops around to hand out rifles and ammo to all of the young boys and old men who will make up Volkstrum. Thanks to Homeland Security I don’t have enough ammo to defend my sector. If there is a positive about this, and I only mention it in passing, this draw down will make wagging the dog very difficult. No more Bosnias, no more Syrias , no more Afgan/Iraqs. Heaven help us if a real power challenges us, we can only hope the Army/reserves/ANG can hold them long enough for the old farts and their grandchildren to show up
Well, luckily, we can still depend on the draft, right?
Maybe I should send more emails to my Senators and Representative about requiring women to register for the draft. Now that they’re eligible for combat arms positions, there’s really no reason for them to be excluded, other than outdated prejudices.
The biggest peeve I have with force reduction is the way I think it is being handled. In the 90’s we had 15-20 year retirements, early out bonuses and other ways to help with transition. The economy was in pretty good shape. Now unemployment is up, quite a few are hurting from multiple rotations, and there is a lot of negative PTS publicity in the news. Granted, the GI Bill is better now, but that is about it and we’re kicking people to the curb.
* Correction, THEY’RE kicking people to the curb
Task Force Adam, 1950, Korea.
My family has served for generations, from the Civil War until today. We are proud of that and would probably continue for generations to come but…we are finished with all that now. From homosexual pride, to transexual identity recognition, accommodations for the ladies in every MOS and ever increasing persecution of Christians and their beliefs, these are no longer armed forces but armed…hell I don’t even know what they are. My children will never serve, if I have to run them to Canada.
We have an out of control budget as it is, why NOT cut the military when we are drawing down from Afghanistan? For that matter, why the hell are we even still IN Korea?
Uh, last time I looked, an Army and Navy and the funding thereof was mandated under the Constitution in Article I, Section 8. SS, Obamaphones, SNAP, etc., aren’t.
We could completely take out the DoD/VA budgets and still not come close to eliminating the current deficit, which is only going to get much, MUCH worse when Obamacare kicks into high gear starting in January.
Sleep well, folks. Meet the new hollow force, same as the old hollow force.
@40-Russ USMC, Don’t give up. I came the other way during the most divisive times this country has seen (until now-at least politically). I was born in the UK, raised in Canada and came here in ’68. I joined the Corps in ’69-and was proud to make the grade even given the possibility of “giving it all”. Fortunately, I was not called on for combat duty (which, at 17 1/2 pissed me off). I know now, in my advanced age, that this is the greatest country in the world. Yes, we have lost direction (not just under this Administration) in the last decades. What makes this country great is it’s people. Don’t deny anyone the right (or, more accurately, privilege) to stand up for this great nation. I know for a fact that Canada isn’t the shangri la it presents itself to be.
@#39 – it’s Task Force Smith. 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_Smith#Task_Force_Smith
Trust me, with the numbers that were coming out of OSD while we were working this, the really poor assumptions that created even worse constraints and limitations, and some of the insane “outside of the box” ideas that were getting tossed around to try to save force structure and cut cost, the 490K end strength is a gift.
ANCCPT – we had to work the troop requirements based on existing OPLANS. The required numbers were significantly less than 500K. The real question to ask is, how many BFVs, M1A2s, and support equipment can we get into theater in 90 days given our current lift capability and how is it diminished if no C5 capable airfields or RORO ports are available?
Just like Obama ‘joked’ about having his enemies audited by the IRS, he also joked to Medvedev about having the power and flexibility to deliver… what, exactly?
Well, Ole Joe Manchin won’t be stopping Obama anytime soon. Betting Ole Joe, an Ace at stopping Gun Control, won’t be supporting Obama on amnesty, the coming war on coal, or this massive drawdown.
Got to cut the BCT strength so we have more space for SHARP counselors. I’ve heard that it’s going to be an ASI real soon.
Unless one has served in the Pentagon it is nearly impossible to understand how they arrived at these numbers.
First determine what color is up, multiply by which way is orange and divide by the hypotenuse of what we really need to be effective.
To cut the Army by 10 BCTs and also go from 45 to 33 needs the addition of smoke and mirrors. I like that they are adding a battalion to already under strength BCTs but look for another announcement in the near future that they will reduce an Infantry battalion to 406 men and women. Why 406? That is the number deployed to Korea in an Infantry battalion named Task Force Smith.
Reaching now for another scotch and more blood pressure meds.
@46, that’s funny, sad and true, but funny
when a war starts, we’re always short of troops…thus in the middle of our deployment in Iraq in 2005- 60% of the troops were friggen reserves and national guard!!! WTF?
Then they get the troops built up…then the war is over, “oh we don’t need all them troops anymore…cut them”.
Then another war happens and they repeat this shit all over again.
I witnessed it in the 70’s, after the Gulf War and saw them trying to cut troops just before I retired.
@46 and 48: I was at a course at Ft. Knox a few weeks ago where SHARP and EO were pitched as a key “career broadening” assignments for career progression purposes for both NCOS and officers without irony.