text stringlengths 59 1.12k |
|---|
that kept Somervell on task and held the ASF together was the obligation to sustain warfighting commanders and the Soldiers who served them. If unity of purpose was lost to |
the ASF organization, the ASF gained from efficiencies resulting from the unified effort to sustain our Soldiers at war. Combat Service Support Group Following World War II, the Army began |
establishing combat development agencies as a way for each branch of the Army to integrate new technologies and tactical organizations into the combat Army. Ultimately, all combat development agencies were |
realigned under a unified Combat Developments Command (CDC) in 1962 as part of an extensive reorganization of the Army. The CDC established two combat development “integrating agencies” modeled after the |
mission and functions of the AGF and ASF of World War II. One agency integrated the development of combat and combat support functions, and the other, the Combat Service Support |
Group, acted as integrator for what we today would call the sustainment function. The combat development agencies of the Adjutant General’s, Finance, Judge Advocate General’s, and Chaplain branches were joined |
with the various logistics combat development agencies of the Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Transportation branches to form the Combat Service Support Group, headquartered at Fort Lee, Virginia. Corresponding with the larger |
Army reorganization, the Army Command and General Staff College adopted the concept of combat service support to identify the varied, yet related, functions that together defined the sustainment mission. In |
its essence, the Combat Service Support Group represented a reconstitution of the sustainment concept embedded in the ASF of World War II. The CDC managed the Army’s total combat development |
effort until the end of the Vietnam War. Personnel Issues During the Vietnam War Following the Vietnam War and the gut-wrenching realization that many of the Army’s most serious operational |
issues were related to the “personnel system,” senior leaders of the Army began to question the ASF model that had framed the sustainment concept since the beginning of World War |
II. Early in the Vietnam War, it had taken the wife of an Army battalion commander embroiled in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley to convince senior Pentagon officials that |
yellow-cab delivery of casualty notification telegrams to Soldiers’ next-of-kin was deeply insensitive and destructive of homefront morale. The draft, used to sustain manpower levels in the Vietnam War, had embittered |
many who objected to conscription on principle and others who believed it forced into service a disproportionate number of poor, working-class, and minority members of U.S. society. Racial problems in |
society at large had been magnified in the military by the collapsing public support for the war. Drug and alcohol abuse among military personnel was rampant. Replacement and rotation policies |
that caused constant personnel turbulence had undermined unit integrity and the commitment of Soldiers to one another and the mission. Perceived failings of command in Vietnam gave rise to the |
study of military leadership and the historical and ethical foundations of the military profession. Together with the dissolution of the draft, the advent of the all-volunteer Army, and the commitment |
to more thoroughly integrate women into the force, the personnel lessons of the Vietnam War created a highly charged environment conducive to a full-scale assault on the Army’s personnel system. |
Army Training and Doctrine Command Emerging from the many discussions concerning the personnel lessons learned from the Vietnam War were plans to establish a “clearing house” (an administrative center or |
school complex) that would form the center of gravity for an Army-wide personnel system. The opportunity to establish an agency of this kind came with Operation Steadfast, the 1973 reorganization |
of the Army that disestablished the Continental Army Command and the Combat Developments Command. From Operation Steadfast came two new commands, the Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and the |
Army Forces Command. TRADOC, as the name implied, became responsible for Army training, doctrine, and combat developments. At the core of the new TRADOC organization were three mid-level “integrating centers” |
for combat developments: the Combined Arms Center (CAC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; the Logistics Center (LOGC) at Fort Lee; and the Administration Center (ADMINCEN) at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. CAC |
and LOGC were essentially re-creations of former Combat Developments Command operating agencies; ADMINCEN was a new organization altogether. Based partly on lessons from the Vietnam experience, planners intended ADMINCEN to |
become the collection point for all matters related to the Army’s personnel system and the human dimension of military operations. It was a kind of doctrinal “think tank” and training |
ground that directly extended from the mission of the Army G–1 and its associated branches and specialties. Considerable resistance to ADMINCEN was voiced by members of the Operation Steadfast study |
group, who balked at the idea of elevating personnel doctrine, training, and combat developments to near-equal status with the combined arms and logistics missions. However, the Continental Army Command commander, |
General Ralph E. Haines, Jr., directed that ADMINCEN be included in the detailed plan of reorganization. The establishment of ADMINCEN reflected the view of General Haines and other senior military |
officials that a refashioned personnel system was critical to restoring public confidence in the Army, recovering from the war’s assault on Soldier morale and unit cohesion, and building an all-volunteer |
force. Chief of Staff of the Army General Creighton W. Abrams, Jr., testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee in March 1974, called the management of human resources the Army’s “single |
most important function. . . . Unless we run our people programs well, the Army itself will not be well.” Likewise, Lieutenant General Bernard W. Rogers, then the Army’s Deputy |
Chief of Staff for Personnel, began to take a hard look at the way the Army managed its people. He said that the Army’s personnel system should “provide in the |
right place at the right time the required number of qualified, motivated people to accomplish the Army’s mission, and to provide for their maintenance and care as well as that |
of their dependents.” As the Army’s focal point for personnel and personnel systems, ADMINCEN became the proponent for a new category of military operations called personnel service support (PSS). In |
July 1973, the ADMINCEN was activated at Fort Benjamin Harrison. The Personnel and Administration Combat Development Activity, ADMINCEN’S combat development activity, assumed responsibility for integrating the doctrine, organization, and equipment |
developments of the Adjutant General’s, Finance, Chaplain, Judge Advocate General’s, Medical Service, and Women’s Army Corps. The Personnel and Administration Combat Development Activity’s integrating mission also included the Defense Information |
School (for public affairs) and the Army School of Music (for Army bands). The three-center model, which was the basis for TRADOC’s organization, constituted a restructuring of the sustainment model |
that had been in place since the Army reorganized for World War II. Instead of the one-piece model, Operation Steadfast institutionalized a two-piece model—one piece to address logistics functions and |
another for personnel and administration. Much like ASF of old, ADMINCEN became a magnet for every developmental mission and program that did not fit clearly into either combat and combat |
support (CAC’s focus) or logistics (LOGC’s focus) mission areas. Also like ASF, ADMINCEN struggled from the beginning to build a commonly held vision and understanding of purpose and mission. During |
the command’s 17-year history, it went through no less than 10 major reorganizations, each hoping to build a unity of purpose that had eluded it from the very beginning. In |
1980, ADMINCEN reorganized into the Army Soldier Support Center as a result of the mandate to manage and develop programs related to the human dimension of military operations. Soldier Support |
Institute The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s brought immediate demands from Congress and the public at large to radically |
reduce the defense budget and take advantage of the “peace dividend.” Those demands essentially called for the demobilization of the Nation’s defense structure that had been built to deter Soviet |
and Communist aggression around the world. The war against Iraq in 1990 and 1991 interrupted the debate but did little to alter the political intent to reduce deficit spending and |
shift public funds formerly allocated for defense to other areas. TRADOC’s initial response to the reality of post-Cold War military budgets was to “reengineer” its combat development program. A significant |
piece of the plan called for eliminating the Army Soldier Support Center by consolidating it with LOGC at Fort Lee. The resulting organization, the Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM), |
like the Combat Service Support Group before it, assumed responsibility for the combat, doctrine, and training developments of the Army’s logistics and personnel and administrative functional areas. The Soldier Support |
Center was reduced to a “schools” center, the Army Soldier Support Institute, which included the Adjutant General, Finance, and Recruiting and Retention Schools and a Noncommissioned Officer Academy. The May |
1990 CASCOM organization plan went through four phases and took 4 years to complete. Under phase 1 of the plan, people and funds supporting the PSS integrating mission were transferred |
to CASCOM. The final phase of the project called for the transfer of combat and training development programs of the Ordnance Center and Schools at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, and |
Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, and the Transportation School at Fort Eustis, Virginia, to Fort Lee to be consolidated with like assets from the Quartermaster School. The Ordnance and Transportation Schools, however, |
continued to provide classroom instruction at their original locations. The consolidation marked the elevation of LOGC from an integrating center to an agency responsible also for capability and training developments |
for the logistics community (the Ordnance, Transportation, and Quartermaster Schools). Since the Soldier Support Institute was in the process of moving from Fort Benjamin Harrison to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, |
under a Defense Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) Commission mandate, the combat and training development assets of the Soldier Support Institute were exempted from the move to Fort Lee. The |
people and programs that would have moved to Fort Lee were already committed to moving to Fort Jackson and the multimillion dollar facilities that were being constructed there to receive |
them. Problems With Integration Under CASCOM Senior leaders of the Army’s personnel and finance communities were also concerned that capability and training development support for the Adjutant General and Finance |
Schools would largely disappear in an organization committed largely to the Army’s logistics mission. Many of the Army-wide personnel programs formerly sponsored by the Soldier Support Center began to flounder |
with the transfer of the PSS integrating mission to CASCOM. At issue was the family of human resource programs belonging to no particular branch of the Army but closely connected |
to the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. The Soldier Support Center in the early 1980s, for instance, sponsored the development and integration of the Army’s new manning system |
and the follow-on regimental system intended to strengthen unit cohesion and the bonds of affiliation that tied Soldiers to particular units and Army branches. Much of the justification for the |
establishment of the Army Community and Family Support Center in 1984 resulted from the Soldier Support Center’s sponsorship of an expanded Army Community Services program and various studies and programs |
related to the impact of Soldiers’ service and sacrifice on Army families. Under the transfer of the integrating function, statutory responsibility for human resources had been vested with CASCOM, the |
responsible agent for integrating both logistics and personnel issues across the Army. However, one of the first issues to confront the commandant of the Adjutant General School in 1994 was |
whether the Army’s Adjutant General’s Corps ought to assume responsibility for equal opportunity (EO) and other related human resources programs. Knowing that the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel |
needed a TRADOC advocate for human resources, the Adjutant General School commandant absorbed the EO mission into the Adjutant General’s Corps’ doctrine, training, and combat developments program. In taking responsibility |
for other human resources programs, the Adjutant General’s Corps, as the technical proponent for the Army’s personnel system, had broadened its mission to include responsibility for “people” programs and other |
human-dimension programs that were formerly a part of the Soldier Support Center’s capabilities development integrating mission. |A Soldier with the 147th Adjutant General Postal Company from Kaiserslautern, Germany, inspects a |
box that a Soldier is sending home from Iraq. In 1993, TRADOC published its first attempt at post-Cold War operational doctrine: FM 100–5, Operations. The 1993 version of FM 100–5 |
listed six critical logistics functions that together constituted combat service support. Of the six, two addressed the former PSS functional area. The chapter titled “Manning the Force” described personnel readiness |
management, replacement management, and casualty management. The chapter titled “Sustaining Soldiers and their Systems” included health service support, personnel services, financial services, public affairs, and religious and legal support. For |
leaders and Soldiers belonging to the personnel and administrative areas of the Army mission, the interchangeable use of the terms “logistics” and “combat service support” validated previous predictions about CASCOM’s |
narrow focus on logistics. Sustainment functions falling within the combat service support functional area but outside the logistics domain had become afterthoughts. |A Soldier who serves as a debt management |
and special action noncommissioned officer for the 101st Finance Company, 10th Sustainment Brigade Troops Battalion, files his daily paperwork. The Sustainment Warfighting Function The most recent version of Army operational |
in planning and conducting a military operation. In their place, the FM names eight elements of combat power: leadership, information, movement and maneuver, fires, intelligence, command and control, protection, and |
sustainment. These are believed to be a more accurate reflection of the contemporary, if not the past, operating environment. Together, the eight elements of combat power point to a new |
and broader understanding of combined arms operations. Instead of the narrow combination of weapon systems, the new definition applies leadership and information and selected warfighting functions in a “synchronized and |
simultaneous” fashion to achieve the “full destructive, disruptive, informational, and constructive potential” of combat power. Sustainment, one of the six warfighting functions, has replaced combat service support as the approved |
concept used to describe the collective tasks and related logistics, personnel services, and health services systems essential to support the operational Army in the fulfillment of a given mission. From |
a branch and specialty perspective, sustainment involves the combined functions and capabilities provided by the Adjutant General’s, Chaplain, Finance, Judge Advocate General’s, Medical Service, Ordnance, Quartermaster, and Transportation Corps. Based |
on recent experience, our new doctrine is a candid admission that successful military operations in the full-spectrum environment of the 21st century require a measured, combined, and focused application of |
the various elements of combat power. Regardless of size and scope, the sustainment community’s ability to provide commanders at the right time and place with all the logistics, personnel, and |
health services support necessary for mission accomplishment is essential to the success of any future operation. On 9 January 2009, officials at Fort Lee, Virginia, dedicated the new Sustainment Center |
of Excellence (SCoE). Established as the result of BRAC decisions, the SCoE represents a further consolidation of CASCOM, the Army Logistics University (formerly the Army Logistics Management College), and the |
Army Quartermaster, Transportation, and Ordnance Schools. As part of the BRAC plan, the students, faculty, and staff of the Ordnance Mechanical Maintenance School at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Ordnance Munitions |
and Electronics Maintenance School at Redstone Arsenal, and the Transportation School at Fort Eustis will move to Fort Lee. The new organization represents a complete consolidation of the logistics community’s |
doctrine, training, and combat development programs. SCoE is indeed about the future of logistics and the logistics branches, but it is also about the other elements of the sustainment function—the |
branches and missions that make up the personnel services and health service support functions. Based on our new doctrine, SCoE also represents our best opportunity in years to unify the |
effort as well as create a common understanding of purpose that bridges the diverse programs and missions that make up the Army’s total sustainment community. Much of our success as |
a community will depend on ensuring the proper alignment and integration of non-logistics units and personnel that are currently being added to our theater and expeditionary sustainment commands and sustainment |
brigades. They, too, are critically necessary for freeing commanders for action, extending operational reach, and prolonging the endurance of our Soldiers, who respond to any and all threats that compromise |
The onset of the disease - Drinking alcohol - Public transport - Personal finances - Handling money - Going out alone It is best to consider as soon as possible |
how you are going to deal with certain matters relating to the person’s independence. Matters relating to their personal liberty such as whether it is safe for them to drive, |
go out alone, drink alcohol or smoke have to be dealt with. Financial matters also have to be considered, e.g. should they be able to write out cheques and make |
financial decisions? These and similar questions should be discussed with the person with dementia at an early stage when they are still able to play a role in decision making. |
When you are trying to decide how to handle the above-mentioned situations, you will probably find yourself split between trying to leave the person with dementia with as much independence |
as possible and at the same time trying to protect them from possible risks and dangers. The following guidelines may help you in making your decisions. In the early stages |
some people who have been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease can still drive safely, but as the disease progresses the ability to drive will almost certainly deteriorate. The person may |
start to find it difficult to find familiar places, fail to observe road signs and respect rules of the road, drive too fast or too slow, have slow reactions and |
become confused, frustrated or angry while driving. However, people with dementia are often extremely reluctant to give up the right to drive, as it is one of the last signs |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.