The Army's new TRADOC Culture Center

Military Review, Nov-Dec, 2006 by Remi Hajjar

The TRADOC Culture Center is a vital part of the U.S. Army's transformational CA campaign. The Center has already added value to the force by creating solid CA classes on relevant cultures for Army schools and courses, deploying units, and the Army at large. Like any new organization, however, it faces some preliminary challenges, including securing long-term funding and additional resources to meet growing requests for CA support. The Center must also refine and expand its regional analysis and associated CA classes. Clearly, though, TRADOC's Culture Center benefits the U.S. Army. All members of the profession should tap into this valuable new institution to bolster force-wide cultural awareness.

How to Request Training Support

The Center plans its training schedule out to 18 months, but its calendar fills up quickly. The deputy director hopes to expand the size of the Center as soon as possible to increase its ability to fulfill all of its missions and requests for support, including providing personnel to travel to Army installations worldwide. Art Vigil, the Center's current scheduler, is the point of contact for arranging CA training. If your unit wants CA training support from the Center, contact Vigil at <art.vigil@us.army.mil>, giving him as much lead time as possible.

Major Remi Hajjar, U.S. Army

NOTES

(1.) See MG (now LTG) Peter Chiarelli and MAJ Patrick Michaelis, "Winning the Peace: The Requirement for Full Spectrum Operations," Military Review (July-August 2005): 6.

(2.) For more information, see U.S. Army Intelligence Center, USAIC Cultural Center Proposal (Fort Huachuca, AZ: May 2005).

(3.) Ibid., 3.

(4.) Ibid., 6.

(5.) Ibid., 9-14.

(6.) See "The U.S. Army Intelligence Center Opens the TRADOC Culture Center," The Fort Huachuca Scout, 9 February 2006, A3.

(7.) Ibid.

(8.) U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC), "Cultural Awareness Training in Common Core PME [Professional Military Education]: Decision Brief to Commanding General, CAC," 14 September 2005, 13-14. Figure 2 comes from this briefing. (9.) Ibid., 15. Figure 3 comes from this briefing.

(10.) Based on an interview with another Army commander, it seems this particular Army unit is on the cusp of incorporating tier 3 and 4 CA classes in its PM E curriculum, which should ameliorate concern about the lack of senior-level CA training. In this case, it seems the issue boils down to a matter of actually applying the higher order CA training in PME classes as opposed to critiquing the CA material.

Major Remi Hajjar, U.S. Army, is completing the University of Foreign Military and Culture Studies at Fort Leavenworth. He recently graduated from the Command and General Staff College and prior to that served as an assistant professor #1 the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy (USMA). He received a B.S. from USMA and an M.A. from Northwestern University. He has served in a variety of command and staff positions in support of the 25th Infantry Division (Light) at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and the U. S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.