The new Army: redefining roles

Infantry Magazine, Jan-Feb, 2007 by Joshua Gaspard

As a young officer of the new Army with two yearlong deployments in the war on terror--Iraq and Afghanistan--I am amazed at the changes I see. From my first experience of the military during the summer of 1998 at the United States Military Academy to the present, I have noticed a growing difference in the operations and leadership of company-level organizations. Ten years ago, commanders would not have imagined that the training, mentorship, and development of young officers would primarily take place in a combat environment. The same commanders would find it unbelievable that these same young officers would conduct nearly all training in a combat environment--with the focus on near-term, combat-related missions. All units in today's new Army encounter these small, yet powerful changes. The adaptiveness and agility of the new Army makes us all reevaluate our priorities to ensure we optimize all efforts to accomplish our missions in the contemporary operating environment.

The reach of the new Army is limitless. Techniques, tactics, basic operations, and even duty positions and responsibilities are in the ripples of the transformation. My personal experience as an airborne infantry headquarters company executive officer (HHC XO) during a recent 13-month deployment to Afghanistan is yet another of the new Army and the vastness of its changes.

The purpose of this article is to show how the influences of the new Army shaped and ultimately redefined the HHC XO duties and responsibilities during my recent efforts in the global war on terrorism.

The transformation I experienced as HHC XO--in addition to my regular duties--was that I assumed the role of the special interest missions of the battalion. One such mission that was repeatedly executed was Village Medical Outreach (VMO). The VMOs allowed our battalion to reach the Afghan population through medical treatment and education, with an Information Operations (IO) influence.

The VMO missions proved to be the largest, most influential non-kinetic operations in our battalion. As the HHC XO, I assumed the role as the VMO commander. This was the most unique position because it involved the integration of more than 15 different skill sets to properly influence the population. With the brigade and battalion commander's intent, I created the vision of the VMO to provide medical, veterinary, dental, mechanic, and humanitarian assistance to the local populace through all of the varying skills sets in our team. After overcoming the initial challenges of building the strategy and composition of the VMO team, we soon had a well-trained, efficient force that could conduct assistance missions in any sector and on any terrain by all forms of transportation to positively influence the population.

The vision of the VMO was to positively influence the populace to create the conditions for combat forces operating in the local area and facilitate intelligence collection. With our vision known, we developed a strategy to achieve results in our area of operations. Each village selected for VMO operations tied into current kinetic operations to assist in the intelligence collection and to foster the positive perception of coalition forces operating in the area. We wanted to maximize the effectiveness of the VMO missions in certain areas by executing them at the end of all large scale kinetic operations. The strategy was for infantry platoons and companies to conduct their operations to kill or capture anti-coalition militants and terrorists over a seven to 10day period. Once the kinetic mission was complete, the VMO team would enter the area to show the populace that we truly cared about their well-being, while also trying to rid their country of terrorists and militants. The long-term strategy was that once we conducted these "linked-missions" several times in certain areas, the populace would develop trust and faith in the coalition forces. With the short and longterm strategies developed and understood, we had to build the VMO team to execute our strategy and influence combat operations.

To build a successful, well-balanced VMO team, our initial challenge was to find all of the personnel needed--the hardest part of this was getting the actual permission to resource the individuals who the VMO team required. Our brigade's support battalion provided the majority of the personnel needed--medical specialists, optometry specialists, dental technicians, mechanic support, and veterinary technicians. Through our brigade and battalion headquarters, we requested civil affairs and psychological operations (PSYOPs) teams, public affairs office (PAO) representatives, tactical human intelligence (HUMINT) teams, and local national medical support (doctors and medics). The final members of the VMO team consisted of elements from our battalion: the security element and the VMO command and control (C2) element. The security element was always an infantry platoon either already on the ground at the future VMO site or at a predetermined link-up site. Its purpose was to escort us to the selected VMO site and provide site security throughout the duration of the VMO.