Chief of Army Reserve Criticizes Policies

2 hours, 28 minutes ago

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - The Army Reserve, whose part-time soldiers serve in combat and support roles in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), is so hampered by misguided Army policies and practices that it is "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," the Reserve's most senior general says.



Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, wrote in an internal memorandum to the Army's top uniformed officer that the Reserve has reached the point of being unable to fulfill its missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and to regenerate its forces for future missions.

The Army Reserve has about 200,000 soldiers, nearly 52,000 of them on active duty for the war on terrorism, mainly in Iraq. They provide combat support, medical care, transportation, legal services and other support. About 50 have died so far in the Iraq war.

Helmly's Dec. 20 memo is addressed to Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, and was first reported in Wednesday's editions of the Baltimore Sun, whose Web site has a link to the eight-page document. Two officials who saw the original memo confirmed its contents to The Associated Press.

"The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability under current policies, procedures and practices ... to meet mission requirements associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom," Helmly wrote, using the military's names for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

"The Army Reserve is additionally in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational requirements," including those in classified contingency plans for other potential wars or national emergencies, "and is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," Helmly wrote.

The Army Reserve's ability to regenerate its recently deployed forces is "eroding daily," he added, in part because Reserve troops who finish tours in Iraq and Afghanistan are required to leave substantial amounts of their equipment for other forces and for contractors.

Helmly also referred to a practice, not previously disclosed, of requiring each Reserve soldier who receives a mobilization order with less than 30 days notice to sign a "volunteer statement." From his brief description of the practice it appears that this is done to reduce the number of reported cases of short-notice, involuntary mobilizations.

He also criticized the practice of offering Reserve soldiers an extra $1,000 a month if they volunteer to be mobilized a second time. This confuses "volunteers" with "mercenaries," he said.

Helmly's blunt description of these problems is the sort of internal attack that rarely becomes public, although some private defense analysts and members of Congress have openly questioned whether the strains on the Army caused by the Iraq war would eventually threaten the all-volunteer force.

Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., said Wednesday he was disturbed by the concerns raised in Helmly's memo.

"By consistently underestimating the number of troops necessary for the successful occupation of Iraq, the administration has placed a tremendous burden on the Army Reserve and created this crisis," Reed said.

Al Schilf, a spokesman for Helmly, said the three-star general was not available Wednesday to discuss the issues raised in his memo. The Sun quoted Helmly as saying in an interview Tuesday that he stands by his memo and that it contains his best professional assessment.

Col. Joe Curtin, a spokesman at Army headquarters in the Pentagon (news - web sites), said the Army has a group of experts studying a wide range of problems facing not only the Army Reserve but also the Army National Guard.

"These issues are largely being addressed now," Curtin said. "General Helmly's concerns are of a serious nature, and the Army realizes it has to work very hard and diligently to resolve them, and our intent is to resolve those issues."

Since President Bush (news - web sites) launched a global war on terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, about 65,000 Army Reserve soldiers have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Pentagon figures.

Among Helmly's other complaints:

_ The Army is relying too heavily on volunteers to mobilize for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most likely to volunteer are "those who often enjoy lesser responsible positions in civilian life," he said.

_ The Army has failed to use its legal authority to call to active duty those members of the Reserve who have violated their service contract, by missing training or other actions. Helmly said he asked for but was not given the authority to discharge those Reserve members, who number 16,400.

So uh, he's saying they need more troops over there is what I got outta that. I played with GI Joe's as a kid, I know a fair amount about military strategy. Oh, and Risk too.

I'm sorry, but this reporter is barking up the wrong tree in regards to the Army and the Army Reserve. He shouldn't be complaining about bonuses to Soldiers who volunteer to go over. I take acception to being a reservist forced to go overseas, and would LOVE an extra grand a month, but to call them mercinaries is absolutely the most ignorant thing I've ever read. I mean, you're gonna call a grand a month a pay off, then what is the GI Bill? What is multi-thousand dollar signing bonuses? What is 2 year contracts? A thousand bucks a month is small time money, and I'd say it's good money to increase retention, and get willing volunteers to serve. The other acception I take, is that he wants the Army to call up into action people who DON'T WANT TO BE THERE! Since my unit has become actively involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, we didn't call up any of our dead Marines. We processed all of them for admin seperation. If you were serving, who would you want next to you in a fighting hole, someone who didn't want to be there, someone who hadn't trained? Or someone with his head in the game?

The problem with Army goes back to the nineties. The Army as itself as a whole was gradually transformed for a mostly diverse and capable fighting force, into what my leaders call "a bunch of left hand wrench turners." That is to say, it's full of specialists. These are soldiers that specialize in computers, maintainence, teaching policemen, surgical assistants, crap like that. These are soldiers that have absolutely no familiarization with the M16 service rifle, let alone combat situations. This is what the Army has turned into.

Think Private Lynch. Her incident should have never happened. They had a master sargaent in charge of their four vehicle convoy. That's a man who's been doing maintainance for over a decade in the Army. This ten year + veteran got his convoy LOST! This master sargeant didn't even know how to read a map. On top of that, all the drivers and A-drivers involved either didn't know how to read a map, or didn't have the tact to tell the master sargeant they were lost and in a danger area. Then they get ambushed because they got lost. They were so unprepared for such a situation that three out of the four vehicles CRASHED! Whoever wasn't already dead or seriously injured then made a run for it and fight it out. Well, none of their guns fired because they didn't know how to use. They didn't know how to maintain them, they didn't know how to unclog their jammed weapons. They were using CLP in a desert environment. Every fucking US Marine in Iraq knows NOT to leave CLP on the bolt. You fire a dry bolt in a desert environment because CLP is specifically made to attract dirt and dust. Even with a jamming weapon clogged with sand, you can still fire the thing...they had no clue, and all those soldiers died because of it.

So, that in a nutshell is what is wrong with the Army. It became an undertrained peacetime force full of specialists with no combat experience. And if you think the active duty side is bad, just multiply that by some large magnitude and you have the Army Reserves. The tally of 50 dead Army reserve's...that is a serious low ball. The tally is much higher. We've been prepping for our mission overseas, and have been getting our active duty ID cards at an Army reserve center on the other side of Rochester. There was an E-8 in the unit who hadn't fired a rifle in over TWENTY FUCKING YEARS!

Next you take the GI Bill effect. For a decade the Army was attracting subpar personel to fill its recuiting quota's. They basically bought people off by throwing lots of money at them. So now you have a force full of individuals who joined for the money. Now that bullets are flying, the cowards are coming out. People aren't reporting for duty. The Army National Guard will be especially hard hit in retaining people. These sectors of the Armed Forces are just full of kids who enlisted during a time of unprecidented peace, not expecting to ever dodge a bullet. The National Guard is also suffering because of recruiting...you can't throw money at people and expect them to go into a combat zone.

That's why I joined the Marine Corp. The people in the Marine Corp want to be there. They are there to serve, not to pick up a big fat check and pick up rank. And until the Army becomes a force such as this. A diverse force, where everyone is a rifleman, where everyone fires a rifle and knows how to save his own life, they are going to face problems like this.

A lot of people want to wave a magic wand to fix it. Kerry wanted to have three more divisions...and it don't work like that. It would take a DECADE to get three divisions in the Army back up to account for troop losses. The main problem being is that the people presently in the Army would have to fill enough leadership billets, NCO's, Staff NCO's, officers, warrant officers to lead the new divisions. You have to train more soldiers, recruit them...

This was a serious problem that was created after GWI under complacency in our government. It's a shame too, because we're in a situation that was completely avoidable.

i'm aware that there are problems with the personnel and training as you pointed out above, but i can tell you from MY experience in both the active Army and the Florida National Guard, all we did was train. i think it really has to do with the individual units, i don't think you can make these blanket statements about these two organizations.

when i was active duty, i was in a rear support communications unit. every thursday, we had "sergeant's time" which was a full day of nothing but training on anything from first aid, perimeter defense, weapons maintenance, and NBC training. we went into the field on average one week out of every month. we trained our asses off. and we fired our weapons for qualification around four times a year. i don't care if i ever clean another M-16.

in the Florida National Guard, we trained even harder than i did in active duty because i was in an infantry support unit. we had less time than an active duty unit to be ready to go at any given moment. we spent our whole two weeks of AT in the woods, doing war games, having our perimeter attacked, in "full battle rattle" at all times.

after i left, i heard things about "stress cards" and co-ed training in basic training. i didn't agree with it. i think a lot of what is going on in basic training and AIT is the problem with today's military. from the get-go, we're coddling them, we're not being tough enough in today's "don't yell at me" world.

i'll admit, as i always did, that i only joined the military for the college money. but at the same time, i would go wherever they told me to while i was under contract. that was my part of the bargain. that's what i agreed to. these people that are pussying out because they only wanted the money have a problem to begin with and that's called personal responsibility. don't blame the army for that one.

Yes, you are definitely right about different units training differently. It's the same within the Marine Corp as well, and even within my own tank battalion.

I see you're 33. I'm guessing you were in the Army right around the Gulf War correct? The Army was a different entity than it was back then. The degradation within the Army didn't take place until the mid nineties...at least the majority of it.

But as you said, there are serious problems within...not necessary battalions, or divisions of the Army, but particular company's in the Army. My Staff Sargeant who served in Iraq described it as, "the officers have absolutely no control over their enlisted men."

To put it in a grimmer perspective. A refueling convoy was heading into Baghdad during post-war period. Army that is to say. My Staff Sargeant was put in charge of building a series of schools in and around the Euphrates river south of Naseriya. They came a bridge of tributary to the river, and noticed smoke. The tail vehicle had crashed and one of the men was inside the humvee. A Lance Corporal saved him, brought him to shore. The convoy never noticed, and even afterwards KNEW that they had lost a vehicle and two men. An army GENERAL came by, asked what was going on, and left the soldier in the pocession of the Marines...that's sick to me. Just sick.

In Naseriya, the Army left SIX men. SIX FREAKIN' MEN IN THE CITY! The Marines from Battalion were the Marines who fought for Naseriya, some of my best friends were on the infamous "stuck on the otherside of Euphrates for three days with no ammo or food and presumed dead" story. Well. When we finally made into the actual city, a captain from a unit out of Syracuse NY single handedly saved the lives of those six soldiers, got a bronze star for it.

I just don't understand how the Army is functioning from my perspective.

But it is small unit leadership problems and perhaps scattered, if not isolated.

The Powell Doctrine, at work in the first Gulf War, yeilded a far more capable army than the present one.

I think things would have been better in Iraq had Powell been our secretary of defense instead of state.

The Powell Doctrine created an Army that was not concentrated on ground warfare, or infantry warfare. It basically became a presumption that we could win any war with technology. And although that was proven true in GWII, it was an enormous miscalculation in peacetime operations that we're going through right now, and it endangered many left handed wrench turners in the Army who Powell and other masters of war never foresaw the need for them to have to dodge bullets and shoot back.

LW, you're right. i got to my PDS right as they were returning from the Gulf War and left as they were leaving for Bosnia. i was lucky i guess. i also see the "pussying" of the Army a direct result of recruiting strategy. they're making it easier for people to make it through basic training and AIT so any jackass can basically make it through and they lack the discipline and strength for the job. and it may not just be a recruiting strategy. i think some of it is also stemming from pressure from the private sector to not be "so mean" to recruits (i heard DI's aren't allowed to yell at recruits if their stress card says not to ). i agree that the army was much stronger under powell and shalikashvili or whatever the hell that dude's name was.

Thats clever, now we have a neurotic military who doesn't deal well with stress. Luckily the war in Iraq has been relatively quaint, I cannot wait until these nutjobs get to rotate back into civilian sector I am sure they will acclimate nicely....

As do I.

I think it was Shenseki.

Not sure on the spelling.

i know it was pronounced shal-ikash-vili

only because he was in my "chain of command" that i had to have memorized. i wonder if they still even do that.

Yes! Now we can all understand why I joined the Marine Corp, and surrounded myself with individuals who joined to serve, not to get lots of money. Thankfully when I go overseas here soon, I will feel completely comfortable with everyone in my fire team, squad, and platoon. No worries.

Now if I had joined the Army.

It's funny, you look at what situations Marines are dying in, and compare them to situations where the Army is dying in...

Apparently in Iraq, the insurgency knows a couple things.

Don't attack certain humvees. They know the style of humvees used by the Army. They attack the Army, so the Army dies in roadside bombings more often than not. Whereas the insurgency almost never attacks Marine Corp convoys, or Italian convoys in particular (I here the Italians are some bad ass mo-fo's.) Marines die in hardcore fights like Fallujah, and in helicopter crashes. The whole military should be trained like the corp.

LW,

It is obvious you are proud of the marines and think all other branches are inferior.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, because you need to have that pride in your service. It should be engrained.

You remind me so much of my neighbor who served as a marine in Afghanistan and Iraq! He was always making for of the air force!

Speaking of the USAF....

LW brings up a great point that training is everything and that technology will only lead so far.

A classic example is of the late-Soviet fighters (Mig-29 and Su-27), which were technically superior to western fighters of the era (F-16 and F-15) but exhibited far lesser battle records than US fighters.

The conclusion? While these fighters were superior on paper and when flown by highly skilled acrobat/airshow Russian pilots (but NOT the everyday soldier), they were quite inferior when flown by pilots of lesser training. Israeli, Saudi, and US pilots flying the western variants have outscored the Russian jets by nearly 100%. If the Russian jets were in the hands of the skilled US pilots, the figure would be 100%.

Technology is wonderful, but training is VITAL.

Wow Little Wing, way to support your fellow troops, you fucking hypocrite.

i can only defend the army of the era i was in. and that era was superior to any of the other branches. and i support any soldier in any branch today. i have incredible amounts of respect for all of them for doing what they are no matter what branch or how much training.