Air and Missile Defense Soldiers: Historic Transformation

Army, Dec 2004 by Vane, Michael A

The Army is facing the greatest challenge of the 21st century, winning the war against terrorism while transforming to meet an-adaptive, unconventional foe. The world has changed dramatically since 3,000 citizens were killed in the. World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. The citizens of this nation as a whole have come to realize that there are forces out there in the world who literally hate us-forces that want to see us destroyed.

They lurk in the shadows and venture out to hurt those who are considered "untargetable" under conventional moral standards, using combinations of technology and terror to oppress and influence populations.

Faced with this, we have had to show the world that we are more than a "shining city on a hill." We are taking the fight into the strongholds of the enemy, and we are dealing the enemy blow after blow, damaging it daily. We must not weaken as we strike again and again, probing and pushing to exploit the enemy's vulnerabilities. The war is a bloody one and it is not nearing completion. We are a nation at war and the Army is carrying the majority of that load for the nation.

To meet this new enemy we must focus on transforming the force to effectively meet the threat of an enemy without borders, an enemy determined to undermine the freedom and security of millions of people. The first step in transformation is to make training of the soldiers a top priority and to train based on lessons learned.

Air and Missile Defense (AMD) soldiers, like all soldiers, must be infantrymen first. They must understand the mission and know that we are not going to quit, accept defeat or leave a fallen comrade.

AMD soldiers must understand what it takes to win, have a winning mind-set and adapt everything they do to winning. This requires our Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) institutions, such as the AMD school at Fort Bliss, Texas, to produce soldiers and leaders capable of going to combat within 30 days of their arrival at a duty station. The primary focus of training and education must be not only the soldier's technical military occupational specialty, but also the 40 warrior tasks and nine drills that are common to all soldiers.

There is another important aspect to the training and education of soldiers related to winning. The Army must inculcate into the psyche of every soldier that when they leave a secure area, they are no longer on a convoy or a re-supply mission; they are on a patrol and are ready to kill the enemy. This concept of always being prepared, alert and aware of one's surroundings at all times has been a hard lesson for soldiers and leaders, but with the battlefield experiences and deaths of soldiers in Operation Iraqi Freedom, we know that there is no longer a rear or a front line when it comes to the enemy we face today, and we must adapt to that change.

The Army, TRADOC and the Air Defense Artillery branch are taking these lessons seriously. The transformation of AMD is the most significant change since the inception of the branch in 1967. AMD soldiers have always been multifunctional, serving as infantrymen and tank killers and still providing situational awareness to joint commanders.

Changing the design focus from killing fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft to killing cruise missiles (CMs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs), rockets, artillery and mortars (RAMs) is a holistic transformation step, moving away from stove-piped systems within AMD to a system of systems approach that is network-centric and integrated with combined arms and coalition forces and interdependent with joint capabilities of other services.

Analysis of the National security Strategy, transformation guidance and various lessons learned reveals that AMD must provide four essential functions or missions to the joint commander: the capability to kill CMs, UAVs, TBMs and RAMs before they can affect the joint commander's ability to seize terrain, people and resources; situational awareness and understanding in the third dimension linked to all of the capabilities from all the services so that the joint force commander has all of the inputs from surface air platforms that can provide information about the third dimension; contribute to the control of the airspace in conjunction with Army aviation, U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine aviation, as well as coalition and interagency capabilities; integrate operational force protection in what was formerly the rear area and the third dimension, integrating protection on the ground, distributing battlefield control elements, improving battlefield circulation, seeing obstacles-all this through an integration of engineer, military police and some medical capabilities.

AMD has also taken the lessons learned from operational experiences and applied them in the Air Defense School to change doctrine, organization, training, leader development, materiel, personnel and facilities to better meet the needs of the Army and the joint force. It is essential that our education and training institutions emphasize the cultural change of combining multifunctional capabilities to bring to the combined arms commanders.