By Ann Roosevelt

Sustaining the all volunteer force in a time of war and an evolving future seen as one of persistent conflict means the Army needs the funding for the FY ’08 supplemental request and the FY ’09 budget to avoid “substantial impacts” on readiness and unneeded uncertainty and stress in the force, according to the Army Vice Chief of Staff.

“This is a critical time in our history,” Gen. Richard Cody last week told a breakfast meeting of the Institute for Land Warfare of the Association of the United States Army. “It is a time of testing. Testing our resolve as a nation to defeat the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and whether we have the wisdom, courage and foresight to sustain this all volunteer force.”

There are challenges to sustaining the all-volunteer force facing the future, he said. The ability to recruit and retain the quality soldiers to increase the Army and meet current and future operational demands. New soldiers have to be provided quickly to provide strategic depth “so that we can surge again if we need to or meet some other demand.”

The Army must maintain its transformational momentum and not allow the window of opportunity to close, he said.

“We must modernize with our future combat systems to provide our soldiers the technical overmatch they deserve for both irregular warfare and for conventional campaigns,” he said.

“But above all we must not make the historical mistake of assuming away the strategic risk again and neglecting our national defense as we did after World War II, after Korea, after Vietnam and after Desert Shield-Desert Storm,” Cody said. “We as a nation must remember our soldiers and make the hard choices and be support them in deeds, not words and keep our army resourced and ready today and tomorrow.”

The all volunteer force with its 15 month deployments–455 days in combat–has no historical precedent for a volunteer Army, he said. Six years in to the war, more than 900,000 citizens have enlisted and more than 700,000 have reinlisted. Cody last month reenlisted about 300 soldiers in the battle zone, all one or two tour veterans.

“America’s Army, in my opinion, is the strategic center of gravity of this long war and what we have to sustain.”

The service’s success comes down to people, values and transformation, he said.

“I have served, I have led and I’ve cheer-leaded this force,” Cody said. “I have been to basic graduations, I have been to Arlington funerals. And I’ve sat in the ICU waiting rooms on long dark rooms with mothers waiting to see if their soldier was going to make it through.”

Success also stems from the core values and warrior ethos that are a source of strength and guiding principles for the service.

Additionally, Cody said, success also comes from the difficult decision to transform the force while it was at war.

“Because we made the hard choices, your army on the battlefield today is different and much better than the Army of 2003,” Cody said. “We’re on track, I believe, to achieve the most comprehensive transformation of our Army since World War II.”

Importantly, Cody said, the Army is not broken because of its people–people like a recruit he met at Ft. Benning, Ga. After a short speech to new soldiers going through basic training, he brought some 17 and 18 year olds up front to tell their buddies why they joined up. A tall, trim young man told Cody he just graduated from high school, and put off college and was serving because his dad and brother did. Reaching into his pocket to give that soldier a coin for himself and one for his brother, Cody asked, “Son, what year was your brother in? The soldier looked Cody right in the eye and almost came to attention, saying: “Sir, he was in the 4th Infantry Division but he was killed a few months ago and I joined to honor him.”

That’s what Cody means saying the Army is not broken.

“You can’t break pride like that,” Cody said. “You can’t break patriotism like that. It has no price. It has no measurement. But we better understand it. I do believe it has a description. It’s called Army Strong.”

Cody left the stage to a long standing ovation.