By Ann Roosevelt
The Chief of the Army Reserve is concerned that while his troops are being used as an operational force, the base budget is still built around a strategic force model.
“By law and by budget…we have 39 days a year to train the force….That’s a strategic reserve model,” said Chief of the Army Reserve Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz at a Defense Writers Group breakfast yesterday.
Last year, the Army Reserve had a roughly $7 billion base budget with another $500 million or so in overseas contingency operations funds, he said. The Reserve is a “pretty good return on investment.”
As a strategic reserve, the force was funded at 39 days a year with the expectation that if the operational Army needed the soldiers, they’d be called to active duty and trained for six or nine or perhaps 12 months before they were ever used. Extra training time was not needed.
In fact, that was what happened in 2002 and 2003 when Reserves began to be called up, Stultz said. The strategic model was used, with some units training for as many as 24 months before deployment.
“Now we’ve gone to an operational reserve model which says we want you to show up trained and ready” and the Defense Secretary limits mobilitization to 12 months, he said. The Reserves now deploy for one year and are at home three to three and a half years. The plan over time is to reach one year deployed to five years at home.
“We’ve said we can do that, but in the year prior to the mobilization we need some extra training days, not a tremendous amount: maybe 29 days instead of 15,” Stultz said.
Now, however, the budget is still funded at 39 days as it was when the Reserve was considered a strategic force.
On Reserve equipment, Stultz is concerned more about modernization than shortages. The Reserves need all their authorized equipment, but also needs to be smart about how it is distributed, he said.
For example, a unit in reset perhaps won’t need all its equipment, so why not put some at a training site to fall in on, he said.
As an example, the Oshkosh Corp. [OSK] Heavy Equipment Transporter (HET) trucks are oversize and need permits to drive on U.S. roads, he said. A HET company of 299 soldiers has 96 HET vehicles. All the vehicles must be there to deploy, but at home, soldiers could keep some vehicles at a training center or in an area where they’d be maintained.
Similarly, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAP) and MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles will be parceled out to different units, not completely fielded, so soldiers can train on them and not meet them for the first time when they deploy.
Additionally, Stultz is examining simulations, which might save money, for example, in weapons training.
During a Reserve soldier’s first year or so at home, perhaps he or she doesn’t need to go to a range for live fire weapons training, which could save time and the cost of ammunition, trucking the soldier to the range, putting them up overnight, feeding them, and other costs, he said. The saved funds could be used for live fire weapons training in the third and fourth years at home, closer to being ready to deploy.
Also, bringing simulations to soldiers could potentially save time and money, though it would need to be value added and realistic, he said. For example, mandatory training could be ported to soldiers at home, so they wouldn’t necessarily have to go to a Reserve Center and sit in a classroom.
This is something a family member does at university, he said. Lectures come over the Internet, while labs and tests and other events are on campus.
“When are we going to catch up.”
However, some things won’t change: “We’re not going to do PE [Physical Education] that way,” he said.
But nothing will happen overnight, as the Reserve needs to evaluate how to do it, the cost and security implications and if it would save money.