Defense Media Network

U.S. Army Year in Review

Resetting the Balance

“There is no way to overstate the challenges facing our Army. But when I think about the individual soldiers – their honor and their courage – I am confident that the United States Army will continue to meet those challenges and – as always – exceed every expectation in the years ahead.”

Casey said the Army has been a leader in a war that has liberated more than 50 million people from tyranny and terror, but has done so at enormous sacrifice.

“Over 1 million of our men and women have served in the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 5,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and civilians have given their lives in this, the longest war that we have ever fought with an all-volunteer force,” he said. “The soldiers, families, and civilians of our Army have been stretched as they have led this nation in what is perhaps our most difficult struggle yet.

“And over the last two-plus years, we have been operating on a plan centered on four imperatives to put our Army back in balance by the end of fiscal year 2011. Those four imperatives are:

• To sustain our soldiers and families – they are the heart and soul of this force.

• To continue to prepare our soldiers for success in the current conflict; we will not flinch on our commitment to provide every soldier going in harm’s way with the training and equipment they need to succeed.

• Third, we will Reset them effectively when they come home, [which] is not an inexpensive function.

• And, lastly, we have to continue to transform for an uncertain future.

“As I’ve said many times, transformation is a journey, not a destination. After two-and-a-half years in this job, I am more convinced than ever that that is the case. And as I look at this environment and the evolving enemy, it’s clear to me that we are in a period of fundamental and continuous change. We all ought to posture ourselves for it.”

Casey said the Army has made good progress on achieving those goals, including completing in 2009 the addition of 65,000 new active duty and 9,000 Guard and Reserve soldiers that had been planned to occur between 2007 and 2012. As demands on the all-volunteer force remained high, however, Gates authorized an additional 22,000 active duty soldiers, on a temporary basis, to fill out units being deployed to Afghanistan and end the Army’s controversial stop-loss policy.

“We also continue to make good progress on our conversion to modular organizations across the Army and rebalancing our forces away from skills more necessary in the Cold War to skills more necessary today,” he said. “We started this in 2004. We’re almost 90 percent done with converting the 300 brigades in this Army to modular organizations. That’s a huge accomplishment. Those changes represent the largest reorganization of the Army since World War II. And we’ve done that while deploying 150,000 soldiers over and back to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

One of the most important goals, Casey added, is still being pursued: Increasing the dwell/deployment ratio so that, by 2011, active-duty personnel spend two years at home for every year abroad, Guard and Reserves four years.

“As I’ve gone through this job, it’s become clear to me that the most important element of getting ourselves back in balance is to improve dwell. We have made some progress in that with the drawdown in Iraq, but looking us in the face are the decisions that have yet to be made about Afghanistan,” he said.

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J.R. Wilson has been a full-time freelance writer, focusing primarily on aerospace, defense and high...