-
The Army must develop doctrine and TTPs that recognize and integrates measures for COSR prevention into planning, preparing, and executing future full spectrum operations.
-
Army future Modular Force commanders must have the capability to provide adequate mental health care providers who can monitor moral, cohesion, and unit mental health status across the deployment cycle.
-
The Army must integrate measures to prevent COSR into the pre-deployment training programs.
-
Army training exercises must habitually integrate the stressors Soldiers will commonly encounter into all training and training assessments, with emphasis on the CTCs.
-
Officer and NCO professional education must deliver progressive and sequential training on those leadership skills needed to prevent COSR casualties.
-
The Army must have the capability to identify those applicants with obvious psychological factors that should eliminate them from military service.
-
The Army must provide the facilities at home station and in the AO that positively affect Soldier morale (such as, Department of Family and Children's Services; morale, welfare, and recreation; Soldier living quarters, training and maintenance facilities, family housing, force protection, and health care).
-
The Army must provide the capability—education, training, facilities, equipment, and time to maintain an optimum physical fitness.
-
The Army must have the capability to remotely monitor a Soldier’s physical signs of stress and deliver on demand pharmaceuticals and other treatment to immediately reduce or mitigate those physical and mental stress factors.
-
The Army must manage Soldiers’ assignments so that Soldiers have many opportunities to recover from COSR and other stress factors.
-
The Army needs adequate numbers of combat operational stress control detachments to provide a minimum of one per division with teams to each BCT or brigade.
-
The Army must establish mental health support for spouses and children affected by a Soldier's COSR. This is critically important for reserve component Soldiers who return to their civilian lives upon redeployment and demobilization.
-
The Army must focus more on developing hardiness and resiliency, on how leadership impacts dramatically on combat stress reactions, how urban warfare produces more casualties and why.
Questions for Further Exploration
-
Are current stress control TTPs and interventions effective in preparing Soldier psychologically for combat and reducing COSR casualties, and are efforts to reduce the barriers to seeking medical care effective?
-
Why do most Soldiers adjust well to the demands of combat while a few develop COSR injuries? How can the Army amplify the benefits of stressful situations?
-
Does the type of operation (major combat operations, COIN, peacekeeping, humanitarian) affect the warrior spirit, morale, unit cohesion, and COSR?
-
Is the Army accurately capturing the incidents of COSR injuries?
-
How great an impact does physical fitness have on reducing a Soldier’s susceptibility to COSR and other stress factors?
-
What emerging or future technologies can detect building stress and provide on demand mitigation or treatment? Consider both physical and mental stress factors.
-
How does a Soldier’s personal morality impact on susceptibility to COSR and other stress factors? How can the Army mitigate the cognitive dissonance between combat actions and the values and ethics ingrained in the Soldier through his cultural/religious background and/or his Army education and training?
-
What educational approaches will best enable a Soldier to understand stress? Will such an understanding help a Soldier anticipate and address the physical, cognitive, and moral challenges generated during training and operations?
-
How can the Army teach the distinction between “killing” and “murder” to Soldiers so they realize they are not violating the Old Testament commandment “You shall not commit murder” when they follow the rules of engagement as Soldiers?
-
How can the Army use the supportive power of group solidarity, love of comrades and esprit de corps that keeps Soldiers fighting effectively in combat to also facilitate their healing after redeployment?
-
How will the Army overcome the challenges associated with “part-time” nature of the reserve component to employ the concepts addressed in this chapter?
-
What can the Army adapt from emerging findings about stress buffers such as neuropeptide Y in special forces community, the use of propanolol for easing PTSD memories, and other findings related to the enzyme, known as PKMzeta that has been identified as important for sustaining memories throughout the brain?
This page intentionally left blank.
  
The Army recruits Soldiers. It retains families.
The Army Family White Paper, 1983
Chapter 7 Manning the Army—Developing a Human Capital Strategy
The Army responds to national and military strategy changes. It has also led the way in many major social adjustments throughout history. In recent years, Army transformation efforts resulted in personnel policy changes to stabilize Soldiers in their units. Given the complexity of the future operating environment, and its impact upon the triad of moral, physical, and cognitive components of the human dimension, the Army must continue to examine existing policies and practices for staffing the force.
While global trends will shape the environment in which our Soldiers may operate, domestic trends will shape the candidates from which the Army must draw to staff the future force. Immigration, education, physical and moral fitness influence the domestic environment. The Army must consider this environment in order to understand the capabilities and limitations of future recruits while, at the same time, acknowledging their expectations.
While current personnel systems have served the Army and its Soldiers well, the potential strain of decades of persistent conflict will likely fail to meet future needs. The dual challenges of new force structure and continual deployments to multidimensional battlefields strongly suggest the need to modify the Army’s personnel systems so that they more effectively embrace creativity, risk-taking, and flexibility. This chapter examines key processes of Army personnel management, which include accessions, assignments, promotions, and education. It then posits considerations for improving human capital management.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |
