2005: The Year of Equipping In the Army Reserve

Army, Feb 2005 by Helmly, James R

The issue of how the Army equips its reserve components recently made national headlines, dominating talk radio and television news. Clearly, the American people are vitally interested in seeing that their soldiers-including those in the Army Reserve and National Guard-have the best equipment available.

For the Army Reserve, this means deep, profound and enduring change in the way we do business. The way we previously equipped the Army Reserve no longer fits how we go to war. We must change-and we are. The Army Reserve faces several challenges in equipping-wartime losses, compatibility, modernization and resources. In response, we are pursuing dynamic new strategies to mobilize, train and equip our force. Coupled with more aggressive Army procurement, these efforts will position the Army Reserve to achieve Army transformation and support the global war on terrorism. To focus our attention on this critically important aspect of war fighting, I have designated 2005 "the year of equipping" in the Army Reserve.

We are an Army Reserve serving an Army and a nation at war. As our country enters the fourth year following the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Army Reserve remains decisively engaged, shoulder to shoulder with the Army in joint and expeditionary operations around the world. Throughout 2004, the Army Reserve maintained an average of more than 50,000 soldiers mobilized per month, with most deployed overseas to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In all, more than 120,000 Army Reserve soldiers have answered the call to serve on active duty since 2001.

As the operational tempo of the Army Reserve has increased, so has the challenge of equipping the force. Now, more than ever, equipping requires our attention, energy and innovation. Without the right equipment available on time, we risk our soldiers' ability to accomplish the mission and we jeopardize their survivability, safety and morale. In the larger sense, our equipment shortages decrease the potential for retaining combat-tested veterans and achieving our mission of recruiting new soldiers.

News reports from Baghdad to Kabul highlight the equipping problems our soldiers face, from individual body armor and M4 carbine rifles to armor kits for tactical wheeled vehicles. Installing add-on armor and issuing these vehicles and individual body armor to all units arriving in theater continues to be an Army priority. Ensuring soldiers have the proper equipment to do their job is one way we take care of our soldiers-we adapt and improvise as conditions change.

We also take care of soldiers by preparing the force to fight tomorrow's wars. In this regard, the Army Reserve must be positioned to support the Army's transformation to a modular Future Force. A modular active component (AC) combat force requires equipment compatibility with the support force provided by the reserve components, including tactical communications, weapons, vehicles, and battle command and control systems, such as intelligence platforms-compatibility that does not exist today.

Owing to its structural organization, the Army Reserve is almost wholly structured to perform combat support and combat service support at what is currently known as echelons above division and corps. Most Army Reserve units are not authorized the weapons, tactical communications and other types of equipment necessary to fight and survive on today's nonlinear, asymmetrical battlefield. During the final decades of the twentieth century, the Army Reserve placed priority on equipping units expected to deploy in a tiered sequence to a combat theater. In Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF), more than 30 percent of Army Reserve units have deployed out of sequence, a reality that has caused us to cross-level or redistribute assets internally. To meet deployment criteria, the Army Reserve executed almost 40,000 lateral transfers of more than 250,000 end items between mobilizing and nonmobilizing units.

Not only are we losing equipment that has been destroyed during combat, but our aging inventory is wearing out under extremely heavy usage. After action reports from Iraq and Afghanistan indicate that almost 20 percent of our equipment in the desert is wearing out because of the high rate of use in extreme conditions during its deployment, and as a result, it is left in theater when the units redeploy to home station. To better equip incoming units, the Army has directed that a portion of Army Reserve equipment remain as stay behind equipment and that vehicles outfitted with add-on armor remain in theater. These wartime losses quickly add up and decrease the equipment available to stateside Army Reserve units that are training and preparing for future deployments.

More than three years of desert battlefield experience has proven that too much Army Reserve equipment is still incompatible and not interoperable with AC equipment. This lack of compatibility degrades our ability to support the fight.

One method the Army Reserve uses to equip the force has, in part, resulted in this incompatibility. To meet equipment readiness standards, the Army Reserve often substitutes equipment that does the same job, but typically requires training, maintenance and repair parts that differ from the precise items listed on authorization documents. For example, the Army Reserve continues to substitute 1980s vintage five-ton trucks and 1970s series two-and-a-half-ton trucks in place of the more modern light medium tactical vehicles and family of medium tactical vehicles.