By Ann Roosevelt
The pace and change the Army is going through can be seen in the 3rd Infantry Division, according to its commander.
“I have about 5,000-plus soldiers in Iraq, about 150 in Afghanistan,” Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division and Fort Stewart/Hunter Army Airfield, Ga., told Defense Daily recently.
Third Infantry Division was the first conventional unit to enter Baghdad in 2003 and became the first to serve three tours in Iraq. Upon returning from Iraq, 1st brigade was reorganized to the new modular design, the first brigade in the Army to do so, officially becoming the First Brigade Combat Team.
The bulk of the soldiers in Iraq are from 4th Brigade Combat Team (BCT)–3rd Infantry Division consists of four BCTs, a sustainment brigade, an aviation brigade, and other separate units. About 1,000 of the 5,000 soldiers are sustainment brigade troops; the bulk of the soldiers in Afghanistan are military police.
“They’ve just come home from 15 months, they’ve just changed out their leadership and we are now preparing for the next deployment,” he said.
This is the pattern followed by other Army units, said Cucolo, who took command of the division in July following a stint in the Pentagon as chief of public affairs.
It was an easy transition, he said, because “every couple of years a new challenge is thrown at you” in the Army.
As chief of public affairs, the Army senior leadership kept him in the middle of all the decisions being made, and with other senior leaders, he heard the discussions leading to the decision, he said. “A difference is I am now distant from where the decisions are being made but I’ve got the experience with this leadership team that when I hear a decision made I can understand the context immediately of how it was made.”
For 3rd Infantry Division, the next deployment for the headquarters is next autumn– currently planned for Iraq–then several brigades are on the schedule for deployment for late next year and beyond.
“Everyone will get at least 12 months at home, right now,” he said. Some will get even more time at home.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey chose 3rd ID’s 1st BCT as the reset pilot, where the unit would spend the first six months focusing on regenerating itself, and at the six-month mark begin collective training.
“What that means to a brigade commander is you get people earlier than a normal reset and it’s a good thing because that 1st Brigade Combat Team is the first CCMRF,” Cucolo said. The first C stands for CBRNE-chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive, then, Consequence Management Response Force.
“This is the first time that active duty units have been placed under the control of Northern Command to respond to a catastrophic event in the continental United States,” he said.
“Because 1st Brigade Combat Team was a pilot reset unit, they got their people and they could prepare to be the C-CMRF,” he said. “And six months after coming home they’re at a strong enough personnel strength and have done the requisite training, most of which was done at home, the first of October, they became the operations task force for this national response force that belongs to Northern Command.”
Cucolo is responsible for 1st BCT administration, training and readiness but “if the phone rings and it’s Northern Command,” they go and belong to that command.
On Oct. 1, 2009, the 1st BCT comes off C-CMRF duty and begins training for Iraq. It is expected to deploy several months later.
For future C-CMRF units, the Army intends to use a maneuver-enhancement brigade.
“That’s smart, because in a maneuver enhancement brigade you have engineers, you have chemical troops, you have a lot of the natural skill sets that you would need for your immediate response force,” Cucolo said. “Because what you get with 1st Brigade Combat team right now are infantrymen, tankers, artillerymen, cavalrymen and great logisticians, and engineers whose focus has been responding to a catastrophic event.”
The 3rd ID headquarters is a deployable unit on its own, Cucolo said. “I have a potential two star combined joint task force headquarters that I have to train, equip and have prepared to deploy so that means my focus is more than ever on the capabilities of the deployable JTF headquarters.”
He is more personally involved in its training, and the strengths and weaknesses of its personnel [and such things as] whether or not we’ve got the latest software and hardware to communicate.
“Whereas division commanders years ago would be more focused on the subordinate units, I am more focused on the JTF headquarters aspect but maintaining training and readiness and assessment of the subordinate units,” he said.
With returning troops more used to decision making at lower levels in theater, commanders such as Cucolo consider how to deal with troops back in garrison, to some extent like the 1918 World War I song, “How ‘Ya Gonna Keep’Em Down on the Farm (After they’ve Seen Paree).”
“The BCT is a self-sustaining independent outfit, today’s brigade commanders in my opinion need the leeway to command in garrison because when they are deployed they are alone,” Cucolo said. “They are dispersed, they’re not closely supervised, so you want them to be making decisions, being creative coming up with ideas on their own in garrison and we encourage that. And that needs to be the command climate within the brigade combat team. That should get down to the junior officers and NCOs.”
It’s a double edge sword though, he said. At home, part of the military career and learning how organizations run and being good stewards of resources means, for example you can’t take the same approach to property accountability as was done in combat conditions.
“I just went through the training briefs for this first quarter, October-November-December,” he said. “The units themselves, not me, the units themselves at junior officer professional development classes and NCO professional development classes, the topics they picked were block-and-tackle garrison operation. They picked themselves, property accountability: how to do it correctly; counseling…Something as simple as writing efficiency reports, because some of these skills that were second nature to us in the Cold War because we had time to do them in detail, those skills have atrophied with this high [Operational Tempo] OPTEMPO.”
But out at the range, training in the field is where creativity and current operational environment rule, he said. “I had guys tell me, sir, what we want to do on this range, we’re going to do a mounted live fire, so they’re going to be firing their crew-served weapons from the top of the vehicle and then they’re going to get targets close in so they have to pick their rifle up and shoot from the top of the vehicle, because that happens.”
A range on Ft. Stewart was just changed so troops could fire over obstacles and around corners, things they faced in theater. “We’re changing the way we train.”
It is also the intangibles that make a difference to the troops, a sense of camaraderie “In 3rd ID, we’re rejuvenating unit traditions, customs, each battalion has its own unique history, so you foster unit pride and a sense of belonging, and that’s actually something you don’t get on the outside.”