The U. S. Army Future Concept for the Human Dimension

7-6 The Tempo of Army Service

High operational and personnel tempos characterized service in the Army over the last decade. Beginning with the 2004 Army Posture Statement, Senior Army leaders recognized the strain this tempo placed on the Army, Soldiers, and their families. Personnel management initiatives to support the future Modular force promise to provide some stability, but the Army must anticipate that Soldiers and families will continue to experience frequent deployments. Similarly, Soldiers in generating force assignments currently work long hours in support of the modular force, and in some cases, join the operating forces during the conduct of operations. Such factors will continue to stress to the force. The Army will experience this stress in different ways—in individual Soldiers and families as well as stress on the Army institution at large. Beyond operational stressors, there will be a continued need for professional education and training—a critical requirement in the future operating environment. If collectively, as mentioned above in the discussion of the Army family, these demands exceed the Soldier's ability to cope and meet his obligations to family, the Army may lose the Soldier's dedicated service even though he may believe it to be a rewarding life that is worthy of the Soldier’s service.

Therefore, in addition to developing policies and capabilities that address the elements of the human dimension, it is also important to address the issue of force size to ensure that the Army has sufficient numbers of Soldiers and resources to meet the demands of the OPTEMPO. Developing policies and capabilities across DOTMLPF alone is insufficient if the force is too small to adequately meet strategic requirements, staff both the operating and generating forces, provide the opportunity for quality training and education, and have adequate reset time between deployments and quality of life for both Soldiers and families. Examining these dynamic and interdependent factors determines how they should influence the size of and retention in the future force.

7-7. Conclusion

The complex operating environment of the twenty-first century demands innovative approaches to personnel management. Many of the suggestions in this chapter echo elsewhere in the Human Dimension study and other concepts. New personnel management systems must balance the needs of the Army with the needs of the individual and families. The Army’s policies and systems to promote, assign, and educate leaders are keys to the success of operational units and the effectiveness of the Army as an institution. The Army will continue to consist of dedicated men and women in the active and reserve Army serving as Soldiers, government civilians, and contractors. Taking care of people and insuring mission accomplishment includes providing them with the best and most modern equipment and facilities. The next chapter presents a look at how S&T contributes to this aspect of the human dimension.

Vignette

Lieutenant Colonel Rick Stacy finished the pre-command course and was really excited about his assignment to the 4^th Infantry Division. He’d served with the division as a lieutenant in Iraq. Getting to command one of the new FSV combined arms battalions was a dream come true. Stacy had had an interesting career path—unconventional most would say. He was in the year group that first went through the 360-degree rating and local selection for promotion to Major. Being an instructor at West Point at that time didn’t bode well for him and his contemporaries, or so he thought. The officers on the staff and faculty at the academy were out of the mainstream. Worse still their 360-degree cohort included mostly fellow instructors all of whom were as competitive as the dickens and most of whom were ensconced in the academic department stovepipes. Few really knew other department instructors. Stacy thought the 360-degree idea had its place, but at the U.S. Military Academy were they going to let the cadets “rate” their instructors?
Stacy and all but one of the eligible captains at the Academy that year made the Major’s list. They attributed this to their prior assignments, but failed to appreciate how the personnel system had really changed and how assignments like teaching in ROTC or the academies really mattered.
Years later as he looked back at Intermediate Leaders Education at Fort Leavenworth and his subsequent assignment as an industrial intern, he really wondered what the West Point experience did to his career. Here he was a junior major nearly five years away from troops and they were sending him to Detroit?
Actually, he’d enjoyed the time with General Motors. It was only six months, after all, and he got the S3 operations officer slot in a Fort Riley combined arms battalion. He also got to be his battalion’s executive officer and did two turns at the National Training Center, one as the S3, and one as the executive officer. It must have made some difference or he wouldn’t be getting a battalion.
What Stacy didn’t fully appreciate was that he was one of a select group of officers whose officer record briefs were flagged electronically with a code for command. He’d been briefed on how it worked and assured that it was not the only discriminator for battalion command. Heck, he’d even nominated cadets, lieutenants, captains, and majors using the electronic 360-degree rating form. The instructions were simple. If you thought an individual exhibited leadership traits and would be a command candidate you were authorized to click that box. It wasn’t visible to the individual, and if you clicked it on everyone the system rejected your nominations. In place for about five years, the Army was still assessing the effectiveness of grooming certain individuals for command positions.
Stacy knew the system had been used for NCOs since 2011 with some success. His own first sergeants and the command sergeants major he’d known were products of this system. They’d been very good too. Other senior enlisted Soldiers serving in staff billets were quite good at what they did, but may not have been good company first sergeants. Stacy fully bought the philosophy that one size doesn’t fit all.
Six months later…
“Good afternoon Warriors!” Lieutenant Colonel Stacy said addressing his primary staff and company commanders.
“Hooah!” Came the expected reply. Nothing wrong with a little enthusiasm, he thought.
“Let me begin by thanking all of you for the outstanding rotation at Irwin. I am so proud of how we’ve welded into a team.” The officers and senior NCOs clapped briefly, anxious to hear their battalion commander’s word on the Real Deal alert.
“Okay, I know we’ve barely returned from the National Training Center and none of us have had time to even see our families. That’s tough on all of us, but that’s our world, and I know you know it all too well.
“Here’s what I know. Operational Plan 2020, the one we just used, is now Operational Order April 2020. We are wheels up in twelve hours with the advanced element. Division is now TF Green. We’ll be flying to Darwin with an emergency entry command post from division. Special operations forces are already in the Sumatra Caliphate. Our mission is the same as we just executed at the National Training Center: ‘Conduct joint forcible entry operations through AO Aerie to defeat Anderian forces in and around Pekanbaru, reinforce the airborne BCT on Pekanbaru International, and support the capture of Anderian leadership.’
“We have about 19 hours of flight time to do some en route mission planning and rehearsal. Get the word to the troops. I’ve asked brigade if there’s any chance of a family send off. Right now this whole operation is totally under wraps. You know the drill. Nothing that could alert the media of our deployment. I’m just as sorry about that as all of you.

“Let’s just suck it up one more time. Go take care of your units and get back on the sleep plan we followed at Irwin. Any questions?”

Colonel Stacy and his combined arms battalion are getting no break after a month at the National Training Center, a rotation unlike the routines they had experienced before. In this case the vignette is couched inside a larger story in which Stacy’s unit, equipped with the latest FSV have spent a month literally training for mounted vertical maneuver, and rehearsing for an operation that was unfolding on the other end of the hemisphere. This extreme example of rushing to employ an untested combat capability in an emergency is not unprecedented. Indeed, the First Cavalry Division’s insertion into combat in 1965 so well related in the book We Were Soldiers Once and Young was the culmination of years of study and experimentation with the concept of airmobile operations. Just as this effort taxed the leaders of Colonel Hal Moore’s beleaguered battalion in the jungles of Vietnam, the upcoming Battle of Pekanbaru will tax our fictional battalion’s leadership. What is significantly different in this case are years of molding the force and the emerging leaders of that future Modular Force so that when Stacy’s battalion enters combat, it will be on his terms and not a slugfest with a determined alerted enemy. Taking nothing away from the extraordinary performance of the First Cavalry in Vietnam, this chapter highlights that the Army’s preparedness, training, and ability to deal with the unknown on a higher level than in the past. It all starts with the selection and grooming of leaders,
S&T produces more than just hardware. The next chapter explores many of the potential contributions that S&T can contribute to enhance Soldier performance.