PIN : 102208–000

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2011

Kevlar

Legions

The Transformation of the

 U.S. Army, 1989–2005

by

John Sloan Brown
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, John Sloan

 Kevlar legions : the transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005 / by John 

Sloan Brown.

p. cm.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. United States. Army—Reorganization—History—20th century. 2. United 

States. Army—Reorganization—History—21st century. 3. United States. 

Army—History—20th century. 4. United States. Army—History—21st century. 5. Military doctrine—United States—History—20th century. 6. Military 

doctrine—United States—History—21st century. I. Title. 

 UA25.B78 2011

 355.00973’09049—dc23

 2011025096

CMH Pub 70–118–1

First Printing
iii

Contents

Page

Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

The Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Chapter

1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

 Defining Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

 Army Transformations Past. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2. The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

 The United States Army in 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

 Defense Reorganization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

 The Collapse of the Warsaw Pact ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

 ... and Other Significant Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

 Desert Storm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

 A Framework for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

3. The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

 The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers and Processes of Change. . . . . . . 86

 In Pursuit of Strategic Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

 Escalating Contingencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

 Digitization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

 The United States Army in 1995. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

4. The Reimer Years, 1995–1999. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

 Force XXI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

 Contingencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

 The Quadrennial Defense Review ... and Related Subjects. . . . . . . . 162

 The Revolution in Military Contracting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

 The United States Army in 1999. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
iv

5. The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

 Army Transformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

 The Interim Brigade Combat Team. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

 9-11 and Homeland Defense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

 Transforming While at War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

 Back to Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

6. General Peter J. Schoomaker: Redefining

 Transformation, 2003–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

 Transformation Redefined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

 Recycling Ulysses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

 Adapting to Afghanistan and Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

 Quadrennial Defense Review 2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

 The Army in 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

7. Army Force Structure, 1989–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

 The Critique. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

 The Brigade, 1989–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

 Headquarters Above Brigade, 1989–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

 External Complements to Force Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

 The Institutional Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

8. The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005. . . . . . . . 341

 Families with Children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

 Spouses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

 Parents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

 Retirees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

 Families of the Reserve Component. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

9. The “Transformed” Army in Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

 An Expeditionary Army: Getting There. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

 War at the High End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

 Adaptability: The Pivot to Unconventional Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

 Goodness of Fit: Army Transformation on the

 Unconventional Battlefield. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

 Sustaining a Transformed Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

10. Concluding Thoughts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

 Army Transformation, 1989–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

 Trade-offs: Transformation and Vulnerability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Chapter Page
v

 Thoughts on the Way Ahead. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Appendix—Selected Key Civilian and Military Participants

in Army Transformation, 1989–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Bibliographical Note. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Map Symbols and Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

Diagram

USAF Missions Area Relationships Sideview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Charts

No.

1. The Army Budget, 1985–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

2. Army Active-Duty Strength, 1985–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

3. AOE 3d Brigade, 2d Armored Division, as Task Organized for

 Operation Desert Storm, 1991. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

4. Modular 2d Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry Division

 (Heavy Brigade Combat Team), in Operation

 Iraqi Freedom, 2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

5. AOE 2d Brigade, 7th Infantry Division, as Task Organized

 for Operation Just Cause, 1989–1990. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

6. Modular 173d Airborne Brigade Combat Team

 (Infantry Brigade Combat Team [Airborne]) in Operation 

 Enduring Freedom, 2007–2008. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

7. AOE Heavy Corps Design, 1983. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

8. AOE Light Corps Design, 1985. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

9. The Army Budget, 1905–2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . f. 480

Maps

1. Operation Just Cause, D-Day: Panama Canal, 20 December 1989. . . . 50

2. Operation Desert Storm, 24–28 February 1991. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

3. Major U.S. Operations, Afghanistan, October 2001–March 2002. . . . 220

4. Invasion of Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom,

 21 March–9 April 2003. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

 Page
vi

5. Operation Iraqi Freedom, June 2003–May 2004. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

6. Operation Iraqi Freedom, June 2004–May 2005. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Illustrations

Stryker-borne infantry on patrol in Mosul, Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

U.S. infantry fighting the Moros in the Philippines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Mass mobilization during World War II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Cold War “tactical” nuclear weapons included the Davy Crockett. . . . . . . 14

Widespread tactical use of helicopters during the Vietnam War. . . . . . . . 15

New technology required doctrine, training, and appropriate

organization to be useful. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Army transformations include administrative and cultural change. . . . . . 25

Heavy forces deploy from the United States for REFORGER exercises. . . . 36

The “big five”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Pershing missile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Elated citizens celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Vehicles of the 24th Infantry Division loading in the port of Savannah. . . . 60

General Carl E. Vuono. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

General Gordon R. Sullivan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Participative after-action reviews sharpen the focus of training. . . . . . . . . 88

General Frederick M. Franks Jr.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

A roll-on/roll-off ship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

The C–17 Globemaster III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Kurdish refugees flee fighting in northern Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

U.S. troops patrolling in Somalia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

A Joint Forces Command digitized exercise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

By the 1990s recruits were better educated than ever but still

in need of a drill sergeant’s careful attention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

General Dennis J. Reimer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

General William W. Hartzog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Digitization became an important component of training in the field. . . . 145

U.S. soldiers patrolling in Bosnia-Herzegovina, April 1997. . . . . . . . . . . . 155

A Multiple Launch Rocket System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

F–16 jet fighters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Aviation repair in Bosnia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

An after-action review following rigorous National Training

Center training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

General Eric K. Shinseki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

A slide depicting General Shinseki’s vision for Army Transformation. . . . 196

The transformed Army would have to be capable of both

high- and low-intensity combat operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Brigadier General James M. Dubik. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

General John N. Abrams observes a technology demonstration. . . . . . . . 206

No. Page
vii

The Interim Brigade Combat Team at the National Training Center,

April 2003. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

The World Trade Center after the 11 September 2001 attack. . . . . . . . . . . 210

The Pentagon after the 11 September 2001 attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

National Guardsmen on duty at “Ground Zero” after the attacks. . . . . . . 213

Missile defense remained an important priority for Army

Transformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Early operations in Afghanistan were dominated by special operations

forces, which were soon reinforced by conventional units. . . . . . . . . . . 221

High-intensity combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

General Peter J. Schoomaker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Posting security in urban Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Unit manning envisioned companies remaining together for an entire tour . . . 255

Wounded soldiers remained in the Army, and their recovery became

a cooperative effort. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

An up-armored HMMWV with specialized equipment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

An unmanned aerial vehicle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Improved individual equipment incorporating advanced technologies

and upgraded protection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

The Quadrennial Defense Review 2005 quadripartite chart. . . . . . . . . . . . 275

General Kevin P. Byrnes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Soldiers had to be prepared to fight regardless of their occupational

specialty or activity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Span of Control: Civil War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Span of Control: World War II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Combat support and combat service support troops patrolling as infantry . . . 319

Quadrennial Defense Review slide depicting joint digital networking. . . . 329

Cold War “stairwell” family housing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Housing generated by the Residential Communities Initiative program. . . . 345

TRICARE medical care. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Family Readiness Groups supported deployed units and their families. . . 362

Parents played a role in enlistment and reenlistment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

The Eisenhower Luncheon at the Association of the

United States Army annual meeting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

A military funeral. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Reserve-component soldiers filled a wide range of responsibilities

when called on to serve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Reserve-component soldiers with special skills could deploy as

individuals to join units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Pre-positioned equipment and supplies greatly facilitated

preparations for Operation Iraqi Freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

The HMMWV-mounted 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment represented

greater deployability through lighter platforms with appliqué

digital technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

The Sadr uprising provoked widespread street fighting throughout Iraq. . . 401

Page
viii

Iraqi cities presented huge problems to traditional land navigation. . . . . . 405

American firepower proving more lethal than ever. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Training center rotations included role players acting the part of

local nationals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Detainee operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

A 1st Cavalry Division slide used to brief standard operating

procedures in 2004. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

A 1st Cavalry Division slide illustrating a nontraditional aspect

of Army operations in Iraqi Freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Daily convoys supplied units deployed throughout Iraq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

American and Iraqi soldiers on a combined operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

A Stryker Brigade Combat Team in action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

An Army family reunites. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

The United States mobilized on an unprecedented scale for

World War II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

For an expeditionary Army, deployability is essential. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Future technologies must integrate with doctrine, organization,

training, administrative practices, and service culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Nontraditional and noncombat missions will continue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

All illustrations are from the files of the Department of Defense.

Page
ix

Foreword

The U.S. Army is such a vast institution that change appears to occur 

slowly, if at all. Yet when looking back only a few decades, an intelligent 

observer can only marvel at how much the Army has changed, indeed transformed, in the period since the end of the Cold War. This reconfiguration 

has been due less to any posited “Revolution in Military Affairs” than to the 

careful and methodical investment of Army leadership in thoughtful doctrinal 

refinement, innovative experiments, and the intelligent adoption of specific 

technologies. Evolution is harder to see and track than revolution, but the 

result of those decades of thoughtful and gradual change is that the U.S. 

Army—flexible, adaptable, and deadly—stands as the most capable ground 

force in the world today.

Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005, argues 

that from 1989 through 2005 the United States Army attempted, and largely 

achieved, a centrally directed and institutionally driven transformation relevant to ground warfare that exploited Information Age technology, adapted 

to post–Cold War strategic circumstances, and integrated into parallel 

Department of Defense efforts. The process not only modernized equipment, 

it also substantially altered doctrine, organization, training, administrative 

and logistical practices, and the service culture. The resultant digitized expeditionary Army was as different from the late Cold War Army as the late Cold 

War Army was from that of the early Cold War or from the mobilizationbased Armies of World Wars I and II. Kevlar Legions further contends that the 

digitized expeditionary Army has withstood the test of combat, performing 

superbly with respect to deployment and high-end conventional combat and 

capably with respect to low-intensity conflict. 

Whatever one believes about the author’s conclusions, his discussion of the 

history and processes of transformation should prove invaluable to students 

of the period and to all who might wish to change the Army in the future. 

Brigadier General (Retired) John Sloan Brown served as the Executive Officer 

for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans in 1995–1997, Chief 

of Programs and Requirements for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers 

Europe in 1997–1998, and Chief of Military History in 1998–2005. In these 

positions he was privy to many of the deliberations in this volume. Collateral 

and subsequent research broadened his grasp. He has exploited a robust mix of 

documents, briefings, meeting notes, oral and e-mail testimony, studies, publications, and comments from veterans. In addition, General Brown consulted 

dozens of key players who commented on portions of the manuscript relevant 
x

to their experiences and responsibilities. Kevlar Legions thus combines participant observation with solid scholarship. It goes a long way in telling us what 

happened in the transformation of the Army over the past twenty years, why 

it happened, and who was involved. It also describes hard choices, accepted 

risks, processes of decision making, and institutional results. 

The U.S. Army Center of Military History is pleased to add Kevlar 

Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005, to its inventory 

of published titles. The book joins a growing number of publications dealing 

with the post–Cold War era and with events subsequent to 11 September 2001. 

It perpetuates the Center’s tradition of commenting thoughtfully on today’s 

issues while continuing its principal work of interpreting the entire scope of 

the Army’s past. Histories written proximate to the events they describe are, 

of course, necessarily early drafts. More will certainly follow. And, as always, 

the true heroes of this account are American soldiers, tirelessly serving their 

country at home and abroad and transforming their Army for the future by 

their actions while serving the needs of today. 

Washington, D.C. RICHARD W. STEWART

1 August 2011 Chief Historian
xi

The Author

John Sloan Brown was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Armor 

branch after graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1971 and 

retired in October 2005 as a brigadier general after more than thirty-four years 

of service to the United States Army.

General Brown’s most recent active-duty assignment (1998–2005) was as 

Chief of Military History for the U.S. Army. In that capacity, among other 

duties, he formulated and executed the Army Historical Program; supervised 

historical studies supporting the development of plans, policies, doctrine, 

force structure, and equipment; provided historical services and publications 

in support of Congress, the Department of Defense, headquarters, staffs, and 

schools; edited and managed a publications account supporting over six hundred active titles; coordinated history education in the Army school system; 

managed the honors and lineages for Army units, active and reserve; maintained contact with foreign counterparts and coordinated conferences with 

them; coordinated the training and deployment of military history detachments and individual historians in support of ongoing operations overseas; 

supervised the Army Museum System and Army Art Collection; and coordinated support for the National Museum of the United States Army.

Earlier in his career, Brown served as Chief of Programs and Requirements 

for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe; Executive Officer to 

the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans; Commander of the 2d 

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in Texas and Kuwait; G–3 Operations Officer 

of III Corps; G–3 Operations Officer of the 24th Infantry Division; and 

Commander of the 2d Battalion, 66th Armor, in Germany, Desert Shield, 

and Desert Storm. General Brown has commanded armor units at every 

level from platoon through brigade and has served on staffs at every level from 

battalion through theater.

Brown received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Indiana University and 

has taught at the United States Military Academy. He is also a graduate of 

the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Naval War 

College. He is the author of published works that include Draftee Division: 

The 88th Infantry Division in World War II; chapters on the Army in the 1990s 

and in the Global War on Terrorism, in American Military History, vol. 2, The 

United States in a Global Era, 1917–2008; “The Battle for Norfolk,” in Leaders 

in War: West Point Remembers the 1991 Gulf War; and “No Gun Ri Revisited: 

Historical Lessons for Today’s Army,” in Today’s Best Military Writing: The 

Finest Articles on the Past, Present, and Future of the U.S. Military.
xii

Since retirement, General Brown has been actively engaged as a historical consultant for the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), 

in which he participated in designing the Normandy American Cemetery 

Visitor Center, the Pointe du Hoc Visitor Center, the ABMC Comprehensive 

Interpretive Plan, digitized campaign interactive displays concerning the 

Normandy campaign and the battle of Pointe du Hoc, and a digitized interactive timeline of World War II. He also writes the monthly column “Historically 

Speaking” for Army magazine and is completing “Barbarossa: The Invasion 

of the Soviet Union” for the Center of Military History.
xiii

Acknowledgments

I am extraordinarily indebted to many people for the valuable assistance 

rendered advancing this project. Their numbers and contributions are so great 

I will undoubtedly fail to acknowledge some. For that, I apologize in advance. 

Where titles and military ranks are indicated, they represent the titles and 

ranks at the time of the correspondence to which I refer. 

As an intellectual process, this project began as Chapters 13 and 14 of 

American Military History, Volume 2, published by the Center of Military 

History in 2005. I authored these chapters, the first of which was “Beyond the 

Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 1990–2001,” and the second “The 

Global War on Terrorism.” American Military History was ably shepherded by 

its General Editor, Dr. Richard W. Stewart, who in turn justly recognized the 

involvement of his Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee: 

Dr. Eric Bergerud, Mark Bowden, Lieutenant General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, 

Brigadier General James T. Hirai, Lieutenant General Anthony R. Jones, 

Brigadier General Daniel J. Kaufman, Dr. Adrian R. Lewis, Dr. Brian M. 

Linn, Howard Lowell, Colonel Craig Madden, Dr. John H. Morrow Jr., Dr. 

Reina Pennington, Dr. Ronald H. Spector, and Dr. Jon T. Sumida. In addition to the thoughtful counsel of these and others cited below, my chapters 

benefited particularly from the attentions of the Center of Military History’s 

Editor in Chief, John W. Elsberg, and the remarkably thorough editing of Ms. 

Diane M. Donovan.

When the time came to expand subchapter-length discussions of Army 

transformation during 1989–2005 into a book-length study, I was fortunate 

to receive the mission. I was also grateful to again gain the oversight, counsel, 

and mentorship of Dr. Stewart, at that time newly the Army’s Chief Historian. 

He has labored through every word of my prose, masterfully improving upon 

it in things great and small. In this he was joined by my predecessor once 

removed as Chief of Military History, Brigadier General Harold W. Nelson. 

General Nelson not only made the manuscript better, he also vetted it to 

Army senior leaders most familiar with the full breadth of the story. General 

Gordon R. Sullivan, an ardent supporter of military history, read every 

chapter, commented thoughtfully, and further assisted in engaging key players as discussed below. General Dennis J. Reimer read and commented on 

most chapters, forthrightly but graciously refining my grasp on a number of 

critical topics, especially resourcing. General Eric K. Shinseki read the material pertaining to his tenure when American Military History was aborning 

and provided commentary that has become a source in itself. General Peter J. 
xiv

Schoomaker read several chapters, cleared his busy schedule for a number of 

invaluable exchanges and particularly sharpened the linkages between Army 

transformation and the Global War on Terrorism. Chiefs of Staff do not work 

alone, of course, and the manuscript was further aided by soldiers who served 

within the inner circles of their staff groups. In addition to General Nelson, 

cases in point include Colonel Raoul H. Alcala, Lieutenant Colonel James J. 

Carafano, Colonel John R. Gingrich, and Brigadier General Christopher C. 

Shoemaker. Mrs. Gay Sullivan, Mrs. Mary Jo Reimer, and Mrs. Patty Shinseki 

graciously read, commented on, and immeasurably improved the chapter on 

the Army family.

Our story extends almost a score of years, and it was critical to hear from 

key players in many positions. In addition to those I encountered personally 

in my own dealings as Executive Officer to the Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Operations and Plans (DCSOPS) and then as Chief of Military History, I am 

deeply grateful to Lieutenant General Ted G. Stroup for his contacts. From 

his twin perches in the Association of the United States Army and the United 

States Military Academy Association of Graduates, it seems unlikely that there 

is a living officer with whom he is not connected. Association of the United 

States Army Executive Assistants Ann Belyea, Ruth Flanagan, and Connie 

Williams ably assisted in the hunt. Greater specifics appear in the endnotes, but 

those active participants who took the time to discuss aspects of this project, 

submit to an interview, review portions of the manuscript, or exchange e-mails 

include Lieutenant General John P. Abizaid, Lieutenant General Michael W. 

Ackerman, Major General Lawrence R. Adair, Lieutenant General Keith B. 

Alexander, Major General John D. Altenburg Jr., Major General Max Baratz, 

Lieutenant General David W. Barno, Lieutenant General Paul E. Blackwell, 

Lieutenant General Ronald R. Blanck, Major General Buford C. Blount III, 

Major Stephen A. Bourque, Lieutenant General Steven W. Boutelle, Assistant 

Secretary of the Army Reginald J. Brown, Acting Secretary of the Army Romie 

L. Brownlee, Colonel Terry Bullington, Lieutenant General Kevin P. Byrnes, 

Lieutenant General James L. Campbell, General George W. Casey, Major 

General Peter W. Chiarelli, Lieutenant General Claude V. Christianson, General 

Wesley K. Clark, General Richard A. Cody, Lieutenant General Joseph M. 

Cosumano Jr., Lieutenant Colonel Deborah R. Cox, Lieutenant General Peter 

M. Cuviello, Under Secretary of the Army Gregory R. Dahlberg, Brigadier 

General Robert L. Decker, Colonel Robert A. Doughty, Lieutenant General 

John A. Dubia, Lieutenant General Larry R. Ellis, Lieutenant Colonel Marcus 

R. Erlandson, Brigadier General David A. Fastabend, General Frederick 

M. Franks Jr., Brigadier General Robert E. Gaylord, General Benjamin S. 

Griffin, Major General Gaylord T. Gunhus, Lieutenant General Franklin 

L. Hagenbeck, General William W. Hartzog, Lieutenant General James R. 

Helmly, Colonel James P. Herson, Mr. Walter W. Hollis, Mr. Joel B. Hudson, 

Major General David H. Huntoon Jr., Lieutenant General Anthony R. Jones, 

General John M. Keane, Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, General Paul 

J. Kern, Mrs. Sylvia Kidd, Major General Kevin C. Kiley, Major A. J. Koenig, 

Lieutenant General John M. Le Moyne, Major General William J. Lennox Jr., 

Brigadier General William J. Lesczcynski Jr., Mrs. Gigi G. Linder, Lieutenant 
xv

General James J. Lovelace Jr., Major General Larry J. Lust, Lieutenant 

General Rick Lynch, Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor, Lieutenant General 

Charles S. Mahan, Colonel Stephen J. Marshman, Mr. Michael D. Martin, 

Mr. John W. McDonald, Brigadier General H. R. McMaster, General Dan K. 

McNeill, Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz, Major General John G. Meyer 

Jr., Lieutenant General Paul T. Mikolashek, Lieutenant General Thomas 

M. Montgomery, Colonel Anthony A. Moreno, Lieutenant Colonel Terry 

R. Moss, Colonel Matthew Moten, Brigadier General John W. Mountcastle, 

Colonel James L. Mowery, Mr. Tim Muchmore, Major General William A. 

Navas Jr., Lieutenant General David H. Ohle, Major General Eric T. Olson, 

Brigadier General Mark E. O’Neill, Lieutenant General James B. Peake, 

Brigadier General Paul D. Phillips, Lieutenant General John M. Pickler, 

Major General Thomas J. Plewes, Colonel Roy E. Porter III, Senator John F. 

Reed, Lieutenant General Thomas G. Rhame, Colonel Mark A. Riccio, Major 

General Joe W. Rigby, Lieutenant General John M. Riggs, Under Secretary 

of the Army Bernard D. Rostker, General Crosbie E. Saint, Major General 

Robert J. St. Onge Jr., Major General Robert H. Scales Jr., Lieutenant Colonel 

Quentin W. Schillare, Major General Roger C. Schultz, Major General Bruce 

K. Scott, Lieutenant General Jerry L. Sinn, Colonel Richard H. Sinnreich, 

Dr. Roger J. Spiller, Lieutenant General Carl A. Strock, Brigadier General 

Guy C. Swan III, Major General Antonio M. Taguba, Sergeant Major of the 

Army Jack L. Tilley, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Tokar, Lieutenant Colonel 

Lee Torres, Lieutenant General Robert L. Van Antwerp Jr., Major General 

Hans A. Van Winkle, Major Donald E. Vandergriff, Mr. E. B. Vandiver III, 

Lieutenant General Michael A. Vane, Major General Howard J. von Kaenel, 

Dr. James A. Walker, General William S. Wallace, Brigadier General Lloyd T. 

Waterman, Mrs. Peggy Waterman, Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White, 

General Johnnie E. Wilson, and Mr. Gary A. Wright.

Historians feed on each other, and profit immensely when their projects overlap. Hopefully, my endnotes and bibliographical note will do 

justice to the actual publications I have relied on, but I would also like 

to recognize the valuable conversations I have had with others pursuing 

research at the same time. By generously sharing thoughts on their ongoing 

projects and commenting on mine, they have greatly enriched the material with which I have worked. I am particularly indebted in this regard 

to Dr. Bianka Adams, Mr. Charles R. Anderson, Mr. Dale Andrade, Mr. 

Rick Atkinson, Mr. Edward N. Bedessem, Dr. Andrew J. Birtle, Colonel 

John Bonin, Lieutenant Colonel Keith E. Bonn, Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, 

Dr. Shannon A. Brown, Dr. John M. Carland, Dr. Stephen A. Carney, 

Dr. Donald A. Carter, Dr. Jeffery A. Charlston, Lieutenant Colonel Roger 

Cirillo, Dr. Mary Ellen Condon-Rall, Dr. Elliott V. Converse III; Dr. 

Graham A. Cosmas, Ms. Romana M. Danysh, Dr. William A. Dobak, Dr. 

William M. Donnelly, Colonel Michael D. Doubler, Mr. William W. Epley, 

Mr. Stephen E. Everett, Colonel Gregory Fontenot, General Frederick 

M. Franks Jr., Mr. Stephen L. Y. Gammons, Dr. Stephen P. Gehring, Dr. 

Terrence J. Gough, Dr. William M. Hammond, Dr. W. Blair Haworth, Dr. 

Charles D. Hendricks, Colonel Jon T. Hoffman, Dr. David W. Hogan Jr., 
xvi

Mr. Robert D. Hormats, Dr. Lawrence M. Kaplan, Dr. Peter S. Kindsvatter, 

Dr. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Dr. Brian M. Linn, Dr. John A. Lynn, Colonel 

Douglas A. Macgregor, Colonel Mike Matheny, Mr. John J. McGrath, Ms. 

Janice E. McKenney, Mr. John E. McLaughlin, Major Edward G. Miller,

Dr. Allan R. Millett, Dr. Walton S. Moody, Colonel Bettie J. Morden, Dr. 

Williamson Murray, Colonel Clayton R. Newell, Ms. Jennifer A. Nichols, 

Colonel George F. Oliver III, Mr. R. Cody Phillips, Dr. Walter S. Poole, Dr. 

Edgar F. Raines Jr., Mrs. Rebecca C. Raines, Lieutenant Colonel Mark J. 

Reardon, Colonel Timothy R. Reese, Dr. Bernard D. Rostker, Dr. Gordon 

W. Rudd, Command Sergeant Major Robert S. Rush, Lieutenant Colonel 

Nathan Sassaman, Major General Robert H. Scales Jr., Dr. Mark D. Sherry, 

Colonel Lewis S. Sorley III, Colonel Richard W. Stewart, Major William S. 

Story, Lieutenant Colonel Adrian G. Traas, Dr. Gary A. Trogdon, Dr. Erik 

B. Villard, Dr. James L. Yarrison, and Dr. Lawrence A. Yates. 

Projects of this nature are enhanced greatly by occasional “trial balloons”: 

articles, briefings, presentations, and the like that test component facts, ideas, or 

interpretations in the face of a critical audience. In the text and notes, I refer to 

briefings I gave as Chief of Military History that served such a purpose. Since 

retirement from active service, I have been fortunate to author “Historically 

Speaking,” a monthly column in Army magazine. Aspects of Kevlar Legions 

have appeared from time to time to draw either praise or fire—or both. The 

extraordinarily capable staff of Army, headed up by Editor in Chief Ms. Mary 

B. French and including Mr. Jeremy P. Dow, Ms. Tenley Wadsworth, and 

Ms. Fran Wright, have been instrumental in this regard. They also have been 

extremely generous and forthcoming with the impressive array of publications, 

sources, and graphics in the Association of the United States Army archives. 

I am proud to be a Burdeshaw Associate, and involvement in the “Long War 

Project” under the company’s auspices provided another opportunity to vet 

aspects of Kevlar Legions. For this I am particularly grateful to General 

William W. Hartzog, Lieutenant General Larry R. Jordan, Colonel Milton S. 

Newberry, and Lieutenant General Leonard P. Wishart III. The Training and 

Doctrine Command recurrently assesses the direction of the Army, and I was 

invited to present a paper at and participate in the Unified Quest 2010 “Army 

in 2025 Seminar.” The paper proved a valuable test run for much of Chapter 

10, and I am indebted to Mr. James N. Anderson, Mr. George R. Conrad, 

Ms. Rachel R. Fowler, and Brigadier General H. R. McMaster for all they 

did to help me air it. Similarly, the Combat Studies Institute 2010 Symposium 

“Cultivating Army Leaders: Historical Perspectives” allowed me to air much 

of Chapter 1. I appreciate Mr. Kendall D. Gott, Major John C. Mountcastle, 

and Dr. William G. Robertson for all that they did to facilitate this participation. While on the subject of opening up oneself for comment and evaluation, I might flag up the United States Military Academy Class of 1971 Web 

site, ably shepherded by Colonel Robert D. Weiss. Not all that is discussed is 

serious, but enough is to subject historical interpretations to useful criticism 

and few are less inclined to let you hide behind your credentials than your 

classmates. Students provide another great chance for resonance, and teaching 

at Regis University in Denver as an adjunct professor considerably enhanced 
xvii

my ability to fit this story into a larger historical whole. I am grateful to Father 

James Guyer S. J. and Mr. Michael D. Martin for their roles in affording me 

this opportunity. 

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes the entire Army Historical 

Program to produce an Army history. In addition to those cited above, I 

would also like to thank the many others who assisted with the gritty business of locating sources and coping with matters of detail. At the pinnacle, 

Chief of Military History Dr. Jeffrey J. Clarke, Chief Historian Dr. Richard 

W. Stewart, Chief of the Histories Division Dr. Joel D. Meyerson, and Chief 

of the Field Programs and Historical Services Division Dr. Richard G. Davis 

provided cheerful and unrelenting support to my frequent forays within their 

domains, as well as beneficial personal insights. Within the Center of Military 

History, Mr. Stephen J. Lofgren seconded by Dr. Brian T. Crumley and Dr. 

Christopher N. Koontz provided excellent assistance with respect to oral testimony; Mr. William W. Epley seconded by Command Sergeant Scott Garrett 

with respect to the products of Military History Detachments; Mr. Frank R. 

Shirer seconded by Ms. Patricia A. Ames, Mr. Joseph R. Frechette, and Ms. 

Dena Everett with respect to archival holdings; and Mr. Keith R. Tidman 

seconded by Mr. Bryan J. Hockensmith with respect to publications. Force 

Structure complexities can be particularly perplexing, and with respect to 

these I was guided from sources through manuscript revisions to final editing 

by the tireless teamwork of Mrs. Rebecca C. Raines, Mr. Edward N. Bedessem, 

Mr. Stephen E. Everett, and Ms. Jennifer A. Nichols. I relied heavily upon 

electronic versions of the Center of Military History’s holdings, particularly 

with respect to Department of the Army Historical Summaries (DAHSUMs). 

I owe the ready availability of these cyber-versions to the head of the Center’s 

Website Operations Activity, Mrs. Donna C. Everett. My expansive use of 

Center of Military History resources would not have been possible without 

the cheerful and effective coordination provided by Executive Secretary Ms. 

Cherrie Johnson. Outside the Center of Military History, I am similarly 

indebted to Ms. Renee Hylton, Major Les A. Melnyk, and Captain Jeffrey C. 

Larrabee of the National Guard Bureau; Colonel Robert J. Dalessandro, Dr. 

Conrad C. Crane, Dr. Richard Sommers, and Mr. Thomas L. Hendrix of the 

Army Heritage and Education Center; Dr. Stephen B. Grove of the United 

States Military Academy; Mr. Michael P. Bellafaire of the Military Surface 

Deployment and Distribution Command; Mr. Bruce H. Siemon, Mr. Kevin 

E. McKedy, and Dr. Andrew N. Morris of the United States Army, Europe; 

Dr. Charles E. White, Dr. Mason R. Schaefer, Major Doug Hendy, and Mrs. 

Tammy Cheely-Howle of Army Forces Command; Dr. Lee S. Harford and Dr. 

Kathryn Roe Coker of Army Reserve Command; Dr. Robert G. Darius, Dr. 

William T. Moye, and Ms. Wilma Fields of the Army Materiel Command; Dr. 

John T. Greenwood of the Army Medical Command; Dr. James A. Walker of 

the Army Space and Missile Defense Command; Dr. James T. Stensvaag, Dr. 

J. Britt McCarley, and Mr. Steven McGeorge of the Training and Doctrine 

Command; Colonel Clay Edwards and Colonel Timothy R. Reese of the 

Combat Studies Institute; Dr. Alfred Goldberg and Dr. Stuart Rochester of 

the Office of the Secretary of Defense Historical Office; Brigadier General 
xviii

David A. Armstrong of the Joint History Office; Mr. C. Richard Anderegg 

and Mr. William C. Heimdahl of the Air Force History Office; Colonel John 

W. Ripley and Mr. Charles D. Melson of the Marine Corps Historical Center; 

Dr. Edward J. Marolda of the Naval Historical Center; Dr. Gregory Pedlow 

of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Historical Office; Dr. Robert M. 

Browning Jr. and Dr. Scott T. Price of the Coast Guard Historical Office; and 

Dr. Maria Christina C. Mairena of the Army Family and Morale, Welfare, 

and Recreation Command. When the time came to turn a draft manuscript 

into an actual book, the Acting Chief of the Center of Military History’s 

Publishing Division, Ms. Beth F. MacKenzie, ably assumed the lead. In this 

she was capably seconded by Mrs. Diane Sedore Arms, Mr. Gene Snyder, and 

Ms. S. L. Dowdy.

Family inevitably bears a great burden in projects of this type. My wife 

Mary Beth cheerfully soldiered through this “ten-year pregnancy,” immeasurably assisting in great things large and small. Daughter Amy, son-in-law 

Brendan, daughter-in-law Kris, and even grandsons John, Michael, Brian, 

and Joey have served capably as sounding boards and put up patiently with 

project-related distractions time and again as we shared our lives. My father 

Colonel Horace M. Brown and mother Lucia “Chick” Sloan Brown have been 

ever-generous with their time and provided an invaluable personal link to 

Army transformations that precede the one of which I write. Son Todd (Major 

Robert Sloan Brown) was a teenager when this story began, a lieutenant when 

I commenced writing it, and a field grade veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan as I 

wrap it up. He has tirelessly and generously kept me aware of the practicalities 

of twenty-first-century warfare as it has existed on the ground because my 

own experience of war was in the twentieth century. 

Finally, I would like to particularly acknowledge two individuals essential 

to the success of this project who are not with us as it comes to fruition. Mrs. 

Donna C. Everett headed the Center’s Website Operations Activity as it grew 

from a nascent idea into a mature instrument for scholarship, education, and 

research. It would have been impossible to gather materials as I did had not 

so many primary and secondary resources been readily available through her 

efforts. Colonel Donald W. Warner was Deputy Commander while I was Chief 

of Military History, keeping the Center of Military History humming with 

flawless efficiency while I was out and about in the Army Staff and the Army 

at large. I could not have enjoyed the personal connections I had with Army 

transformation as a process had I not been so confident that all was well at 

the Center. Donna and Don left us far too soon. Their legacies are far grander 

than this study, but this study certainly folds within their legacies.
Kevlar

Legions

The Transformation of the

 U.S. Army, 1989–2005

Chapter 1

Introduction

The OH–58D helicopter went down hard in the urban sprawl of Tall’ Afar. 

The pilots, injured but mobile, escaped the wreckage and made it to the relative safety of a nearby rock wall. Within minutes a race developed between 

American soldiers trying to rescue them and Iraqi insurgents trying to kill or 

capture them. Parallels to the book Black Hawk Down, about the infamous 

October 1993 incident in Mogadishu that took many lives including those of 

Master Sergeant Gary I. Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall D. Shughart 

(both posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor), were immediately apparent to any who had been there, read the account, or seen the movie. The earlier 

incident provided ample testimony to the courage, tenacity, and initiative of 

the American soldier. It also furnished examples of columns lost in a rabbit 

warren of streets, unknown friendly locations, unknowable enemy locations, 

huge difficulties bringing firepower to bear, soft-skinned vehicles overmatched 

by ubiquitous enemy arms, and confusion. However, the Tall’ Afar helicopter 

crash was on 4 September 2004, and things would be different.1

The first to the scene was the Scout Platoon of the Stryker-borne 5-20 

Infantry. The OH–58D’s icon had remained visible on the screens of the platoon’s Force XXI Battle Commands, Brigade and Below (FBCB2s), so the 

Scouts knew where the helicopter was. Scalable electronic downloadable maps 

gave platoon members an exact appreciation of the geography, global positioning systems gave precise knowledge of their own positions, and blue force tracking showed the locations of friendly vehicles. They knew where they were going 

and how to get there, and they got there first. The Scouts won the race but 

not by much. Increasing volumes of fire attested to the arrival of the enemy. 

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying overhead detected even more hostiles 

on the way, many arriving by automobile and unloading machine guns and 

rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) from their civilian vehicles. Fortunately a 

relief column, Company B of the 5-20 Infantry, was already churning its way 

toward the Scouts through the dusty streets of Tall’ Afar. Ever more numerous insurgents divided their attention between attempts to overwhelm the Scout 

Platoon and blocking positions to delay the Stryker Company. The blocking 

positions did not last long. They disappeared in dirt plumes raised by precisely 

laid GBU31 bombs dropped from F–16s hastily summoned by the 5-20Infantry’s 

Joint Tactical Air Controller. Company B members rolled on, ignoring residual 

small arms that pinged harmlessly off the Kevlar armor of their Strykers. When 
Kevlar Legions

2

Company B arrived at the crash site, the half-score soldiers clattering out of 

the back of each vehicle bore a formidable panoply: Kevlar body armor, laser 

designators, Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) 

radios, Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI) accoutrements, a mix of automatic weapons, and lots of ammunition. The insurgents tried to overwhelm the now reinforced position. This was a mistake. Hurricanes of well-aimed fire swept them 

off the rooftops, out of the streets, and then out of surrounding buildings room 

by room. Americans were hit, but Kevlar body armor minimized the damage 

done. With the coolness of troops who completely dominate their battlefield, 

the Americans now brought forward a heavy expanded mobility tactical truck 

(HEMTT) wrecker and a Palletized Load System (PLS) flatbed truck. The 

recovery team sawed off the helicopter blades and loaded the wreckage onto 

the flatbed, and then the entire contingent disengaged by stages and drove away. 

There would be no bodies dragged through the streets, no hostages, no captured 

materials, and no pictures of jubilant insurgents dancing on a downed helicopter. There also would be no book and no movie.2

As capable as the leaders and soldiers of the 5-20 Infantry certainly were, 

success did not originate with them alone. Revolutionary technologies they so 

ably employed had been a generation in the making and had been progressively 

fielded in the last dozen years. Exploiting these technologies—and adapting to 

the new circumstances of the post–Cold War world—required changes in doctrine, organization, training, administrative practices, infrastructure, and even 

Army culture. The process came to be known as Army transformation. Army 

Stryker-borne infantry on patrol in Mosul, Iraq 
3

Introduction

transformation dominated deliberations on the Army Staff and throughout the 

Army from 1989 through 2005. It competed for attention with and was mutually influenced by other hot topics: wrapping up the Cold War, force downsizing, Somalia, the Balkans, 9-11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Global War on 

Terrorism. It existed before it firmed up a name. The term Army transformation

evolved over time and retroactively applied to developments as early as 1989. 

The term continued in use after 2005 but with a significantly different meaning. A history of Army transformation from 1989 through 2005 should start 

by establishing a working definition. It could then canvass history for earlier 

examples of such Army transformations and ascertain how these worked and 

how they worked out. Armed with this background, one could then attempt the 

actual history of Army transformation from 1989 through 2005.

Defining Transformation

Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary tersely identifies “any 

change” as its lead definition for the word transformation. Its second definition is “the act of transforming . . .” and its third, “a wig worn by a woman.” 

It is difficult to argue with Funk and Wagnalls, yet these usages hardly seem 

likely to have inspired passionate debate throughout a generation of Army 

officers or to have attracted billions of dollars in investment from Congress. 

Surely transformation when coupled with Army must mean something more. 

By 2000 it did, although in 1989 not so much so. Building on work inspired 

by his predecessor, Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan, as we 

shall see, did more than any other single person to get Army transformation as it came to be defined under way. At his June 1991 arrival ceremony 

he variously stated that the Army must “change” or “reshape” to face its 

future. He used the word transformation once, to describe what was happening to the environment wherein the Army operated at home and abroad, 

not to describe what was happening in the Army. His subsequent addresses 

and correspondence similarly advanced such imperatives as adapt, transition, change, and reshape and did not much employ transform or transformation. Sullivan’s immediate priority was maintaining Army effectiveness amid 

plummeting budgets and force structure and accelerating deployments, so 

a little vagueness with respect to long-term plans can be understood. By 

1994 Sullivan’s modern Louisiana Maneuvers, to be discussed in Chapter 

3, were well under way. An umbrella term was desirable to communicate 

their essence. In a 1994 Chief of Staff message Sullivan pointed out that the 

Army had undertaken “an enormous and very important transformation,” 

and then went on to identify key constituents of that transformation: shifting intellectually beyond the Cold War and the Industrial Age, broadening 

training from traditional missions, rescoping modernization, redesigning 

doctrine, refurbishing force generation, enhancing strategic mobility, adopting Information Age management techniques, and more. Transformation in 

this context meant more than change alone. It implied breadth, heft, and 

vision. Sullivan’s successor, General Dennis J. Reimer, similarly noted the 

progress of an Army “transformation” under way and identified a similar 
Kevlar Legions

4

broad mix of progressive measures to describe that term. Initiatives such as 

Division XXI, Force XXI, and Strike Force emerged to advance the Army’s 

transformation in a systematic manner. Not everyone picked up on transformation’s maturing definition, however. More than one pundit commented 

that the Army had been transforming for two hundred years and more and 

would continue to do so. Air Force planners helpfully advised their Army 

counterparts to transform a little bit with each procurement cycle. That 

way transformation would never become too big of a challenge. To the first 

group, the words transformation and change remained interchangeable, and 

to the second transformation and modernization did.3

Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki solidified Army transformation into 

a comprehensive Army-wide program, called Army Transformation. It linked into 

Defense transformation efforts also under way, figured in Planning, Programming, 

Budgeting, and Execution System (PPBES) deliberations, dominated such institutional documents as the Army Strategic Planning Guidance, and inspired its own 

hefty Transformation Campaign Plan. The supervisory Army Transformation 

Office advanced a definition of sorts. Army Transformation was “the process 

of converting the Army’s focus and structure from a Cold War construct to a 

full spectrum combat force that is strategically responsive and dominant at every 

point on the spectrum of conflict. . . .” The Army Transformation Office went 

on to insist that transformation was about more than technology alone and 

encompassed doctrine, training, leadership, organizations, material readiness, 

installations, and soldiers. The definition fit in well with ongoing adaptations to 

circumstances following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the 

Soviet Union in 1991. It also tracked with efforts to enhance Army deployability 

and strategic mobility under way since the same period. Shinseki’s intent statement, promulgated on his first day as Chief of Staff, listed increasing strategic 

responsiveness, improving operational jointness, and fully integrating the active 

and reserve components as three of six stated objectives. Each would allow the 

Army to do more with less anywhere in the world at any time. Adaptations to 

post–Cold War circumstances had also figured prominently in lists Sullivan and 

Reimer had used to explain Army transformation as they employed the term. 

Adaptation was intrinsic to Army transformation. Shinseki and others spoke of 

the Army’s need to remain “relevant” in changing circumstances. In due course 

broad ranges of adaptation were characterized as transformative: redeploying 

from Europe to the continental United States (CONUS), acquiring additional 

airlift and sealift, improving railheads and airfields on stateside posts, reengineering medical facilities, relocating Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) 

and commissaries, reducing unit weight, redesigning military assistance programs, 

courting new allies, rewriting doctrine for the low end of the combat spectrum, 

and so on. The world had changed, and transformation would enable the Army 

to change with it.4

As important as adaptation to post–Cold War circumstances undoubtedly was, 

adaptation alone does not quite explain the fire in the belly of Sullivan, Reimer, 

Shinseki, and others as they envisioned the future. The Army Transformation 

Office briefing slide that somewhat limply defined Army Transformation as “the 

process of converting . . .” had the teasing preface “It’s about changing the way we 
5

Introduction

fight, deploy, sustain and use information . . .” and a follow-on bullet promising 

“fundamental change in capabilities to better support joint warfighting and operational objectives.” Sullivan, an enthusiast for history, opined that the Industrial 

Age was being superseded by the Information Age and that “Third Wave warfare” 

was imminent. Reimer distinguished between advances that “creep ahead” and 

those that “leap ahead,” and clearly favored the latter. Shinseki sought a transformation that was “major” and anticipated “dramatic and dynamic” changes. 

Sullivan, Reimer, Shinseki, and, perhaps even more important, their subordinates 

and staffs were well aware of a rising tide of interest in so-called “revolutions in 

military affairs” (RMAs). Depending upon whom one consulted, bronze weapons, iron weapons, pike phalanxes, manipular legions, the longbow as employed at 

Crecy, drilled musketry, the national levee en masse, Railroad Age warfare, battleships, combined-arms Blitzkrieg, and aircraft carriers—among others—all represented revolutions in military affairs. A workable definition described a revolution 

in military affairs as “a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by 

the innovative application of new technologies which, combined with dramatic 

changes in military doctrine and operational and organizational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations.” Just as drilled 

musketry had been revolutionary in its day, contemporary advances with respect 

to microelectronics, sensors, precision-guided munitions, and information technologies promised yet another watershed in the conduct of war. The degree of 

change associated with a revolution in military affairs was often characterized as 

exponential. Technically, this implied something increased by a factor of ten. The 

transformed force would be ten times as lethal, survivable, or effective as its former 

self. Perhaps when war gamed against a standing adversary, it would come away 

with one-tenth the casualties to achieve the same results. Army Transformation, 

and the Army transformation that preceded it, clearly sought such dramatic 

results. Army transformers were not entirely agreed upon what a revolution in 

military affairs was, but all seemed to want one.5

Why did the term revolution in military affairs not figure more prominently 

in Army definitions of Army transformation? One consideration is that it 

might have sounded pretentious in gritty budget battles before Congress or 

even when “selling” transformation within the Army itself. In the relatively 

benign defense circumstances of the 1990s, it was better to mollify the parsimonious or conservative by speaking in less grandiose terms. Another consideration is that the term revolution in military affairs rapidly acquired baggage the Army did not want to embrace. Within the Department of Defense 

(DoD) a leading proponent for a possible revolution in military affairs was 

Andrew W. Marshall of the Office of Net Assessment. Despite protestations 

to the contrary, DoD ruminations took a technologically centric bent, as we 

shall see. A popular example of “network centric warfare,” for example, featured F–15C fighters networked with Joint Tactical Information Distribution 

System (JTIDS) terminals in mock air-to-air combat, with other fighters not 

so equipped. The JTIDS-equipped fighters had near-perfect friendly and 

enemy information and understandably outperformed their opponents. Army 

officers doubted that a few planes flying at altitude represented the intricacy 

and confusion of ground combat, and they said so. They also spoke of the low 
Kevlar Legions

6

end of the combat spectrum, where such technical sophistication might count 

for less. Some regarded them as troglodytes. In due course Air Force commentators declared their service the leader in “the” revolution in military affairs 

and opined on whether they could win future wars without, or without much, 

assistance from other services. The Navy was divided as to whether or not it 

needed a revolution in military affairs but was comfortable with a techno-centric vision of its future. Both Air Force and Navy planners tended to perceive 

a revolution in military affairs as already embedded in existing modernization 

plans—they had already thought of it. Army planners did want to advance 

technology but had reservations concerning how far it could take them. They 

balanced images of future technologies with icons of the timeless infantrymen 

using them: heroic, “on point,” and at risk. Within DoD talk often turned to 

reducing personnel to free up funds for research and development and procurement. To the Army, this was scary. Army transformers may have wanted a 

revolution in military affairs, but not one that shredded Army force structure 

or questioned the Army’s reason for existence.6

Army leaders and the Army Staff had yet another caveat with respect to 

transformation as a revolution in military affairs. They wanted to control it. 

Clearly Army efforts should nest within a national security strategy and a 

national military strategy. In this context Department of Defense and Joint 

oversight were tolerable, but the service nevertheless sought to substantially 

control its own destiny while transforming. The point was philosophical as 

well as parochial. MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, distinguished 

scholars with Army connections, joined others in distinguishing between military revolutions and revolutions in military affairs. Military revolutions, as 

they described them, are dramatic paradigm shifts embedded in even grander 

socioeconomic and political revolutions of which they are part. Examples 

include the rise of the modern nation-state, the French Revolution, the 

Industrial Revolution, and the generation-long cataclysm that began with 

World War I. Military institutions find themselves swept along by the tide and 

at best can hope to adapt capably to changing circumstances. Revolutions in 

military affairs are generally constituent within military revolutions and are 

more amenable to design and direction. The rise of the modern nation-state, 

for example, generated resources that enabled innovators to field standing 

units of drilled musketry. The Industrial Revolution allowed the Prussian general staff to design campaigns based upon railroads and mass-produced rifles. 

The bloody stalemate on the Western Front inspired the eventual development of Blitzkrieg to unlock it. The Information Age and related technologies 

were on hand and irreversible. How these manifested themselves in ground 

combat was yet subject to design. Army planners did believe that there would 

be continuities in war on the ground and that usages appropriate in the air or 

at sea might not fully translate into their medium. They, veterans of Vietnam, 

Just Cause, Desert Storm, and innumerable lesser contingencies, had seen 

ground warfare as it actually was. Who could be better prepared to apply new 

technologies and develop new solutions for old problems than they were?7

At this point the groundwork has been laid to propose the definition of 

Army transformation to be used in this study. From 1989 through 2005 Army 
7

Introduction

transformation was a centrally directed and institutionally driven attempt 

to achieve a revolution in military affairs relevant to ground warfare that 

exploited Information Age technology, adapted to post–Cold War strategic 

circumstances, and integrated into parallel Joint and Department of Defense 

efforts. This definition is not, to our knowledge, elsewhere agreed upon. It 

seems, however, to capture what Army leaders intended. It also seems to have 

been tacitly accepted. For six years running and through the administrations 

of three Chiefs of Staff, the Army’s Chief of Military History presented a 

standard briefing labeled “Army Transformations Past.” The colorful slides 

provided a brief but popular introduction to numerous Army Staff deliberations, transformation off-sites, Quadrennial Defense Review sessions, 

multi-star conferences, and so on. At times the Director of the Army Staff 

had the briefing trotted out simply because someone important needed to be 

entertained. Each of the historical transformations, discussed in the briefing 

and below, were centrally directed and institutionally driven, and all were 

revolutions in military affairs. Several were pre-Joint and pre–Department of 

Defense, but all incorporated significant technological advances. An organizing principle of the briefing was that Army transformation simultaneously 

represented adaptation to new strategic circumstances, socioeconomic change, 

and technological advance. This principle was never disputed, although virtually all of the Army’s most senior leadership and most of the Army Staff 

heard the briefing at one time or another. These men and women, collectively 

pursuing Army transformation, clearly sought to achieve something on the 

order of that accomplished under the leadership of Elihu Root or George C. 

Marshall. Whatever the words chosen, the vision was grand.8

Army Transformations Past

To find historical Army transformations as defined above, one would 

probably begin with the so-called “Root Reforms” of the early twentieth century. Americans had participated in nineteenth-century revolutions in military affairs, but not in a manner that was centrally directed or institutionally 

driven. The mammoth American Civil War was arguably the first true example 

of Industrial Age warfare, and it wedded mass production with the mass social 

mobilization inaugurated by the French Revolution. Huge armies deployed 

across the breadth of the continent, linked together by telegraph and supported by rail communications and steamships. Factories and depots churned 

out tens of thousands of rifles, thousands of artillery pieces, and uniforms, 

supplies, and accoutrements for hundreds of thousands of soldiers. At the 

beginning of the war armies marched out in Napoleonic array, by its end they 

contested trench lines not unlike those of World War I. By and large the Army, 

War Department, and federal government itself were swept along by the tide 

of military revolution rather than actually controlling it. At the war’s onset the 

War Department consisted of a handful of clerks, the Army numbered 16,000 

widely scattered along the nation’s frontiers, and the defense organization was 

a curious patchwork of geographical departments and functional bureaus. The 

Regular Army did not much expand, nor did it provide cadre for newly raised 
Kevlar Legions

8

units. Instead individual states and even cities raised scores of regiments, hastily equipped them, and officered them with elected leaders, political appointees, 

and a sprinkling of former military men then in civilian life. Regiments from 

all over the continent, north and south, sped by rail to the baptismal battle of 

Bull Run. This was not because the military as an institution (as opposed to 

individual engineers with military backgrounds) had pioneered with respect to 

such transportation, but because in the last dozen years railroads had become 

integral to American life. Steamships and telegraphs similarly were commercial phenomena that rapidly demonstrated practical military utility. Indeed, 

in some respects traditional military leadership seemed to impede innovation. 

Cases in point included the desultory fielding of breech-loading rifles, the 

persistence of Napoleonic tactics (to maintain control) in the face of horrific 

casualties, and initial resistance to such higher-level organizing principles as 

corps headquarters. It is not entirely coincidental that officers like George B. 

McClellan and Henry W. Halleck were considered paragons of the profession 

before the war and came up short within it, whereas those such as Ulysses 

S. Grant and William T. Sherman were embarrassments before the war and 

rose to prominence within it. In time—by 1864—President Abraham Lincoln, 

his War Department, and his chosen generals did get a grip. Mobilization, 

training, and logistics increasingly came under federal supervision. The strategic leadership team of President Lincoln, Commanding General of the 

Army Grant, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, Chief of Staff Halleck, 

and Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs provided superb direction 

and mobilized extraordinary support. At the operational level generals like 

Sherman and Philip H. Sheridan fought brilliant campaigns and were well 

supported by the innovative Railroad Construction Corps. Tactics, largely 

driven by grassroots adaptation, evolved to accommodate modern weapons. 

All this took time, however, at a huge cost in casualties and with considerable 

risks to ultimate success. By the time Lincoln and his generals were in control 

of events, the military revolution had already occurred. The Civil War was testimony to courage, sacrifice, determination, and improvisation, but not to the 

artful management of a revolution in military affairs. Postwar critics mined its 

record for examples of how not to implement change and came up with better 

ideas of their own.9

In the aftermath of the well-fought but poorly managed Spanish-American 

War, the Army did transform itself. Strategic circumstances had radically 

altered. The Indian fighting frontier had closed upon itself, and the nation had 

assumed quasi-imperial responsibilities overseas. Socioeconomic changes were 

equally profound. Industry had eclipsed agriculture as the nation’s principal 

money maker, the nation was the world’s foremost producer of steel and other 

indexes of industrial might, and overseas trade and investment soared. Far-flung 

bases secured maritime access to the Caribbean and Far East. Breech-loading 

repeating rifles, metallic cartridges, smokeless powder, artillery hydraulics, and 

nascent machine guns were altering the technology of war. Secretary of War 

Elihu Root initiated an effort to overhaul the Army, starting at the top. Rather 

than the creaking stove-piped department and bureau system that had muddled 

through the Indian Wars, Root proposed a general staff under a Chief of Staff 
9

Introduction

responsible through him to the President. His new Army War College would 

capstone a hierarchy of post-commissioning education, and directly support 

operational and long-term planning. The 1903 Springfield rifle, a three-inch gun 

with an advanced recoil mechanism, and improved smokeless powder—each 

exploited contemporary technology. The Army more than doubled in size from 

its prewar precedents and by 1907 took to individual replacements rather than 

unit rotations to sustain its strength overseas. The Dick Act of 1903 regularized 

relationships between the Army and the “Organized Militia,” now the National 

Guard. Guardsmen would be federally equipped, committed to a standardized 

program of training, and subject to inspection. In 1908 the establishment of the 

Army Medical Reserve proved the first step in developing an expansive federal 

Army Reserve. Meanwhile sustained security requirements in the Philippines 

encouraged the organization of native soldiers into the Philippine Scouts, who 

soon became capable and potent auxiliaries. A reorganized and reenergized 

Medical Department took on the potentially catastrophic diseases of the 

new areas of operation. In the Spanish-American War the Army lost 932 to 

combat and 5,238 to disease. Fear of yellow fever was so palpable in Cuba it 

almost aborted operations. Armed with advances in germ theory and preventative medicine reinforced by their own practical research on-site, Army doctors 

counterattacked. In a few years they virtually eliminated yellow fever as a threat 

and brought malaria well under control—in both cases by declaring war on the 

relevant mosquito. Nowhere was this success more consequential than during 

the prolonged construction of the Panama Canal. Interpolating from previous 

U.S. infantry fighting the Moros in the Philippines
Kevlar Legions

10

experiences, one source reasonably assumed Army medicine saved seventy thousand lives—a figure exceeding the entire strength of the Army at the time—on 

this project alone. This is not to mention preventative medicine applied elsewhere, or results from the general introduction of clinical thermometers, hypodermic syringes, ophthalmoscopes, vaccines, and special purpose drugs. If one 

were looking for advances with respect to this Army transformation that could 

be considered exponential, one would certainly include the radically enhanced 

medical capability to keep troops alive in the tropics—or anywhere else, for that 

matter. As the reforms envisioned by Elihu Root came to fruition, the United 

States had a respectable “Army for Empire” and hemispheric defense. A Chief 

of Staff supervised a capable Army Staff and an increasingly professionalized 

Army school system. The Army had more than doubled in size, acquired modern 

weapons, and become expansible both within its units and by the virtue of an 

orderly system of reserves. It sustained continuing operations overseas, drawing 

upon native troops, individual replacements, and modern medicine to keep its 

strength up. It had capably assumed a global role.10 

By 1910 the Army was well postured to police its overseas responsibilities as they then existed and to undertake colonial wars on the scale of the 

Philippine-American War or security requirements on the Mexican border. 

It was not particularly postured for mass mobilization. Root was considerably impressed with the writings of Emory Upton and others suspicious 

of growth beyond the robust professional framework of established units. 

Manageable numbers of untrained privates could be whipped into shape by 

seasoned officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) in such units while 

routine security progressed by virtue of those already trained. A proper expansible Army, a term popularized in the early nineteenth century by John C. 

Calhoun when he was Secretary of War, could perhaps double in size during 

a training cycle and still retain its quality. The duration of such a cycle was 

variously estimated as between six months and two years. Commitment to 

the concept of an expansible Army was commitment to amoeba-like growth, 

with the Army doubling in size with each mitosis. This seemed adequate in 

1910, even with a Regular Army of fewer than one hundred thousand. Given 

the breadth of the Atlantic, the relative weaknesses of Canada and Mexico, 

and the insular nature of America’s overseas possessions, who would the 

Army fight and on what scale? Only the European powers were capable of 

mass mobilization in the near term, and the United States had long avoided 

“entangling alliances” with any of them. Upton and others studied and even 

admired European mobilization mechanisms, built upon peacetime conscription, massive reserves, and large standing armies, but their application to the 

United States seemed speculative and fanciful. Then strategic circumstances 

changed. World War I ground on for years, consumed enormous quantities 

of blood and treasure, and sucked the non-European world into its vortex. 

The United States, as we have seen, had a large and ever-expanding interest in 

international trade. It also grew to be a principal supplier to the Allied powers, 

who in turn owed American businessmen a lot of money. The Germans came 

across as ruthless, capable, imperialistic, and insatiable, heightening a national 

sense of alarm. The Germans resorted to, relented, and then resorted again to 
11

Introduction

unrestricted submarine warfare, taking American lives and sending American 

ships to the bottom of the sea. They conspired to offer United States territory 

to the Mexicans, or seemed to. President Woodrow Wilson, long committed to 

keeping the United States out of the conflict, ultimately asked Congress for a 

declaration of war on 2 April 1917.11

It is reasonable to characterize the mobilization for World War I, the postwar retrenchment, and the mobilization for World War II as three separate 

Army transformations. It may be more accurate, however, to envision a single 

transformation into a mobilization-based Army. In that light World War I 

was an imperfect rehearsal for World War II, with a reversion to the Army 

for Empire in between. As the vast scope of the European bloodbath became 

apparent, the National Defense Act of 1916 expanded both the Regular Army 

and the National Guard and rendered both further expansible along Uptonian 

lines. It also introduced measures for industrial and economic mobilization. 

Most important to our point, it recognized the universal military obligation 

of the “unorganized Militia” under federal auspices. This laid the groundwork 

for mass conscription, followed by the organization and training of new divisions under the supervision of small cadres of professional soldiers. Veterans 

of Civil War volunteer regiments and advocates of such preparedness programs as the Plattsburg Idea had long campaigned for this more egalitarian 

approach. Given that it expanded the pace of mobilization more than tenfold, 

it was the only feasible way to field forces large enough and quickly enough 

to matter on the Western Front. Eighteen of the new “National Army” divisions joined eight constructed from the Regular Army and seventeen from the 

National Guard to tip the scales in Europe. Their battlefield worth remained 

incompletely proven, however. General John J. Pershing, commander of the 

American Expeditionary Forces, was Uptonian in his thinking. He insisted on 

lengthy in-theater retraining even for his Regular Army divisions and summarily broke up six of the National Army divisions to provide individual replacements to units in combat. He designated three others as replacement training 

centers rather than combat units, and turned one over piecemeal to the French. 

Two never saw serious combat. Of the six that did, the first was not into action 

until 11 August 1918, three months before the Armistice. The third-rate status 

accorded National Army divisions notwithstanding, the individual draftees 

and draftee divisions of World War I performed capably enough to inspire 

favorable commentary—even from Pershing himself. Egalitarian theorists such 

as John McAuley Palmer seized upon this to advocate a rethinking of roles and 

missions. Rather than merely serving as an expansible core, the Regular Army 

was of value because it could deploy on short notice. The National Guard 

would take longer to prepare but was a readily accessible reserve. Behind 

this glacis of early deploying units, a great mass of new divisions under tiny 

cadres of experienced officers and NCOs could organize, train, and deploy. 

This approach solidified in the National Defense Act of 1920, although interwar frugality much diminished the preparedness of the Regular Army and 

National Guard. In World War II new Army of the United States (AUS) divisions, supervised by perhaps one professional soldier for forty in the ranks, 

drilled through a methodical one-year training program and then competed to 
Kevlar Legions

12

deploy. The first into combat performed well, cracking the Gustav Line in Italy 

after fierce fighting. Subsequent arrivals swelled the accolades for draftees 

and draftee divisions. By the end of the war the performance and manning of 

Regular Army, National Guard, and veteran Army of the United States divisions were virtually indistinguishable, with draftees dominating the rank and 

file throughout. Over two-thirds of the divisions fighting had been activated 

after Pearl Harbor, and all had been kept up to strength by drafted individual 

replacements. The great American defense gamble had paid off. Even in the 

face of modern weaponry, Americans did not need a large Army in time of 

peace to have a large and effective Army in time of war.12

Hotly debated, the transformation to a mobilization-based Army was institutionally driven throughout. In addition to addressing the strategic shift to 

major warfare in Europe and Asia, it also harnessed dramatic socioeconomic 

changes. Industrial growth had churned ahead, and scientific advances fielded 

such technologies as the internal combustion engine, radio, and general electrification. Meanwhile bouts of economic depression and political movements 

such as Progressivism and the New Deal led Americans to expect much more of 

their government and to cede it much more authority in return. The Sixteenth 

Amendment authorized a national income tax beginning in 1913. The federal 

government heavily supervised the economy during World War I, the New Deal, 

and World War II. Conscription, a fierce issue during the Civil War, aroused 

modest opposition during World War I and barely a whimper during World 

War II. Taken together, these advances and mind-sets enabled industrial mobilization of mind-boggling proportions. During World War II the United States 

superbly equipped and supported its own massive armed forces while contributing heavily to the logistics of its allies as well. Much of the discussion of a 

revolution in military affairs beginning in World War I centers on technological advances harnessing tanks, airplanes, artillery, radios, storm troopers, and 

motorized transportation into combined-arms tactics eventually characterized 

as Blitzkrieg. The United States Army did not particularly lead in this regard 

until late in its transformation. By the time it arrived in France in World War 

I, nascent combinations of tanks, artillery, infantry, and planes were already 

contesting the battlefield dominance of trench line, barbed wire, and machine 

gun. The United States participated, but with tanks, artillery, and planes largely 

provided by the British and French. American soldiers did some experimentation and a lot of reading and writing concerning combined-arms warfare in the 

interwar years. Congress took little note until the Germans overran Poland and 

France in lightning campaigns, however. As money flowed Army transformers 

designed robust panoplies of modern equipment to fit out redesigned divisions, 

borrowing heavily from European experiences and practices. Training programs 

and logistical procedures adapted as well. The results were breathtaking with 

respect to lavishness, scale, and standardization. Whereas the Germans had 

mechanized or motorized but a fraction of their forces, the Americans put virtually everything except infantry in contact on wheels or tracks during their battle 

for France. The 1945 American campaigns in Germany and the Po Valley were 

the most thoroughgoing examples of Blitzkrieg yet. They looked easy but would 

not have been had the Army not transformed.13 
13

Introduction

The transformation to a mobilization-based Army prioritized organization and then applied technology to it. Transformation to the early Cold War 

Army, extant from 1949 through 1973, was driven largely by atomic weapons 

and the new world order that they had created. Atomic weapons rendered the 

strategic bombardment visions of Italian General Giulio Douhet and other 

airpower enthusiasts feasible and hastened the departure of the Air Force to 

become a separate service. This in turn fueled the National Defense Act of 

1947 and the organization of the Department of Defense as the overseer of 

three services. Meanwhile the construction of a network of alliances overseas 

to contain communist expansion, most famously the North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO), embedded American forces within larger security 

arrangements. For a period the United States offset emerging Soviet hostility 

and intransigence with its atomic monopoly and calculated military assistance. 

The Army shrank into a constabulary overseas, with a robust mobilization 

base at home should it be called upon to refight World War II. Instead it was 

called on to fight a limited war in Korea, shortly after the Soviet Union had 

acquired atomic bombs of its own. The fall of China to Mao Zedong radically 

expanded the perimeter within which communism was to be contained. The 

Regular Army enlarged to fight the Korean War and then remained large to 

man the “frontiers of freedom” in Europe and Asia. Renewed conscription 

and individual replacement kept up its strength. A tiered mobilization system 

stretched down through established National Guard and Army Reserve units 

to training divisions and related assets capable of raising altogether new units. 

World War II witnesses mass mobilization.
Kevlar Legions

14

This allowed for another World War II type of mobilization complete with 

draftee divisions. Nuclear weapons proliferated and miniaturized, to include 

atomic munitions for tube artillery and intermediate-range ballistic missiles 

such as the Jupiter and Pershing. The Army briefly introduced the five-battlegroup Pentomic Division with a much-reduced division overhead, a philosophy of dispersed mobile combat, and integrated nuclear weapons. The design 

exceeded the technology of the time, particularly with respect to command 

and control, logistics, and sustained mobility. By 1964 the Pentomic Division 

had been replaced by the Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD), 

consisting of an enlarged division base and three maneuver brigade headquarters to which varying mixes of standing battalions could be assigned. ROAD 

gave up some nuclear survivability as compared with the Pentomic Division, 

but it was far more capable of sustaining conventional and low-intensity conflict. This fit in with a progression from nearly complete reliance on nuclear 

deterrence prior to 1949 through heavy reliance on nuclear deterrence with 

Eisenhower’s “New Look” to the more balanced capabilities of “Flexible 

Response” in the 1960s. An enlarged peacetime force structure dictated continuous industrial mobilization, with generations of equipment cascading 

from the Regular Army through the National Guard and Army Reserve into 

“mothballs” and obsolescence as technology progressed. President Eisenhower 

groused about the emerging power of a “military-industrial complex,” but such 

Cold War “tactical” nuclear weapons included the Davy Crockett.
15

Introduction

a phenomenon proved necessary to keep large forces continuously supplied 

and consistently modernized. Within North America early warning systems 

and matrices of antiaircraft and later antiballistic missile sites ringed key cities 

and facilities. Many of these were manned by National Guardsmen, defending their country from their “own backyard.” Nuclear war implied horrific 

casualties. This was all the more reason for the Army to maintain a depth 

of reserves and an expansible mobilization base. The early Cold War Army 

was relatively large, dependent on conscription, backed by robust industrial 

and mobilization bases, nuclear armed, embedded in alliances, partnered to 

other services under Department of Defense auspices, and committed to be 

the ground component of a flexible response.14

In keeping with notions of flexible response, the Army undertook an 

expanding counterinsurgency to hold the line in Vietnam while maintaining nuclear armed deterrence elsewhere. While in Vietnam the Army radically expanded its use of helicopters, first for mobility in rough terrain and 

then as multipurpose platforms for a variety of tactical uses. It also evolved 

considerable sophistication in operations at the lower end of the combat 

spectrum. As the United States Army withdrew from Vietnam in the early 

1970s, however, it by and large walked away from this experience—as we 

shall see. It also transformed from the draftee Army of the early Cold War 

to the all-volunteer force of the late Cold War. Political leaders determined 

The Vietnam War saw the widespread tactical use of helicopters.
Kevlar Legions

16

that the American people would no longer support a “peacetime” draft and 

that the draft as it existed aggravated socioeconomic tensions within the 

United States. Peacetime conscription ended in 1973. The strategic situation also changed. The People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union 

had visibly fallen out, clashing along their borders while the Vietnam War 

was under way. President Nixon courted China with an unprecedented visit 

in 1972, and the Soviets committed to a series of strategic arms limitations treaties at about the same time. The threat of nuclear war seemed 

much reduced, as did the specter of monolithic communist expansion. 

The Arab-Israeli War of 1973 demonstrated the lethality of antitank and 

antiaircraft-guided missiles which, with other technological advances, 

tilted conventional warfare in favor of the tactical defense. It now seemed 

feasible to hold back a Soviet or North Korean conventional attack without resorting to nuclear weapons, buying time to address whatever miscalculation had initiated hostilities. A doctrine labeled the “Active Defense” 

envisioned highly trained professional soldiers maneuvering quickly in the 

face of a mechanized advance, wearing down their adversaries with incredibly accurate fires. Beginning in 1982 the Active Defense morphed into 

“AirLand Battle,” achieving more balance between defensive and offensive operations and articulating notions of “deep battle.” Equipment was 

to be thoroughly upgraded and modernized, complementing the higher 

professional caliber of the soldiers. Cases in point included but were by 

no means limited to the so-called “big five”: the M1 Abrams tank, the 

M2/3 Bradley fighting vehicle, the AH–64 Apache attack helicopter, the 

UH–60 Black Hawk utility helicopter, and the Patriot air defense missile. 

Training technology leaped ahead as well, incorporating such advances 

as the unit conduct-of-fire trainer (UCOFT), the Multiple Integrated 

Laser Engagement System (MILES), and distributed tactical simulations. 

Skillful, highly trained volunteers were necessarily more expensive than 

draftees and required considerable investment in recruitment and retention. The Army became smaller, with the active Army numbering 785,000 

in 1974—still large by historical standards—as opposed to 1,570,000 in 

1968. These reductions were partially offset by increased reliance upon the 

reserve component. In accordance with the new Total Force policy over 

two-thirds of the Army’s combat support and combat service support 

ended up in the reserve component, rendering it unfeasible to sustain significant operations without them. Focus on high-end mechanized conventional combat in Central Europe, or a similar setting, dominated tactical 

thinking. The basic mobilization structure of the early Cold War remained, 

albeit thinned, as did a military-industrial complex cascading generations 

of ever-more modern equipment. The draft was programmed for resurrection, should circumstances require. The active units of the late Cold War 

Army were fewer in number, all volunteer, and more professional. They 

were designed to preclude a quick or easy Soviet conventional victory and 

thus to deter miscalculation. Should circumstances get out of control, the 

nation was reasonably prepared to revert to the conscription, mass mobilization, and heavy reliance upon nuclear weapons of the early Cold War.15 
17

Introduction

How Transformation Works

The transformations discussed above were at different times and led to 

different armies. However, they shared features in common that may allow 

general comments on Army transformation as a process. Each occurred proximate to a strategic, socioeconomic, and technological watershed. At some 

point the leadership of the Army committed itself to centrally directed and 

institutionally driven transformation. To succeed, they had to decide on a way 

ahead, wrap up debate, and market the transformation inside the Army and 

out. Transformation will not occur if Congress has not approved and funded 

it. A vision without funding is a hallucination. Thus transformation took time 

up front just to get under way. Once under way, a host of secondary and tertiary effects had to be identified and worked through. Technology may have 

advanced the ball, but exploiting it required changes to doctrine, organization, 

training, administrative practices, and even military culture. Experimentation, 

feedback, and trial and error proved necessary. All this took time, perhaps 

as much as a generation, because true transformations overlapped, with one 

superseding the other across messy temporal boundaries. It can be easier for 

historians to identify an Army transformation than it was for the participants. 

Let us reexamine Army transformations past in the light of these common 

features.

Army transformations have occurred at strategic, socioeconomic, and 

technological watersheds. By 1898 the United States had acquired significant 

overseas possessions in the Pacific and Caribbean, while the Indian frontier 

that had been the Army’s principal area of operations for three hundred 

years ceased to exist. Industry surpassed agriculture as the engine driving the 

national economy, railroads linked the United States into a socioeconomic 

whole, and overseas markets and investments were increasingly essential to the 

national well-being. Breech-loading smokeless repeating rifles, breech-loading smokeless artillery with recoil mechanisms, and machine guns emerged 

to dominate the land battlefield, and armored battleships were dominant at 

sea. In 1917 the United States Army departed for the first of two colossal 

wars in Europe alongside allies and against adversaries primed for massive 

national mobilizations. It had to raise huge forces, dispatch them overseas, 

and sustain them in combat once there. Meanwhile an industrial revolution 

based on electrification and the internal combustion engine raced ahead, and 

the American people accepted unprecedented socioeconomic discipline and 

paid unprecedented taxes as the role of the government with respect to the 

economy evolved. Military technology harnessed the internal combustion 

engine that appeared in tanks and airplanes and in swarms of combat support and combat service support vehicles to complement both. By 1949 the 

United States accepted the strategic military leadership of a “Free World” 

attempting to contain communist expansion along vast frontiers in Europe 

and Asia. The Free World represented liberal capitalism and socioeconomic 

integration as well as political compatibility. Institutions such as the World 

Bank and International Monetary Fund, along with a host of agreements, 

policies, and usages, emerged from the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 
Kevlar Legions

18

and its successors. Socioeconomic integration merged with military necessity 

to embed the United States Army in standing alliances of long duration, most 

notably NATO. The preeminent military technology of the era was the nuclear 

weapon and systems associated with it, although sustained mobilization also 

led to cascades of ever-more modern conventional equipment replacing itself 

a generation at a time. By 1973 it was clear that communism was no longer 

monolithic, if it ever had been, and the threat of nuclear war had somewhat 

receded. The Cold War and containment were still there, but the prolonged 

Vietnam War had exposed socioeconomic cleavages within the United States 

and exhausted its tolerance for conscription short of a major war. At the same 

time radically improved guided antitank and antiaircraft missiles made it feasible to withstand a major conventional attack with a smaller Army without 

resorting to nuclear weapons. Each of these complex watersheds had a banner 

year—1898, 1917, 1949, and 1973—with a much broader temporal footprint. 

What of 1989? Without getting too far ahead of our story, one might suggest 

that the end of the Cold War profoundly altered strategic circumstances, the 

Information Age marks a socioeconomic revolution, and the military potential of the microchip is only on the cusp of being realized.16 

Historical watersheds are easier to see in hindsight than they are at the time, 

rendering the need for an Army transformation less visible as well. Debate within 

the Army family concerning transformation can be fierce and resistance to change 

substantial. When Elihu Root perceived the need to remake the Army for its new 

world role, he was immediately opposed by Commanding General Nelson A. Miles 

and the Army’s bureau chiefs entrenched in Washington. To Miles the transition 

New technology, in this case an antitank missile, required doctrine, training, and 

appropriate organization to be useful.
19

Introduction

to a Chief of Staff supervising a general staff implied a loss of grandeur, whereas 

to the bureau chiefs it implied a loss of influence. They could not accept that 

worldwide responsibilities required forward-deployed leadership and improved 

integrated management rather than the stovepipe system that had been adequate 

for the Indian Wars. Debate and resistance dragged on for at least a dozen years. 

The mass mobilization for World War I was grudgingly accepted by some Army 

senior leaders and followed prolonged debate between disciples of Emory Upton 

and more egalitarian theorists such as Leonard Wood concerning how big a role 

citizen-soldiers could play—and how quickly. The conduct of operations during 

World War I indicated an enduring professional bias against conscripts, and musings continued postwar concerning how much of a “Sad Sack” a draftee would 

inevitably be. Only with the Victory Program authored in 1941 did the Army accept 

the draftee and the draftee division as full partners, a faith that demonstrated itself 

as well placed by mid-1944. With the advent of atomic weapons theorists within 

the Army fell into at least three camps. One saw the huge strategic potential of ballistic missiles, with the Army in control of them. For these the future of war was 

Douhet-style strategic bombardment sansthe manned aircraft, with other ground 

forces playing a distinctly subordinate role. This group was largely excised when 

President Eisenhower transferred strategic nuclear missiles to the Air Force in the 

late 1950s. A second group argued for designing an Army optimized for a tactical nuclear battlefield while a third group, with limited wars like Korea in mind, 

considered nuclear weapons best left to the Air Force and Navy and sought an 

Army dominant in conventional ground combat. Transformation landed somewhere between the second and third groups, with the first ascendant during the 

Eisenhower administration with the Pentomic Division and the second ascendant 

with ROAD after 1960. The Volunteer Army was forced on the Army before it was 

embraced by the Army. After initial foot dragging with respect to implementing it 

at all, several lines of contention emerged within the context of implementation. 

Efforts to improve living conditions, relax disciplinary requirements, and raise pay 

in order to recruit and retain high-quality soldiers brought resistance from those 

who thought the troops were being “coddled.” The Total Army concept demolished precepts that had been intact for years, threatening vested interests in the 

active component and the reserve component alike. The recruitment of women 

multiplied several fold and women were admitted to West Point, bringing on a 

whole new debate with respect to the essence of soldiering. Transformation has 

never occurred without resistance within the Army itself.17

Army transformations inevitably required funding and thus congressional 

support. Ideally debate within the Army would wrap up before Congress became 

involved, but this has not happened. Discord complicates the procurement of 

funds Congress is often loath to give, particularly when the interests of constituents are at stake. Elihu Root, for example, did not have much trouble convincing Congress to expand the standing Army from its pre–Spanish-American 

War strength of 28,000 to its post–Philippine War strength of 70,000, adding 

five regiments each of infantry and cavalry in the process. The greater security requirements and greater national means were both obvious. His desire to 

consolidate units at fewer locations and close down tiny “hitching post” forts 

scattered across the former frontier met much greater resistance. These figured 
Kevlar Legions

20

in local economies and were also destination points for resources generated by 

the Army’s antiquated bureau system. So great was the leverage of the bureaus 

in Congress that Root’s promulgation of a thoroughly empowered general 

staff was only partly achieved. Similarly the landmark Dick Act of 1903 represented compromises between the Uptonian direction Root was trying to go 

and the political influence of the National Guard. The transformation to a 

mobilization-based Army pitted Uptonian notions of professionalism against 

more egalitarian views held by Generals John A. Logan, Leonard Wood, and 

others. Congress came down on the side of the egalitarians by default; it was 

so unwilling to consider a peacetime expansible Army of the scale a great 

war would have required that Army planners inevitably fell back on a cadre 

system when great war was thrust upon them. Ironically, congressional parsimony totally reversed itself when war arrived. This prompted Chief of Staff 

General George C. Marshall’s famous remark that before Pearl Harbor the 

Army had unlimited time and no money and after it unlimited money and 

no time. Following the war congressional parsimony returned, complicated 

by the reorganization of military forces into three services and a department 

of defense. The so-called “Key West Agreement” (actually the policy paper 

Functions of the Armed Forces and the Joint Chiefs of Staff) defined roles and 

missions for the services and particularly apportioned air assets. The Navy and 

Air Force received far more planes and strategic nuclear weapons and inevitably were dependent on more costly platforms and technologies. As the Cold 

War continued, this reverberated in the budget, year after year. Business allies 

of the Navy and Air Force seemed more potent in Congress than those of the 

Army, given that the Navy and Air Force budgets were dominated by costly 

procurements whereas that of the Army was dominated by personnel costs. 

The Army’s sense of being a budgetary third priority became particularly 

acute during the period of Eisenhower’s “New Look.” With the all-volunteer 

Army of the late Cold War, congressional deliberations over personnel costs 

took a new twist. Now recruitment and retention were high priorities, and cash 

incentives were mobilized to facilitate both. Military pay competed with civilian pay to maintain end strength. Arguments over force structure became even 

more acute, with ever more powerful financial incentives for trimming it. Each 

Army transformation evolved through the wickets of congressional funding 

processes, with setbacks and compromises along the way.18 

Army transformations drive and are driven by changes in doctrine. At the 

dawn of the twentieth century breech-loading repeating rifles, breech-loading 

artillery with recoil mechanisms, and machine guns partnered with battlefield 

experience to require greater dispersion, even at the risk of degrading command and control. Soldiers shed traditional “Army Blue” uniforms for drabber shades of brown. During the world wars the mobilization-based Army 

raced to catch up with doctrine that was already being applied by allies and 

adversaries, transitioning to the new equipment necessary on the fly. Pershing 

aspired to restore maneuver warfare to the Western Front, but instead got 

better at hammering away with massive artillery fires, fierce infantry assaults, 

and a sprinkling of tanks and planes. Much of his heavy equipment was 

British and French. American military leaders were as shocked as anybody 
21

Introduction

else by the early World War II effectiveness of Blitzkrieg in Poland and France 

and rushed to make their own Army capable of such tactics. After some hard 

knocks and lessons learned they succeeded, liberally borrowing combinedarms tactics from ally and adversary alike. This doctrinal ecumenism inspired 

the iconic scene in the motion picture Patton where the triumphant hero shouts 

across the battlefield to the defeated Rommel “. . . you magnificent bastard, 

I read your book!” The early Cold War Army strove mightily to weave tactical nuclear weapons into the combined-arms doctrine it inherited from World 

War II. Subject matter experts down to the company level, generally nuclear, 

biological, and chemical (NBC) officers and NCOs, shepherded detection kits, 

dosimeters, and gas masks and balanced downwind safety diagrams against 

vehicle protective factors to determine defensive positions and schemes of 

maneuver. At higher levels appropriately trained officers plotted targets for the 

introduction of friendly nuclear weapons and anticipated targets the enemy 

would select. With the late Cold War this preoccupation with nuclear weapons 

faded, and attention shifted to the battlefield effectiveness of conventional 

guided missiles and computer-assisted gunnery. Admonished that “What can 

be seen can be hit, and what can be hit can be killed,” company commanders designed layers of kill zones wherein each of their weapon systems came 

together at optimal ranges. At higher levels commanders were to shuffle units 

in such a manner that kill zones and engagement areas stretched across a 

continuous front. In accordance with “AirLand Battle” they capitalized on 

aircraft, guided missile–bearing helicopters, and intermediate-range ballistic 

missiles to plan “deep battles” well within ground controlled by the enemy, and 

protected their own forces from interdiction with an equally thoughtful “rear 

battle.” Each Army transformation featured its unique doctrine adapted to 

anticipated tactical circumstances and the technology of the time.19

Changing doctrine drives changes in organization. Root aspired to gather 

a scattered frontier constabulary into larger units, and his successors designed 

nominal division organizations to tie them together. In 1913, for example, the 

2d Division efficiently mustered on the Mexican border after having received a 

message of only five lines, reflecting a degree of coordination that would have 

been impossible ten years earlier. Overseas security was considerably enhanced 

by newly organized native units such as the Philippine Scouts and the Puerto 

Rico Regiment. The mobilization-based Army radically enlarged command 

hierarchy to control much increased size. Divisions solidified in World War I 

and corps and armies were added to them. To these higher headquarters World 

War II added army groups. Division composition changed with doctrine. In 

World War I the massive two-brigade, four-regiment quadrangular division 

was organized into four division corps supported by masses of artillery and 

provided a relentless battering ram for the Western Front. Leading regiments 

were replaced by fresh regiments and leading divisions by fresh divisions as 

offensives ground on. World War II placed more emphasis upon maneuver, and 

armored divisions and separate battalions were added. A stripped-down threeregiment infantry division with artillery served as a base to which separate 

battalions of other arms could be added. Armored divisions featured combat 

commands that were even more readily tailored, and the war introduced the 
Kevlar Legions

22

all new airborne division. The early Cold War Army, as we have seen, flailed to 

adapt to the nuclear battlefield. The Pentomic Division optimized a capacity 

to disperse units and mass fires, although its success depended on technology that did not yet exist. It was replaced by the ROAD, which had tailorable 

brigades and a division overhead better able to sustain conventional combat. 

With the late Cold War Army the proliferation and miniaturization of guided 

missiles morphed organization. Mechanized infantry and armored task forces 

became more interchangeable as every vehicle sported long-range tank-killing 

weapons. Rocket batteries proliferated, dispersed to the rear, and added new 

dimensions to division and corps battle spaces. Swarms of missile-armed 

attack helicopters came into their own as maneuver task forces and brigade 

combat teams, controlling ground rather than merely serving as occasionally 

useful auxiliaries. Each Army transformation featured new patterns of organization unique to the circumstances and technology of its time.20

New organizations must be trained. The Army War College was the most 

tangible product of the Root reforms. It drove the training and education of 

the general staff while also serving as the capstone to a refurbished hierarchical Army school system. Perhaps the most important feature of the Root-era 

Dick Act was the training relationship it established between the active Army 

and the National Guard. Newly envisioned as a tiered reserve, the National 

Guard was to be routinely drilled against federal standards in peacetime to 

improve its efficiency should war occur. The mobilization-based Army was 

predicated on the notion that small cadres could train large units to appropriate standards within reasonable periods of time. This approach worked 

satisfactorily in World War I and well in World War II. The rigorous yearlong Army Training Program of World War II systematically drilled draftees 

through basic, individual, unit, combined-arms, and large-unit maneuver 

phases. The new units by and large performed capably in their first combats, 

and got better from there. World War II infantry divisions particularly drilled 

artillery-infantry teamwork, and their battlefield performance demonstrated 

that strength. The integration of air and armor with infantry was less well 

rehearsed in the Army Training Program, which led to embarrassments and 

then adaptations overseas. The early Cold War Army was forward deployed 

and evolved a robust capability to conduct basic and individual training in 

stateside institutions in order to dispatch trained soldiers as individual replacements overseas. Units reinforced individual training and assumed full responsibility for collective training. Tank battalions were by now organic to infantry 

divisions, so combined-arms unit training received appropriate emphasis from 

the outset. The training of the early Cold War drove skills necessary to survive 

on the nuclear battlefield down to the individual and crew level. The largely 

drafted early Cold War Army featured high turnovers, and the volume of its 

training programs took this into account. The all-volunteer late Cold War 

Army heavily emphasized reenlistment and featured generally longer tours 

and less turnover. It refined and standardized the Noncommissioned Officer 

Education System (NCOES) to get the most out of retained soldiers at all 

levels. Increasingly sophisticated equipment and smaller units argued for the 

increasing percentages of noncommissioned officers the late Cold War Army 
23

Introduction

deployed. Each Army transformation evolved a training paradigm of its own 

to accommodate its unique circumstances.21

Transformation implies changes in administrative practices. We have discussed the prolonged contention beginning with the Root reforms between 

the general staff system and the traditional bureaus of the nineteenth century. 

During this period the Army also shifted to an individual replacement system 

to maintain the strengths of units overseas. With the mobilization-based Army 

elaborate civil and military mechanisms to control the draft and direct the flow 

of draftees evolved. Huge masses of manpower were to be efficiently accessed, 

sorted through, distributed, and ultimately released. Standardized testing 

came into its own, with profound effects on both individuals and institutions. 

Terms such as Category III or 4F acquired social as well as administrative 

importance. Units and agencies competed to get their fair share of individuals 

with purportedly desirable characteristics. Adjutants and personnel officers at 

every level codified, managed, and tracked human capital with unprecedented 

levels of detail. The early Cold War Army creditably supervised the reconstruction and reintegration of Germany and Japan and settled in with major 

units forward deployed to defend these and other allies. Even when combat 

operations were not ongoing, this forward-deployed posture and reliance 

on an individual replacement system implied massive personnel movements. 

Recruits and draftees were inducted, trained, deployed, and released or reenlisted. Career soldiers cycled through assignments in the United States and 

overseas, each being expected to take his or her fair share of “hardship” tours, 

accompanied overseas tours, stateside tours, and professional school assignments. An elaborate bureaucracy emerged to supervise all this traffic, as did 

personal relationships between professional soldiers and their career managers 

(also affectionately known as career manglers) in the National Capital Region. 

With the late Cold War Army new bureaucracies emerged to better manage 

recruiting and retention. District Recruiting Commands (later battalions) 

scattered recruiters and recruiting stations across the United States in ubiquitous bids to “make contact.” Mass media were mobilized, most famously with 

the long-standing slogan “Be All That You Can Be, in the Army.” To manage 

retention full-time Retention NCOs were assigned down to the battalion level. 

These scheduled reiterative interviews with eligible soldiers and then vectored 

in with the reenlistment options that seemed most likely to appeal to each. 

Commanders and staffs monitored reenlistment closely, and relevant comments almost inevitably appeared in officers’ efficiency ratings. Each Army 

transformation evolved administrative practices to keep pace with the newly 

morphing Army.22 

Some aspects of Army transformations are best described as cultural. 

During the Army for Empire perhaps the profoundest cultural shift was newfound deference to preventative medicine and medical advice. As late as the 

Spanish-American War commanders often ignored doctors and characterized 

the smell of excrement around their camps as the “patriotic odor.” In a few 

short years Army doctors bested historically debilitating tropical diseases, 

catapulted in prestige and influence, and controlled major aspects of soldiers’ 

lives with prescribed health and welfare routines. A rare commander ignored 
Kevlar Legions

24

medical advice, whether with respect to his unit or his person. The mobilization-based Army swept away much of the isolation that had traditionally separated the American Army and its people. Enlisted men and officers alike were 

far more representative of the American people as a whole. With this greater 

openness came greater exposure of service practices to outside scrutiny. The 

theretofore somewhat arbitrary disciplinary system evolved toward the far 

more circumscribed Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Citizensoldiers expected to retain their rights as citizens, and an energetic media was 

on hand to assist. Patton’s infamous slapping incident in Sicily illustrates this 

cultural evolution. What other army—or what previous American Army—

would have relieved a military superstar because he had slapped a soldier? 

The early Cold War Army remained mobilization-based and egalitarian, albeit 

with a more cosmopolitan tone. Soldiers of all ranks routinely served overseas 

amid diverse cultures, and most could expect a tour in Germany, Japan, or 

Korea. Intermarriage with locals became common enough that virtually every 

company had a few wives born overseas in its family. Local languages were 

similarly familiar to at least a few of the NCOs. It is true that soldiers spent 

most of their time in isolated enclaves, but few escaped the notion that they 

were somehow ambassadors for their country and for democracy in general. 

In this context racial discrimination became awkward at first, and then positively embarrassing. Social mores were already progressing toward integration 

when President Truman’s executive order integrated the Army. The Army that 

invaded Germany and occupied Japan was ferociously segregated. By the late 

1960s officers and NCOs were canvassing local bars, retailers, apartments, 

and the like, identifying which refused to provide service regardless of race, 

and placing offenders off-limits to all soldiers. If racial and ethnic discrimination was the greatest social challenge for the early Cold War Army, gender 

discrimination was the greatest social challenge for its successor. As we have 

seen, percentages of women in the Army multiplied several fold when the draft 

ended and the shift to an all-volunteer force began. The separate Women’s 

Army Corps (WAC), venerated by many who served in it, was disestablished 

in 1974 to allow for a broader and more egalitarian distribution of women 

throughout the force. Restrictions on women’s service disappeared one by one, 

until only a relative few remained. Each Army transformation proved to be in 

part cultural.23

It should perhaps be noted that each of the historical transformations 

discussed above involved a slightly different cast of institutional players. Root 

seems to have been virtually alone when launching his principal reforms. Those 

bureau chiefs who were not actively hostile were preoccupied with day-to-day 

responsibilities, and the Commanding General of the Army was actively hostile. An improvised War College Board served as a surreptitious staff, and Root 

got valuable help before Congress from such distinguished retirees as Generals 

John M. Schofield, Wesley Merritt, and Grenville M. Dodge. The transformation to a mobilization-based Army was largely authored by the general staff 

Root had envisioned. Secretaries of the Army and Chiefs of Staff worked 

Congress in concert for funding and legislation, and staff officers coordinated 

details. Remnants of the bureau system remained to work the routine within 
25

Introduction

their purviews, but long-range planning increasingly fell to the general staff, 

and it grew more specialized and refined over time. The War College retained 

an active role, largely to shepherd and sort through good ideas. The early Cold 

War Army inherited this refined general staff. One particularly notable addition was the Vice Chief of Staff in 1947. This critical officer generally took 

charge of the day-to-day running of the Army, freeing the Chief of Staff to 

deal with external players and longer-term visions. With the National Security 

Act of 1947 critical external players had been added, namely the Departments 

of Defense and of the Air Force. The Department of the Navy had long been 

there, but acquired a new and different relationship with the Army now that 

both received funding and supervision through the Department of Defense. 

Given that technology muddied once clean boundaries between land and sea, 

and that air was everywhere, there was much to sort out. The late Cold War 

Army added the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), the Army 

Materiel Command (AMC), and a number of other agencies to deliberations 

Army transformations include administrative and cultural change.
Kevlar Legions

26

envisioning the future course of the Army. These cooperated with and occasionally competed with such Army Staff components as the Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Operations and Plans (DCSOPS) or the Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Logistics (DCSLOG). The increasing elaboration of staffs and commands was 

paralleled by increasing structure and sophistication in agencies given over to 

analysis, testing, and “consumer” evaluation. Army transformations became 

ever more multiorganizational, influencing the precept that they would be centrally directed and institutionally driven.24

Army transformations take time to mature, and the resulting forces overlap 

considerably. The Army for Empire arguably lasted from 1898 through 1941. 

The constituent shift to a general staff did not tip the balance with respect to 

the control of the bureaus until 1912, with the dramatic resolution of the socalled “muster-roll controversy.” Overseas units settled into a steady rhythm of 

forward deployment supported by individual replacements and trained units 

of Philippine Constabulary at about the same time. The mobilization-based 

Army rehearsed in 1917–1918 and lasted from 1940 through 1973. As we have 

seen, the status of draftees and draftee divisions was not fully settled until 

1944. The appliqué revolution in military affairs applied to the mobilizationbased Army went considerably faster, but this was largely because of time 

gained by drawing upon European experimentation and experience. The early 

Cold War Army lasted from 1945 through 1973. It was sufficiently dependent 

on conscription and mobilization plans to end about the same time as the 

mobilization-based Army, although it was, as we have seen, conscientiously 

atomic. The late Cold War Army began with the commitment to end conscription in 1969. It is a matter of debate whether this Army remains with us today. 

One purpose of this study is to define the extent to which the Army of 2005 

had changed from its late Cold War predecessor, and to ascertain whether the 

differences were enough to characterize as a transformation—and as a revolution in military affairs. Lest the timelines described seem too lengthy and the 

overlaps too extensive to qualify as transformative or revolutionary, one might 

consider other historical examples. Many historians consider the European 

introduction of drilled musketry as revolutionary. The proportion of French 

musketeers/fusiliers to pikemen evolved from two to three in 1622 through one 

to one in 1630, two to one in 1650, three to one in 1680, and four to one in 

1695. Pure fusilier battalions did not appear until about 1705, and even these 

did not make the logical leap to deploying as integral companies until about 

1750. Similarly, the Prussian revolution in military affairs that so benefited 

Chancellor Otto von Bismarck arguably extended from 1836 through 1871, 

the dreadnaught revolution from 1837 through 1917, and the harnessing of the 

internal combustion engine to military purposes from 1909 through 1944. To 

employ a nonmilitary analogy, the American Revolution was not conceptually 

complete until an elected government first superseded an opposing incumbent 

in 1800—twenty-four years after the Declaration of Independence. Timelines 

characterized as transformative or revolutionary are necessarily relative.25

Given the discussion to this point, what might one expect to find if an 

Army transformation indeed occurred between 1989 and 2005? First, the 

front end of that period would mark a broad strategic, socioeconomic, 
27

Introduction

and technological watershed forcing the Army into major changes, if 

only to adapt. Second, this watershed would not be unarguably apparent 

or uniformly agreed upon, provoking debates within the Army and the 

Department of Defense concerning appropriate responses. Unresolved 

debate would complicate overtures to Congress for funding, once decisions 

internal to the Army had ostensibly been made. Third, transformation would 

not be modernization alone, nor would the harnessing of new technologies 

alone complete it. Instead doctrine, organization, training, administrative 

practices, and service culture would change substantially as well. Fourth, 

transformation would involve multiple actors, inside the Army and out. If 

the pattern established over previous transformations continued, even more 

individuals and institutions would be players this time than had ever been 

the case before. Finally, temporal boundaries would be indistinct and the 

institutional overlap with legacy forces considerable. The very existence of a 

transformation might be debatable—and thus worthy of a study.

Conclusions

From 1989 through 2005 Army senior leaders attempted a centrally directed 

and institutionally driven revolution in military affairs relevant to ground warfare that exploited Information Age technology, adapted to post–Cold War 

strategic circumstances, and integrated into parallel Joint and Department of 

Defense efforts. Were this transformation to succeed, it would be as dramatic 

and consequential as the shifts to an Army for Empire around the turn of the 

last century, to a mobilization-based Army to fight World Wars I and II, to 

the atomic-armed early Cold War Army, and to the all-volunteer late Cold 

War Army. As had been the case in these earlier transformations, they would 

have adapted to radically altered strategic, socioeconomic, and technological 

circumstances. They also would have driven the Army to dramatic doctrinal, 

organizational, training, administrative, and cultural changes relevant to the 

Army’s new circumstances. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the origins, 

nature, and relative success of the Army transformation attempted between 

1989 and 2005. Hopefully the results will enlighten and inform and also will 

be of use to those called upon to author yet another Army transformation at 

some future point in time.
Notes

1

 Mark J. Reardon and Jeffery A. Charlston, From Transformation to Combat: The 

Initial Stryker Brigade Deployment to Iraq (Washington DC: Center of Military 

History, 2007), 49–57; Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War 

(New York: Penguin Books, 1999); United States Forces, Somalia After Action Report 

and Historical Overview of the United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 2003).

2

 Reardon and Charlston, 49–57.

3 Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary (New York: Harcourt, Brace 

and World, 1966), 1422; General Gordon R. Sullivan, Arrival Ceremony Speech, 

25 June 1991, in The Collected Works of the Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United 

States Army (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1995), 3–4; General 

Gordon R. Sullivan, “Maintaining Momentum While Accommodating Change,” 

Army 1991–1992 Green Book, October 1991, 23–28; General Gordon R. Sullivan, 

Speech to the Association of the United States Army Louisiana Maneuvers 

Symposium, in The Collected Works of the Thirty-Second Chief of Staff United 

States Army, 142–48; General Gordon R. Sullivan, Chief of Staff Msg, “Building 

the Force for the 21st Century—Force XXI,” 7 March 1994, in The Collected 

Works of the Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States Army, 318–21; General 

Dennis J. Reimer, “Where We’ve Been . . . Where We’re Headed: Maintaining a 

Solid Framework While Building for the Future,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, 

October 1995, 21–26; Remarks of General Dennis J. Reimer to the 1999 Division 

Commanders/Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Commandants 

Conference, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 19–21 April 1999, Historians Files, U.S. 

Army Center of Military History (CMH); General Frederick J. Kroesen, 

“Transformation,” Army (August 2003): 9–12; Army General Staff Council Offsite 

Meeting notes, 30–31 January 2004, Historians Files, CMH.

4

 Department of the Army Memo, 8 October 2002, sub: Transformation Campaign 

Plan (TCP)—Final Draft, Historians Files, CMH; The Army Strategic Planning 

Guidance 2005–2020 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2002); Key Issues 

Relevant to the U.S. Army’s Transformation to the Objective Force (Arlington, Virginia: 

Association of the United States Army, 2002); Briefing, Army Transformation Office, 

“US Army Transformation,” 20 May 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Intent of the Chief 

of Staff, 23 June 1999, Historians Files, CMH; Richard Hart Sinnreich, “The Army 

Should Quit Agonizing About Relevance,” Army (February 2002): 10–11; Major 

General Wolfgang H. Korte, “The German Army: Operations and Transformation,” 

Army (August 2006): 50–56; Colonel Robert B. Killebrew, “The Army and Changing 

American Strategy,” Army (August 2007): 25–34; Colonel Gregory Fontenot and 

Colonel Kevin Benson, “Transformation? Or Reclamation?—Organizing to Win the 

War We Have and Those We May Have Yet to Fight,” Army (March 2009): 39–44; 

Colonel Robert B. Killebrew, “Toward an Adaptive Army,” Army (January 2002), 

21–26; Brigadier General John S. Brown, “Thoughts on Our New Strategic 

Environment: A Review Essay,” Army (December 2005): 17–22; Lieutenant Colonel 

Mitchell Brew and Dana Baker, “The Transformation of Medical Logistics Since 

Operation Desert Storm,” Army (June 2003): 28–29; Colonel David A. Fastabend, 

“That Elusive Operational Concept,” Army (June 2001): 37–44.

5

 Briefing, Army Transformation Office, “US Army Transformation,” 20 May 2003; 

General Gordon R. Sullivan, Letter to the Army’s General Officers, “Force XXI,” 5 

March 1994, in The Collected Works of the Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States 
29

Introduction

Army, 316–17; General Dennis J. Reimer, “Remarks to Armed Forces 

Communications and Electronics Association—TECHNET 97” in Soldiers Are Our 

Credentials: The Collected Works and Selected Papers of the Thirty-third Chief of Staff, 

United States Army (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2000), 124–28; 

General Eric K. Shinseki, “America’s Army, Ready Today, Tomorrow and Into the 

Next Millennium: CSA Thoughts on the Line of Departure,” Historians Files, CMH; 

Dr. James Blackwell, Briefing, SAIC Strategic Assessment Center, “Transforming the 

Army: Learning from the Past,” Historians Files, CMH; Barry Watts, Northrop 

Grumman Analysis Center Assessment, “Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMAs): A 

Pre-Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Update on Transformation in the 

Department of Defense (DoD),” 7 February 2001, Historians Files, CMH; 

MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 

1300–2050 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Michael 

Roberts, The Military Revolution, 1560–1660 (Belfast, Ireland: M. Boyd, 1956); 

Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 

1500–1800 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2001); George 

and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World 

Dominance in the 21st Century (New York: Crown Publishers, 1996); Martin Van 

Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 1991); Major General 

Robert H. Scales, Jr., Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land Warfare for America’s 

Military (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); D. Robert Worley, Shaping U.S. 

Military Forces: Revolution or Relevance in a Post–Cold War World (Westport, 

Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2006); Mark D. Mandeles, Military 

Transformation Past and Present: Historic Lessons for the 21st Century (Westport, 

Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2007); Max Boot, War Made New: 

Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham 

Books, 2006); 1999 Division Commanders/TRADOC Commandants Conference 

notes, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 19–21 April 1999; Army General Staff Council 

Offsite Meeting notes, 30–31 January 2004, Historians Files, CMH.

6

 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 20 November 2000, Historians Files, 

CMH; Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Council Meeting notes, 7 June 2001, 

Historians Files, CMH; Watts; Andrew W. Marshall, “Revolutions in Military Affairs,” 

Statement Prepared for the Subcommittee on Acquisition and Technology, Senate 

Armed Services Committee, 5 May 1995; Defense Science Board 1998 Summer Study, 

Joint Operations Superiority in the 21st Century: Integrating Capabilities Underwriting 

Joint Vision 2010 and Beyond (Washington DC: Office of the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Acquisition and Technology, 1998); Admiral William Owens and Ed 

Offley, Lifting the Fog of War (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000); John 

Garstka, “Network Centric Warfare: An Overview of Emerging Theory,” Phalanx, 

December 2000; Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, “Network 

Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” Proceedings (January 1998); Brad C. Hayes et 

al., Transforming the Navy (Newport, Rhode Island: United States Naval War College, 

2000); Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 3 September 2002, Historians Files, 

CMH.

7 Mark Sherry, The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2008); Briefing, DAMO-SS Strategy 

Task Force, 1 November 1996, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, “Quadrennial Review 

(QDR): Army Plans and Preparations,” October 1996, Historians Files, CMH; 

DAMO-SS Slide Series, “Army Units Have Contributed Over 60% of the Engaged 

Forces on 25% of the Budget,” Historians Files, CMH; DAMO-SS Fact Sheet, Army 

Lessons Learned from DAWMS, Historians Files, CMH; General Dennis J. Reimer, 
Kevlar Legions

30

“Address at the Annual Meeting of the Association of the United States Army, 

Washington D.C.,” in Soldiers Are Our Credentials, 124–28; General Eric K. Shinseki, 

“America’s Army, Ready Today, Tomorrow and Into the Next Millennium: CSA 

Thoughts on the Line of Departure,” Historians Files, CMH; Knox and Murray, 1–14; 

1999 Division Commanders/TRADOC Commandants Conference notes, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, 19–21 April 1999; Army General Staff Council Offsite Meeting 

notes, 30–31 January 2004.

8 Briefing, Center of Military History, “Army Transformations Past,” Historians 

Files, CMH. 

9

 Richard W. Stewart, ed., American Military History, vol. 1, The United States Army 

and the Forging of a Nation, 1775–1917 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2005), 197–300; Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (New York: 

Macmillan, 1967), 197–264; James M. McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2003); Richard E. Beringer et al., Why the South Lost the Civil 

War (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1986); David H. Donald et al, Why the 

North Won the Civil War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996); Edward Hagerman, The 

American Civil War and the Origins of Modern Warfare: Ideas, Organizations and Field 

Command (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1988).

10 Stewart, American Military History, vol. 1, 341–85; Weigley, 313–41; James L. 

Abrahamson, America Arms for a New Century: The Making of a Great Military 

Power (New York: Free Press, 1981); James E. Hewes, From Root to McNamara: Army 

Organization and Administration, 1900–1963 (Washington DC: Center of Military 

History, 1983); Graham A. Cosmas, An Army for Empire: The U.S. Army in the 

Spanish-American War (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1998); 

Brian Linn, Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 1997); David McCullough, The Path Between the 

Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 

1977); “Early Military Medicine,” in Office of Military History, U.S. Army Medical 

Department, http://www.armymedicine.army.mil, accessed 3 June 2010.

11 Weigley, 313–41; Stewart, American Military History, vol. 1, 365–86; Richard D. 

Challener, Admirals, Generals and American Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1973); Richard W. Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition 

(Boston: Little Brown, 1954); Stephen E. Ambrose, Upton and the Army (Baton Rouge: 

Louisiana University Press, 1964); Emory Upton, Military Policy of the United States 

(Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1912); Howard K. Beale, Theodore 

Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 

University Press, 1984); David Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Trade and Investment: 

American Economic Expansion in the Hemisphere, 1865–1900 (Springfield, Missouri: 

University of Missouri Press, 1998); Harvey A. DeWeerd, President Wilson Fights His 

War: World War I and the American Intervention (New York: Macmillan, 1968).

12 John S. Brown, Draftee Division: The 88th Infantry Division in World War II 

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986); Marvin A. Kreidberg and Merton G. 

Henry, History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775–1945 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1955); Richard W. Stewart, ed., American 

Military History, vol. 2, The United States in a Global Era, 1917–2003 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 2005), 7–75, 105–28; Weigley, 342–450; Leonard 

Wood, The Military Obligation of Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 

1915); Edward M. Coffman, The War to End All Wars: The American Military 

Experience in World War I (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998); Paul F. 

Braim, The Test of Battle: The American Expeditionary Forces in the Meuse-Argonne 

Campaign (Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Books, 1998); Robert R. Palmer, 
31

Introduction

Bell I. Wiley, and William R. Keast, The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat 

Troops (Washington DC: Department of the Army Historical Division, 1948). 13 Brown, Draftee Division; Kreidberg and Henry; Stewart, American Military 

History, vol. 2, 7–75, 105–28; Weigley, 342–450; Coffman; Mary Beth Norton et al., A 

People and a Nation: A History of the United States (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 

2005), 567–765; Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness: 

The Interwar Period (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988); Boot, 205–304; Knox and 

Murray, 132–74.; Ernest F. Fisher, Jr., Cassino to the Alps (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 1977); Charles B. MacDonald, The Last Offensive (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 1973).

14 Weigley, 485–556; Stewart, American Military History, vol. 2, 199–215, 251–83; 

Robert A. Doughty, The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946–1976 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2001); Norman Friedman, The Fifty 

Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 

2001); Daniel J. Nelson, A History of U.S. Military Forces in Germany (Boulder, 

Colorado: Westview Press, 1987); James M. Gavin, War and Peace in the Space Age 

(New York: Harper, 1958); Robert E. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to 

American Strategy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957); John B. Wilson, 

Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998); John L. Gaddis, We Now Know: 

Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

15 Stewart, American Military History, vol. 2, 369–406; Robert M. Citino, Blitzkrieg 

to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational Warfare (Lawrence, Kansas: 

University Press of Kansas, 2004), 153–266; Robert K. Griffith, The U.S. Army’s 

Transition to the All-Volunteer Force, 1968–1974 (Washington DC: Center of Military 

History, 1997); Romie L. Brownlee and William J. Mullen, Changing an Army: An Oral 

History of General William E. Depuy, USA Retired (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 1987); Daniel P. Bolger, Americans at War: An Era of Violent Peace 

(Novato, California: Presidio Press, 1988); Anne W. Chapman, The Origins and 

Development of the National Training Center, 1976–1984 (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1992); John L. Romjue, The Army of 

Excellence: The Development of the 1980s Army (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army 

Training and Doctrine Command, 1993); Michael D. Doubler, I Am the Guard: A 

History of the Army National Guard, 1636–2000 (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 2001), 217–400; James T. Currie, Twice the Citizen: A History of the United 

States Army Reserve, 1908–1995 (Washington DC: Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, 

1997), 115–316.

16 Weigley, 295–556; Stewart, American Military History, vol. 1, 365–84; Norton et 

al., 479–508, 567–710, 739–826; Beale; Abrahamson; Stewart, American Military 

History, vol. 2, 7–23, 53–97, 105–30, 199–216, 251–84, 369–408; Kriedberg and Henry; 

Brown, Draftee Division, 1–69; Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National 

Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (Stanford, California: Stanford 

University Press, 1992); John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical 

Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1982); Lawrence Kaplan, The Long Entanglement: NATO’s First Fifty Years 

(Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1999); Griffith; Romjue, The Army of Excellence. 17 Weigley, 295–556; Hewes; Leopold; Mabel E. Deutrich, Struggle for Supremacy: 

The Career of Fred C. Ainsworth (Washington DC: Public Affairs Press, 1962); Brown, 

Draftee Division, 1–11, 140–63; John A. Logan, The Volunteer Soldier of America 

(Chicago: R. J. Peale, 1887); Upton; Wood; John McAuley Palmer, America in Arms: 

The Experience of the United States with Military Organization (New Haven, 
Kevlar Legions

32

Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1941); Charles E. Kirkpatrick, An Unknown Future 

and a Doubtful Present: Writing the Victory Plan of 1941 (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 1990; Palmer, Wiley, and Keast; James Walker, Lewis Bernstein, and 

Sharon Lang, Seize the High Ground: The Army in Space and Missile Defense 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004); Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower; 

Griffith; Bettie J. Morden, The Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978 (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 1990).

18 Weigley, 295–556; Stewart, American Military History, vol. 1, 365–84; Hewes; 

Martha Detrick, The National Guard in Politics (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard 

University Press, 1965); DeWeerd; Palmer, Wiley, and Keast; Kent Roberts Greenfield, 

Robert R. Palmer and Bell I. Wiley, The Organization of Ground Combat Troops 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1947); Stewart, American Military 

History, vol. 2, 7–24, 53–76, 105–30, 199–216, 251–84, 369–408; Samuel P. 

Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military 

Relations (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1957); Leffler; 

Douglas Kinnard, President Eisenhower and Strategy Management, A Study in Defense 

Politics (New York: Pergamom-Brassey’s, 1989); Griffith; Romjue, The Army of 

Excellence; Edgar F. Raines Jr. and David R. Campbell, The Army and the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff: Evolution of Army Ideas on the Command, Control and Coordination of the 

U.S. Armed Forces, 1942–1985 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1986).

19 Weigley, 295–556; Brian M. Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War 

(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007), 40–243; Stewart, 

American Military History, vol. 1, 365–84; Brian M. Linn, The Philippine War, 1899–

1902 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000); Frederick Funston, 

Memories of Two Wars: Cuban and Philippine Experiences (New York: Scribner, 1914); 

Coffman; William O. Odom, After the Trenches: The Transformation of U.S. Army 

Doctrine, 1918–1939 (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1999); 

Citino; Ltr, Army Ground Forces to Commanding Generals, 19 October 1942, sub: 

Training Directive Effective November 1, 1942, Historians Files, CMH; Doughty; 

Field Manual 100–5, Operations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1976); 

Brian Alexander and Alistair Millar, Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Emergent Threats in an 

Evolving Security Environment (Washington DC: Brassey’s, 2003); Field Manual 100–5,

Operations, 1986; John L. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The 

Development of Army Doctrine 1973–1982 (Fort Monroe, Virginia: Historical Office, 

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1984).

20 Weigley, 295–556; Stewart, American Military History, vol. 1, 365–84; Hewes; 

Elting E. Morison, Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. 

Stimson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), 150–69; Linn, The Philippine War; Stewart, 

American Military History, vol. 2, 7–23, 53–97, 105–30, 199–216, 251–84, 369–408; 

Kriedberg and Henry; Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower; John J. McGrath, The 

Brigade: A History, Its Organization and Employment in the US Army (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004); Tables of Organization of 

Infantry Units (Washington DC: Infantry Journal, 1941); Romjue, The Army of 

Excellence. 21 Weigley, 295–556; Harry P. Ball, Of Responsible Command: A History of the U.S. 

Army War College (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: Alumni Association of the U.S. 

Army War College); Timothy K. Nenninger, The Leavenworth Schools and the Old 

Army: Education, Professionalism and the Officer Corps of the United States Army, 

1881–1918 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978); Brown, Draftee Division, 

33–48, 140–63; Ltr, Army Ground Forces to Commanding Generals, 19 October 1942, 

sub: Training Directive Effective November 1, 1942; Palmer, Wiley, and Keast; Jean R. 
33

Introduction

Moenk, A History of Large-Scale Maneuvers in the United States 1935–1964 (Fort 

Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Continental Army Command, 1969); Army Training and 

Evaluation Program 71–2 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1980); 

Presentation, Howard C. Crowell Jr. (DC TNG TRADOC) to the U.S. Army Armor 

Conference, “The Army Training System,” Fort Knox, Kentucky, 14 May 1981; Anne 

W. Chapman, The Army’s Training Revolution, 1973–1990: An Overview (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 1994); Chapman, The Origins and Development of the 

National Training Center; David W. Hogan Jr., Arnold G. Fisch Jr. and Robert K. 

Wright Jr., The Story of the Noncommissioned Officer Corps: The Backbone of the 

Army (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2003), 12–40, 185–99. 

22 Hewes, 3–56; CMH Information Paper, Robert S, Rush, The Individual 

Replacement System: Good, Bad or Indifferent? Army Replacement Policy, Cold War 

and Before (Washington DC: Center of Military History, undated); The Replacement 

System in the United States Army: An Analytical Study of the World War II 

Experience (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1950); Brown, 

Draftee Division, 12–32, 140–63; C. M. Virtue, Company Administration and the 

Personnel Section (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Military Service Publication Company, 

1957); Presentation, Major General John M. Elton (Commanding General, U.S. Army 

Military Personnel Center [MILPERCEN]) to the U.S. Army Armor Conference, 

“Personnel Operations for Tomorrow’s Force,” Fort Knox, Kentucky, 13 May 1981; 

Bernard Rostker, I Want You! The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force (Santa Monica, 

California: RAND, 2006).

23 Weigley, 295–556; Cosmas; The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the 

Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977); “Early Military 

Medicine,” in Office of Military History, U.S. Army Medical Department, http://www.

armymedicine.army.mil, accessed 3 June 2010; Vincent J. Cirillo, “’The Patriotic Odor’: 

Sanitation and Typhoid Fever in the National Encampment During the SpanishAmerican War,” Army History (Spring 2000): 17–31; Lee Kennett, G.I. The American 

Soldier in World War II (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1987); Edward F. Sherman, “The 

Civilianization of Military Law,” Maine Law Review 22 (Spring 1970); Edmund M. 

Morgan, “The Background of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Military Law 

Review 28 (April 1965); Richard Dalfiume, Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces: 

Fighting on Two Fronts (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1972); 

Army Regulation 600–21, Race Relations and Equal Opportunity (Washington DC: 

Department of the Army, 1973); Larry H. Ingraham, The Boys in the Barracks: 

Observations on American Military Life (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of 

Human Issues, 1984); Major General Jeanne Holm, Women in the Military: An 

Unfinished Revolution (Novato, California: Presidio Press, 1982); Morden.

24 Weigley, 295–556; Hewes; Leopold; Stephen Skowronek, Building a New 

American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Edgar F. Raines Jr., Evolution of the 

Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, 1903–1991 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 1992); Francis T. Julia, Army Staff Reorganization 

1903–1985 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1987); Mark Skinner 

Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 1950); Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic Planning for 

Coalition Warfare: 1941–1942 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1953); 

Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare:1943–1944 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 1959); Raines and Campbell; Brownlee and Mullen; 

George C. Wilson, This War Really Matters: Inside the Fight for Defense Dollars 

(Washington DC: CQ Press, 2000); Mandeles, 1–13, 71–101.
Kevlar Legions

34

25 Weigley, 295–556; Stewart, American Military History, vol. 1, 365–84; Cosmas; 

Rush; Deutrich; Stewart, American Military History, vol. 2; Brown, Draftee Division; 

Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 

1974); Knox and Murray, 1–56; Parker; John A. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siecle: The 

French Army, 1610–1715 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Dennis E. 

Showalter, Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology, and the Unification of Germany 

(Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1975); Jon T. Sumida, In Defense of Naval 

Supremacy: Financial Limitation, Technological Innovation, and British Naval Policy, 

1889–1914 (Boston: Routledge,1993); Jonathan M. House, Combined Arms Warfare in 

the Twentieth Century (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2001); Don 

Higgenbotham, ed., Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War: Selected Essays 

(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978); Bernard A. Weisberger, America Afire: 

Jefferson, Adams and the Revolutionary Election of 1800 (New York: Morrow, 2000).
Chapter 2

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

We have characterized historical Army transformations as redesigns in 

response to radically altered strategic, socioeconomic, and technological circumstances. The United States Army has not changed for the sake of change 

alone but has proven creditably adaptive when pressed. It would again find 

itself pressed by dramatic developments during the period 1989 through 1991. 

Within these few years strategic, socioeconomic, and technological changes 

occurred or became apparent whose cumulative effect would be tectonic. Army 

leaders recognized the imminence of a paradigm shift, even though its direction and ultimate dimensions remained unclear. They solidified a framework 

for change, initiated relevant planning, and undertook some changes that had 

immediate effects. Let us examine the Army as it existed in 1989, discuss the 

dramatic events of 1989–1991, and describe the Army’s initial efforts to adapt 

to its newly emerging circumstances. 

The United States Army in 1989

Going into 1989, the United States Army had focus. Chief of Staff 

General Carl E. Vuono unequivocally stated “the Soviets continue to present 

the most dangerous threat to our interests and allies throughout the world.”1

Not only that, the Soviet threat continued “to grow and become more sophisticated.”2

 Only the Soviet Union had the capability to destroy the United States 

and deployed forces requisite to do so. In Europe, confrontation between the 

superpowers had been visible and direct for forty years. In the Middle East, 

American war plans envisioned a Soviet drive south for oil and saltwater 

access. Cuba and North Korea remained afloat by the virtue of Soviet largesse. 

Perturbations in the Third World were generally painted in some shade of 

red. Only Communist China posed a significant threat external to the Soviet 

umbrella. China’s threat boiled down to the Taiwan Straits, however, and that 

was a Navy problem.3

The Army’s disposition reflected the threat. The Commander in Chief, 

United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), and Seventh Army, General 

Crosbie E. Saint, began his annual report in the Association of the United 

States Army’s Green Book with the words “general defense plan,” thus giving 

the “GDP” pride of place in the priorities of his command.4

 More than 

200,000 of the Army’s 770,000 active-component personnel were assigned to 
Kevlar Legions

36

Europe: two corps, four heavy divisions, three separate brigades, two armored 

cavalry regiments, and numerous supporting units. These served alongside six 

corps of similarly heavily equipped allied units. In case of crisis, the Americans 

were to be reinforced in accordance with a national commitment to provide 

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ten divisions within ten days. 

Units rapidly flown in from the United States would draw Pre-positioning of 

Materiel Configured to Unit Sets (POMCUS) equipment from sites in Belgium, 

Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, and then race to their deployment areas. Procedures were rehearsed in massive annual Return of Forces 

to Germany (REFORGER) exercises, wherein thousands of combat vehicles 

streamed along the Autobahnen and into the German countryside. Beyond 

these early arrivals, the remainder of the Army’s twelve active-component and 

ten reserve-component divisions stationed in the United States—and many 

smaller units besides—figured somewhere in the war plans for Europe, as did 

further divisions to be activated and trained by the reserve component’s twelve 

training divisions in accordance with mobilization plans. The European allies 

were similarly committed to national mobilization on a gigantic scale. Beyond 

Europe, war plans existed based upon the Army’s two remaining active-component divisions—an infantry division each in Korea and Hawaii—and upon 

contingencies in the Middle East. These were, by comparison with those pertaining to Europe, modest.5

The GDP was not just stacks of papers locked in the safes of obscure staff 

officers. They were organizing principles for a way of life. From them units 

Heavy forces deploy from the United States to Europe

for REFORGER exercises. 
37

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

at every level derived mission essential task lists (METLs) defining what they 

were to prepare for. USAREUR platoon sergeants and leaders in the chain 

above them sported “battle books” with maps, diagrams, photographs, and 

checklists detailing where they would go and what they would do “when the 

balloon went up.” Monthly readiness tests spilled soldiers out of homes and 

barracks in races through the darkness. Woe be to the unit that did not “bust 

the gate” of its motor pool on time or could not readily achieve the cherished status of “REDCON One.” Training was a continuous rehearsal for the 

envisioned future battle. Home station training stressed requisite individual 

skills and drills at the small-unit level. Once or, more happily, twice a year 

USAREUR combat battalions trekked to major training areas at Hohenfels 

and Grafenwohr. At Hohenfels they maneuvered through tough terrain against 

an experienced opposing force and engaged their adversaries with Multiple 

Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) gear under the watchful eyes 

of seasoned Observer Controllers (OCs). At Grafenwohr they tested their 

marksmanship, time after time, target after target. A tank commander’s sense 

of self-worth, for example, was largely associated with how quickly and with 

how few rounds his crew dispatched two moving targets from beyond twelve 

hundred meters, along with the nine other specific engagements prescribed by 

Tank Table VIII. Soldiers in other branches had similarly well-defined tasks, 

conditions, and standards to govern their training. Heavy units stationed in the 

United States mirrored this studied preparation for a Soviet-style opponent, 

capping their training year with gunnery and maneuvers against Soviet surrogates in the expansive and thoroughly modernized National Training Center 

(NTC) at Fort Irwin, California. “Stateside” commanders sported their own 

“battle books,” elaborating on their POMCUS sites and anticipated races down 

the Autobahnen into GDP positions. There was also a Joint Readiness Training 

Center (JRTC), then at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, designed for the Army’s more 

lightly equipped units. Even here the diminished threat had Soviet-inspired 

adversaries in mind.6

The Army of 1989 had as much reason to be proud of the quality of its 

personnel as it did the rigor of its training. Over 98 percent of its soldiers were 

high school graduates, and fewer than 5 percent tested as the less desirable 

Category IV. A decade of stressing personal and vocational development—“Be 

All You Can Be”—in recruiting for the all-volunteer Army had attracted young 

people intending to make something of themselves. In the preceding ten years 

the percentage of active-component accessions with high school diplomas had 

almost doubled, and the percentage of Category IV accessions plummeted 

tenfold. The notion of developing socioeconomic opportunities through military service appealed most to those whose opportunities outside of the Army 

seemed circumscribed. Thirty-three percent of the enlisted strength was black, 

for example, up from 14 percent in the draftee Army of 1971. The percentage 

of women had leaped from 1.5 percent to 10.5 percent during the same period. 

Soldiers may have joined the Army intending to serve a single tour, learn a 

vocation, and take advantage of the Montgomery GI Bill’s educational opportunities thereafter, but many stayed. Of 87,232 first-term soldiers eligible to 

reenlist in Fiscal Year (FY) 1989, for example, 42,911 reenlisted—almost half. 
Kevlar Legions

38

Reenlistment rates for more senior soldiers exceeded 90 percent. Such robust 

retention provided an ample supply of noncommissioned officers (NCOs), 

and a thoughtfully layered Noncommissioned Officer Educational System 

(NCOES) guaranteed that these officers received appropriate training as they 

advanced into each level of rank. Each military occupational specialty (MOS) 

featured a hierarchy of skill qualification tests (SQTs) that further defined the 

expectations of every soldier. For some time active- and reserve-component 

soldiers had been enabled to focus on soldiering proper, since Department of 

the Army (DA) civilians carried the lion’s share of the weight for depot, logistical, communications, and training support functions. At the end of FY1989, 

487,852 DA civilians were on the books, of whom 71,431 were foreign nationals. Of the foreign nationals, about 48,000 served in Germany.7

The 594,000 soldiers of the United States Army Reserve (USAR) and 

467,000 soldiers of the Army National Guard (ARNG) reflected the superb 

qualitative potential of their 770,000 brethren in the active component, but 

enjoyed far less training and preparation. Their 38 or 39 days a year for unit 

training was perhaps a sixth of the time active units spent, and geographical 

dispersion proved problematic as well. National Guard battalions averaged a 

geographical footprint 150 miles in radius, with constituent units averaging 

130 miles to their major equipment storage sites. “Late deploying” units were 

equipped to a standard of 65 percent or less, further complicating training. 

Since the advent of the Total Army concept in the 1970s reserve-component 

units had been integral to the war plans of active-component units, however, 

and many combat support and combat service support specialties disproportionately resided in the reserve component. For example, 97 percent of the 

Army’s civil affairs and 87 percent of its psychological operations capability 

was in the Army Reserve. Tens of thousands of Guardsmen and Reservists 

participated as individuals or small units in overseas deployment training 

(ODT) to sharpen skills and enhance coordination with active-component 

counterparts with whom war plans associated them. There nevertheless was a 

broad understanding that the “citizen-soldiers” of the reserve component were 

a mobilization asset more so than an immediate capability and were to be committed “in time of war or national emergency.” The Army Reserve sustained 

24 percent of the Total Army force structure with 4 percent of its budget, 

and the National Guard contributed 46 percent of the Total Army’s combat 

strength even more parsimoniously. This had profound implications for training, sustainment, and—perhaps most topical at the time—modernization.8

 

Modernization was on the mind of the United States Army in 1989. To soldiers in the field the term was more often associated with something they were 

wrapping up rather than with something yet to come. A post-Vietnam “renaissance” with respect to training and doctrine, and radically increased defense 

spending during the 1980s, led to the development and fielding of the so-called 

“big five”: the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, the 

AH–64 Apache attack helicopter, the UH–60 Black Hawk utility helicopter, 

and the Patriot Missile System. Advanced munitions such as the Hellfire missile, the Copperhead artillery round, and the Multiple Launch Rocket System 

(MLRS) promising quantum leaps in accuracy and firepower were also being 
In the 1980s the so-called “big five” modernized U.S. Army equipment. Top to 

bottom, Abrams tank, Apache helicopter, Patriot Missile System, Black Hawk 

helicopter, and Bradley infantry fighting vehicle
Kevlar Legions

40

fielded. Major “end items” such as tanks or helicopters required a panoply of 

auxiliary and constituent equipment: radios, sights, machine guns, diagnostic 

equipment, and so on. This had to be replaced as well. A “modernized” battalion was one that rolled or flew with this latest hardware. Each division had 

a force modernization office, generally under the supervision of its operations 

and training officer (G–3), overseeing the “rollover” of constituent units from 

antiquated to new equipment.9

“Rollover” was an elaborate and carefully coordinated process. A battalion “stood down” from an active training status for ninety days and prepared 

its legacy equipment for turn-in. The legacy equipment, destined for units 

the GDP characterized as “late arriving” or for war reserves, was inspected 

and its shortcomings identified by specialist teams external to the battalion. 

The battalion corrected the shortcomings, brought the equipment to a fully 

operational status, serviced it, submitted it for reinspection, and shipped it 

out for disposition if it passed. The process was neither easy nor cheap. The 

first USAREUR battalion to roll over from the M1 to the M1A1 tank, for 

example, complied with ninety-five “turn-in standards” on each tank and submitted over $1,200,000 in requisitions. Once shorn of its heavy equipment, the 

battalion “covered down” on a “unit set” of the new equipment intended to 

replace it. The unit set was an intimidating array of end items and auxiliary and 

constituent equipment, all of which had to be inspected, inventoried, serviced, 

and signed for. The battalion next took to the field to familiarize itself with 

its new equipment. Rigorous training progressed from individual skills such 

as licensing drivers or safety-proofing loaders through challenging fire and 

maneuver at the company level. Leaps had to be made with respect to doctrine, 

organization, and logistics as well as mechanical technique. A Bradley infantry 

battalion performed altogether differently than one borne by M113 personnel 

carriers, for example, and thermal sights totally altered the nature of night 

combat for those equipped with them. The M1A1 tank guzzled diesel to the 

tune of two gallons per mile, and logisticians had to reorganize and reequip 

to accommodate such consumption. High-tech repair components were often 

“black boxes,” items organizational mechanics simply replaced rather than 

attempted to repair. This in turn increased the technical complexity of diagnostic equipment and the volume of repair parts shuttling forward and back.10

Some in the Army worked toward technologies beyond those embedded 

in the “big five” and other systems already being fielded. Soldiers and scientists under the auspices of the Army Materiel Command (AMC) envisioned 

future conflicts featuring robotics, directed energy, advanced materials and 

materials processing, advanced power generation and storage, biotechnology, 

microelectronics, photonics, acoustics, signal processing, artificial intelligence, 

low observables, and space technology. The AMC Commander, General Louis 

C. Wagner Jr., postulated a 2010 scenario wherein American soldiers armed 

with such capabilities defeated a Warsaw Pact invasion of Central Europe. 

Interestingly, neither the deliberations nor the vision particularly anticipated 

the Information Age as we now define it. The dramatic breakthroughs of 

hypertext markup language (HTML), hypertext transfer protocols (HTTP), 

and practical browsers remained in the future. Concerning these, more later. 
41

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

It should also be noted that the Army was already doing a great deal digitally, 

even if the term “digital” was not yet in its lexicon as such. Trainers drilled with 

such computer-driven simulations as the Battle Command Training Program’s 

(BCTP’s) Corps Battle Simulation System (CBS), Army Training Battle 

Simulation System (ARTBASS), and unit conduct-of-fire trainer (UCOFT). 

Logisticians retailed through the Tactical Army Combat Service Support 

Computer System (TACCS), accounted through the Standard Property Book 

System–Redesignated (SPBS-R), and maintained through the Standard Army 

Maintenance System (SAMS). Personnel managers relied upon the Standard 

Installation/Division Personnel Reporting System (SIDPERS) and were developing a computerized Company/Battalion Administrative System (CBAS) 

and an Optical Digital Image Military Personnel Records System. Networkcentric warfare was a phenomenon of the future, but the soldiers of 1989 were 

already gaining experience with bits and pieces that would be relevant to it.11

The United States Army of 1989 was a muscular, well-organized machine 

poised to take on its Soviet adversary around the world. Robust forwarddeployed forces were trained to the highest standard and supported by war 

and mobilization plans directing rapid and sustained reinforcement. Soldiers, 

whether active or reserve, were of unprecedented quality and thoughtfully prepared for roles they were to play. Long-term modernization plans were coming 

to fruition, depositing cascades of advanced equipment working from the 

Army’s front line back. The Army was committed to the Cold War for the long 

haul, envisioning mammoth conflict with the Soviets at least as far as twenty 

years out. It was comfortably on an azimuth it had been on for forty years.

Defense Reorganization

The Army’s senior leadership could take comfort that it had both nearterm modernization programs running on their own momentum and longterm visionaries contemplating potential new technologies. The issues 

dominating its immediate attention that most likely might be characterized 

as transformational were not technological, however. The Department of 

Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Goldwater-Nichols Act), the FY1987 

National Defense Authorization Act (establishing the United States Special 

Operations Command, among other provisions), and the Intermediate-Range 

Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty ratified on 27 May 1988, substantially altered the 

role of the Department of the Army.

Defense reformers had long aspired to reduce the autonomy of and 

improve coordination among the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. 

The Goldwater-Nichols Act was a dramatic demonstration of congressional 

authority directed toward that purpose. It reinforced the authority of the 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the Joint Staff and singularly identified him as the voice of the uniformed services. It enhanced the control joint 

theater commanders overseas had over forces assigned to them, focusing their 

chain of command through the Secretary of Defense rather than the Joint 

Chiefs as a body. It expanded the Joint Staff from 1,400 to 1,627 and from 

five to eight directorates. Headquarters, Department of the Army, was to be 
Kevlar Legions

42

reduced from 3,653 to 3,105, and the other services similarly trimmed. The 

act established the four-star position of Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, assuming additional seasoned leadership would be necessary to drive the 

enlarging Joint Staff, to coordinate with the newly more autonomous theater 

commanders, and to bring recalcitrant services to heel. Future generations of 

officers would be inoculated against service parochialism by prescribing joint 

training and experience from an early age. In due course promotion to flag 

rank would require at least one extended joint assignment as a field-grade officer, and blocks of joint instruction would enter the curriculum of all service 

schools. Goldwater-Nichols did not change existing war plans, however, and 

sharp lines separating service responsibilities for training, sustainment, and 

readiness from theater responsibilities for operational control were not always 

easy to draw. The Army in the field continued on its Cold War azimuth; the 

effects of Goldwater-Nichols outside the “Beltway” were yet to be seen.12

Somewhat less visible than Goldwater-Nichols’ emphasis upon joint 

integration was its emphasis upon civilian control. Functions that had previously resided wholly within the uniformed Army Staff migrated to the Army 

Secretariat or the Office of the Secretary of Defense. These included acquisition, auditing, budget, comptroller, information management, inspector general, legislative affairs, public affairs, and research and development. This was 

to tighten the Secretary of Defense’s grip on processes whereby services might 

slink back into parochial nonconformity. As the Department of the Army 

reorganized, political appointees newly in charge of such functions found 

themselves teamed up with nominally subordinate career civil servants who 

had been at their jobs for years and with senior officers enjoying a breadth of 

uniformed experience. The resultant teams generally worked out, and a threestar Director of the Army Staff (DAS) assumed the mission of coordinating the activities of the uniformed Army Staff with those of the increasingly 

empowered civilian Secretariat. The Chief of Staff’s control over procurement 

and sustainment had been diffused, however, and he now had to consult with 

the Secretary or Secretariat rather than commit on his own authority with 

respect to them. It remained to be seen whether the parochialism precluded 

trumped the delay and inefficiencies introduced. It may be worth noting that 

the ongoing “modernization” functions of getting such items as the M1A1 

Abrams tank or AH–64 Apache helicopter to units in the field remained 

largely under uniformed control, whereas more distantly focused research and 

development migrated to the Secretariat.13

A provision of the FY1987 National Defense Authorization Act established 

the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity 

Conflict (ASD SO/LIC). Another provision split off the United States Special 

Operations Command (USSOCOM), envisioning it as a joint command in its 

own right, with a budget independent of the services. Ultimately such “special 

operators” as Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and aviators in various classified programs would migrate here. The idea was to achieve more effective coordination of such special operations forces across service lines, especially when 

operating at the low end of the combat spectrum. The failed 1980 hostage rescue 

mission in Iran offered an example of the price paid absent such coordination, 
43

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

as did some features of the Grenada 

intervention in 1983. The Special 

Operations Command would be 

analogous to a theater with respect 

to command and control—and relatively autonomous once forces had 

been committed to it. Unlike a theater command, however, its area of 

operations would be worldwide. The 

overwhelming majority of Special 

Operations Command manpower 

would come from the Army. The 

redesign removed the Army—and to 

a lesser extent the Marine Corps—

from primacy with respect to envisioning and executing low-intensity 

conflict. Now another headquarters 

would be responsible for operations, 

resource planning, and, increasingly, 

training. This threatened the Army’s 

standing argument for multipurpose 

forces—forces prepared for the high 

end of the combat spectrum that 

could adapt when necessary to the 

low end—in favor of forces tailored 

for the low end.14 

The Army’s role was diminishing at the top end of the combat spectrum 

as well. The INF Treaty ratified on 27 May 1988 eliminated all groundlaunched and cruise ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 

kilometers. This struck the Pershing II missile from the Army’s inventory 

and took long strides toward eliminating the Army as a nuclear player. Since 

the 1950s the Army had fielded somewhat euphemistically labeled “nonstrategic nuclear weapons” in the expectation they might prove necessary to 

offset numerically superior Soviet forces. One 1987 Department of Defense 

study credited the Soviets with 211 divisions.15 In the thawing atmosphere of 

the late 1980s American diplomats eagerly embraced a mutual destruction 

of nuclear weapons and were negotiating treaties restricting conventional 

forces as well. The numerical disadvantages that had been the original logic 

for “tactical” nuclear weapons had not yet actually disappeared, however. 

In late FY1988 the Army secured Department of Defense approval for a 

new 270-mile-range nuclear missile. This would extend the deterrence still 

provided by artillery-fired atomic projectiles and the venerable seventy-milerange Lance missile out to the limits permitted by the INF Treaty. Like the 

GDP, tactical nuclear weapons drove a culture and a way of life. Generations 

of artillerymen had grown up in the zero defects mind-set of the nuclear 

surety program. An excruciating regime of exercise and inspection assured 

soldiers were up to their tasks and that nuclear materials were never in the 

The Pershing missile gave the U.S. 

Army a nuclear punch.
Kevlar Legions

44

wrong hands. The Army remained a nuclear player for the moment, but its 

nuclear capabilities had been considerably reduced.16

The uniformed Army’s sense of prerogative and autonomy was eroded 

by the Goldwater-Nichols Act. The near simultaneous establishment of 

USSOCOM and ratification of the INF Treaty, reducing responsibilities at 

both the high end and the low end of the combat spectrum, seemed likely to 

focus the Army on conventional warfare even more so than it was already. As 

long as adversaries and war plans remained unchanged, however, what difference would these perturbations make?

The Collapse of the Warsaw Pact . . .

On 9 November 1989, crowds of elated Berliners poured through holes 

battered into the walls that had for so long divided their city. The youthful and 

nimble among them danced along the top of the wall, celebrating their newly 

arrived freedom to move between east and west in a miles-long street party 

that lasted late into the night. That same day the foreign minister of Bulgaria, 

Petar Mladenov, led reform-minded colleagues to promise free elections and 

summarily replace the repressive leadership of Todor Zhivkov. Eight days later 

Czech police truncheoned student demonstrators in Prague and provoked 

massive strikes by Czech citizens. For ten days huge crowds paraded “Down 

With Communism” banners through Wenceslas Square, and on 24 November 

the Czech Communist Party leader and his entire Politburo resigned. Poland 

and Hungary had already passed tipping points several months before. In 

Poland decades of generally surreptitious Roman Catholic, nationalist, and 

independent trade union resistance to communist rule burst into the open, and 

the trade union turned political party Solidarity swept up 80 percent of the 

vote in parliamentary elections on 4 June. The ballot had been rigged for communists to sustain a majority, but voters scratched out the names of communist candidates—giving them a negative vote even if effectively unopposed. In 

Hungary change came from the top, with communist party officials authoring 

reform plans of their own, establishing a stock exchange, encouraging foreign 

investment and entrepreneurial initiative, allowing freedom of expression, and 

resigning themselves to an eventual multiparty system. If there was a singular 

galvanizing moment in Hungary, it was the massive 15 June funeral service 

in honor of former Prime Minister Imre Nagy and other martyrs of the 1956 

Hungarian uprising. Their memory had long been proscribed by communist 

authorities. By and large the collapse went bloodlessly; in Romania it did 

not. A secret police raid on the Inner City Reform Church in Timisoara provoked protests followed by street fighting. Army units changed sides, leading 

to further savage conflicts with the dreaded security police. Dictator Nicolae 

Ceausescu—in power since 1965—provided a rallying point for diehards until 

he and his wife Elena were gunned down by a firing squad on Christmas Day.17

The United States Army’s initial reaction to the populist tsunami sweeping 

Eastern Europe was cautious and operational more so than grandly strategic. 

What needed to change in the war plans? Uprisings against communist rule 

had occurred before: East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia 
45

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

in 1968, Poland in 1956, 1970, 1976, and 1980. Some of these episodes were 

prolonged; the “Prague Spring” of 1968 lasted eight months. Time and again 

the Soviets had crushed popular movements with overwhelming force. They 

invented the so-called “Brezhnev Doctrine” to legitimate themselves:

When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of 

some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem 

of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all 

socialist countries.18

Thus the Soviets asserted a right to intervene to protect “socialism” within 

socialist countries. At least as far back as its refusal to assist Hungarian 

revolutionaries in 1956, the United States had tacitly accepted the separate 

spheres of influence implied by the Brezhnev Doctrine. It was not likely to 

risk nuclear war now on the behalf of dissidents in what many still viewed 

as Soviet “territory.” As recently as June 1989 the United States and other 

democracies had done nothing but complain when the Communist Chinese 

brutally suppressed pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. It 

was true that the democratization of Eastern Europe was a long-term goal. 

An underlying premise of the decades old Containment Policy was that the 

contrast between liberal capitalist regimes defended by the United States and 

communist regimes imposed by the Soviet Union would become so stark that 

oppressed peoples would take a hand in liberating themselves. Whether this 

moment had actually arrived remained to be seen, however.19

General Vuono celebrated developments in Eastern Europe but cautioned that “the struggle is not yet over” and went on to point out “History 

teaches us that the collapse of great empires seldom takes place without 

great upheaval . . . revolutionary changes in regimes, however benignly they 

may begin, often quickly dissolve into massive conflict.”20 Secretary of the 

Army Michael P. W. Stone was even more wary, pointing out “Another 

area of major concern is the increasing instability in Eastern Europe and 

within the Soviet Union.”21 The Soviets had sacrificed twenty million lives 

to secure hegemony over Eastern Europe in World War II; would they give it 

up now without a fight? General Saint counseled “the need to consider the 

capabilities of potential adversaries, not just their announced policies. The 

world still is unpredictable. . . .”22 If hard-liners determined to reassert Soviet 

authority once again seized the reins of power in the Kremlin, was it not 

possible they would blame the West for their troubles and overreact? A book 

popular at the time, The Third World War by General Sir John Hackett and 

other prominent NATO senior officers, had posited such a scenario, as did a 

number of USAREUR training exercises.23 The fate of Eastern Europe was 

not yet settled and the success of its popular revolts not yet irreversible. The 

immediate responsibility of the United States Army remained the defense of 

the United States and its allies. 

If the grand strategic vision of a democratized and peaceable Europe 

had not yet been reliably achieved, unrest in Eastern Europe certainly tipped 

the operational balance in NATO’s favor. About a third of the ground forces 
Kevlar Legions

46

available to the Warsaw Pact were from non-Soviet allies, and these were 

increasingly recognized as unreliable. Front-line East German, Czech, and 

Hungarian units would undoubtedly have to be replaced. Disaffected satellite units securing Soviet lines of communications would have to be replaced 

as well. The 10th Special Forces Group had long focused on Eastern Europe. 

Among other missions, in the event of hostilities they were to operate 

against Soviet lines of communications. This would be by direct action in 

the short run and in concert with increasingly organized and well-supported 

indigenous forces in the long run. USSOCOM’s highest procurement priority was long-range aircraft to surreptitiously carry troops into and out 

of “unfriendly” territory. Prospects for success—both with respect to clandestine operations and with respect to the overall conventional defense of 

NATO—immeasurably improved with the alienation of former satellites 

from their Soviet masters. The dark side of this otherwise bright picture 

was that unfavorable circumstances might encourage the Soviets to “go ugly 

early”—to rely upon nuclear weapons from the outset. Was NATO ready? 

Planners throughout USAREUR and NATO understandably tinkered with 

existing general deployment plans as events developed.24

Opinion concerning the permanence of change in Eastern Europe pivoted 

upon an appraisal of the character and grip on power of the General Secretary 

of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev 

enjoyed rock-star appeal throughout much of the West. His domestic policies 

of glasnost (openness, liberalization), perestroika (restructuring), and demokratizatsiya (democratization) challenged the corruption, secretiveness, and overcentralization of the Soviet economy and the Soviet state. Abroad he ardently 

pursued improved relations, trade, and disarmament. By 1988 four sets of 

arms reduction talks—the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the IntermediateRange Ballistic Missile Treaty, weapons-in-space negotiations, and the mutual 

balanced force reduction talks—were ongoing. The highest-ranking Soviet 

military officer, Marshall Sergei Akhromeyev, visited the Pentagon twice. In 

1989 Gorbachev replaced the Brezhnev Doctrine with a policy his foreign 

ministry spokesmen playfully renamed the “Sinatra Doctrine.” The term 

referred to Frank Sinatra’s famous song “My Way,” and committed to allowing satellite nations to determine their own destinies in their own way without 

Soviet intervention. Gorbachev began withdrawing troops from Mongolia 

and Afghanistan and committed to withdrawing them from Eastern Europe 

as well.25

As welcome as the direction set by Gorbachev might be, American reaction 

was equivocal. Gorbachev could be making a virtue out of necessity. The costs 

of the arms race, the war in Afghanistan, and the suppression of dissidents 

throughout the Warsaw Pact had become more than the moribund Soviet 

economy could bear. Retrenchment was inevitable. The communist parties of 

Eastern Europe were directed to work out their own national solutions—in 

the hopes they would somehow land on their feet. Gorbachev’s reforms in the 

Soviet Union were not intended to destroy the Communist Party, but rather to 

strengthen it and make it more efficient. Could not Eastern European communist parties reform themselves in their own way? If former satellites assumed 
47

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

a posture akin to that of Finland Soviet influence would be weakened, but 

this would be offset if Germany were “Finlandized” as well. The prospect of 

reunification conjured up powerful emotions within the German people. If 

neutrality were the price of reunification, NATO’s military posture in Central 

Europe would collapse. Given that there already was no NATO infrastructure 

in France, withdrawal from Germany would confine NATO’s military forces 

north of the Alps to the tiny triangle formed by Belgium, Luxembourg, and the 

Netherlands. In some future scenario, Soviet forces pouring across the Polish 

border would enjoy huge advantages over allies trying to wedge themselves 

into Central Europe through a few North Sea ports. Were nuclear weapons 

to be introduced, the vulnerability of the compressed NATO footprint would 

be even more acute. Thinking deep, General Vuono cautioned, “The Soviet 

armed forces may well emerge from their own perestroika both leaner and 

more capable than they are now and with a force structure that will be several 

times larger than our own.”26

Fortunately for the United States and NATO, the German people 

were at this critical moment well served by the chancellor of the Federal 

Republic of Germany (West Germany), Helmut Kohl. Kohl would be the 

longest serving chancellor since Otto von Bismarck. Like Bismarck he 

would steer German reunification through complex international challenges—albeit without Bismarck’s heavy-handed use of “blood and iron.” 

Kohl participated in lengthy talks with the new leaders of the German 

Democratic Republic (East Germany), which had overwhelmingly committed by plebiscite to a unified democratic German nation. He monitored 

negotiations among the former occupying powers: France, the Soviet 

Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Most significantly, 

he flew to Moscow several times to conduct intense personal diplomacy 

with Mikhail Gorbachev, inching him toward a favorable resolution. There 

were concessions: Germany would give up all claims to lands beyond 

the Oder-Neisse and in the Sudetenland; Germany would never acquire 

nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons; German armed forces would not 

exceed 370,000; non-German armed forces (in particular nuclear weapons 

and their carriers) would not be permitted in the former East Germany; 

Germany, assisted by its allies, would foot the bill for an impressive array 

of grants, trade arrangements, and economic aid to assist the ailing Soviet 

economy; Germany would particularly assist in financing the relocation 

of Soviet forces, due out of their country by 1994. Gorbachev and Kohl 

ultimately struck a deal. The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect 

to Germany was signed in Moscow on 12 September 1990. It was also 

called the “Two Plus Four Agreement”—two being the Federal Republic of 

Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and four being France, the 

Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. On 3 October 

1990, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, 

Thuringia, and Berlin officially joined the Federal Republic of Germany 

as constituent states. Notably, Germany remained a member of NATO 

and the European Union, and the disposition of American forces within 

Germany remained unchanged.27
Kevlar Legions

48

This was a great time to be an American soldier serving in Germany. 

German neighbors, and Germans they had never met, stopped soldiers in uniform on the street to thank them and their countrymen for having protected 

them through the long night of the Cold War. East Germans exploring the 

West in sputtering Trabants pulled into American military convoys momentarily halted at Autobahn Rast Platzen to add their thanks in halting English 

or incomprehensibly accented German. American soldiers standing in lines 

at filling stations reached the cashier, only to find that their bill had already 

been paid by the German in line in front of them or was spoken for by the 

German in line behind them. Patrons in Gasthausen were eager to share their 

tables, make complimentary conversation, and buy the brew. Partnership battalions feted the success of the alliance in celebratory rounds of beer, bratwurst, dining, and dancing. Euphoria was in the air. The Cold War was over. 

Democracy had triumphed.28

Gorbachev did remain true to his word and allowed the former satellites to 

go their own way without Soviet military intervention. Street demonstrations 

receded, and nations got down to the gritty business of establishing workable multiparty democracies. Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 

in 1990. However, fears of a coup by Soviet hard-liners were not unfounded. 

On 18 August 1991, conspirators isolated Gorbachev in his Crimean dacha. 

On the following day they declared a state of emergency and rolled tanks and 

troops to Russia’s parliament building. The timing was intended to preempt 

the signing of a “New Union Treaty” creating a less centralized and more 

democratic “Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics”—a concession to both 

Elated citizens celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
49

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

nationalists and reformers. Fighting broke out, and a number of civilians protesting the intruding armored vehicles were killed. The president of the Russian 

Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, Boris Yeltsin—ironically a long-term rival 

of Gorbachev’s—galvanized mass protests to face down the invading troops. 

In a trickle, and then a flood, soldiers joined the mobilized citizenry. Other 

soldiers redeployed from the area of the parliament building, and the conspiracy collapsed. Boris Yeltsin was a Russian nationalist who had declared 

the primacy of Russian laws over those of the Soviet Union within Russia. In 

this he was not unlike nationalists in each of the other Soviet republics. On 

8 December Yeltsin met with his counterparts from Belarus and Ukraine in 

Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and together they announced the dissolution of the 

Soviet Union and its replacement by a Commonwealth of Independent States 

(CIS). Russia took the seat of the former Soviet Union in the United Nations 

on 24 December, and President Gorbachev resigned the following day. The 

Soviet Union had in fact ceased to exist.29

Critics fault the United States Army for not shedding its Cold War paradigm more quickly than it did. It was not clear that the changes were irreversible until Christmas Day of 1991, however. Even with the Soviet Union gone, a 

resurgent Russia would be the most dangerous of NATO’s planning scenarios 

for at least another decade30—concerning which, more later. Even as this book 

is written, only Russia realistically has the capability to destroy the United 

States, and only Russia and China realistically have the capability to inflict 

a strategic military defeat upon its deployed forces. Whatever their relative 

likelihood, should not these most dangerous scenarios be taken into account? 

As the Army emerged from the Cold War, it could not completely abandon the 

genre of battle the Cold War had come to represent.

. . . and Other Significant Developments

The collapses of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union radically altered 

the strategic circumstances of the United States. Even as these dramatic events 

unfolded, other developments—strategic, socioeconomic, and technological—broadened the paradigm shift. The dissolution of the Soviet Union had 

ripple effects on relations with other nations and non-state actors elsewhere 

in the world. Demographics at home and abroad crossed watersheds in 1990 

that reverberated as well. The term “globalization” took on a new meaning 

as economic relationships shifted and breakthrough technologies made their 

presence felt. The United States Army would find no lack of threats and challenges in this dynamically altering world.

During the Cold War the United States had indulged, or even made common 

cause with, a number of Third World tyrants and dictators to better focus on 

the Soviet Union—then the greatest danger. Of these strongmen, none proved 

more embarrassing than General Manuel Antonio Noriega of Panama. His rise 

to absolute power had been facilitated by corruption, fraud, blackmail, extortion, 

intimidation, drug dealing, and murder. It also had purportedly been facilitated 

by a liaison with the Central Intelligence Agency wherein he assisted covert operations against Central American leftists and in spying on Fidel Castro’s Cuba, 
Kevlar Legions

50

I

A 4/17

I

C 4/17

I

B 4/17

1 C/3/504

FORT

SHERMAN

ARMY

BASE

COCO SOLO

NAVAL

STATION

FORT DAVIS

ARMY BASE

FRANCE

FIELD

FORT ESPINAR

C A R I B B E A N S E A

GATUN LOCKS

COLON

GATUN

LA C

P A N A M A

Z O N E

C A N A L

P A N A

M A

 TO RIO HATO 42 Mile

I I

3(-) 75 Rn

I I

2 75 Rn

RIO HATO 

MILITARY

BASE

Anton Rio Hato

Santa Clara

D-DAY: RIO HATO

OPERATION JUST CAUSE

Airborne Assault

0 10

0 10 Kilometers

Miles

allegedly for cash. As the Cold War 

wound down, it became harder to overlook Noriega’s misconduct. A Florida 

court indicted him for drug smuggling. 

He was suspected of smuggling contraband to Cuba and of providing illicit 

arms to Colombian rebels. In May 1989 

his handpicked candidate for president 

was defeated in national elections, and 

he declared them invalid. A few days 

later thugs from Noriega’s “Dignity 

Battalions” savagely beat opposition 

candidates in a public setting. American 

complaints aroused his ire, and 

American citizens in Panama came to 

be victims of harassment, intimidation, 

and assault. On 15 December 1989, 

Noriega declared Panama to be “in a 

state of war” with the United States. 

The following day his soldiers killed a 

United States Marine officer at a roadblock and assaulted a Navy officer and 

his wife. President George H. W. Bush 

determined to intervene.31

The 20 December 1989 American 

intervention into Panama, Operation 

Just Cause, was an operational masterpiece (Map 1). Despite unfavorable weather in several staging areas, 

13,000 soldiers from multiple posts 

in the United States flew in to join 

13,000 soldiers and marines already in 

Panama in near-simultaneous assaults 

on almost two dozen objectives. To 

preclude the Panama Defense Forces 

and Dignity Battalions from taking to 

the jungle for a prolonged campaign, 

every enemy unit of company size or 

larger was isolated and attacked on the 

same night through some combination of clandestine, ground, airborne, 

and air assault. Planning had been 

meticulous; in many cases American 

units had already been on the ground they were to seize or secure in the course 

of artfully designed “training exercises.” An H-Hour of 0100 allowed optimal 

exploitation of night-vision devices and night training. The newly introduced 

AH–64 attack helicopter and UH–60 utility helicopter performed superbly, as 

Map 1
51

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

X

193

I I

3(-) S F 7

S OF

X X

7(-)

X X

82(-)

I I

4(-) 325

I

C 3/75 Rn

I I

1 75 Rn

I I

4(-) 6

I

A 4/6

I I

5 87

I I

1 504

I I

2(-) 504

I

C 1/508

I

A 1/508

I

B 1/508

I

C(-) 3/504

I

B 3/504

I

A 3/504

I

D(-) 3/504

ALBROOK

AIR FORCE

BASE

HOWARD

AIR FORCE

BASE

FARFAN

NAVAL BASE

US NAVAL

AMMUNITION DEPOT

ARRAIJAN

TANK FARM

FORT CLAYTON

ARMY BASE

FORT

KOBBE

FORT CIMARRON

TASK FORCE 82d TASK FORCE BAYONET

TASK FORCE ATLANTIC

TASK FORCE

SEMPER FIDELIS

TASK FORCE 

ATLANTIC

FORT

AMADOR

B A Y O F P A N A M A

Madden

Lake

CERRO TIGRE

EL RENACER PRISON

LA COMANDANCIA

PAITILLA

MIRAFLORES LOCKS

PEDRO MIGUEL

LOCKS

PANAMA VIEJO

TINAJITAS TORRIJOS

PACORA RIVER 

BRIDGE

TOCUMEN

MADDEN DAM

P ANAMA

BALBOA

GAMBOA

CHORRERA

C A N A L Z O N E

es

20 December 1989

D-DAY: PANAMA CANAL

OPERATION JUST CAUSE

Major Points of Attack

0 10

0 10 Kilometers

Miles

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 600 1600 2000 and Above

did such aging stalwarts as the M551 Sheridan armored reconnaissance airborne assault vehicle and the M113 armored personnel carrier. Snafus occurred, 

but initiative, daring, and competence at the tactical unit level quickly overcame 

them. Significant combat terminated within seventy-two hours, all geographical objectives were secured, and Noriega surrendered after a brief siege of his 
Kevlar Legions

52

hiding place in the Vatican Embassy. American losses were 23 killed and 322 

wounded, as compared with 314 killed and 5,300 captured among their adversaries. Post-combat operations proved to be somewhat improvised. Fortuitously, 

Panamanians by and large welcomed the Americans as liberators, legitimately 

elected Panamanian leadership existed to expediently turn civil affairs over to, 

relatively little physical damage to civilian communities and infrastructure had 

occurred, and the Americans enjoyed extensive cultural familiarity—to include 

the ubiquity of Spanish speakers within their ranks.32

Operation Just Cause is worthy of examination in its own right. For the 

purposes of this study it is even more valuable for flagging issues with which 

Army transformation would ultimately have to deal. One, as mentioned, was 

the embarrassment some erstwhile allies would cause when examined in the 

light of their character rather than of their posture toward communism. 

Another was drug-enriched international organized crime having become so 

powerful as to be a national defense issue rather than a police and judicial 

matter. A third was the fluidity with which soldiers found themselves shifting from combat to post-combat roles. Perhaps most sobering was the extent 

to which the pervasive presence of casual and civilian Americans overseas 

increased vulnerability to those willing to consciously target noncombatants.

One of the most perplexing aspects of Just Cause was the task of protecting noncombatant American civilians. About forty thousand were in Panama. 

Military dependents clustered in housing areas and securing these was an early 

priority as the intervention commenced. This left several thousand American 

citizens without a military connection scattered throughout the country. Most 

of these made it to secure areas or were protected by their neighbors. A number 

of hostage crises did occur: passengers seized at the Torrijos Airport, tourists 

and businessmen seized at the Marriott Hotel south of Panama Viejo, scientists and technicians seized from a Smithsonian Institution research team, and 

a college professor abducted from his home. These were happily resolved except 

in the case of the college professor, who was killed by his captors. Although 

Panama was an extreme case, the presence of American civilians would have 

complicated operations anywhere in the world. A mid-1990s Bureau of Consular 

Affairs compilation identified 3,142,849 private American citizens residing 

abroad—not including military and United States government employees and 

their dependents, or tourists and businessmen temporarily traveling. This demographic footprint manifested itself in some theretofore unlikely places: 9,677 in 

La Paz, Bolivia; 8,150 in Mumbai, India; 7,000 in Beijing, China; 6,116 in Kuala 

Lumpur, Malaysia; 3,600 in Almaty, Kazakhstan; 1,182 in Bratislava, Slovakia; 

1,250 in Kampala, Uganda, and so on.33

The expanding presence of American citizens abroad in part resulted from 

the increasing globalization of the American economy, concerning which, 

more later. It also reflected changing national demographics. With the 1990 

census, the foreign-born of Asian descent and the foreign-born of Latin 

American descent in the United States both surpassed the foreign-born of 

European descent for the first time.34 This was a generation-delayed result of 

the landmark Immigration Act of 1965, which removed quotas heavily favoring European immigration. Family ties and possibilities of dual citizenship 
53

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

connected Americans to the world more broadly than ever, as opposed to the 

largely Eurocentric character of such connections a half century earlier. The 

1990 census also established that Hispanic and Asian American populations 

in the United States were younger and more fertile than native white and black 

counterparts, promising even more diversity in the future. Almost 60 percent of 

the nation’s population growth at the time could be attributed to immigration, 

more necessary than ever to provide an expanding labor force in an expanding 

economy.35 America’s European allies were graying even more quickly than 

whites and blacks in the United States and thus would be even more dependent on immigration as a source of labor. Millions from North Africa and 

the Middle East flooded into Europe. Unfortunately, most European nations 

were far less rehearsed than the United States with respect to assimilation, 

and many featured blood-related impediments to citizenship. Under these circumstances the children of immigrants too often perceived themselves as an 

underclass and proved prone to alienation. Islamic extremists would find fertile 

soil among these disaffected youth. Even as the United States was becoming 

more global in its demography and in the distribution of its citizens abroad, 

immigration and demographics emerged as polarizing security issues among a 

number of its allies.36

The rediscovery of ethnicity as a European security issue related to 

immigration in part. It also related to the collapse of the discipline the heavyhanded communist system had imposed. In January 1990, two months after 

the Berlin Wall came down, the 14th Congress of the League of Communists 

of Yugoslavia dissolved in a row concerning the relative autonomy of constituent nationalities. In June 1991 Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence, precipitating armed conflict with the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav 

National Army. In September Macedonia declared its independence as well, 

securing the protection of a United Nations observer force that included five 

hundred American soldiers. Serbs within Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina 

declared their independence of those polities, while Albanian Kosovars 

pursued autonomy from Serbia. Hungarian hotheads bemoaned the minority status of their countrymen across the border in Transylvania (Romania) 

and Vojvodina (Serbia). Czechoslovakia gracefully disassociated itself into 

independent Czech and Slovak republics. The defections of Estonia, Latvia, 

Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan from the Soviet 

Union were largely ethnic in origin. The Armenians and Azeris immediately 

took to fighting with each other over Nagorno-Karabakh, provoking a bloody 

war of some years’ duration. Within Russia, disaffected ethnicities such as the 

Chechnyans contemplated independence, as did Ossetians and Abkhazians in 

Georgia. Islamic extremists in Central Asia and the Middle East, triumphant 

after forcing Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, fomented religious 

and ethnic differences to advance their own purposes.37

When ethnic rivalries resulted in open conflict, ample arms were found 

to fight them. The post–Cold War world was awash in weapons. Huge Soviet 

stockpiles passed to successor regimes with little attention and few controls. 

Manufacturers and arms dealers competed fiercely in a market that was 

shrinking overall, although locally profitable. Weapons the West had provided 
Kevlar Legions

54

to resistance movements in Afghanistan and elsewhere found their way into 

other hands. Through much of Africa and South Asia warfare and illicit arms 

traffic were already endemic. Between 1956 and 1995 Angola was at war a 

total of thirty-eight years, Ethiopia and Sudan thirty years, and Mozambique 

twenty-nine years, for example. By one count fifty-four wars—sustained 

armed conflicts over power or territory between organized opponents—were 

ongoing in 1990, and that number rose to sixty-five in 1991. The worldwide 

refugee population rose as well, up to an estimated 41.5 million in 1990 from 

23 million in 1985. Taking advantage of the turmoil, non-state actors such 

as criminal gangs, drug lords, and terrorists expanded their grip and armed 

themselves heavily, threatening the welfare and stability of the states wherein 

they resided. Through all of this the most frightening specter was the fear that 

nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons might fall into irresponsible hands. 

For all their flaws, the Soviets had kept a firm grip on such weapons of mass 

destruction.38

Ironically, even as ethnic strife rent societies through much of the world, 

processes of “globalization” increasingly integrated the world’s most prosperous economies representing the majority of its people. Globalization as a phenomenon arguably extends back through Magellan, Columbus, and Marco 

Polo. It accelerated markedly with such post–World War II initiatives as the 

Bretton Woods Conference, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 

(GATT), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and 

the International Monetary Fund. Relatively steady growth with respect to 

economic integration through the Cold War years spiked again as the Cold 

War ended. One reason was the energy with which newly liberated Eastern 

European and former Soviet nations sought to shed their communist pasts and 

become full players in the liberal capitalist system. Another reason was the culmination of some twenty years of economic restructuring by the United States 

and other top-tier economies. These transitioned the majority of their workforces from industrial to service sectors. Automation rendered the production 

they retained increasingly energy and labor efficient, and their labor-intensive 

production steadily migrated overseas—capitalized by international corporations as they moved. This created a new international division of labor and 

doubled the volume of the world export trade within two decades. Americans 

would buy inexpensive textiles from China rather than North Carolina, for 

example. A third reason for the circa 1990 spike in globalization lay in the 

so-called Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, which progressed from 1986 

through 1994. By 1990 the major players were substantially agreed on initiatives 

to extend international regulation into such services as banking and insurance 

and onto such tricky ground as intellectual property rights. This cemented the 

emerging international division of labor and was a considerable leap beyond 

merely regulating currency exchange rates and tariffs for the seventy member 

nations that accounted for 80 percent of the world’s trade. More so than ever, 

the health of the American economy and the welfare of its citizens depended 

on an expansive worldwide network of commercial relationships.39

A fourth reason for radically accelerated globalization during this period 

was the “invention” of the Internet. Computers had existed for some time, 
55

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

evolving from the room-sized Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer 

(ENIAC) developed during World War II under an Army Ordnance 

Department contract to facilitate ballistic computations. Computers downsized with the successive developments of the transistor, the integrated circuit, 

and the microprocessor. Computers had been linked together in relatively 

small networks, largely hard-wired. Broader networking required conceptual 

breakthroughs. Between 1989 and 1991 Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher working in Switzerland, developed HTML and HTTP. These allowed anyone with 

an appropriate connection to gain access to information stored on a computer 

server by typing in a specific uniform resource locator (URL). Artfully distributed computer servers would add up to a worldwide net. Shortly thereafter Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, researchers at the University of Illinois, 

developed the first practical browser. This was eventually commercialized as 

Netscape Navigator. Taken together, HTML, HTTP, and the browser were 

to digital communications what the alphabet was to writing or movable type 

was to printing. The Internet and the Information Age as we now define them 

were born. Within a dozen years 665 million users would surf 40 million Web 

sites worldwide, up from zero in 1991. The economic effects, including computer-assisted design, inventory management, wholesaling and retailing, niche 

marketing, practical international credit cards, and trillions traded on world 

currency markets weekly, were revolutionary.40

Electronic communications were not the only venue wherein microprocessors and microchips were making their presence felt. Military uses beyond 

communications had been under development for some time. When wedding sensors with computers, microchips promised ever more timely and ever 

more comprehensive target acquisition. When wedding advanced ballistics 

controls and guidance systems with computers, they promised ever more precise target destruction. The term precision-guided munition, or PGM, gained 

currency. Prototypes arguably existed as early as World War II and certainly 

had been used in Vietnam. These earlier variants had not been particularly 

consequential, limited in their use and isolated in their effects. Even so, the 

sky was no longer the limit insofar as technical ambitions were concerned. 

What if accurate space-based photography or signals intelligence could be 

dispatched to ground forces in a timely manner? What if triangulation from 

satellites could be exploited to reliably establish ground locations—or to guide 

munitions to such locations? While such prospects for a “revolution in military 

affairs” were debated, the evolution of proven technologies—plastics, lighter 

metals, improved automotives and fire controls, night-vision devices, lasers, 

better medicines, and others—continued as well. In 1989 these concepts and 

possibilities bubbled along in the research and development community and 

had resulted in a fistful of fielded weapons. None of these systems and weapons had been tested in combat, however, and their consequences for warfare 

remained theoretical. This would soon change.41

Within months of the Berlin Wall’s demise, the contours of a significantly 

altered defense paradigm were beginning to emerge. On the negative side, ethnic 

violence erupted in a number of formerly communist countries, and these 

threatened international stability. Freed from preoccupation with the Soviets, 
Kevlar Legions

56

the United States had less excuse for indulging tyrannies or ignoring conflicts 

in the Third World, increasing the likelihood of interventions. On a more 

positive note, aspirations for global community had leaped forward. A newly 

affirmed global division of labor inextricably intertwined the seventy nations 

that accounted for 80 percent of the world’s trade. The Internet would substantially reinforce that interdependence. For Americans, increasingly global 

in their composition and patterns of investment, such an agreeably regulated 

world order boded well. It suited most of their Cold War allies too, although 

these varied in their ability to absorb the immigration that greater openness 

implied. Globalization did present a security dilemma, however. There would 

be no Iron Curtain—no clearly defined “limes” separating civilization from 

barbarism—to police. Rather, a threat to the welfare of any of seventy geographically dispersed nations would threaten the welfare of them all. Even 

before the Soviet Union finally disintegrated, Americans would fight their first 

war on behalf of the emerging global community. In so doing, they would collaterally unmask revolutionary, albeit theretofore untested, technologies.

Desert Storm

Saddam Hussein of Iraq bested Iran in an eight-year war that ended in 

1988 but accrued huge debts as a consequence. The costly victory left him with 

a war machine capable of fielding up to a million men and of reliably sustaining 

half of that number. Soviet largesse and international arms bazaars enabled 

him to equip his forces with a formidable panoply, including 5,500 tanks and 

700 fighter aircraft. Kuwait was a small, weak, oil-rich neighbor. Many in Iraq 

viewed Kuwait as a nineteenth province purloined by the British, and many 

in the Arab world viewed it as a colonial contrivance. Iraq and Kuwait had 

squabbled about boundaries and oil rights before, to include allegations of 

“slant-drilling” to access a neighbor’s oil. Nevertheless, it came as a shock 

when Iraq’s Republican Guards overran Kuwait within a few days beginning 

2 August 1990.42

The disruption of Kuwaiti oil supplies had immediate consequences for 

the interdependent world economy. The disruption of Saudi oil supplies, 

should Saddam Hussein continue his aggression into Saudi Arabia, would 

have been catastrophic. Although Japan and several European nations were 

more dependent on Saudi oil than the United States was, only the United 

States was capable of quickly reinforcing the desert kingdom. Setting aside 

traditional antipathy to foreign troops in lands sacred to Mohammed, King 

Fahd bin Abdul Azziz approved American intervention, and a brigade of the 

82d Airborne Division arrived on the ground on 8 August. Over the next two 

months XVIII Airborne Corps—an airborne division, an air assault division, 

two heavy divisions, and an armored cavalry regiment, plus supporting troops 

and aircraft—arrived in Saudi Arabia. The defense of the peninsula, codenamed Desert Shield, ultimately mustered 120,000 American troops with 

700 tanks, 1,400 armored fighting vehicles, and 600 artillery pieces. These were 

joined by some 32,000 troops with 400 tanks from local Arab allies. When 

complete, Desert Shield presented a formidable defense in depth, command 
57

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

of the seaward flank along Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf, and air supremacy. It 

also featured a growing coalition, as nations rallied to defend the international 

system of which they were a part. Wealthy nations like Saudi Arabia, the Arab 

emirates, and Japan shouldered much of the expense.43

World order would not be convincingly defended if Saddam Hussein 

retained the fruits of his aggression. When United Nations mandates and diplomacy failed to dislodge him, President George H. W. Bush resolved to evict him 

from Kuwait by force. The campaign to do so would be labeled Desert Storm 

(Map 2). To this purpose the VII Corps—three American heavy divisions and an 

armored cavalry regiment reinforced by a British armored division—deployed 

from Europe following an announcement on 9 November. Two United States 

Marine Corps divisions reinforced with a United States Army armored brigade 

deployed to theater as well, as did a French light armored division and further 

Arab forces. In addition to the United States, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, 

Syria, and the United Kingdom provided a division equivalent or more to the 

fight. Kuwait provided two brigades and Qatar the framework for a brigade 

more. The Gulf emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey provided critical 

basing for coalition air, naval, and special operations forces. Disparate coalition membership affected strategic and operational options. The Arabs, with 

the possible exception of Kuwait, did not want to invade or operate in Iraq. In 

concert with Turkey, they did not want to destabilize Iraq, encourage Kurdish 

separatism, or lose Iraq as a bulwark against Iran. European allies were cool 

about ambitions greater than liberating Kuwait, although they were willing to 

temporarily operate in Iraq to do so. The ultimately agreed-upon coalition objectives were fairly modest: liberating Kuwait, restoring the Kuwaiti government, 

freeing prisoners, and defanging Iraq to the point that it was not a threat to its 

neighbors—particularly with respect to chemical and nuclear weapons. Regime 

change was not specified as an objective, although many hoped someone would 

assassinate Saddam Hussein, take over his regime intact, and restore the status 

quo ante—perhaps with reparations and apologies.44

Saddam Hussein had confidence he could survive the onslaught. With months 

to prepare, his forces dug themselves in depth behind formidable protective barriers: embankments, barbed wire, minefields, and booby traps. Infantry defended 

well forward, backed up by capable artillery and local mobile armored reserves. 

These were backed up in turn by formidable divisions of the heavily mechanized 

Republican Guard, acting as an operational reserve. Stockpiles of munitions and 

supplies were built up throughout the theater to support the many units along 

the line or reinforcing it. In the open desert Saddam’s forces were exposed to air 

attack, but the country was ringed by radar stations integrated into a sophisticated 

air defense system bristling with over 7,000 antiaircraft guns and 16,000 surfaceto-air missiles. His forces in Kuwait and nearby southern Iraq totaled 550,000, and 

these could draw upon substantial reserves and replacements not yet in theater. 

For all of this panoply, Saddam’s greatest source of confidence was psychological. 

He had famously opined of Americans, “Yours is a nation that cannot afford to 

take 10,000 casualties in a single day.” He did not have to win in the conventional 

sense; he only had to make victory so costly that Americans would cease to pursue 

it—leaving him in possession of his ill-gotten gains.45
Kevlar Legions

58

Fighting began on 17 January 1991, with American strikes on critical 

radar stations by laser-guided Hellfire missiles. These were fired from AH–64 

Apache attack helicopters speeding undetected through the darkness seventyfive feet above the desert floor. The helicopter pilots’ daring feat was made 

possible by terrain-following radar, satellite navigation, night-vision goggles,

X X

1 Br

X X

1 Br

X X

1

X X

1

X X

1

X X

1

X X

3

X X

3

X X

3

X X

1

X X

1

III

2

III

2

I

2

X X

1CAV

X X

1CAV

X X

82

X X

82

X X

24

X X

24

X X

24

X X

101

X X

101

X X

6 Fr

X X

6 Fr

III

3

III

3

III

3

X X

3 Eg

X X

9 Sy

X X

4 Eg

Jal ̄ bı ah

Tallil

Al Qays ̧u ̄mah

King Khalid Military City

Rafh ̧a ̄ 

As Salma ̄ n

XXX

XVIII ABN

VII

XXXX

ARCENT

JOINT FORCES COMMAND

JOINT FORCES

COMMAND NORTH

ARMY CENTRAL

COMMAND

Euphrates River

Wa ̄di al Ba ̄t ̧in

Hawr al 

Al Bus ̧ayyah

H ̧ afar al Ba ̄t ̧in

As Sama ̄wah 

An Na ̄s ̧irı ̄yah

As Salma ̄n

Ash Shabakah

SAUDI ARABIA

IRAQ

OPERATION DESERT STORM

24–28 February 1991

Miles

0 40

Unit positions approximate

Allied Advance, Phase 1

Allied Advance, Phase 2

Allied Advance, Phase 3

Allied Advance, Phase 4

ELEVATION IN FEET

0 500 1000 1500 2000 and Above

Map 2
59

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

and precision-guided munitions—

a package theretofore untested in 

combat. Further technological wizardry poured into the fray: F–117A 

Nighthawk stealth bombers with hull 

designs virtually invisible to radar, 

EF–111A Ravens with jamming 

equipment to spoof or disrupt enemy 

electronics, laser-guided GBU27 

bombs delivering two thousand 

pounds of explosives with extraordinary precision, BGM109 Tomahawk 

and AGM86C cruise missiles skimming along at undetectably low levels, 

AGM88 high-speed anti-radiation 

missiles homing in on radar emissions, 

E–3 Airborne Warning and Control 

System (AWACS) aircraft coordinating hundreds of aircraft speeding 

through the air at the same time, and 

Patriot air defense missiles streaking 

upwards to intercept incoming Sovietdesigned “Scud” missiles—to cite a 

few examples. In a thirty-eight-day 

campaign Coalition air forces systematically smashed Iraqi air defenses, 

secured air supremacy, smothered 

Iraqi command and control, isolated 

the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations 

(KTO), attrited Iraqi ground forces, 

and cut off supplies to forward units. 

Meanwhile Coalition ground forces 

engaged in technologically assisted 

siege craft of their own. Dominating 

hours of darkness with night-vision 

devices, they forced back enemy outposts, corroborated satellite imagery 

of enemy defenses, and thinned out 

Iraqi artillery with effective counterbattery fire. Most notably, once the 

enemy was effectively blinded by the 

air campaign they moved the XVIII Airborne Corps and VII Corps deep 

into the desert, positioned to outflank direct approaches into Kuwait that ran 

along the Persian Gulf or up the Wadi al Batin.46

The ground war began in earnest on 24 February. The XVIII Airborne 

Corps rushed to seal off Kuwait from Iraq proper. Its French 6th Light 

Armored Division seized As Salman and faced west, while the 101st 

X X

1 Br

X X

1

II

X

4 Ku

X

4 SA

X

20 SA

X

3 2

X X

2

USMC

X X

1

USMC

X

Ku

X

2 SA

NG

X

Qatar X

8 SA

X

10 SA

Al Basrah West

Safwa ̄ n

XXX

XXX

MARINE CENTRAL

COMMAND

JOINT FORCES

COMMAND EAST

Tigris River

Shatt al Arab

l H ̧ amma ̄r

PERSIA N

GULF

KUWAIT

As Sa ̄lim ̄ıyah

Al Ah ̨ mad ̄ı

Al Ba ̧srah

Az Zubayr Aba ̄ da ̄n

Al Mish'a ̄b

Ra’s al Kha ̄ı

Al Wafrah

Umm Qas ̧r

Ahva ̄z

Al Jahrah

Khorramshahr

Ar Rawd ̧ atayn

Oil Field

Rumaylah

Oil Field

S a ̄ bi r ̄ıyah Oil Field

Al Wafrah Oil Field

Al Burqa ̄ n

Oil Field

B u ̄ bi ya ̄ n

IRAN

KUWAI T
Kevlar Legions

60

Airborne Division (Air Assault) helicoptered past it to establish a forward 

operating base 176 kilometers into Iraq. From these and subsequently 

established positions swarms of Gazelle, Cobra, and Apache helicopters 

fanned out to interdict Iraqi movements. The 24th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized) backstopped these units until they were set, then raced to 

the Euphrates River and turned east to join the main attack. Far to the 

east the Marines, flanked by a corps-sized contingent of Arab allies on 

either side, methodically breached Iraqi defenses along the Kuwait-Saudi 

border. Breach teams led by M60A1 tanks with dozer blades and mine 

plows bored through minefields and obstacles while sniper tanks and 

tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missiles picked off 

tanks, and artillery suppressed infantry and destroyed artillery. Between 

the XVIII Airborne Corps and the Marines the five heavy divisions of 

the 50,000-vehicle VII Corps launched the main attack, oriented on the 

eight divisions of the elite Republican Guard. Crushing Iraqi forward 

infantry divisions in the wake of massive bombardments and methodical 

breaches, VII Corps divisions rolled deep into Iraq, hooked east, and came 

on line. M1A1 tanks extended from horizon to horizon the forward edge of 

armored phalanxes tens of kilometers in depth. Night and day they drove 

forward, main guns booming when they encountered worthy targets and 

machine guns chattering for targets of lesser import. The attack swept all 

before it from the Saudi border to the Euphrates and from the depths of 

Iraq to the Persian Gulf. In one hundred hours it was over. Rather than the 

Vehicles of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) loading

in the port of Savannah
61

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

10,000 battle deaths suggested by Saddam Hussein the Americans suffered 

146 and their allies 99 more. This compared with perhaps 20,000 Iraqis 

killed and 50,000 captured in one of the most lopsided victories on the 

historical record.47

The striking victory in the Persian Gulf inspired understandable self-congratulation. American equipment, in particular the “big five” that had been the 

focus of Army modernization efforts, had performed superbly. The effectiveness 

of precision-guided munitions had been breathtaking, auguring a revolution in 

military affairs. Traditional virtues had proven their worth as well. The professionalism, rigorous training, and technical competence of American soldiers, 

sailors, airmen, and marines were clearly manifest. A generation of studied 

attention to officer and noncommissioned officer professional development, 

part of a broader post-Vietnam renaissance, had paid off. American officers 

were consistently and demonstrably competent, and American noncommissioned officers were in a class by themselves. There had been warts, however. The 

pace of deployment left the earliest arriving forces vulnerable for an uncomfortably long period. Battlefield management and awareness had been imperfect, 

as evidenced by episodes of confusion and fratricide. Indeed, fratricide seems 

to have caused the deaths of 35 of 146 service personnel killed and accounted 

for 72 of 467 wounded. Logistics reached a troubling culminating point near 

the hundredth hour of the ground war. Imperfect battlefield awareness and 

constrained logistics limited the net worth of precision-guided munitions. The 

Army was clearly and immediately dependent upon the reserve component, 

without having adequately resourced it in many cases. Operations after combat 

ceased were improvised and of uneven quality. Let us address these warts—soon 

to be the subject of Army transformation initiatives—in turn.

Wags amid the first brigade of American paratroopers to arrive in Iraq 

stoically referred to themselves as “speed bumps,” acknowledging how overmatched they initially were by Iraqi armor and firepower. Further airborne 

forces and combat aircraft flowed into Persian Gulf airfields quickly, but only 

the seaborne arrival of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) several weeks 

later stabilized prospects for a successful forward defense. Pentagon planners 

and soldiers in the field breathed palpable sighs of relief when the mighty 

M1 tanks of the heavy division rolled across the Saudi docks. Compared to 

precedent, the buildup for Desert Shield progressed quickly and efficiently. 

Never before had the United States moved so much so speedily from a cold 

start. This historical detail was not entirely comforting. The window of vulnerability early on afforded Saddam Hussein significant advantages, had he 

dared to exploit them. Forces arriving by air were too light to contend with a 

capable adversary on open ground, and forces arriving by sea took too long. 

This is not to mention the huge amount of shipping a heavy division and its 

supporting slice required, and sealift shortfalls within the Navy and United 

States Merchant Marine that had to be made good from other sources. During 

the world wars and Vietnam, allied forces carried the fight long enough for 

United States forces to deploy. During the Cold War, heavily armored forwarddeployed forces were to bear the brunt of Soviet attack until reinforced. In 

the case of Desert Shield, forward-deployed forces did not exist, and allied 
Kevlar Legions

62

forces were hopelessly overmatched. Within American historical experience, 

only the opening months of the Korean War seemed to parallel what might 

have been, had Saddam Hussein attacked early on.48

Battlefield management and awareness advanced during Desert Storm, 

but not quickly enough to accommodate the pace at which forces moved and 

the ranges at which weapons engaged. Strategic intelligence was the product of 

agencies external to the Army such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Security Agency (NSA), 

and coordination among them and with the services was imperfect. Division 

headquarters and above were reliably served by digital mobile subscriber 

equipment (MSE) and satellite-based communications when stationary. From 

the division level down, communications relied on a venerable mix of radios 

vulnerable to topographical interference and range limitations. When moving 

at a modest pace, the leapfrogging of requisite MSE and satellite nodes worked 

reasonably well and kept headquarters dependent on radio communications 

under a reliable umbrella. As the pace of the advance accelerated, times 

required to take down, move, and set up MSE and satellite nodes stretched 

effective communications to the breaking point as radio relays insufficiently 

bridged ever-expanding gaps. A last-minute infusion of largely commercial 

satellite-based global positioning systems (GPSs) dramatically enhanced the 

ability of units to locate themselves and navigate the featureless desert. The 

reporting of unit positions was still by radio, however, and the tracking of unit 

positions within the operations centers of higher headquarters featured grease 

pencils, unit tokens and maps—as it had since World War I. GPSs were seldom 

distributed beneath the platoon level, so there was no immediate way to validate the locations of individual vehicles. Logistical vehicles were particularly 

likely to have neither radios nor GPSs. Hampered by eroding communications 

and increasingly dispersed vehicles, the generally shared picture of the battlefield became fuzzy. Pursuit and exploitation became particularly fluid in the 

aftermath of overrunning the Republican Guard. Advanced sensors, sights, 

and munitions allowed crews to engage targets at ranges considerably in excess 

of being able to reliably identify them. Virtually all brigades involved in serious intermingled combat encountered fratricide, or “blue on blue” engagements, and fratricides accounted for a significant proportion of American and 

accompanying British casualties. At higher levels, whole units disappeared into 

the fog of war. Perhaps the most celebrated piece of battlefield misinformation 

was General H. Norman Schwarzkopf’s assumption that Safwan Airfield was 

occupied by American ground forces. He designated it as the site whereupon 

he would dictate cease-fire terms to the Iraqis with all the world watching, only 

to find that the Iraqis still occupied it. Near-comedic bullying by the nearest 

American brigade—in the aftermath of the cease-fire—nudged the Iraqis off 

the airfield in time for the media event.49

By the hundredth hour of the ground war, concern for fratricide rendered American maneuvers cautious and methodical. The ground offensive 

reached a culminating point for logistical purposes as well. The M1 tank was 

enormously fuel consumptive, perhaps a mile for two gallons, and tens of 

thousands of other vehicles required fuel as well. To ensure that fuel tanks 
63

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

sustained optimal levels of fill, heavy battalions and brigades refueled about 

every seventy kilometers. Combat battalions were accompanied by organic 

modern heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks (HEMTTs) bearing fuel, 

ammunition, and supplies of other sorts. These kept up reasonably well with 

advancing armored vehicles, but the fuelers among them had to cycle back to 

refueling points when empty. Mobile refueling points that were pushed forward to service the HEMTTs depended on antiquated fleets of trucks from 

brigade, division, and corps trains to be supplied themselves. Alternatively, 

there were stationary refueling points south of the Saudi border—at ever 

increasing distances from the leading battalions of VII and XVIII Airborne 

Corps. Fuel resupply did not keep pace with the race across the desert, and 

M1s crossing the Basrah Highway on the last days of the war were “running on fumes.” Ammunition presented an opposite problem. Anticipating 

historical levels of expenditure, battalions kicked off with a “basic load” 

of ammunition in their vehicles, and another one—and sometimes two—

following along in heavily loaded cargo HEMTTs. Phenomenal American 

gunnery, often characterized by one shot per vehicle kills, and the collapse 

of Iraqi resistance rendered the huge mass of ammunition excess, yet it took 

up precious cargo space that could have gone to other things. Most notably, 

units brought fewer Class IX (repair parts) items with them than they might 

have wanted. The Army’s shift to modular line replaceable units (LRUs)—for 

example, swapping out and evacuating engines to higher maintenance rather 

than repairing them on the spot—radically increased the volume required by 

prescribed load lists (PLLs). Although units sustained high vehicle availability rates throughout the ground war, by the hundredth hour their cupboards 

were bare with respect to repair parts. Part of the overall logistical problem 

stemmed from the simple mathematics of projecting so much consumption 

so quickly through so much distance in a hostile environment. Another part 

of the problem was information lag. Units had no practical way to quickly 

anticipate and reliably communicate detailed consumption rates, logistical 

bases maintained a fuzzy accountability of rapidly moving commodities, 

and few had confidence newly identified needs could be quickly filled. The 

tendency at all levels was to horde supplies of all types “just in case,” and 

to carry them along behind in vast vehicle fleets. At the theater level the 

tendency manifested itself in the so-called “iron mountains” of the logistical bases. Indeed, the Army’s ranking logistician in theater appropriately 

entitled his memoir Moving Mountains.50

Precision-guided munitions had their limits. At the time they were pricey, 

running from fifty thousand dollars for the cheapest through multimillions of 

dollars for the more expensive. It did not make economic sense to fire milliondollar missiles at a ten thousand–dollar truck. It also did not make tactical 

sense when combat consumption drove down limited theater inventories and 

threatened strategic reserves. Precision-guided munitions were best reserved for 

high-value targets. Laser designators, television guidance, and terrain-tracking 

radar were vulnerable to atmospheric conditions and could be degraded by 

vegetation. Fortuitously, the open desert within which most combat occurred 

limited such degradation. Precision-guided munitions did require precisely 
Kevlar Legions

64

identified targets, and procedures for identifying, tracking, and handing off 

such targets remained immature. This immaturity manifested itself most notably in cat-and-mouse operations in the western desert, wherefrom Saddam 

Hussein lobbed Scud missiles into Israel while the Coalition, desperate to keep 

Israel out of the war, hastened to destroy the launch vehicles. The launch vehicles proved fleeting targets, and detection by satellites, the Joint Surveillance 

and Target Attack Radar System (J-STARS), or overflight seldom resulted in 

identified positions retained long enough to bring in a lethal strike. At times 40 

percent of the theater air effort was dedicated to neutralizing the missiles, with 

minimal effect. Ground commanders, mindful of fratricide, preferred to keep 

air strikes well clear of their own formations. Inside of the umbrella served by 

tank and observed artillery fire, such strikes seemed superfluous in any case.51

During the Desert Storm buildup the active Army achieved a total 

mass of 871,948, of which 60,427 were activated members of the National 

Guard and 79,118 activated members of the Army Reserve. Of the 227,800 

soldiers deployed to Southwest Asia, 37,692 were members of the National 

Guard and 35,158 members of the Reserve. In earlier wars, the reserve 

component had generally added like type mass to a steadily growing mobilization. In Desert Storm the contribution was more often complementary, deploying individuals and units with skill sets not on hand in the 

active component in sufficient quantity. Significantly, more Reservists and 

National Guardsmen served in activated units than were individually called 

up. The performance of the National Guard and Army Reserve overall was 

a success that strikingly affirmed the validity of the Total Force policy 

that had been in effect and improved upon since the 1970s. However, given 

that this was the largest mobilization of the reserve component since the 

Korean War, miscarriages with respect to notification, disposition, medical screening, and deployment understandably occurred. Differences with 

respect to post privileges and the processing of pay inquiries grated on 

activated soldiers. Family support proved problematic, since the families 

of the reserve component were scattered over wide geographic areas rather 

than concentrated in the vicinity of capable installations. Roundout brigades filling out active-component divisions were not ready to deploy as 

quickly as their active-component counterparts would have liked, although 

they were prepared as quickly as existing mobilization plans envisioned. A 

number of “CAPSTONE” units designated in advance for specific missions 

or active-component headquarters also demonstrated readiness shortfalls. 

With the reserve component now so central to the success of even the 

earliest deploying units, a candid postwar reassessment of resourcing and 

readiness would be called for.52

When fighting ceased, Coalition forces had liberated Kuwait and occupied 

a significant fraction of Iraq. Postwar operations were largely improvised. In 

Kuwait they went well enough, buoyed by a friendly population, helpful allies, 

host-nation support from wealthy neighbors, and international goodwill. 

Significant challenges included putting out fires in oil fields retreating Iraqis 

had set aflame, clearing minefields and munitions, reconstructing infrastructure, and processing refugees. Refugees proved to be an issue in Saudi Arabia 
65

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

as well, most notably at a camp an American infantry battalion constructed 

virtually overnight near Rafha. In Iraq the situation was trickier. American, 

British, and French forces remained present for coercive diplomacy, garrisoning the oil fields until the Iraqis agreed to and complied with cease-fire 

terms. Interaction with the local population was minimal, and units generally remained clear of the settled areas. Although regime change was not a 

Coalition war aim, it seemed sufficiently agreeable to the Americans to inspire, 

if not directly encourage, Shi’as in the south and Kurds in the north to revolt. 

America’s Sunni Arab allies argued for nonintervention on the behalf of the 

Shi’a, thought to be agents of Iran, and the sensitivities of the Turks limited 

options in Kurdistan. The Coalition stood by while resurgent Saddamists 

slaughtered the Shi’a, and it provided belated and circumscribed succor to the 

Kurds—concerning which, more later. Saddam Hussein accepted the ceasefire conditions, negotiated the withdrawal of Coalition forces, and survived.53 

A Framework for Change

In two short years the comfortably defining strategic focus of the Cold War 

had dissipated. Going into 1991, Army Chief of Staff General Carl E. Vuono 

acknowledged that “the conditions that have undergirded our nation’s security 

strategy for more than four decades are being rendered obsolete . . .,”54 and 

flagged up alternatives to resurgent Soviets as security concerns: instability 

in the Middle East; upheavals in the former Warsaw Pact, North Korea, and 

Iraq; interstate rivalries in the developing world; ethnic and religious strife; 

arms traffic; insurgencies; terrorism; drug traffic; natural disasters; and others. 

Neither he nor anyone else knew what the future would bring, but it seemed 

obvious that the United States would need a rather different Army than it then 

had. The lessons of Desert Storm, in the process of being digested, would 

suggest further change. With the tectonic shifts of 1989–1991 not yet complete, 

the Army developed a framework for changes that would inevitably occur.

Vuono was a good choice to position the Army for change. An artilleryman, 

he had commanded at every level from battery through division—to include 

two tours in Vietnam. He also had commanded at several levels in the Training 

and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), to include commanding the Combined 

Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth and commanding TRADOC itself. These 

educationally oriented positions immersed him in theories of warfare, modernization, and change as discussion progressed with respect to them at the time. 

Earlier in his career he had earned a master’s degree in public administration, 

served as an operations research systems analyst, assisted the project manager 

for the reorganization of the Army, and was chief of the budget division in the 

plans, programs, and budget directorate of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Personnel. These complex staff positions gave him a fuller appreciation of the 

defense bureaucracy and what it takes to move it. As a colonel he served as the 

executive officer to the Chief of Staff of the Army, perhaps the best single position from which an officer of that rank can gain an appreciation of the Army 

as a whole. The sum of his experiences suggested to him that thoughtful change 

entailed the complex interplay of multiple variables. In particular, Vuono was 
Kevlar Legions

66

wary of overly emphasizing technology as the driving force. He also 

believed transformational deliberations could not be confined to small 

groups if the organization as a whole 

was to progress. An educator, he distilled his thinking into six “imperatives,” promulgated these widely in 

his own writing and speaking, and 

had them taught throughout the 

Army school system. The imperatives provided a framework within 

which conceptualization of change 

progressed. Veterans of the era may 

remember a wallet-size card with the 

imperatives listed and defined on it, 

available lest junior leaders forget the 

direction in which the Army needed 

to be going. Vuono’s six imperatives 

were doctrine, force mix, modernization, training, leader development, 

and quality people.55

Doctrine is the body of agreed-upon principles and common language 

that governs the use of forces in war and operations other than war. It provides 

a vision of how units at every level will employ weapons and other assets. At 

the time Army doctrine was labeled AirLand Battle, taught throughout the 

Army school system, rehearsed time and again by units training in the field, 

and promulgated through dozens of field manuals and other publications. 

Anticipating geo-strategic and technological change, deliberations concerning 

an AirLand Battle Future were already under way on the Army Staff and 

within TRADOC. Doctrine could drive technology as well as be driven by 

it. The vision of how future battles were to be fought governed the distribution of research and development funds, and these in turn governed the pace 

at which technologies of military provenance were developed and fielded. In 

similarly reciprocal relationships, doctrine governed the development of force 

mixes best designed to employ it, leadership development necessary to apply 

it, training programs necessary to rehearse it, and the recruitment of quality 

soldiers capable of implementing it.56

Force mix defines the organization and composition of the forces that 

will implement the doctrine. One criterion is the weight and lethality of their 

armament. Heavier forces will be best able to slug it out with a like type 

opponent, but they lack strategic mobility. Lighter forces are more strategically mobile but lack staying power. Special operating forces deploy unique 

skills against unique challenges. For any given scenario some mix of the three 

will be optimal, complementing one another’s strengths and offsetting each 

other’s weaknesses. For the Army as a whole, the mix should match up with 

the most probable and the most dangerous scenarios. Another criterion with 

General Vuono
67

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

respect to force mix is balance among combat, combat support, and combat 

service support forces. Operations will collapse if logistical support is inadequate. Attacks may fail if fire support is insufficient to suppress the enemy. 

Movement will stop if obstacles remain unbreached—and so on. A final criterion with respect to force mix is the relative inventory of active and reserve 

units. At the time, active-component units were more immediately available 

but were so at the cost of sustaining high standards of training and readiness. 

Reserve-component units were cheaper to sustain over time but took longer 

to prepare, invoked political costs to mobilize, and could be less frequently 

used. Desert Storm–vintage concerns with respect to the CAPSTONE and 

Roundout programs have already been mentioned. Force mix decisions accrue 

at every level, from the weapons mix in a rifle squad through the numbers and 

types of divisions in an army. The force mix of 1989 was designed for Cold 

War scenarios; the force mix beyond 1991 would be designed for others.57

Modernization preserves technological advantages and defers obsolescence. Falling a generation behind in technology can lead to horrific battlefield 

results, as Saddam Hussein’s army amply demonstrated during Desert Storm. 

Some technological developments emerge outside of the Army’s purview and 

must be recognized and exploited. Other technologies are driven by research 

and development resourced or encouraged by the Army. Modernization is 

more than developing and fielding new equipment. Total package fielding 

envisioned updating doctrine, refining organization, training operators, and 

guaranteeing sustainment to ensure that the new equipment was employed to 

best effect. An M1A1 tank, for example, was more than just a new tank. It was 

the capstone in a system of systems revolutionizing armored warfare. Doctrine 

had to be updated to accommodate its radically improved engagement ranges 

and night-vision devices. Maintenance organizations had to be redesigned to 

accommodate their potpourri of diagnostic equipment and “black box” LRUs. 

Recruits to the armor force had to be capable of handling its computerized 

technology and checklist operator’s maintenance procedures. Their leaders 

had to govern engagement and maneuver boxes that had quadrupled in area. 

Training had to refine all of this disparate activity into rehearsed and routine 

procedures. Fortuitously, veterans of the “big five” fielding were familiar with 

the expansive nature of modernization efforts. This did not mean that they 

would ever become easy.58

Training converts the theoretical into the practical. There is a huge gulf 

between knowing what an organization should achieve and causing the organization to actually achieve it. Training progresses at every level. Individuals 

must learn skills all soldiers should have and also skills unique to their MOS 

and grade. Small units learn and rehearse their battlefield responsibilities. 

Training progresses through units of increasing size as the organization as a 

whole becomes better prepared and more proficient. The rigors of combat and 

the fog of war should be introduced into training insofar as practical. Changes 

in equipment, organization, or doctrine force training revisions at every level. 

This in turn forces a cascade of republished manuals, memorandums, and 

training aids. Training technology advances as well, offering better ways to 

simulate the challenges of combat. The Army of 1989 was the beneficiary of 
Kevlar Legions

68

a recent revolution in training technology. Tank and Bradley crews rehearsed 

individual and crew gunnery skills in computerized UCOFTs. Units of larger 

size maneuvered against each other and registered hits with multiple integrated 

laser engagement systems (MILES). Battalions and brigades deployed to 

such capstone training centers as the National Training Center in California, 

the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Arkansas, and the Combat 

Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) in Germany. Here trained opposing 

forces engaged them in MILES battles, while a hierarchy of observer controllers mirroring their chain of command monitored their actions. Excruciating 

after-action reviews (AARs) featured observer controller testimony, participant self-examination, taped conversations, and vehicle dispositions captured 

electronically. Brigade, division, and corps staffs with leadership running 

two levels down exercised in the virtual environment of the Battle Command 

Training Program. Here after-action reviews mixed comments from seasoned 

“grey beard” observer controller mentors with participant self-examination 

and recoverable electronic files. Fortuitously, these virtual environments could 

be modified to anticipate—or test—battlefield circumstances that did not yet 

exist. As we shall see, this characteristic would soon be brought into play.59

The integration of new equipment, force structure, and doctrine into an 

effective training program requires capable leadership. The Army acts on the 

premise that leaders are made more so than born, and Vuono consciously 

involved himself in leader development throughout his career. His recent priority had been to bring NCO professional development (NCOPD) on line with 

the structure and expectations of officer professional development (OPD). The 

three “pillars” of leader development were institutional training, operational 

assignments, and self-development. Beginning with basic training or the officer 

basic course, NCOs and officers periodically cycled back through schools preparing them for positions of increasing responsibility. For officers this institutional training hierarchy had for some time been solidified as the officer basic 

course, the officer advanced course, the Command and General Staff College, 

and the Army War College. In 1982 a nine-week Combined Arms Service 

Staff School (CAS3) was added to hone staff skills at the captain and junior 

field-grade level. A constellation of specialized schools supported the basic 

hierarchy with more narrowly focused educational and preparatory offerings, 

and a number of assignments or career transitions included attending civilian 

institutions as well. The School of Advanced Military Studies at Leavenworth, 

for example, was particularly noteworthy from the mid-1980s on in developing 

selected officers into broadly educated operational planners with an accredited 

Master of Military Arts and Sciences (MMAS) degree. School of Advanced 

Military Studies graduates, playfully called “Jedi knights,” were instrumental 

in the planning for Desert Storm. In 1990 Vuono approved an NCO leader 

development action plan that brought NCOPD more on line with the formal 

training and educational progression expected of officers. Operational assignments gave officers and NCOs the opportunity to put theory into practice. 

A mix of line and staff positions of increasing responsibility was preferred, 

to ensure a requisite breadth of preparation as a leader advanced. Branch 

career managers—affectionately renamed “career manglers”—shepherded 
69

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

officer assignments from the Total Army Personnel Command in Arlington, 

Virginia. Much of the time they assigned officers into specific positions; at 

other times—particularly in the case of junior officers—they assigned them 

to commands or agencies that in turn were responsible for determining appropriate billets. NCOs received similarly centralized treatment when senior, but 

through the rank of E-6 were effectively in the hands of battalion command 

sergeant majors with respect to career management. A third pillar of leader 

development was self-development. Schools and commands promulgated 

professional reading lists, professional organizations encouraged the exchange 

of ideas among colleagues, and during some assignments civilian schooling 

facilitated by Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits was practical. Senior officers and 

NCOs were expected to mentor those junior to them—in particular their own 

subordinates—to ensure career development remained on track.60

Quality leaders come from quality soldiers. We have already described the 

impressive quality of the Army’s human material in 1989 and the considerable 

success the Army enjoyed retaining it through reenlistment. Here we might 

add the Army’s growing realization that it had to recruit and retain families 

to sustain a quality force. Over 50 percent of the Army’s active-duty soldiers 

were married in 1989—a percentage that rose markedly at higher ranks and 

in the reserve component. Family members outnumbered their active-duty 

sponsors by a factor of three to one. Over half of the career soldiers’ spouses 

worked outside of the home, and these brought in a third of the family income. 

The leading reason soldiers who chose to leave left the Army was that their 

spouses, generally wives, were not happy. Recognition of these consequences 

of the shift to a volunteer army during the 1970s crystallized in Chief of Staff 

General John A. Wickham’s The Army Family White Paper of 1983. From 

that point family issues became a priority, with worldwide spousal representation at annual conferences in accordance with the newly institutionalized 

Army Family Action Plan (AFAP) providing a mechanism to smoke them out. 

Beginning with the XVIII Airborne Corps in 1984, commanders directed units 

subject to deployment to organize family support groups for mutual support. 

This process was largely complete by Desert Storm. During General Vuono’s 

watch the Army and its sister services pressed for and secured the Military 

Child Care Act of 1989. This landmark legislation cleared away a thicket of 

resourcing and policy issues concerning the Army’s hottest family issue. Broad 

mandates to recruit and retain quality soldiers had expanded to include their 

families as well.61

The Army is a large organization. Concepts as complex as General Vuono’s 

imperatives could not survive without proponents—individuals and agencies 

driven by their mandates to advance them. Vuono recognized this and fixed 

responsibilities in such a manner that each of his imperatives had bureaucratic 

champions. For these champions, career success would be in part defined by 

the insight and energy with which they advanced their imperatives in the face 

of necessary change. In most cases proponency was the logical extension of 

traditional responsibilities. In a number of cases several agencies shared proponency, generating a hopefully creative interplay among them. Doctrine was 

clearly in the purview of the four-star TRADOC commander. He presided over 
Kevlar Legions

70

a constellation of two-star branch schools, each of which generated doctrine 

within its area of expertise. The TRADOC commander integrated branch 

efforts, developed service-wide doctrine, and coordinated joint doctrine, leaning 

heavily on the three-star Combined Arms Center and the two-star Combined 

Arms Combat Developments Activity at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and on the 

three-star Combined Arms Support Command at Fort Lee, Virginia, as he did 

so. TRADOC also had much to do with force mix, since units ideally should be 

designed to match the doctrine that applied to them. Senior commanders in the 

field had their own strong ideas concerning the force mix they needed, however, 

and were authorized to modify tables of organization and equipment (TOEs) 

into MTOEs. The distribution of forces among the active Army, the National 

Guard, and the Army Reserve had a significant political dimension. Reconciling 

the force mix views of TRADOC, commanders in the field, and the major components fell to the Army Staff, and in particular the three-star Deputy Chief 

of Staff for Operations and Plans (DCSOPS). He supervised a robust two-star 

staff division specifically addressing this responsibility and enjoyed immediate 

access to the Chief of Staff. Modernization fell to the four-star Army Materiel 

Command insofar as it was a matter of providing new equipment and sustaining it in the field. The AMC commander was a primary player with respect to 

developing new equipment and led a dozen systems-oriented commands and a 

Test and Evaluation Command to do so. TRADOC had the important responsibility of envisioning the future and defining requirements, and the Department 

of the Army retained a significant role with respect to weapons development, 

concerning which, more later. Training split between institutional training, 

individual training, and unit training. TRADOC governed institutional training and commanded most of the institutions wherein it occurred. TRADOC 

also promulgated guidance for individual and unit training and commanded 

such capstone institutions as the National Training Center. Commanders 

in the field determined the actual content of individual training in units and 

unit training, consistently reviewed through quarterly training briefs (QTBs) at 

each level of command. The four-star United States Army Forces Command 

(FORSCOM) was particularly significant in this regard, since it commanded 

virtually all stateside deployable units. Leader development split between institutional training, operational assignments, and self-development. TRADOC 

again governed institutional training. As we have seen, operational assignments 

were the result of give-and-take between the Total Army Personnel Center, a 

two-star field operating agency of the Army Staff, and commanders in the field. 

The mission of recruiting quality people remained under Department of the 

Army purview, with the three-star United States Military Academy, the two-star 

Army Recruiting Command, and the one-star Army National Guard Personnel 

Center and one-star Army Reserve Personnel Center serving as Army Staff 

field operating agencies. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) Cadet 

Command aligned under TRADOC, however. The retention of quality people 

through reenlistment was expected of commanders in the field, and unit performance in that regard was reported monthly.62

The above discussion is incomplete, but it does identify the most significant 

players and illustrates the institutional proponency sustaining Vuono’s imper-
71

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

atives. In addition to traditional relationships, the recently passed GoldwaterNichols Act introduced the Joint Staff and the Army Secretariat into the 

working mechanics of Army processes to an unprecedented extent. Reinforced 

primacy of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the service chiefs 

extended beyond operations alone. The new position of Vice Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff provided an ideal chair for the service vice chiefs, who traditionally administered service staffs day-to-day. It also provided a focal point 

through which Defense Department agencies with responsibilities for administration, acquisition, or budgeting could more directly influence the services. 

Given emphasis on streamlining administration and reducing redundancy, the 

forum of vice chiefs chaired by the Vice Chairman, and the expanded Joint 

Staff, soon became significant factors in Army deliberations with respect to 

doctrine, force mix, and modernization. Stipulations within the GoldwaterNichols Act, previously discussed, mandated joint education and experience 

and bore heavily upon training and leader development.63

The Army Secretariat became more involved in change as well. Secretary 

of the Army Michael P. W. Stone had a strong business background and 

had served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management 

from 1986 through 1988 and as Under Secretary of the Army after that. In 

these positions and as Secretary he played a leading role implementing the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act within Department of the Army headquarters. As 

previously discussed, Goldwater-Nichols migrated the Secretariat into more 

direct control over acquisition, auditing, budget, comptroller, information 

management, inspector general, legislative affairs, public affairs, and research 

and development. Implementing recommendations of the so-called Packard 

Commission, Stone and his colleagues streamlined acquisition management 

and inaugurated a centrally administered Army Acquisition Corps of military and civilian specialists. Project managers would report through program 

executive officers to the Army Acquisition Executive. They would be funded 

directly from the Department of the Army rather than through their traditional commands. The Army Acquisition Executive was to be the Assistant 

Secretary of the Army for Research, Development, and Acquisition, a political appointee. Other members of the Army Secretariat experienced similarly 

expanded authority into similarly deeper levels within the organization. 

Collectively considered, these realignments considerably increased the voice 

of the Secretariat with respect to Vuono’s imperatives of modernization, force 

mix, and the acquisition of quality people.64

One of the primary objectives of the Goldwater-Nichols Act was to 

reduce friction and redundancy among the services. Streamlined leadership 

exerted by the Chairman and streamlined administration chaired by the Vice 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would bring unruly services in line, 

whereas functions that migrated to the Secretariat would enhance the grip of 

the political administration upon Pentagon policy. Arguments would be internal and firmly resolved; Congress and the public would no longer be exposed 

to the cacophony of service rivalry. As attractive as such centralization can be 

with respect to efficiency, it can stifle the broad debates that have contributed 

much to American military effectiveness. It is hard, for example, to imagine 
Kevlar Legions

72

the revolutionary leap to carrier-borne warfare had there not been a creative 

tension between the Navy and the Army over airpower, the American lead in 

amphibious warfare had the Marine Corps not been determined to preserve its 

autonomy, or America’s simultaneous lead in both tactical and strategic airpower absent strident dispute between the World War II Army Ground Forces 

and Army Air Forces.65 With the services potentially muzzled, privately funded 

professional organizations heavily populated by retirees preserved the prerogative of open debate. In the case of the Army, the most notable such organization was the Association of the United States Army (AUSA). Founded in 1950 

to provide a voice for Army interests broadly defined, by 1990 it sported a 

capable staff, prestigious trustees, a dozen interlocking advisory committees, 

and respectable access to both the administration and Congress. Its Institute 

of Land Warfare facilitated and encouraged education, dialogue, and debate. 

Corporate membership wove representatives of the defense industrial base into 

its deliberations. AUSA’s resolutions committee carried advice and counsel to 

members of Congress and the administration alike.66 Periodic conventions, 

most notably an annual convention in the National Capital Region in October, 

drew active Army, National Guardsmen, Reservists, retirees, representatives 

of industry, and political figures into days of demonstration, discussion, and 

deliberation. Here debate was freewheeling and the sensitivities of other services not particularly protected; naval personnel continued to be affectionately 

referred to as “squids,” marines as “jarheads,” and pilots as “fly-boys.” On a 

parallel course, Congress also preserved its access to potential debate by asking 

candidates at confirmation hearings if, when asked a question by a member of 

Congress, they would answer with what they truthfully believed rather than 

parrot the position of the administration. The answer had to be “yes” to be 

confirmed, and virtually every position three-star or above required confirmation. Given the ferocity with which the uniformed services inculcated personal 

integrity into their service culture, this simple measure of holding officers to 

their word gave Congress ample access to contrary views, should they exist.67

Parochial service interests retained a voice of their own while complying with 

Goldwater-Nichols and taking advantage of its better features.

Secretary Stone and General Vuono saw change coming and positioned 

the Army to deal with it even though the future was far from clear. The Army 

headquarters was redesigned into compliance with the Goldwater-Nichols 

Act and prepared to accommodate a greater role for the Joint Staff and the 

Secretariat in its internal deliberations. Interservice acrimony would be muted, 

but service interests would nevertheless find a public voice. A theory of change 

existed that recognized the interplay among doctrine, force mix, training, modernization, leadership, and soldier quality. Each of these imperatives would be 

addressed simultaneously, and each had one or more institutional proponents 

committed to advance its assigned imperatives to the best effect. Of particular 

note, the Army would not allow its transformation to a post–Cold War force to 

be dominated by technology alone. There was not yet an overwhelming sense 

of urgency, since the final Soviet collapse did not occur until the waning days 

of 1991, but change was clearly in the wind. Three items did have to be prepared for immediately: declining budgets, downsizing, and denuclearization.
73

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

Declining Budgets, Downsizing, and Denuclearization

The Department of Defense and the Army had been tightening their belts 

with respect to budgets since the peak of the so-called “Reagan Buildup” in 

the mid-1980s. The $77.7 billion allotted to the Army in FY1990 marked the 

fifth straight year of modest declines in real purchasing power. Congressional 

disgruntlement with rising deficits had led to the passage of the GrammRudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 

1985, imposing spending caps on the federal government and threatening automatic across-the-board cuts (“sequesters”) should they be violated. This led 

to bruising confrontations between the administration and Congress with the 

approach of each fiscal year. The most notable of these occurred in October 

of 1990, when time and money ran out and the federal government actually 

closed down over the Columbus Day weekend. The Army emerged from subsequent negotiations with $73 billion for FY1991, an effective 7 percent cut 

from the previous year. Fortuitously Desert Storm was not compromised 

by this parsimony, since its costs to the Army were funded by a supplemental appropriation outside of the normal budget cycle. Prosperous allies offset 

many of Desert Storm’s actual costs with cash or through goods and services provided. Indeed, some wags argued that the Department of Defense 

had actually turned a profit on the war. The direction that would be taken by 

future budgets was clear, however. The imminent end of the Cold War sent a 

desire for a “peace dividend” rippling through Congress. The belt-tightening 

of the past few years would soon accelerate into dramatic cuts.68 (See Chart 1.)

Vuono sought to conceive a way ahead for the Army in the face of inevitable cuts and then to convince his superiors of the merits of his proposed 

approach. He was mindful that the Joint Staff and Office of the Secretary 

of Defense were undertaking their own studies and galvanized the Army 

Staff to stay far enough ahead to influence events. Beginning in 1989 Project 

QUICKSILVER examined the TOE units within the Army, and Project 

VANGUARD examined the Army’s table of distribution and allowances 

(TDA) structure. TOE units broadly encompass deployable units, whereas 

TDA defines the institutional structure of schools, depots, supporting 

agencies, and the like. More secretively Project ANTAEUS, named for the 

mythical titan who remained powerful as long as he touched the ground, had 

already examined specific reductions that included the hypothetical loss of 

two divisions, a corps, and other units in Europe. It seemed to Vuono and 

his staff that the Army’s viable options boiled down to two basic alternatives. One was to maintain something like the present force structure of five 

corps, twenty-eight divisions (twenty active component and eight reserve 

component), twenty-eight separate combat brigades (five active component 

and twenty-three reserve component), and supporting units intact. Budget 

reductions could be accommodated by reducing the manning and training of 

units, prolonging the modernization of equipment within them, and diminishing research and development expenditures. Within units, rank structure 

would end up top-heavy as the lower ranks thinned out. In times of recognized crisis, increased budgets would allow the Army to infuse manpower, 
Kevlar Legions

74

training, and equipment into this retained force structure. Such a proposal 

would be yet another version of the “expansible army” concept familiar to 

the Army since the days of Secretary of War John C. Calhoun and would 

mesh well with renewed conscription and national mobilization. A second 

alternative was to slash force structure and maintain appreciably fewer units 

at high levels of manning, training, and readiness. Savings on manpower 

would allow research and development to remain robustly funded. Units 

would be recurrently modernized with infusions of new equipment. The 

residual force would be small, ever ready, and deployable. Vuono had previously articulated the merits of deployability, versatility, and lethality in a 

modern army. Vuono’s second alternative would maintain such character in 

a smaller force.69

Sobered by the abruptness with which Just Cause and Desert Storm had 

come upon them, and mindful that there was no longer a global peer opponent 

in the short term, Army planners ultimately favored the second alternative, 

as did General Vuono. This signaled an important step away from longestablished tenets of mass mobilization in favor of an immediately available 

expeditionary army. For the first time in almost a century, deployable readiness would trump mobilization potential as the highest priority for the Army. 

The last time the United States had had a small but ever ready Army, it was 

intended to fight Indians. Vuono’s chosen second alternative would get a half 

dozen divisions into an overseas theater much faster than his first, but would 

get two dozen there much more slowly. Forces beyond that would be generated 

even more slowly still. This shift from a big war to a small war paradigm was 

seminal. Secretary Stone and Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney concurred 

with Vuono. Cheney submitted a plan to Congress envisioning manpower cuts 

of 25 percent across the Department of Defense over a five-year period, with 

the active Army plunging from 770,000 to 520,000. In accordance with this 

plan active-component divisions would drop from eighteen to fourteen by the 

end of 1995, a planning figure that further dropped to twelve in FY1991. If 

the United States was between wars, downsizing reflected a familiar historical 

pattern. What was new was the determination to retain the residual force at the 

highest possible standards of readiness and modernization (Chart 2).70

Downsizing the Army was still a vision in 1991, delayed by Desert Storm

and phased well into the approaching decade. The dramatic shift from being 

to not being a nuclear player progressed more quickly. The implications of 

the INF Treaty of May 1988 have already been discussed. The effort to wedge 

a 270-mile-range nuclear missile under the treaty’s limits proved short-lived. 

This initiative, the venerable seventy-mile-range Lance surface-to-surface 

missile, and artillery-fired atomic projectiles for 8-inch and 155-mm. howitzers were all swept away by a series of “presidential nuclear initiatives.” 

Eliminating the Army’s tactical nuclear weapons made sense at the time. 

Mammoth Warsaw Pact forces that had been their original logic were dissipating. Nonnuclear precision-guided munitions (PGMs) seemed capable 

of many roles envisioned for tactical nuclear weapons, offsetting lesser yields 

through greater accuracy. European allies, striving to put Cold War dangers 

behind them, were eager to be rid of weaponry that might make them an 
Chart 1—The Army Budget, 1985–2005

(in five-year increments in billions—constant 2009 dollars)

Chart 2—Army Active-Duty Strength, 1985–2005

(in five-year increments in thousands)
Kevlar Legions

76

attractive nuclear target. The Goldwater-Nichols Act, emphasizing jointness 

and hostile to redundancy, reinforced a notion that nuclear munitions could 

best be left to the Air Force and Navy. An expeditionary army would be nimbler if unencumbered by nuclear weapons and their attendant support and 

security apparatus. Most important, the elimination of American tactical 

nuclear weapons was associated with a corresponding elimination of Soviet 

tactical nuclear weapons and facilitated further diplomatic engagement. As 

the Soviet Union crumbled, defense analysts feared nuclear weapons might 

fall into the wrong hands. Tactical nuclear weapons seemed the most vulnerable to such displacement. The mutual destruction of tactical nuclear weapons made such risks far less likely. Propelled by these incentives, the presidential nuclear initiatives moved swiftly. In 1989 the Army had 141 nuclear 

weapons–certified units. In 1992 it had none. Nuclear weapons had been 

redefined as strategic, and the Army had been redefined as nonnuclear.71

Conclusions

The world looked very different to the Army in 1991 than it had in 1989. 

The strategic focus on the Cold War and the Soviet Union had dissipated, 

leaving a diffuse multitude of less dangerous but more likely threats in its 

wake. Military technologies that had been untested proved their worth in 

Desert Storm. After initial self-congratulation, however, reflections on 

Desert Storm flagged up worrisome issues with which the Army had yet 

to deal. It seemed a harbinger of future capabilities more so than a demonstration of capabilities that had already arrived. Socioeconomic change 

crossed important watersheds during this brief period as well. The United 

States was demonstrably more global, and the globe was demonstrably more 

integrated. The Internet was just emerging to push this process along. This 

new world order required security, and the United States was the only truly 

global power capable of providing it.

To their credit, the leaders of the United States Army recognized change 

was coming and prepared themselves and the institution to achieve it. Direction 

and details were not yet clear, but a framework for change was articulated 

and proponency for aspects of that framework established. With respect to 

downsizing and denuclearization, planning had advanced to the point that 

execution could commence. Some now characterize the events of 2001 as the 

pivot point that launched the Army in new directions. As we shall see, the pivot 

point was actually 1989, and the Army since 2001 has been following through 

and capitalizing on changes that started because of the end of the Cold War.
Notes

1

 General Carl E. Vuono, “Our ‘Clearest, Most Valued Symbol of Resolve,’” Army 

1988–1999 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1988, 34.

2

 Ibid., 33.

3 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1989/1990 

(London: Oxford University Press, 1989).

4

 General Crosbie E. Saint and Major (P) Michael L. Hammack, “Changes Pose 

Challenge for Army Forces, Europe,” Army 1988–1999 Green Book: The Year of 

Training, October 1988, 56–70. 

5 Ibid.; Vincent H. Demma, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal 

Year 1989 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998), 11–28, 63–75; Charles 

E. Kirkpatrick, “Ruck It Up!” The Post–Cold War Transformation of V Corps, 1990–

2001 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2006), 3–20, 34–39. Here, the 

author might also cite his own personal experience, having served a total of ten years 

in Germany as an Armor officer and participated in many REFORGERs. 

6

 Demma, 247–66; Kirkpatrick, 3–45; Army Training and Evaluation Program 71–2 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1987); Army Field Manual 17–12–1, Tank 

Combat Tables (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1987); Secretary of the 

Army John O. Marsh Jr., “Army Training: Ancient Roots, Future Benefits,” Army 

1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1988, 12–18; Anne W. 

Chapman, The Army’s Training Revolution, 1973–1990, An Overview (Fort Monroe, 

Virginia: Office of the Command Historian, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command, 1994). Again, the author might cite twenty-six years of personal experience 

as an Armor officer, thus serving in ranks from second lieutenant through full colonel. 

7

 Lieutenant General Allen K. Ono and Raymond J. Sumser, “Personnel: An Army 

Tightens Up Its Belt,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 

1988, 158–65; “Distribution of Active Duty Forces by Service, Rank, Sex and Ethnic 

Group,” Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Equal Opportunity), 22 

June 1994; Robert K. Griffith Jr., The U.S. Army’s Transition to the All-Volunteer 

Force, 1968–1974 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1997); Department of 

the Army Pamphlet 623–205, The Noncommissioned Officer Evaluation Reporting 

System “In Brief” (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1988); David W. Hogan 

Jr., Arnold Fisch Jr., and Robert K. Wright Jr., The Story of the Noncommissioned 

Officer Corps (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2003); Demma, 109–32.

8

 Ono and Sumser; Major General Don Burdick, “The Guard: America’s Army ‘On 

Call,’” Army 1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1988, 125–32; 

Major General William F. Ward Jr., “Buildup Over; Reserve’s Focus Is on FineTuning, Army1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1988, 112–21; 

James T. Currie and Richard B. Crossland, Twice the Citizen: A History of the United 

States Army Reserve, 1908–1995 (Washington DC: Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, 

1997), 287–368; Michael D. Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History of the Army National 

Guard, 1636–2000 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 2001), 269–300.

9

 Demma, 3–11, 201–46; Department of the Army, Weapons Systems: United States 

Army, 1991 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1991); Frank N. Schubert 

and Theresa L. Kraus, gen. eds., The Whirlwind War: The United States Army in 

Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (Washington DC: Center of Military 
Kevlar Legions

78

History, 1995), 28–33; General Fred Franks Jr. with Tom Clancy, Into the Storm: A 

Study in Command (New York: Berkley Books, 1997), 103–57.

10 Letter of Instruction, 3d Infantry Division, 13 May 1986, with chg 1 dated 18 

July 1986, sub: M1A1 Rollover; Memorandum for Record (MFR), 4th Battalion, 66th 

Armor, 7 January 1987, sub: M1 Turn-In. Both Historians Files, CMH. In the case of 

this paragraph, the author might also cite his personal experience as the Executive 

Officer of the first United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), battalion to roll over 

from the M1 to the M1A1 tank. 

11 General Maxwell R. Thurman, “TRADOC Prepares for the Future: Training to 

Fight and Win Now and Beyond the Year 2000,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book: The 

Year of Training, October 1988, 82–97; General Louis C. Wagner Jr., “AMC’s FullThrottle Effort to Capture Technology: Today’s Concepts, Tomorrow’s Edge,” Army 

1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1988, 100–109; Lieutenant 

General Jimmy D. Ross, “Army Logistics: Top Priority Is Support of War-Fighting 

CINCs,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1988, 170–86; 

Demma, 132. 

12 Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Public Law 99–143); James R. 

Lochner III, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon

(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002); Mark D. Sherry, The Army 

Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997 (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2009). 

13 Ibid.; Demma, 201–46.

14 S. 2453, A Bill to Enhance the Capability of the United States to Combat Terrorism 

and Other Forms of Unconventional Warfare; H.R. 5109, A Bill to Establish a National 

Special Operations Agency Within the Department of Defense to Have Unified 

Responsibility for All Special Operations Forces and Activities Within the Department;

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987; Demma, 35, 76–78; Sherry, 36.

15 United Stated Department of Defense, Soviet Military Power, 1987 (Washington 

DC: Government Printing Office, 1987).

16 Treaty Between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 

the Elimination of Their Intermediate Range and Shorter Range Missiles, entered into 

force 1 June 1988, U.S. Department of State (http://www.state.gov); Brian Alexander 

and Alistair Millar, Tactical Nuclear Weapons in an Evolving Security Environment 

(Washington DC: Brassey’s, 2003), 1–41; Demma, 74–76, 232.

17 William Echikson, Lighting the Night: Revolution in Eastern Europe (New York: 

William Morrow, 1990); George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New 

York: Knopf, 1998); John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War: 

Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 

18 Speech of Leonid Brezhnev to the Fifth Congress of the Polish Workers Party, 13 

November 1968; Matthew Ouimet, The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet 

Foreign Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 

19 Dennis G. Heapy, “NATO Mobilization and Reinforcement: Can We Get There 

from Here?” (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: School of Advanced Military Studies, 

1990); James L. Moody, “Awaiting an Enemy: The Operational Significance of 

Politically Induced Force Reductions to Parity in Central Europe” (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: School of Advanced Military Studies, 1990); Charles Gati, 

Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt (Palo 

Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 2006); Amnesty International, 

“Preliminary Findings on Killings of Unarmed Civilians, Arbitrary Arrests and 

Summary Executions Since June 1989,” 30 August 1989, at http://www.amnestyusa.

org; Bush and Scowcroft; Gaddis. 
79

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

20 General Carl E. Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives: The U.S. Army in the 

1990s,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 20.

21 Secretary of the Army Michael P. W. Stone, “The Army’s Challenges: First 

Echelon of Strategic Deterrence in a Turbulent World of Diverse Threats,” Army 

1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 11.

22 General Crosbie E. Saint, “USAREUR Maintains Readiness: Commitment to 

Europe’s Security Has Deep Roots,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 87. 

23 General Sir John Hackett et al., The Third World War: August 1985 (New York: 

Macmillan, 1978). 

24 General Carl W. Stiner, “U.S. Special Operations Command: Prime-Time Players 

in the Third World Network of Conflict,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 

191–97; Gordon C. Bonham, Special Operations Forces: The Combination Tool in the 

CINC’s Operational Toolbox (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: School of Advanced 

Military Studies, 1991); Mark R. French, Shield of Blows or Rubber Dagger: An 

Analysis for an Operational Concept for NATO After Forward Defense (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: School of Advanced Military Studies, 1990); Paul A. Lovelace, 

Science and Art of Operational Maneuver in Post CFE Europe (Fort Leavenworth, 

Kansas: School of Advanced Military Studies, 1990); William H. Parry III, Search for 

an Operational Warfighting Doctrine: What Are NATO’s Options After CFE? (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: School of Advanced Military Studies, 1990). 

25 Michael R. Beshloss and Strobe Talbot, At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of 

the End of the Cold War (Boston, Massachusetts: Little Brown, 1993); John F. Matlock 

Jr., Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New York: Random House, 

2004); Gaddis. 26 Ibid.; Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives,” 23. 

27 Beshloss and Talbot; Matlock; Gaddis; Bush and Scowcroft; Archie Brown, The 

Gorbachev Factor (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); The Unification of 

Germany in 1990 (Bonn, Germany: Press and Information Office of the Federal 

Government, 1991); Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, 

September 12, 1990 (Washington DC: German Embassy, 2004).

28 Author’s personal experience serving as a tank battalion commander in Germany.

29 Bush and Scowcroft; Beshloss and Talbot; Gaddis; David Pryce-Jones, The 

Strange Death of the Soviet Union (New York: Metropolitan, 1995). 

30 Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review 

(Pentagon: Department of Defense, 1997); Briefing, General Wesley K. Clark, Supreme 

Allied Commander Europe, to the NATO Norfolk Conference, “The 21st Century 

Force, Defining Requirements,” 12 November 1998, in Historians Files, CMH.

31R. Cody Philips, Operation Just Cause: The American Incursion into Panama 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004); Thomas M. Donnelly et al., 

Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama (New York: Maxwell Macmillan 

International, 1991). 

32 Ibid.; Ronald H. Cole, Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of 

Joint Operations in Panama, February 1988–January 1990 (Washington DC: Joint 

History Office, 1995). 

33 Philips, 21, 38; U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs, Private American Citizens 

Residing Abroad (http://travel.state.gov/amcit_numbers.html). 

34 U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of 

the United States (http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/hiscendata.

html).

35 David M. Reimers, Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America 

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); Sanford J. Ungar, Fresh Blood: The New 
Kevlar Legions

80

Immigrants (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995); U.S. Census Bureau, Demographic 

Trends in the 20th Century (http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/

hiscendata.html).

36 Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the TwentyFirst Century (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004); Shireen Hunter, ed., Islam, 

Europe’s Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural and Political Landscape 

(Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2002); A. Labor, A 

Heart Turned East; Muslims in Europe and America (London: Little Brown and 

Company, 1997).

37 Christopher Bennett, Yugoslavia’s Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and 

Consequences (New York: New York University Press, 1995); Laura Silber and Allan 

Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New York: Penguin Books, 1997); Trevor N. 

Dupuy, Future Wars: The World’s Most Dangerous Flashpoints (New York: Warner 

Books, 1993); Pryce-Jones. 38 Dan Smith, Kristan Ingstad Sandberg, Pavel Baev, and Wenche Hauge, The State 

of War and Peace Atlas (Oslo, Norway: International Peace Research Institute and 

Penguin Books, 1997).

39 Jagdish Bhagwal, In Defense of Globalization (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 

2007); Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 

2005); Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Brief History (Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 2003); Mary Beth Norton et al., A People and a Nation: A History of the United 

States (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 771, 924–25; World Trade Organization 

Web site (http://www.wto.org). 

40 Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 

1999); Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 

1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 307–17; Katie Hafner and Matthew 

Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet (New York: 

Touchstone, 1998).

41 Demma; Boot, 307–17; James F. Dunnigan, Digital Soldiers: The Evolution of HighTech Weaponry and Tomorrow’s Brave New Battlefields (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 

1996); George and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology and 

American World Dominance in the 21st Century (New York: Crown Publishers, 1996). 

42 Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (New York: 

Routledge, 1991); Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress 

(Washington DC: Department of Defense, 1992), 2–29; U.S. News and World Report, 

Triumph Without Victory: The Unreported History of the Persian Gulf War (New York: 

Time Books, 1992), 3–39. 

43 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 30–47; Schubert and Kraus, 49–99; Robert H. 

Scales Jr., Certain Victory: The US Army in the Gulf War (Washington DC: Office of 

the Chief of Staff, United States Army, 1993), 39–102; H. Norman Schwarzkopf with 

Peter Petre, It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography (New York: Bantam Books, 

1992), 295–406. 

44 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 64–87; Stephen P. Gehring, From the Fulda Gap 

to Kuwait: U.S. Army, Europe, and the Gulf War (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 1998); Triumph Without Victory, 90–109, 150–83; Harry G. Summers Jr., On 

Strategy II: A Critical Analysis of the Gulf War (New York: Dell, 1992).

45 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 252–54; Schubert and Kraus, 133–36; Scales, 

112–21; John S Brown, “Beyond the Wall: Operations in a Post–Cold War World, 

1990–2001,” in American Military History, vol. 2, The United States Army in a Global 

Era 1917–2003, ed. Richard W. Stewart (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2004), 412–15. 
81

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

46 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 88–181, 661–731, 755–56, 773–78; Boot, 318–22; 

Schubert and Kraus, 153–72; Scales, 157–212; Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story 

of the Persian Gulf War (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 165–356; Thomas A. 

Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey: Summary Report (Washington 

DC: United States Air Force, 1993); Task Force Iron Debrief for Troop Information, 2d 

Armored Division Forward, TAA [Tactical Assembly Area] Manhattan, Saudi Arabia, 

19 February 1991, Historians Files, CMH; Intervs with Major General Thomas Rhame, 

26 Jul 1991, and Colonel Terry Bullington, 24 Jul 1991, Center of Military History 

(Desert Storm) Interview Collection, Washington DC. 

47 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 226–97, Schubert and Kraus, 173–206; Scales, 

213–320; Atkinson, 375–487; Brown, 417–23; James Blackwell, Thunder in the Desert: 

The Strategy and Tactics of the Persian Gulf War (New York: Bantam Books, 1991), 

183–238; Franks with Clancy, 362–561; John S. Brown, “The Battle for Norfolk,” in 

Leaders in War: West Point Remembers the 1991 Gulf War, ed. Frederick W. Kagan and 

Chris Kubik (New York: Frank Cass, 2005); Eric T. Olson, “Attacking the Republican 

Guard,” in Leaders in War, ed. Kagan and Kubik.

48 Schwarzkopf, 295–374; Scales, 49–79; Charles Lane Toomey, XVIII Airborne 

Corps in Desert Storm: From Planning to Victory (Central Point, Oregon: Hellgate 

Press, 2004), 75–128; Katherine McIntire, “Speed Bumps: 82nd Airborne’s Shaky Line 

in the Sand,” Army Times, 21 October 1991; John S. Brown, “Desert Storm as 

History—and Prologue,” Army (February 2001): 50–51.

49 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 236–37, 543–76, 589–98; Schwarzkopf, 272–78; 

Franks, 544–68; Interv with Colonel Anthony Morreno, 26 Jul 1991, Center of 

Military History (Desert Storm) Interview Collection; Sean D. Naylor, “Friendly 

Fire: The Reckoning,” Army Times, 21 August 1991. 

50 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 393–450; Peter C. Langemus, “Moving an 

Army: Movement Control for Desert Storm,” Military Review (September 1991); 

William G. Pagonis with Jeffrey L. Cruickshank, Moving Mountains: Lessons in 

Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard 

Business School University Press, 1992); Interv with Lieutenant Colonel Steve 

Marshman, Commander, 498th Support Battalion, 2d Armored Division Forward, 

May 1989 to May 1991, 11 October 1991; Kent Laudeman, “Theater Support,” in 

Leaders in War, ed. Kagan and Kubik; Sandra L. Vann-Olejasz, “Tactical Logistics 

Support” in Leaders in War, ed. Kagan and Kubik; Chris Kubik, “Platoon Leader 

Challenges,” in Leaders in War, ed. Kagan and Kubik; Author’s personal experience as 

commander of 2-66 Armor. 

51 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 773–90; Boot, 339–41, 347–49; Atkinson, 272–

96, 345–46; Keaney and Cohen.

52 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 471–85; James T. Currie and Richard B. 

Crossland, Twice the Citizen: A History of the United States Army Reserve, 1908–1995 

(Washington DC: Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, 1997), 369–548; Michael D. 

Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History of the Army National Guard, 1636–2000 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2001), 301–32.

53 Scales, 321–54; Triumph Without Victory, 399–415; Toomey, 399–418; Stephen A. 

Bourque and John W. Burdan III, The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry 

in the 1991 Persian Gulf War (Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2007), 

213–26; Janet A. McDonnell, After Desert Storm: The U.S. Army and the 

Reconstruction of Kuwait (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1999); Gordon 

W. Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention: Assisting the Iraqi Kurds in Operation Provide 

Comfort (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004).

54 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives,” 23.
Kevlar Legions

82

55 Ibid.; William G. Bell, Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff, 1775–2005: 

Portraits and Biographical Sketches of the Army’s Senior Officers (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 2005). 

56 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; Field Manual 100–5, Operations 

(Washington DC: United States Army, 1986); Robert A. Doughty, The Evolution of 

U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946–1976 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2001); John L. Romjue, American Army Doctrine for the Post–Cold War World 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2001). 

57 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; Dennis J. Reimer, “Focus on Global 

Mission Puts Emphasis on Power Projection,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 

1990, 124–28; John B. Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and 

Separate Brigades (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998); William M. 

Donnelly, Transforming an Army at War: Designing the Modular Force, 1991–2005 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 3–18; Field Manual 1, The Army 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2005), 2-8 to 2-12.

58 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; William G. T. Tuttle, “Seven Missions 

Power the AMC Contribution,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 74–83; 

Demma, 3–11, 201–46; Department of the Army, Weapons Systems: United States 

Army, 1991 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1991); Boot, 7–18. 

59 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; John W. Foss “Superb Quality While Using 

Fewer Forces,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 56–64; Chapman; 

Demma, 247–66; Kirkpatrick, 3–45; Army Training and Evaluation Program 71–2 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1987); Field Manual 1, The Army, 1–19. 

60 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; Julius W. Gates, “Bootprints That Will 

Never Fade,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 33–36; Lieutenant General 

William H. Reno and Raymond J. Sumser, “Maintain Momentum, Minimize 

Turbulence, Maximize Strength,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 130–35; 

Field Manual 1, The Army, 1–18. 

61 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; Reno and Sumser, 130–35; “Distribution of 

Active Duty Forces by Service, Rank, Sex and Ethnic Group,” Office of the Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of Defense (Equal Opportunity) , 22 June 1994; Department of the 

Army Pamphlet 623–205, The Noncommissioned Officer Evaluation Reporting System 

“In Brief” (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1988); Hogan, Fisch, and 

Wright; Demma, 109–32.

62 Field Manual 1, The Army, 2–8; Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; Reimer, 

“Focus on Global Mission Puts Emphasis on Power Projection”; Foss; Tuttle; Demma, 

29–37; “Command and Staff Directory,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990, 

217–36; Edgar F. Raines Jr., Evolution of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Operations and Plans, 1903–1991 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1991).

63 Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Public Law 99–143); Lochner; 

Sherry.

64 Ibid.; Demma, 201–46; Michael P. W. Stone, “First Echelon of Strategic 

Deterrence in a Turbulent World of Diverse Threats,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, 

11–14; Stephen K. Conver, “RDA Budget Reflects Requirements, Reductions and 

Political Realities,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, 66–71.

65 Mark D. Mandeles, Military Transformation Past and Present: Historic Lessons 

for the 21st Century (London: Praeger Security International, 2007), 28–71.

66 “Association of the United States Army, Officers and Council of Trustees,” Army 

1990–1991 Green Book, October 1990. 67 Colonel Matthew Moten, “’The Stuff of Tragedy’ Shinseki’s Reply to Levin,” 

Armed Forces and Society (April 2008): 509–16. 
83

The Tectonic Shift, 1989–1991

68 Demma, 29–32, 38–44.

69 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; Sherry; Demma, 63–74; E-mail, General 

Gordon L. Sullivan to Brigadier General John S. Brown, 4 May 2008, sub: John 

Brown’s First Substantive Chapter, in Historian’s Files, CMH.

70 Vuono, “Guided by Six Imperatives”; Sherry; Demma; John S. Brown, Draftee 

Division: The 88th Infantry Division in World War II (Lexington, Kentucky: University 

of Kentucky Press, 1986).

71 Treaty Between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 

the Elimination of Their Intermediate Range and Shorter Range Missiles, entered into 

force 1 June 1988; Alexander and Millar, 1–41; Demma, 74–76, 232.

Chapter 3

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

General Gordon R. Sullivan was sworn in as Chief of Staff of the Army on 

23 June 1991. He was thoroughly familiar with retiring Chief of Staff General 

Carl E. Vuono’s vision of the way ahead for the Army and was well prepared to 

carry it forward. He had served for a year as Vice Chief of Staff of the Army 

when selected to be Chief of Staff and had served as Vuono’s Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Operations and Plans (DCSOPS) before that. Such Vuono-era studies 

as QUICKSILVER and VANGUARD bore his fingerprints, as did the discussions and deliberations that matured Vuono’s six “Army Imperatives.” Sullivan 

adopted these imperatives as his own, featuring them prominently in speeches 

and correspondence and in such promotional literature as the Association of the 

United States Army’s annual Army Green Book. Vuono and Sullivan had served 

together off and on for over a dozen years, and the two men remained close 

after Vuono retired. Sullivan included Vuono within the circle of intimates with 

whom he sounded out concepts and plans as they emerged.1

This kindredness of vision and spirit assisted in sustaining an azimuth, 

but the devil remained in the details—in the formulation of practical measures 

to carry the work forward. For Sullivan budget cuts, manpower drawdowns, 

and congressional pursuit of a “peace dividend” were not forecasts; they were 

crippling contemporary realities. Even as resources drained away, he led the 

struggle to maintain quality, sustain morale, and fulfill current mission requirements. These immediate priorities could easily have trumped shaping the Army 

of the future. Sullivan was determined that they would not. A 1959 graduate 

of Norwich University, he had served as an Armor officer before, during, and 

after the Vietnam War. In Vietnam he was wounded while serving as an adviser 

to the Civil Guard and Self Defense Corps, and he served two additional tours 

in Vietnam as well. He commanded at every level from company through division and served several assignments each as a personnel officer, operations 

officer, and in Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)—each time 

in positions of increasing responsibility. His broad experience included the 

Vietnam buildup, the rigors of the war itself, the postwar downward spiral 

into a “hollow army,” and the renaissance leading into Just Cause and 

Desert Storm. Throughout his tenure as Chief of Staff he kept two books 

on his desk: The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine, 

1919–1939, by Colonel Robert A. Doughty, then Professor and Head of the 

Department of History at West Point, and America’s First Battles, 1776–1965, 
Kevlar Legions

86

edited by Lieutenant Colonel 

Charles E. Heller and Brigadier 

General William A. Stofft—Stofft 

being a former Chief of Military 

History. Sullivan was determined to 

prepare the Army for the next war, 

not to lose its way amid the challenges of the present.2

The Modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers and Processes of 

Change

Speaking at his arrival ceremony as Chief of Staff on 25 June 

1991, General Gordon R. Sullivan 

touched upon a perennial dilemma 

of global power. Contemporary 

responsibilities and missions are 

ever present and prone to trump 

long-term vision or preparation. In 

the aftermath of World War I, for 

example, British, French, and German officers alike had been exposed to prototypes of the awesome combinations that would prove decisive in World War 

II. The British and French had empires to police, however, and ongoing missions to absorb overseas territories wrested from the Germans and Ottomans. 

Given peacetime funding, they found it difficult to give much attention to the 

more distant future. Indeed, British political leaders went so far as to impose a 

“Ten-Year Rule,” forbidding military planners from contemplating great power 

wars for at least that period. The German military had no such distractions. 

Beginning with postwar seminars shepherded by General Hans von Seekt, 

they prepared themselves for future war in a deliberate manner.3

 Sullivan, at 

the head of yet another army with global responsibilities in the aftermath of 

a successfully concluded worldwide contest, commented in his speech that 

there would be no “time-out from readiness,” and that “the American people 

expect us to be a strategic force for our nation’s land battles—today, next week, 

and years from now.” His comments proved prescient; during his tenure the 

tempo of deployments from home stations increased threefold and continued 

unabated thereafter. Amid this steadily increasing busyness Sullivan nevertheless resolved to prepare for a more distant future. To further quote his speech, 

“at home and abroad the environment in which the Army operates is undergoing fundamental transformation . . . the Army too must change.” In a time of 

plummeting budgets, it would be a Herculean task to “reshape the Army while 

maintaining readiness.”4

The Cold War Army and the Cold War Department of Defense had 

designed themselves to evolve: continuously, thoughtfully, and incrementally. Generations of tanks, aircraft, ships, vehicles, and equipment of other 

General Sullivan
87

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

types replaced their predecessors in frontline units, cascading older equipment through units lower down in deployment plans and in the reserve component before washing it out of the inventory altogether. One motor pool 

in Aschaffenburg, Germany, for example, witnessed the M47, M48, M60, 

M60A1, M60A3, M1, and M1A1 tanks during the career-span of a single soldier. During this same period, prospective opponents across the Inter-German 

border similarly progressed through the T55, T62, T72, and T80 tanks. The 

pattern was much the same for other services and equipment. At the highest level the process tied into congressional budget cycles and annual budget 

submissions by the administration to Congress. Since the tenure of Secretary 

of Defense Robert S. McNamara military input to proposed administration 

budgets had emerged from a relatively orderly Planning, Programming, and 

Budgeting System (PPBS). PPBS involved the services and defense analysts 

in an annual round of threat assessments, discussions of requirements to 

counter the threats, comparisons of cost-effectiveness, and determinations of 

the priority in which requirements would be resourced and filled. The Army 

labeled its own version the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution 

System (PPBES), acknowledgment that the services also had to “execute,” to 

actually spend the money once they had obtained it. An important contributor to PPBES was the Army’s parallel Concepts-Based Requirements System 

(CBRS), analysis working down from the agreed national military strategy to 

determine the forces necessary to achieve it. CBRS offered a deliberate, albeit 

cumbersome, methodology for determining future weapons and force structure that was familiar to sizable numbers of staff officers who had been trained 

in its use. It had been informed and enriched by the incorporation of General 

Vuono’s six imperatives. Thus Army modernization reached beyond technical 

developments alone to address doctrine, training, force mix, leader development, and the retention of quality people as well. The services, increasingly 

disciplined by the Joint Staff and the Defense Secretariat in the aftermath of 

Goldwater-Nichols, jockeyed with each other as each annual PPBS submission 

came due. Prospective submissions also were of great interest to Congress, an 

interest further kindled by those of their constituents who represented industries identified to provide goods and services to the Department of Defense.5

In addition to top-down change, the Army had institutionalized methods 

for improving itself from within. The pre–Desert Storm “training revolution” 

that fielded Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) gunnery 

and sprawling Observer Controller (OC)–shepherded exercises through the 

National Training Center (NTC) was predicated on the gritty after-action 

review (AAR). AARs were facilitated by mentors and trainers, but their 

essence was confessional. Participants reviewed their performances, acknowledged their flaws, and identified ways to do better next time—and there always 

was a next time. Assessments were generally candid and blunt, soldiers of all 

ranks were encouraged to opine in the presence of superiors and subordinates alike, and defects were inevitably paired with proposed resolutions. The 

AAR process pervaded training at every level throughout the Army—from 

individual skills through crew gunnery to battalion maneuvers and corps exercises—and dominated operational postmortems as well. Indeed, the guns were 
Kevlar Legions

88

hardly silent after Desert Storm when American units, reflecting on their 

battlefield performances, took to the desert to polish up aspects of gunnery 

and maneuver. Astonished allies and bemused local civilians wondered at the 

restlessness of this triumphant army that never quite seemed satisfied with 

itself. In 1985 the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) stood up at Fort 

Leavenworth to collect, analyze, and disseminate lessons learned, tactics, techniques, procedures, research materials, and security assessments. Originally 

focused on making better use of data being generated at the National Training 

Center, CALL quickly expanded its portfolio. It solicited information from 

the field during and after Desert Storm and dispatched teams of experts to 

drill in on specific topics. During this same period Inspectors General assigned 

from division levels through the Department of the Army began to focus less 

on enforcing unit and agency compliance with specific policies and more on 

assessing Army-wide systems for potential improvement. Personnel policies 

reinforced the potentially transformative effect of all this reflection and analysis. Key leaders generally rotated in from eighteen months to two years, thus 

exposing their organizations to fresh views and new departures as their successors arrived.6

Sullivan initially expressed confidence in the Army’s inherent mechanisms 

for change, but he soon had misgivings on at least four counts. First, the evolutionary adaptiveness of CBRS seemed better suited to deal with a known 

adversary and specific threats than with the new unknowns. Sometimes derided 

as “bean counting,” the process featured recurrent intelligence assessments of 

Soviet and Warsaw Pact force structures and capabilities, against which Allied 

Participative after-action reviews sharpen the focus of training.
89

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

force structures and capabilities could be matched up and improved upon. 

Research and development endeavored to keep fielded American technology 

at least one step ahead of that of the Soviets, but procurement was an intricate 

multi-participant process. Sullivan frequently commented that it took fifteen 

years to field the redoubtable M1 tank, for example. Insofar as adversaries 

other than the Soviets were concerned, Cold War forces and capabilities were 

considered so mammoth that they could readily handle contingencies in the 

Third World that would require fewer resources than those needed to face 

the Soviets. Now the Army’s radically reduced force structure faced diverse 

and imprecisely calculable threats. With the paradigm so different, would 

incremental adjustments prove adequate?7

 Second, commanders and agencies 

tended to focus on immediate priorities, “pissing on the flames” that would 

burn them first rather than on the ones that might burn them worst. Field 

commanders were scrambling to inactivate units, process facilities and equipment, sustain training, and support such contingencies as those in Northern 

Iraq and Somalia. Within the logistical arena, sustainment and research 

and development fell under the same commander for any given commodity. 

Harried logistical chiefs were being taken to task for present shortfalls, not for 

the future character of their products. TRADOC, the institutional repository 

for future thinking, was itself in the throes of downsizing. As schools cut staff, 

preserving the quality of classroom instruction took precedence over furthering doctrine. For TRADOC as a whole, redesigning institutional training and 

resourcing the maneuver training centers to sustain high standards in the face 

of significant cuts became priorities.8

Third, the newly assertive Joint Staff and Office of the Secretary of Defense 

threatened to get ahead of the Army in envisioning the Army’s future. As early 

as 1989 the Joint Staff had undertaken its so-called Base Force Study and 

the Office of the Secretary of Defense a Defense Management Review. Both 

envisioned substantial cuts for the Army. The effects of these initiatives had 

been suspended during Desert Storm, but in the aftermath of that war they 

regained their momentum. The Army risked losing its voice in Defense reshaping deliberations if it did not promulgate a cogent and coherent way ahead 

for itself.9

 Finally, Sullivan sensed that too many in the Army were feeling 

sorry for themselves, nonplussed by downsizing, turbulence, and a public that 

still envisioned them as Willie and Joe or Beetle Bailey—as juxtaposed to the 

Air Force’s Steve Canyon (a long-running hero of the Sunday comics) or the 

romantic naval pilots of the movies Top Gun or An Officer and a Gentleman. 

Certainly the Air Force and Navy stole a march in taking credit for Desert 

Storm, benefiting from audiovisuals creating an impression the Army and 

Marines merely cleaned up the battlefield after they won the war. The Army 

needed an inspiring vision that advanced both its traditional values and its 

place on the high-tech battlefields of the future.10

Sullivan was not alone in his desire to fast-track change or in his angst 

that customary means might not evolve it fast enough. The new TRADOC 

commander, General Frederick M. Franks Jr., did not believe the Army was 

properly positioned to experiment with the changing nature of warfare. Twice 

wounded in Vietnam and commander of VII Corps in Desert Storm, Franks 
Kevlar Legions

90

also had considerable experience 

in force development, training 

analysis, and the development of 

combat doctrine. Through a succession of TRADOC assignments over 

the years, Franks had witnessed 

dramatic advances with respect to 

electronic simulation. He believed 

they offered a virtual means to 

experiment with circumstances that 

theretofore had only been theoretical. Franks and Sullivan had served 

together before, shared penchants 

for brainstorming and historical 

musings, and enjoyed each other’s 

company. When opportunity permitted, they shared cigars, fishing, 

and wide-ranging conversations 

aboard Frank’s boat on the lower 

Chesapeake. The Army’s Chief of 

Military History, Brigadier General 

Harold W. Nelson, was another 

confidant of Sullivan’s, and an ardent promulgator of his specialty. Historical 

grist he provided included the Center of Military History’s recently published 

The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941 by Dr. Christopher R. Gabel of Fort 

Leavenworth’s Combat Studies Institute. The book described the gigantic 

exercises wherein the Army tested and improved upon doctrine, organizations, and equipment prior to America’s entry into World War II. Sullivan 

and Franks seized upon the metaphor, confident that the Army now needed 

a similarly expansive shakeout to redesign itself for the post–Cold War era. 

After further deliberation and give-and-take among staff, confidants, and 

subject matter experts, Sullivan described his vision of “modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers” to the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Winter 

Symposium in Orlando, Florida, on 19 February 1992. This forum allowed 

him to simultaneously engage serving Army leaders, thoughtful and connected 

retirees, soldiers at large, and captains of the defense industries. A few weeks 

later Sullivan detailed “Louisiana Maneuvers 1994” in a “personal for” message to his senior commanders. Sullivan personally would lead the initiative. 

His deputy exercise director would be General “Fred” Franks.11

The modern Louisiana Maneuvers and the Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM) 

Task Force, their institutional embodiment, evolved over time. Several key 

features relevant to long-term change stand out. First, they mobilized computer simulations on a wide scale to test doctrine, organization, and equipment. TRADOC organized an expansive system of “Battle Labs”: “Battle 

Command” was at Fort Leavenworth; “Dismounted Battle Space” at Fort 

Benning; “Mounted Battle Space” at Fort Knox; “Depth and Simultaneous 

Attack” at Fort Sill; “Early Entry, Lethality, and Survivability” at Fort 

General Franks
91

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

Monroe; and “Combat Service Support” at Fort Lee. These labs drilled issues 

within their own specialties and linked together through “distributed interactive simulations” (DIS) to explore concepts broader in scope. Distributed 

interactive simulations enabled the labs to play in theater and major Army 

command (MACOM) exercises and even to interplay with tactical units on 

real exercises “in the dirt.” Soldiers of the time were amazed to find themselves competing with adversaries hundreds—or even thousands—of miles 

away in real time. Periodic “General Headquarters Exercises” (GHQx—from 

the acronym that designated the Army’s headquarters in 1941) mimicked 

the historical Louisiana Maneuvers in their Army-wide scope and implications. Second, LAM short-circuited customary bureaucracy to quickly surface critical concepts and issues. Some of these announced themselves in the 

course of exercises. Others were introduced into exercises because Sullivan 

routinely assembled a “General Officer Working Group” (GOWG) representing all the major commands to debate among themselves and forward 

critical concerns to his “Board of Directors”—the Army’s four-star generals 

and selected three-stars. Initiatives such as “total asset visibility,” “owning 

the night,” “digitization,” “common battlefield picture,” and rapidly fielding 

“off-the-shelf” technology came under scrutiny more quickly than they otherwise would have because the most powerful men in the Army routinely came 

“out of their lanes” to deliberate collectively on transformational subjects. 

Third, the exercises increasingly linked theory with practice as concepts that 

showed well in simulation were fielded as hardware and tested “in the dirt.” 

“Advanced Technology Demonstrations” (ATDs) provided proof of principle 

for technologies jointly defined by Army systems managers, Army users, and 

representatives of industry. “Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations” 

(ACTDs) further involved Army users in assessments of emerging technology. The “Advanced Warfighting Demonstration” (AWD) and the “Advanced 

Warfighting Experiment” (AWE) were mechanisms to experiment with capabilities over even broader ranges of branch and service interaction. Processes 

of “spiral development” emerged, wherein technical advances were conceived 

in simulation, experimented with “in the dirt,” and returned with comments 

to the manufacturer—who participated in the field exercises—for yet another 

round of development, experimentation, and critique. Fourth, the momentum 

of LAM experimentation propelled the Army irreversibly into the “Information 

Age.” In July 1994 the Army Digitization Office stood up to provide further 

focus to the development and acquisition of digital communications hardware 

and software. This was but a precursor of further institutional commitment to 

digital technology. Finally, the modern Louisiana Maneuvers and the LAM 

Task Force provided General Sullivan a transformational mechanism under his 

personal control whereby he could shepherd—and accelerate—developments 

directly. Geographically, the LAM Task Force resided first at Fort Monroe, 

Virginia (where it could exploit TRADOC assets to fullest advantage), and 

later in Washington, D.C. (where it could most directly influence the Army 

Staff, other MACOMs and services, and the Department of Defense). Change 

of location reflected a change of focus, as it transitioned from primarily coordinating brainstorming exercises to primarily synchronizing a campaign to 
Kevlar Legions

92

achieve the vision that had emerged. It was led by a brigadier general and 

totaled forty-nine officers and civilians organized into a half dozen functional 

directorates when at its prime. It reported directly to the Chief of Staff, who 

personally chaired the “Board of Directors” mapping the way ahead for the 

Army.12

Sullivan set no particular time frame for the termination of the modern 

Louisiana Maneuvers or for the LAM Task Force, but he did not envision 

them as permanent institutions. The solution for the inertia of a bureaucracy 

is seldom the construction of a parallel bureaucracy. LAM was a means 

to galvanize and accelerate processes of change in his time and hopefully 

to change the manner in which the Army went about change. Within a few 

years the relatively freewheeling brainstorming of LAM crystallized into a 

more focused vision of the way ahead for the Army labeled “Force XXI.” 

On 8 March 1994, General Sullivan announced the inauguration of a Force 

XXI “campaign.” Concerning Force XXI, more later. The LAM Task Force 

evolved into an agency synchronizing the milestones and delivery of Force 

XXI. Traditional means for developing and executing policy reasserted themselves. PPBS and PPBES were still omnipresent, as were the Joint Staff, the 

Department of Defense, Congress, and the administration. The give-and-take 

of “making things happen” “inside the Beltway” required robust bureaucracies led by powerful men. These powerful men and their staffs were now armed 

with a rather different vision of what the Army should look like, and they 

could work toward this new vision with their customary determination and 

energy. Some features of the modern Louisiana Maneuvers became irreversible aspects of Army change mechanisms. Sprawling distributive interactive 

simulation exercises were embedded forever as a means to test concepts, exercise staffs, and ensure the dynamic interplay of organizations affected by prospective decisions. Digitization had been institutionalized as the way ahead 

into the Information Age. Spiral development linked simulators, industrial 

representatives, and field soldiers together in reiterative cycles of experimentation and improvement. A cohort of colonels and young generals had been 

encouraged to “get out of their lanes” and “think outside the box,” and would 

bring broadened perspectives to future initiatives. Some of the changes they 

envisioned—and convinced their bosses to endorse—were immediate in effect 

and others were longer term. Collectively considered, the changes shook the 

Cold War paradigm and set the Army on a very different course than it had 

been on for forty years.13

In Pursuit of Strategic Mobility

A recurrent theme of LAM deliberations—and of broader Department 

of Defense ruminations—was the Army’s need for greater strategic mobility. 

The early days of Desert Shield, wherein lonely undergunned paratroopers 

held a “line in the sand” against vastly superior Iraqi armored forces, haunted 

Army planners. A comparable period during the Korean War emerged as a 

metaphor for what might have happened had Saddam attacked—or what 

might yet happen if a future adversary proved less complacent. Sullivan, ever 
93

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

fond of historical analogy to reinforce important points, vowed that there 

should be “No more Task Force Smiths,” referring to the Army’s mismatched 

first combat in 1950. The pursuit of strategic mobility would work several 

avenues in parallel: expanding sealift and airlift, pre-positioning equipment 

and supplies overseas, and trimming the weight of units to be deployed. It 

would require reeducation and retraining, overcoming cultural impediments 

built up during two generations of Cold War service. It would also require 

negotiations with the Marine Corps, as operational aspirations for the two 

services appeared to converge. Within four years the Army’s capabilities with 

respect to strategic mobility would be considerably improved, and it would 

demonstrate this improvement under operational circumstances.14

The primary incentive for pursuing greater mobility was grand strategic. Just Cause and Desert Storm illustrated the likelihood that distant 

contingencies would emerge with little notice, and subsequent deployments 

to Northern Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, and elsewhere reinforced 

this insight. Globalization increased American national security interests 

everywhere, whereas the collapses of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union 

radically diminished the likelihood of a major confrontation in Europe. The 

United States Army could no longer concentrate on a few key regions where it 

could readily reinforce robust forward-deployed forces. Instead it would have 

to be capable of rapidly inserting itself into far more numerous trouble spots 

scattered around the world—where it might have little or no prior presence. 

Spurred along by Louisiana Maneuver deliberations, contemporary events, 

and its own internal staffing, TRADOC revised and republished Field Manual 

100–5, Operations, in 1993. The new version gave a great deal more attention 

to “power projection,” as well as to such “operations other than war” (OOTW) 

as peacekeeping and humanitarian relief.15

The notion that bases in the continental United States would serve as 

sustainable, centrally located “power projection platforms” for worldwide 

contingencies had strategic roots, but also happily coincided with congressional interests and internal Army developments. Most congressmen looked 

forward to a post–Cold War “peace dividend,” but few welcomed the idea of 

shutting down military facilities in their own districts or states. United States 

Army, Europe (USAREUR), commanders did make the case that Europe 

was closer to many of the world’s most likely trouble spots than the United 

States, and therefore its American infrastructure should be preferentially preserved to support future contingencies. This argument made little headway 

in Congress, other than perhaps preserving the most critical nodes and bases 

amid USAREUR’s plummeting force structure. During Fiscal Year (FY) 1993 

alone the Army shed almost two hundred installations, and its plant replacement value, a measure of the relative worth of land and facilities, declined by 

$7.4 billion. The lion’s share of these cuts occurred in Europe. By the end of 

1995 only 65,000 soldiers were assigned to USAREUR, down from more than 

200,000 in 1989. Major troop installations in the United States suffered far less; 

indeed, several grew as units from Europe and elsewhere collapsed into them. 

The Army’s emphasis on what installations were supposed to do changed as 

well. Installations were not only to support resident military populations but 
Kevlar Legions

94

also were to launch units overseas through state-of-the-art airfields, railheads, 

and connections with prospective ports of embarkation. In 1992 the Corps of 

Engineers solidified this more comprehensive expectation in a newly rewritten 

Army Regulation 210–20, Master Planning for Army Installations. Two years 

later the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management 

(ACSIM) stood up as a major Army Staff agency and promulgated its own 

visionary Installation Management Action Plan (IMAP). Perhaps most notably, beginning in December 1993 the Army centrally selected O-5 and O-6 garrison commanders through the Department of the Army Command Selection 

Boards. This meant that garrison commanders would be drawn from the same 

professional “gene pool” as table of organization and equipment (TOE) battalion and brigade commanders—and presumably would demonstrate similar 

talent, energy, and ambition. Newly selected garrison commanders disappointed by a diversion from troop duty were reassured that their commands 

would bear the prestige and general officer attention of those of their TOE 

comrades and that their careers would remain competitive. These several 

trends converged. In a few years’ time a number of major posts sported much 

improved deployment infrastructure, the results of installation initiatives and 

a congressional infusion of $506 million into railheads, airfields, and ports. 

Premier early deployment posts such as Fort Bragg, Fort Stewart, and Fort 

Hood benefited particularly in this regard. Congressional delegations from 

North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, respectively, proved capable, diligent, 

and artful in steering construction funds into such projects—and into Corps 

of Engineer upgrades for such nearby ports as Wilmington, Savannah, and 

Beaumont. By concentrating its troop and infrastructure losses in Europe, 

redefining its approach to installations, and proving attractive to congressional 

allies, the Army did improve upon its stateside “power projection platforms” 

despite weathering huge budget cuts overall.16

An obvious first step in the pursuit of greater strategic mobility was 

to increase sealift and the pace at which it moved. During Desert Shield

and Desert Storm, sealift delivered 95 percent of all cargo—and 99 percent of all petroleum products. Sealift was a Joint rather than an Army 

phenomenon, of course, coming under the auspices of the United States 

Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). Prior to Desert Storm, 

USTRANSCOM had effective control over service-component transportation assets only in wartime. In peacetime the services controlled funding, 

procurement, and maintenance. Sustaining sealift for the Army does not 

seem to have been at the pinnacle of the maritime services’ priorities, and 

the system had not been challenged on short notice since the Korean War. 

During Desert Shield and preparations for Desert Storm only twelve 

of the forty-four Ready Reserve Force ships initially activated were ready 

according to the timeline, and only six of twenty-seven in a second wave. 

Ships scheduled for a five-day breakout averaged eleven days to prepare, 

and those scheduled for eleven days averaged sixteen. In one particularly 

embarrassing episode the USNS Antares broke down in the Atlantic with 

a major fraction of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized)’s equipment 

aboard. The Antares was towed to Spain; its cargo was trans-loaded onto 
95

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

other ships and arrived in Saudi Arabia three weeks late. After such initial 

fumbling the sealift gained its stride, moving more farther and faster than 

ever before: over three million tons of dry cargo and six million tons of 

petroleum products. In part this success resulted from rapidly chartering 

213 commercial ships of various nationalities and from adding containerized freight onto ships—including tankers—routinely en route to the 

Middle East. A disadvantage of this additional shipping was that virtually 

all was break-bulk or containerized, and such cargo requires considerable 

heavy equipment and time to offload—unlike the roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) 

ships in which units ideally would have deployed. Fortunately the Saudis 

had the port-servicing heavy equipment, and Saddam Hussein allowed the 

time. Another bright spot was the impressive performance of the modern 

RO/RO Fast Sealift Ships (FSSs) that did come into play. They sped along 

at twenty-seven knots and carried brigade sets of more than seven hundred 

vehicles each, a load equivalent to scores of World War II Liberty Ships. 

Postwar postmortems determined that strategic lift was too important to 

be left to the individual services. On 14 February 1992, the Secretary of 

Defense gave USTRANSCOM a greatly expanded charter, including control over its service components in both peace and war. In addition, the 

Ready Reserve Force expanded from seventeen RO/ROs in 1990 through 

twenty-nine in 1994 to thirty-six in 1996. The Department of the Navy did 

explore the possibility of deferring this significant investment of resources. 

The Secretary of the Navy and his General Counsel sought a private session with General Sullivan, then the Acting Secretary of the Army, and 

sounded out the origins of the requirement, the option of leasing ships 

rather than building them, and the prospects for delay. Sullivan, unable to 

resist historical drama, responded that the requirement had originated in 

A roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ship sped maritime transportation of vehicles.
Kevlar Legions

96

the Spanish-American War, leased ships were inevitably “out of pocket” 

when needed, and any delay procuring reliable sealift would be dangerous 

to deployed or deploying soldiers. To his credit, the Secretary of the Navy 

scrupulously supported the endeavor from that point. His support, the 

undistracted institutional focus of USTRANSCOM, and the nearly doubling of the most capable sealift ships promised more impressive maritime 

performances in future deployments.17

Airlift proved less problematic than sealift during Desert Shield and 

Desert Storm, although it did carry only 5 percent of the total cargo. The 

Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard speedily mobilized to man 118 of 

126 C–5 and 195 of 265 C–141 cargo planes flying. Four Navy Reserve transportation squadrons with C–9 aircraft joined the effort. Beginning 17 August 

the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) was activated, ultimately providing 

seventy-seven long-range international passenger aircraft and thirty-eight 

long-range international cargo aircraft of civilian design. Heavy demands on 

Saudi ramp space and refueling capability led the Air Force to refuel many of 

its strategic lift aircraft from KC–10 tankers in flight. Airlift was crucial to the 

earliest deliveries of equipment and also during such emergencies as the hasty 

deployments of Patriot missile batteries to Israel and Turkey. Even more significant, airlift accounted for more than 500,000 passengers—about 99 percent 

of the total. Ready access to passenger aircraft changed the manner in which 

deployment progressed, especially during its later stages. Troops remained at 

their home station, training and preparing, while equipment moved by sea to 

Saudi Arabia. At the right moment the troops flew out to intercept the arriving 

ships, radically reducing the time they were exposed without their equipment 

in congested ports. Some USAREUR armor units arrived in Saudi Arabia 

and offloaded their tanks within days of having fired qualification gunnery 

off tanks borrowed from other units in Grafenwohr, Germany. One senior 

staff officer from Third Army headquarters, concerned about training readiness, inquired of tank crewmen arriving on the tarmac how long it had been 

since they had fully qualified with the weapons and equipment appropriate to 

their military occupational specialty (MOS). Referring to wristwatches and 

interpolating for time zones, their answer was, “Four days, sir.” This peak of 

training readiness upon arrival was a far cry from the weeks or months of 

idleness in transit associated with earlier wars. In the aftermath of Desert 

Storm, USTRANSCOM assumed peacetime control over its wartime air 

component and endeavored to sustain and further improve capabilities. Most 

notable in this regard was the procurement of the new C–17 aircraft. The C–17 

was robust enough to carry the heaviest armored vehicles, but it could take off 

and land on much shorter runways than the C–5 or cargo aircraft of civilian 

design. Defense planners also noted that 84 percent of all strategic airlift missions had passed through Torrejon Air Base in Spain and Rhein-Main Airport 

in Germany, underscoring the USAREUR commander’s point that at least 

some European bases needed to be retained and secured.18

Prospects for early deploying units could be much improved by prepositioning supplies and equipment close to likely contingencies. Army planners noted with interest, and perhaps some chagrin, that the first substantial 
97

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

American mechanized contingent—beyond the 82d Airborne Division’s lightly 

armored M551 Sheridan armored assault vehicles—into Desert Shield

rolled with the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB). The 7th MEB flew 

from California to marry up in Saudi Arabia with a brigade set of equipment 

and thirty days of supplies aboard Maritime Pre-positioning Squadron (MPS) 

ships that steamed in from Diego Garcia. The marines’ armor was somewhat 

antiquated and their amphibious vehicles awkward on shore, but they provided 

a potent tactically mobile force early in the crisis. In due course further MEBs 

married up with equipment steaming in from Guam, Saipan, and the western 

Atlantic. The Army had appreciable experience with pre-positioning under the 

auspices of Pre-positioning of Materiel Configured to Unit Sets (POMCUS) 

during the Cold War. Several divisions’ worth of equipment and supplies were 

pre-positioned in Germany and the Benelux countries to support reinforcements arriving from the United States. Annual Return of Forces to Germany 

(REFORGER) training deployments exercised these stockpiles and the units 

intended to draw from them. This mass of equipment, stockpiled in Western 

Europe, was out of place for the more likely contingencies in a post–Cold War 

world. As the Army downsized, further fleets of modern equipment became 

available for stockpiles as well. Army logisticians redistributed these supplies 

and equipment to achieve greater flexibility with fewer forces. By 1995 five 

reconfigured Army War Reserve (AWR) stockpiles were in progress: AWR-1 

in the United States, AWR-2 in Europe, AWR-3 afloat, AWR-4 in Korea, 

and AWR-5 in Southwest Asia. Of these, AWR-3 was the most flexible and 

The C–17 Globemaster III delivered large cargoes to austere airfields.
Kevlar Legions

98

AWR-5 the most dramatically positioned. AWR-3 grew to be a brigade set of 

equipment for two mechanized battalions and two tank battalions with thirty 

days of sustainment aboard a small fleet of roll-on/roll-off ships. Several ships 

in the flotilla were loaded and configured to collaterally support disaster relief, 

humanitarian assistance, and operations other than war. AWR-3 could have 

been pre-positioned anywhere, but it stood up and by and large remained in 

the Indian Ocean. AWR-5 deposited a brigade set of equipment and supplies 

in Camp Doha, a fortified compound just outside of Kuwait City. Should 

Iraq or Iran begin moving forces to threaten American allies in the Persian 

Gulf, the country would almost immediately find an American heavy brigade 

athwart its prospective line of departure—this in addition to much improved 

forces now fielded by Gulf allies.19

A third approach to enhanced strategic mobility would be to diminish the 

overall weight to be transported. Perhaps heavy units could become lighter, or 

light units could become more potent—and thus less in need of augmentation 

from heavy forces. In the short run, replacing the redoubtable M1A1 Abrams 

tank or M2/M3 Bradley fighting vehicles with lighter vehicles of equivalent 

capability seemed unlikely. The technological breakthroughs necessary to push 

these top-of-the-line vehicles into obsolescence were not on the near horizon. 

The general use of on-board auxiliary generators, particularly in the case of 

the fuel guzzling M1A1, could reduce fuel consumption, however, and traditional formulas for ammunition consumption had proven far too lavish during 

Desert Storm. Prospective automated “total asset visibility”—concerning 

which, more later—also held some promise of thinning out the logistical footprint of heavy units. It seemed the M1A1 would not get lighter anytime soon, 

but the infrastructure supporting it might. Rendering light units more potent 

seemed more likely in the short run. The man-portable Javelin antitank missile 

went into initial production in 1994. It boasted a 2,000-meter range, a top 

attack capability (armored vehicles are most vulnerable from above), fire-andforget technology, and a soft launch feature that allowed the missile to be fired 

safely from cover. The Javelin markedly improved the staying power of light 

infantrymen in the face of mechanized attack. Other strategically mobile systems improved in their capabilities to readily support infantrymen. The AH–64 

Apache attack helicopter continued to upgrade with respect to avionics, sights, 

and sensors. Its formidable Hellfire missiles became even more lethal and flexible, to include achieving a fire-and-forget capability through millimeter-wave 

radar technology. The Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) upgraded to 

a 250-kilometer range with Brilliant Anti-armor Technology (BAT). The submunitions of BAT were small gliders that, when released, could autonomously 

acquire, track, and hit vehicles and other targets. When added to Joint assets 

and prospective Allied capabilities, these enhancements promised to make such 

light units as the 82d Airborne Division far more formidable “speed bumps” in 

the case of future Desert Shields.20

During General Sullivan’s tenure, a revised, refined, and rehearsed program 

for Army strategic deployment emerged. More capably armed and equipped 

light forces would deploy quickly and, if necessary, enter forcibly. At the same 

time contingents from heavy divisions would deploy equally quickly by air to 
99

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

marry up with pre-positioned equipment, man it, and roll on to join their airborne comrades. If logisticians guessed right with respect to pre-positioning, 

these heavy contingents could be on hand about as quickly as their light counterparts. Meanwhile, further heavy forces would roll or rail to nearby ports 

and ship out to join the embattled vanguard. The mathematics describing 

improvements to railheads, seaports, and sealifts suggested—theoretically at 

least—that these reinforcing heavy divisions would deploy twice as quickly 

as comparable forces had deployed to Desert Shield and in preparation for 

Desert Storm. It was not enough to change only infrastructure, doctrine, 

and equipment to achieve this result, however. Training and culture were at 

issue as well. The Army had to overcome its heavy-light divide, entrenched 

philosophies with respect to combat service support, and a bias toward the 

upper echelons with respect to combined and joint operations if it was to make 

the new paradigm work.21

The prolonged Cold War advanced and hardened a polarization between 

the Army’s Eurocentric heavy forces and light forces that seemed optimal 

for a fight anywhere except Europe. Tankers epitomized the heavy forces, 

with vehicle-borne fellow travelers from other branches riding alongside 

them and armored cavalrymen as a somewhat more ecumenical version of 

themselves. Paratroopers epitomized the light forces, with fellow travelers 

from other branches jumping out of planes alongside them and Rangers as 

a somewhat extreme tribal version of themselves. The two camps had their 

prejudices. Paratrooper banter stereotyped tankers as corpulent dwarves, 

strong enough in the shoulders to sling ammunition and break track, short 

enough to get around in the confines of their turrets, and fattened by their 

aversion to running—or even walking—and by a diet dominated by Bier and 

Bratwurst. Tanker banter envisioned paratroopers as equivalent to the Eloi

of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, prancing around in the great outdoors 

but never doing the real work of logistics, maintenance, and motor pools. 

Short-notice strategic mobility was something paratroopers did to get to the 

difficult out-of-the-way places where they were likely to fight. Tankers would 

roll out of their German motor pools to fight on the great plains of Central 

Europe or would join the European battle from the United States in accordance with well-choreographed war plans. Nowhere was the heavy-light divide 

more pronounced than with respect to attitudes toward vehicles. Paratroopers, 

according to tankers, did not love their vehicles—what few that they had. To 

them one truck was as good as another to ride around in, and they happily 

accepted horrific attrition as they parachuted vehicles out of planes in flight or 

shoved them off the ramps of planes rolling down a runway. Tankers lavished 

two hours of maintenance on their tank for every hour that they operated it, 

knowing that if they took care of it, it would take care of them. This wedding 

of man and machine was particularly pronounced with respect to gunnery. 

By virtue of both faith and science, tankers understood that each weapon on 

each tank had a unique signature with respect to the strike of its rounds on 

target. These signatures were unlocked by elaborate and arcane processes of 

bore sighting and zeroing, after which tank commanders and gunners bore the 

dial settings for each weapon and type of ammunition in a small notebook in 
Kevlar Legions

100

their breast pockets—close to their hearts. Once a year tankers measured their 

worth in qualification gunnery, Tank Table VIII. A good tank (a term that 

included the crew) could put a round through a windowpane at two thousand 

meters or have two targets down before observers realized the first had been 

engaged. Tank Table VIII surpassed all other indicators as a measure of merit. 

By tradition, tank company commanders were the first crews down range on 

qualification day, leading from the front and by example. Battalion operations 

officers, battalion commanders, and brigade commanders of armor provenance invested heavily from their personal time to be members of a qualifying crew—not so much because of combat requirements but to maintain the 

respect of the men they commanded. Extraordinary expectations of men and 

machines fostered emotional attachments. Tankers would fight or shoot from a 

tank other than their own about as readily as they would wear another tanker’s 

underwear. If a tank were evacuated to higher levels of maintenance, at least 

one crew member went with it. Sometimes crewmen actually assisted in the 

maintenance; often they merely waited around like family members outside an 

operating room. Tankers were an extreme case of the man-machine interface, 

but all who rode with them—armored artillerymen, mechanized infantrymen, 

combat engineers, mechanics, truckers, and other combat support and combat 

service support troops of many types and specialties—were measured by the 

performances of the machines they manned. Each specialty had its version 

of crew qualification that enhanced competence and confidence with respect 

to the equipment they were on, and correspondingly diminished confidence 

with respect to equipment they had not themselves maintained. It is true 

that REFORGER and other training deployments set crews onto unfamiliar vehicles, but these had generally been demonstrations for show or tactical 

maneuvers, seldom involved serious gunnery, and never featured qualification 

gunnery. If a rapid deployment paradigm was to include putting heavy forces 

onto unfamiliar vehicles, better means needed to be devised to render crews 

competent and confident with respect to vehicles they hastily manned.22

Philosophies with respect to combat service support also reflected an 

accumulated mix of the practical and the theological. The Army had long 

enshrined “Unity of Command” as a principle of war. A single commander 

or, in some cases, agency should be in charge of each important endeavor. 

Command relations were reciprocal. Subordinates obeyed the lawful orders 

of a single commander, and in turn expected to singularly derive combat and 

combat service support from that commander. Units deploying from one theater to another shed their support relationships with the theater they departed 

and became dependent on the support of the theater in which they arrived. 

Each theater had its own hierarchy of upper-echelon support commands and 

stockpiled “iron mountains” of supplies and equipment for the contingencies 

it envisioned. Time-phased force and deployment lists (TPFDLs) programmed 

units to deploy with a “slice” of combat and combat support forces sufficient 

to sustain them in theater. These became subordinate to the hierarchy of support in theater, generally through the agency of a service component command. Individual replacements, equipment, and supplies of all types flowed 

through the theater into the unit. One of the most remarkable aspects of 
101

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

Desert Shield had been the monumental effort whereby it stood up Third 

Army and the support architecture for Desert Storm. Desert Storm was 

not, however, the ideal logistical model for most contingencies that planners 

had envisioned as likely in the early 1990s, and it was not ideal for contingencies units actually found themselves in either. These contingencies were smaller 

in scale than those envisioned during the Cold War, and the participation of a 

given unit might well be conditional or fleeting. For example, and as we shall 

see, Northern Iraq featured a uniquely cobbled together potpourri of small 

units, Somalia featured a rotation of units in and out of theater, and for Haiti 

there were two contingency forces en route at the same time, one anticipating 

forcible entry and the other a welcoming reception. In this fluid—perhaps a 

better description would be kaleidoscopic—environment, consolidating iron 

mountains to support long-anticipated TPFDLs made little sense. Logistical 

footprints in overseas contingencies needed to be as malleable as the mix 

of units actually operating in them. “Split basing” or “split-based logistics” 

emerged as an acceptable dilution with respect to unity of command. Home 

stations remained responsible for such hard-to-conjure-up items as trained 

individual replacements of appropriate rank, major end items of equipment, 

or relatively exotic repair parts and other maintenance items. Theater assets 

provided such routine consumables as food, water, and fuel. The theater also 

coordinated the transportation that enabled the flow of support from home 

stations. Munitions would probably be provided by the theater, but they might 

also be drawn from home stations—depending on inventories. Casualties 

would be evacuated into a theater asset first and then flown to a stateside 

hospital like Walter Reed Army Medical Center or to the home station—if 

not returned to duty. Light forces had been involved in enough small Cold 

War–era contingencies to already have a feel for split basing and had adopted 

the notion of an out-of-the-conflict-zone intermediate staging base (ISB) that 

rendered logistical support triangular. Support was at least an order of magnitude simpler with light forces than heavy, since they had so little unique or 

specialized equipment with them and deployed with relatively little equipment 

overall. Aviation generally accompanied light forces and generated support 

requirements akin to those of heavy forces but had a much greater capacity 

to self-deploy. Transitioning heavy forces to a split-based paradigm would be 

hard. A major fraction of the challenge would be managing extraordinary 

amounts of information: inventories and the movements of people, equipment, parts, and other supplies. In an earlier era materiel had been piled up in 

iron mountains and management rendered easier by excesses of supply.23

Another practice appropriate to a post–Cold War world of lesser contingencies would be that of driving combined and joint operations to lower echelons of command. A general defense plan (GDP) in Germany had featured 

a “layer cake” of autonomous national corps sectors stacked from south to 

north. The United States V Corps was responsible for a sector facing the “Fulda 

Gap,” and the VII Corps for a sector facing the “Hof Gap” and the Czech 

border. Support assets within each of the sectors were by and large American, 

although local nationals were employed on most installations, and host-nation 

support of various types was planned in the case of hostilities. Each of the 
Kevlar Legions

102

two American corps coordinated with a German corps on one flank. Direct 

coordination between specific American and Allied divisions was envisioned 

for some contingencies, and most brigades and battalions had “partnership” 

counterparts with whom they shared occasional social and training outings. 

Combined training did occur, largely with units training alongside each other 

rather than being truly dependent on one another to achieve tactical success. 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) did publish and enforce a 

body of standardization agreements (STANAGs) governing processes, terms, 

and conditions relevant to common procedures and equipment. Allied officers 

in NATO by and large spoke English, making interoperability feasible when 

pressed. Nevertheless, American soldiers of all ranks spent very little time 

interacting with Germans in a professional capacity, lived much or most of 

their overseas tours in American barracks or housing areas, and theoretically 

could have gotten by without ever having spoken a word of German. Contact 

with other services when in Germany was similarly biased toward the upper 

echelons. The Navy and Marine Corps were virtually invisible to soldiers in 

Europe. The Air Force had self-contained enclaves of its own. Since World 

War II the Air Force fiercely defended the notion that Air Force assets in a 

theater should be centrally controlled, an idea that made sense given the range, 

mobility, and relatively brief “loiter time” of their aircraft. This led the daily 

theater-level Air Tasking Order (ATO) to become the premier device controlling missions assigned to aircraft. As a practical matter, the Army corps 

was the lowest echelon that could significantly influence the theater ATO. 

Air liaison cells were routinely manned at division level, unevenly manned at 

the brigade level, and generally present in battalions only when deployed to 

higher-level maneuvers in the field. These lower-level cells had little influence 

on the ATO process, but they did coordinate the direct support the ATO distributed to their commands. Often even this potential interaction was resolved 

by virtue of a fire support coordination line (FSCL), beyond which anybody 

could bomb or shell at will without detailed coordination. Pilots were directed 

to the far side of the FSCL, and soldiers happily went about fighting the battle 

closer to them without thinking too hard about what airpower could or should 

do. Units in the United States had little exposure to combined operations and 

joint experiences parallel to that of their colleagues in Germany. Korea was a 

special case with respect to combined and joint operations, concerning which, 

more later. The relevant operational “chip on the board” was the corps. How 

much would change when operations devolved to smaller units?24

The Army values the notion that it should train as it would fight. The 

modern Louisiana Maneuvers, LAM Task Force deliberations, and developing 

contingencies all underscored the need to better prepare for joint expeditionary 

combat. The Army would have to train toward this altered focus, and heavy 

forces would have to train the hardest. Heavy divisions in the United States 

designated task force–size division ready forces (DRFs), prepared to deploy by 

air on short notice. These trained and prepared for the task, to include working through theretofore unfamiliar air load planning processes to develop load 

plans for each type of plane they might lift out on. NTC rotations took on 

the character of Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises (EDREs), with 
103

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

heavy units falling in on and drawing equipment under tactical circumstances. 

They rolled to the field for exercises that included serious gunnery. For tankers 

this gunnery included Tank Tables VII and XI and a combined-arms live-fire 

exercise (CALFEX). Tank Table VII was as complex and demanding as Tank 

Table VIII, although not characterized as crew qualification. Tank Table XI 

similarly mimicked the platoon qualifications of Tank Table XII. CALFEX 

was live fire conducted at team or task force level and increasingly included 

live air strikes as part of the training package. Motivated by challenging gunnery that would be observed and scored, tankers found ways to accelerate 

their nesting behavior—their settling in—on unfamiliar tanks. Commanders 

hustled their units to impromptu ranges for bore sighting and zeroing. The 

general introduction of optically improved muzzle bore sight devices greatly 

facilitated this process. The computerized M1A1 rendered tankers independent of mechanical dial settings, since settings could be reliably “punched up” 

on their consoles. In the aftermath of Desert Storm, active-component units 

acquired expanded roles in the training of reserve-component units, concerning 

which, more later. In a fine example of educational reflux, active-component 

soldiers assigned to such duties picked up on the manner in which long-serving 

National Guard tank crews deprocessed tanks from maintenance sites for 

annual summer training, brought them to a fully operational status, and qualified with them on Tank Table VIII. Actual deployments—some for training 

and some for deterrence—required tankers to man, operate, and shoot from 

equipment pre-positioned overseas. Tankers never acquired the promiscuous 

attitude toward vehicles that paratroopers had, but they did become capable 

of a species of serial monogamy with respect to tanks, rapidly achieving competence and confidence in the one they were with. They brought unfamiliar 

vehicles into play within a few days’ time, and then treated them as if they were 

their own. This proved true for the other branches who rode with them as well. 

The heavy force as a whole acquired the practical and psychological attributes 

necessary to efficiently man and field pre-positioned unit sets of equipment. 

Rigorous training also enhanced the capability of heavy forces to move by 

sea. In FY1994, for example, $26 million went to Sea Emergency Deployment 

Readiness Exercises (SEDREs). Heavy units raced to ports on short notice, 

loaded their vehicles and equipment on ships, and deployed to training events 

that featured some combination of amphibious, over-the-shore, and throughport entry. SEDREs were inevitably joint, featuring maritime transportation 

and air support during the tactical phases. Preparations for SEDREs took on 

aspects of the old European GDP, with units reconnoitering railheads, routes 

to port, and the ports themselves and compiling “battle books” full of maps, 

diagrams, and pictures to focus their efforts—and to enable them to better 

initiate newly arrived soldiers.25

The fact that Army heavy forces were increasingly capable of roles that 

had been the province of the Marine Corps did not go unnoticed. Marines 

envisioned themselves as the nation’s rapid response force of middle weight, 

more capable and more joint than Army light forces of equivalent or greater 

strategic mobility. With Army light forces becoming more capable and Army 

heavy forces more deployable, distinctions between the services muddied. 
Kevlar Legions

104

Naval advocacy of “operational maneuver from the sea” depended in part on 

the physical location of Marines afloat—or of pre-positioned equipment—to 

achieve timeliness. Once the Army pre-positioned equipment afloat and dispersed caches of pre-positioned equipment ashore, it might end up deploying 

heavy forces to an unexpected contest in a distant theater as or more quickly 

than the Marines did. Marines for some time had considered the preservation 

of their operational uniqueness as a matter of institutional survival. The Joint 

Staff, refusing to believe that there could be too much of a good thing, took 

a more sanguine view. The 1993 Report on the Roles, Missions and Functions 

of the Armed Forces of the United States blandly observed, “The similarity of 

Army and Marine Corps capabilities provides alternatives to the President and 

the Secretary of Defense during a crisis.” Increasingly enforced joint collegiality muted debate, but competition to be the nation’s “911 force” remained.26

The combination of institutional emphasis, training, and operational 

deployments had its intended effect. By 1995 heavy units in the United States 

were appreciably more deployable and flexible than they had been five years earlier. An illustrative example may make the point. On 8 August 1995, Lieutenant 

General Hussein Kamel Hassan, a powerful son-in-law of Iraqi dictator Saddam 

Hussein, and his brother Colonel Saddam Kamel Hassan defected through 

Jordan with their families and aides. Hussein Kamel made contact with the 

Saudis and called for regime change in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was understandably paranoid about defections from his inner circle—Hussein Kamel had been 

in charge of “military industrialization”—and for a time it seemed he might lash 

out against the Kuwaitis, Jordanians, and Saudis he viewed as in league with his 

treacherous son-in-law. Fortuitously, 2,000 United States Marines were already 

conducting a major combined exercise with the Jordanians, providing a readily 

reinforcible deterrent force. The Joint Staff determined to put a like-size force 

into Kuwait. The Division Ready Force 1 (DRF1) for the 1st Cavalry Division 

was Task Force 1-5 Cavalry, consisting of two tank and two mechanized infantry companies with supporting units. This was a start, but joint force planners 

decided they wanted another tank company, a complex artillery battalion equivalent that included a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) battery, a full 

engineer company, enough of a forward support battalion to accommodate the 

potential deployment of the rest of the parent brigade, and the brigade headquarters (in this case the 2d Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division) to coordinate 

the enlarged force structure and to interface with the theater and the Kuwaitis. 

Despite these and other last-minute changes, the 1,500 troops chosen flowed 

smoothly through the recently revamped airfield at Fort Hood, Texas, at a pace 

such that they were waiting on planes and planes were not waiting on them. 

Equipment to accompany troops loaded speedily, facilitated by the airfield’s 

newly arrived load-handling equipment. The MLRS battery and target acquisition battery loaded quickly aboard aircraft with all of their equipment in accordance with predesigned load plans. The rest of the deploying force drew vehicles 

and heavy equipment from AWR-5 at Camp Doha in Kuwait. The equipment 

draw in Kuwait progressed efficiently, with company-size units averaging less 

than six hours to inventory, inspect, upload, and roll out. The units averaged less 

than twelve hours between touching down in Kuwait and achieving readiness 
105

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

condition 1 (REDCON 1) in their assigned positions in the desert. Meanwhile, 

the rest of the 2d Brigade Combat Team at Fort Hood prepared to follow these 

lead elements onto AWR-5 if called, planners from the 1st Cavalry Division, 

2d Armored Division, and 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) postured their 

commands for flows through the ports of Beaumont and Savannah if necessary, 

and AWR-3 prepared to steam into the Persian Gulf. The Kuwaitis had four 

heavy brigades of their own, and the calculus of the potential buildup suggested 

the Americans would never be outnumbered by more than three to one in a 

defense of Mutla Ridge, north of Kuwait City. Given qualitative advantages, 

these were favorable odds.27

The no-notice deployment to Kuwait was tucked into a KuwaitiAmerican exercise program labeled Intrinsic Action. It somewhat resembled 

REFORGER, but much had changed. The climate was different, of course, 

with horrific daytime temperatures well above a hundred degrees and a merciless sun. The troops had been drilled with respect to hydration, diurnal cycles 

in the desert, getting camouflage nets up quickly for shade, local flora and 

fauna, and field sanitation. They kept their daily sick call rate to well under 2 

percent throughout, and dropped it to under 1 percent over time. The threat of 

hostile action was real, and force protection was the highest assigned priority. 

Deployment was not in accordance with a long-familiar GDP; instead leaders absorbed a skeletal Central Command (CENTCOM) contingency plan en 

route. Once on the ground they conducted reconnaissance and maneuvered 

their units through the ground they were to defend, refining the contingency 

plan into an operational plan that had many of the features of the old GDP. 

Emerging battle books included positions for and guidance to potential reinforcing units. Upon arrival crews “screened” their vehicles. In the case of the 

tankers this meant bore sighting and zeroing with live ammunition. Portable 

pop-up targets had been imported into Kuwait from Germany, and tank and 

Bradley crews undertook challenging gunnery exercises early on, quickly settling into their new vehicles. Support was split-based. Vehicles drawn from 

Camp Doha were supported through Camp Doha, which was also the source 

for consumable supplies. Unique vehicles, such as those of the MLRS and 

target acquisition battery (TAB), were supported from Fort Hood, which also 

remained the source for personnel support. Thoroughly acclimatized after a 

few days, the task force had the enormous satisfaction of hosting a Marine 

Battalion Landing Team that arrived considerably after them in a live-fire 

exercise on Udairi Range. Even more important than this joint training was 

combined training with the Kuwaiti Army. The American 2d Brigade paired 

off with the Kuwaiti 6th Mechanized Brigade, and American Task Force 1-5 

Cavalry with Kuwaiti Task Force 154 Armor. Combined training progressed 

from the individual level, with significant interpersonal contact at every rank. 

The Kuwaitis were equipped with Yugoslavian-provided XM84 tanks and 

had adopted the former East Bloc practice of firing from bore sight. This was 

anathema to the American tankers, who demonstrated the merits of zeroing 

as well. The culmination of the combined training was an expansive CALFEX 

through miles of open desert under the watchful eyes of senior American and 

Kuwaiti observers. The fire and maneuver was tightly integrated, with Kuwaiti 
Kevlar Legions

106

companies dependent on American overwatch, and vice versa. This interplay 

was a far cry from national corps operating independently of each other in 

their own sectors. The theater Air Tasking Order for these several days was 

designed at the brigade and battalion levels as well, since there was no higher 

tactical level with which to coordinate the CALFEX.28

Intrinsic Action 95–3 demonstrated the new paradigm for Army heavy 

forces that had emerged over the past four years. Doctrine and training had 

shifted from the expectation of forward deployment to an expectation of 

expeditionary combat. Units as small as companies and detachments nimbly 

swapped out with each other as the design of the deploying force package 

matured. The hardware of much-improved installation infrastructure and 

equipment and the software of standing load plans combined to facilitate the 

smoothness of the launch. Experience falling in on pre-positioned equipment 

during training ensured efficiency falling in on pre-positioned equipment 

during this actual contingency. A grander strategic scheme envisioning reinforcing airlift and sealift was positioned for speedy execution, had it proved 

necessary. Once in Kuwait, the soldiers acclimatized quickly and performed 

capably in a theretofore unfamiliar environment. Split-basing effectively supported the force package on the ground, despite the unusualness of its design. 

Joint and combined operations had been pushed to the task force level and 

below, with a degree of service and international interface that would not have 

existed a few years prior. Three months into the mission the 2d Brigade contingent conducted a relief in place with the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, 

flying in from Fort Carson, Colorado. Perhaps the greatest compliment was 

unintended, when the Battalion Landing Team commander training on Udairi 

Range casually commented that the heavy soldiers had hastily deployed “as 

good as Marines.”29

Escalating Contingencies

Intrinsic Action 95–3 was but the latest in a series of troop deployments 

to Kuwait, several of which had occurred on short notice in the face of crisis. 

These deployments in turn numbered among an escalating mix of contingencies. Such operations increased threefold between the end of the Cold War and 

1995. On an average day, FY1995 saw more than 20,000 soldiers deployed into 

about eighty different countries. This did not include troops assigned overseas 

at permanent stations. Globalization, and the now-altered strategic role of the 

United States in the emerging global community, underlay the increase. Desert 

Storm reflected, as we have seen, the determination of a broad American-led 

coalition sanctioned and blessed by the United Nations to reverse aggression and preserve world order—economic and otherwise. Incoming President 

William J. Clinton articulated and eventually published a National Security 

Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement. “Engagement” implied making new 

friends around the world, particularly where Americans had been unwelcome 

or inattentive during the Cold War. “Enlargement” spoke to the peaceful 

advance of liberal capitalism and democracy into lands where they theretofore 

had been alien. The armed forces necessarily would carry much of the weight. 
107

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

Military participation in escalating contingencies bunched under several headings: consolidating the results of the Cold War and Desert Storm, accommodating expanded public and United Nations appetites for humanitarian 

intervention, and filling in when civilian policy makers did not have appropriate tools. With respect to Army transformation, increasing deployments had a 

reciprocal effect. The move to an expeditionary paradigm rendered the service 

more available for deployment; deployments increased the incentive to become 

more expeditionary. This give-and-take affected the nature of transformation 

as it progressed. It is also worth noting that this escalation in deployments 

occurred while the Department of the Army adjusted to ever less operational 

involvement in how the forces were used once deployed. Goldwater-Nichols 

left operational planning to the theater commanders in chief (CINCs). Some 

theaters proved more prepared to carry the load than others.30

The Warsaw Pact, and then the Soviet Union, collapsed quickly, and transfers of power to successor regimes were uneven and fragile. Suspended ethnic 

tensions reemerged, disintegrating Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and provoking strife in a dozen other newly independent nations. The situation had 

unhappy historical precedents. After World War I most of Central and much 

of Eastern Europe attempted democratic governance. Instability, insecurity, 

economic collapse, political inexperience, and politicized militaries led virtually 

all of them into authoritarian rule even before Nazi Germany and the Soviet 

Union—themselves the products of failed democracies—overwhelmed them. In 

the immediate aftermath of World War II, prospective democratic institutions 

in Central and Eastern Europe offered feeble resistance to communist takeovers. 

The nations of NATO resolved to do better in the aftermath of the Cold War. 

Beginning in December 1991 NATO hosted the North Atlantic Cooperation 

Council to facilitate dialogue and cooperation with the newly independent states. 

The long-term vision was to encourage and materially assist evolution toward 

democracy, open market economies, and ultimate integration into the liberal 

Euro-Atlantic family of nations. Immediate military priorities were to head off 

destabilizing humanitarian disasters, preclude nuclear proliferation, and nurture 

Western mores in former East Bloc armed forces.31

Humanitarian issues surfaced quickly. Going into the winter of 1991–1992, 

secession and political turmoil led to some scarcities and more maldistribution of food and medical supplies in the former Soviet Union. NATO planners feared that desperation might lead to destabilizing strife in major cities. 

Fortuitously, enormous stockpiles horded for a Soviet invasion of Western 

Europe were now in excess. The American Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Humanitarian and Refugee Affairs took the lead in Provide Hope, an 

operation that delivered over 27,000 tons of food and supplies supported by 

teams of medical personnel to the former Soviet Union between February 

and August 1992. The 7th Medical Command (7th MEDCOM) was particularly instrumental in this joint operation, delivering supplies, installing 

medical equipment, and training local medical personnel in the uses of both. 

Provide Hope continued through September 1994, increasingly civilianized 

and internationalized after August 1992. Interestingly enough, coordination 

on the ground was provided by the On Site Inspection Agency, U.S. military 
Kevlar Legions

108

personnel with appropriate language skills serving in the former Soviet Union 

as inspectors facilitating various arms control agreements. This connection 

between carrot and stick was not entirely accidental, as the United States 

encouraged successor states to remain treaty-compliant and wanted to ensure 

that nuclear weapons and materials remained in the hands of Russia alone. 

Provide Hope confidence building seems to have contributed to this happy 

result. The potential humanitarian crisis in the former Soviet Union was soon 

eclipsed by actual humanitarian crisis in former Yugoslavia. In support of 

the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), Operation Provide 

Promise provided humanitarian relief and medical support to civilians and 

United Nations troops. The 212th Surgical Hospital (Mobile Army) deployed 

to Zagreb in November 1992 and treated more than 5,000 patients from thirtyfive nations in six months. From that point, mobile surgical hospitals rotated 

to relieve each other in Zagreb. For a time the United States was spared the 

lead in Yugoslavia, as largely European contingents under United Nations 

auspices strove to contain conflict and restore security. By the summer of 1993 

UNPROFOR was stretched too thin, however, and USAREUR contributed 

a three-hundred-plus contingent from 6th Battalion, 502d Infantry Regiment, 

for observer duties in Macedonia. This mission oriented on threats from Serbia 

and evolved into the rotational Able Sentry.

32

Humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, and nuclear nonproliferation were 

immediate and visible post–Cold War imperatives. A longer-term but even 

more consequential imperative was to nurture habits appropriate to democracies in the newly independent nations. Civil governments of the United States 

and European community could provide economic safety nets, materially 

assist democratic processes, and negotiate security issues. It fell to the uniformed officers of NATO to facilitate the transformation of Soviet-designed 

armed forces into institutions appropriate for liberal democracies. There was 

no guarantee of a happy result, with the possible exception of Germany. With 

stereotypical efficiency the Bundeswehr had taken over its eastern counterpart, 

retired all officers above the rank of lieutenant colonel on sensible pensions, 

liquidated huge masses of Soviet-designed equipment, and diverted residual 

and incoming manpower into its own units. Germany’s status had been settled by treaty, and Helmut Kohl’s government had the domestic and international prestige to design and enforce grand solutions. Circumstances were 

more uncertain elsewhere. Romania’s army had been kingmaker in a violent 

overthrow. Poland’s army remained respected by many as a counterweight to 

the potential volatility of Solidarity. In Hungary and Bulgaria change had 

been largely top driven, with modest displacement of traditional elites. The 

Czech armed forces were buoyed by Czech military-industrial expectations. 

Soviet armies had disintegrated into ethnic militia. The Yugoslav army was 

running amok. Senior leaders of Warsaw Pact vintage armies headed powerful bureaucracies, habituated to the control of their nation’s young men. 

Fear of a resurgent Russia and social values concerning the virtue of service 

translated into continuing conscription in most cases, further empowering 

military elites. Ironically, the former Warsaw Pact middle-grade and seniorgrade officers most capable of dealing with NATO, wherein the international 
109

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

language of command was English, were often active or former intelligence 

and counterintelligence operatives. These highly vetted positions required 

English proficiency, whereas most operational positions did not. Cold War 

success could not be consolidated without military reform, and this would be 

no easy thing. NATO’s approach to the challenge was prolonged engagement. 

Over time senior officers in the former Warsaw Pact could be nudged or lured 

into retirement, perhaps in association with industrial contracts that allowed 

some to pursue wealth rather than power. Democratic regimes, once their grip 

was sure, could be encouraged to abandon conscription. Necessarily slimmed 

down militaries could then be redesigned along Western lines, junking huge 

masses of Soviet-era equipment for inventories of a more modern design. 

Operational emphasis would shift from Kursk-like tank battles to peacekeeping, search and rescue, and humanitarian relief. These operations other than 

war seemed more appropriate to the new era, and training toward them would 

seem less threatening to their neighbors—particularly Russia. Schooling and 

assignments in the West would be offered, and training regimes would heavily emphasize international operations. NATO officers and officers from the 

former Warsaw Pact and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 

would intermingle extensively in school, on assignment, when training, and 

on operations. Hopefully such values as deference to democratically elected 

governments, transparency in defense budgeting, and respect for international 

protocols would be nurtured in the course of this interface. A new generation of 

military leaders would emerge, gaining personal prestige through successes in 

challenging multinational assignments and being rendered more cosmopolitan 

by complex multilingual requirements. In January 1994 this package of initiatives acquired a name, Partnership for Peace. Moving quickly, USAREUR and 

its NATO allies hosted a potpourri of exercises and exchanges intermingling 

officers and soldiers from both sides of the former Iron Curtain. These were 

more focused in scope but concurrent with operational intermingling that was 

already occurring in expanded United Nations peacekeeping. For example, 

the 212th Surgical Hospital (Mobile Army) and its successors in Zagreb were 

already routinely treating UNPROFOR Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and other 

former East Bloc soldiers. Partnership for Peace exercises escalated in scope 

and ambition. In late 1995 Cooperative Challenge brought together thirteen battalions—including Americans, Austrians, Belgians, Czechs, Dutch, 

Estonians, French, Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks, and Swedes—in a sprawling 

exercise through 140 square kilometers of the Czech Republic. The scenario 

was multinational peacekeeping under the supervision of a combined international staff. The immediate intent was to train to a standard at each echelon 

involved and to work out practical standard operating procedures for forces 

of such size and complexity in the future. The long-term intent was, of course, 

engagement. A great deal remained to be done, but the process was beginning.33

Engagement had replaced containment as the priority in Europe, but in 

East Asia containment remained a priority, as did demonstrations of cooperative resolve to reassure regional allies. Team Spirit and Ulchi Focus Lens

continued as major joint and combined exercises involving deployments from 

the United States to Korea, as did Orient Shield in Japan. Cobra Gold
Kevlar Legions

110

reinforced cooperation with Thailand, as did Tiger Balm with Singapore. 

Balikatan demonstrated an American capability to quickly reinforce the 

Philippines. To these and dozens of smaller exercises in the Pacific and Indian 

Oceans, the Army added requirements to contain and deter Iraq in the aftermath of Desert Storm. As we have seen, Intrinsic Action periodically 

deployed heavy task forces to draw pre-positioned equipment and deploy in 

support of the Kuwaitis. Sometimes these deployments occurred with little or 

no notice in times of crisis; more often they were routine. The United States and 

the Coalition had enforced “no fly zones” on Iraq to better secure their neighbors and restrain their operations against Kurds in the north and Shi’a in the 

south. Southern Watch, and later Northern Watch, enforced these sanctions and secured Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Turkish airspaces. The Army rotated Air 

Defense battalions and logistical contingents in support of Southern Watch

and Northern Watch. Iris Gold similarly rotated special operating forces 

through Kuwait, and Bright Star provided a repeatable major combined 

exercise with the Egyptians. There were others, some oriented on Iran more 

than on Iraq. Throughout Asia in general and the Arab Middle East in particular, recurrent deployments proved far more acceptable to national sensibilities than forces permanently deployed. Koreans and Japanese were generally 

agreeable to a permanent American presence; few others were. Sensitive allies 

wanted American troops present in moments of crisis or when they needed 

them, but otherwise preferred them out of sight—deep in the desert or over 

the horizon. Frequent combined exercises and deployments separated by gaps 

preserved an American presence while avoiding an impression of permanence. 

Wags characterized the constant movements to and fro as “commuter containment.” The new modus operandi radically increased the pressure on the Army 

to generate deployable contingents, even if for relatively brief periods of time.34

In the aftermath of the Cold War, and given the triumph of the United 

Nations–sanctioned Desert Storm coalition, further advances resolving 

the quarrels of the world seemed possible. The United Nations in particular scaled up its ambitions. It seemed to be a brave new era of international 

cooperation. Between 1945 and 1989 the United Nations Security Council was 

paralyzed by veto 279 times. Between 1990 and 1994, it never was. In 1987 

perhaps 10,000 troops had been deployed under United Nations auspices to 

seven contingencies at a cost of $230 million. In 1995 more than 80,000 were 

deployed to twenty contingencies at a cost of $3.5 billion. Traditional United 

Nations peacekeeping before 1989 had interposed lightly armed observers 

between forces, generally national armies, which had agreed to a cease-fire 

and needed neutral observers to help them police it. Observation forces were 

small, fragmented into representation among many nations, and altogether 

dependent on moral authority to succeed. Such forces had reasonably successfully separated Indians from Pakistanis, Israelis from Egyptians, Israelis from 

Syrians, and Greek Cypriots from Turkish Cypriots, to cite a few examples. 

Their success depended largely upon the discipline and goodwill of the former 

belligerents and upon there being “a peace to keep.” United Nations forces 

had had less success in such chaotic environments as Lebanon or the Congo, 

wherein multiple adversaries and heavily armed desperadoes fought in the 
111

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

absence of military discipline or national control and demonstrated little interest in the peaceful resolution of ongoing violence. Peacemaking was far more 

difficult than peacekeeping and required forces more robust and better organized than the loose military patchworks of the past. Beginning in 1989 the 

United Nations coordinated the dispatch of 4,500 troops to Namibia, 15,500 

troops to Cambodia, 6,500 troops to Mozambique, 7,500 troops to Angola, 

and observer missions to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, 

and Nicaragua. These had been surrogate Cold War battlefields, but now 

the great powers had a much diminished interest in them. Within a few years 

violence subsided, and these missions withdrew from all except Angola. The 

United Nations had considerably less luck in the former Yugoslavia, despite 

dispatching 40,000 troops to UNPROFOR. We will discuss this in the next 

chapter. Traditionally the United States Army had been little involved in 

United Nations peacekeeping, tacit recognition of how unlikely the United 

States was to be regarded as a disinterested party during the Cold War years. 

The Sinai mission was an exception, committing the United States to position 

the equivalent of a reinforced battalion between the newly friendly Egyptians 

and the ever friendly Israelis from 1982 on. In particularly difficult situations 

the United Nations had endorsed the United States as its lead agent for peace 

enforcement. This allowed the robust military and command and control 

capabilities of the United States to come directly into play, legitimated by an 

international coalition. The Korean War and Desert Storm were examples 

of such peace enforcement. Within a few years this basic model would appear 

three more times: in Northern Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti.35

In the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s eviction from Kuwait during Desert 

Storm, restive Shi’a in the south of Iraq and Kurds in the north revolted 

against his rule. Unfortunately for them, Saddam had extricated or withheld 

from combat forces sufficient to crush both uprisings. Coalition forces did 

not perceive support of these revolts as within their mandate, deferring to 

Sunni Arab suspicion of Iran and the Shi’a and to Turkish concerns about 

Kurdish autonomy. Lopsided fighting soon generated hundreds of thousands 

of refugees. The Shi’a by and large fled into xenophobic Iran and remained 

invisible to the West and the rest of the world. A half million Kurds fled into 

the mountains separating Iraq from Turkey. Their desperate plight, dying by 

the hundreds in the wintry mountains without adequate food, water, clothing, or shelter, provoked international furor when televised around the world. 

On 5 April 1991, the United Nations passed Resolution 688 condemning the 

ruthless Iraqi repression and justifying international action. The United States 

took the lead in operations to halt the dying and suffering, resettle the refugees 

in temporary camps, and return them to their original homes as soon as possible. In Operation Provide Comfort more than 12,000 American military 

personnel would be joined by 11,000 coalition partners and supported by tens 

of thousands of Turks, dozens of nongovernmental agencies and private volunteer organizations, and cadres and work crews drawn from the Kurds themselves. Relief progressed from frantic airdrops through sprawling heliborne 

deliveries to routine truck-borne resupply as coalition forces lured the Kurds 

off of the peaks into steadily expanding encampments. Once their medical 
Kevlar Legions

112

conditions stabilized, the allies resolved to return the refugees to their homes. 

This in effect required a second invasion of Iraq, since the Kurds would not 

return without coalition forces to protect them. The Iraqis melted away in the 

face of the allied advance, and civilian relief agencies accompanied the returning tide of refugees. The Kurds resettled, protected by international observers, 

air patrols, U.S. forces on the ground initially and in an expeditionary posture 

thereafter, and by their own rearmed Peshmerga. Humanitarian disaster had 

been averted.36

Somalia was an arid land racked by sectarian and clan violence after the 

overthrow of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre in January 1991. Drought 

hugely complicated the political chaos. Famine ravaged the land as factions 

fought over dwindling supplies and food became a weapon. International relief 

efforts proved ineffectual when rival warlords looted supplies and robbed convoys. A hastily deployed United Nations Operations in Somalia (UNOSOM) 

force had no better luck, and its small contingent of five hundred Pakistani 

soldiers ended up virtual hostages at the Mogadishu Airport. Meanwhile 

international television broadcast footage of starving children covered with 

flies and dying in filth, night after night. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, were at risk. On 3 December 1992, the United Nations Security Council 

passed Resolution 794, endorsing a robust relief expedition led by the United 

States. Operation Restore Hope arrived with overwhelming force beginning 8 

December, cowing the warlords and securing their cooperation. A Unified Task 

Force (UNITAF) of about 10,000 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, a 

like number of U.S. Marines, 5,000 U.S. personnel of other types, and 13,000 

coalition partners from twenty-two nations secured Mogadishu, organized the 

Kurdish refugees flee fighting in northern Iraq.
113

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

hard-hit southern half of Somalia into nine Humanitarian Relief Sectors, and 

fanned out through the countryside to guarantee humanitarian relief. Within a 

month 40,000 tons of grain had been effectively delivered, relief agencies and 

military medical personnel were working the interior without interference, and 

the worst of the crisis had passed. As the drought relented, local agriculture 

began to revive. Somalia was primitive enough that its rural areas generally survived by subsistence whether or not there was an effective central government—

and often there was not. With mass starvation averted and nightly television no 

longer haunted by horrific imagery from Somalia, international public attention 

moved on. The United States government wanted to move on as well and to turn 

Somalia over to a more traditionally organized United Nations force. On 4 May 

1993, control passed to United Nations Operations in Somalia II (UNOSOM 

II) commanded by Turkish General Cevik Bir. By October UNOSOM II had 

dwindled to 16,000 peacekeepers from twenty-one nations, of whom about 

4,000 were from the United States—primarily in support roles. UNITAF had 

focused on humanitarian relief and regarded serious efforts at nation building 

and disarming the warlords as beyond its mandate. Unfortunately, the much 

less capable UNOSOM II became drawn into renewed clan rivalry for the port 

of Mogadishu. Coordination among the United Nations contingents, between 

the United Nations and the United States, and between United States forces 

U.S. troops patrolling in Somalia
Kevlar Legions

114

working under United Nations auspices and those outside of them was seriously 

fragmented. Taking advantage of the confusion, warlord Muhammed Aideed 

of the Habr Gidr subclan forcibly advanced his own interests, attacking rival 

clans and United Nations troops as he did so. The American contingent, reinforced by a Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF), responded with raids 

on Aideed’s facilities and henchmen. Six of these raids went well. A seventh precipitated a sprawling all-night battle through the streets of Mogadishu wherein 

eighteen Americans and perhaps five hundred Somalis died. The casualties 

were lopsided, but American viewers were shocked and revulsed by televised 

imagery of Somalis desecrating American bodies and dragging them through 

the streets. The nation was in no mood to sustain casualties in a humanitarian 

mission among people who could so turn on their benefactors, particularly since 

the starvation that had brought American forces into the country had subsided. 

American units were out of Somalia by 25 March 1994, and the United Nations 

mission terminated within a year later. The Somali experience had a chilling 

effect on further American intervention in sub-Saharan Africa. During the 

horrific bloodbaths in Rwanda and Burundi, the United States Army deployed 

2,400 soldiers to purify water, facilitate humanitarian relief, and secure transportation nodes but did not play a leading role. Subsequent responses to violence 

in the Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast 

were similarly muted.37

Haiti had a long history of repressive dictatorship, but in 1991 it was governed by its first elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. This changed on 

30 September 1991, when a military coup led by Lieutenant General Raoul 

Cedras swept him into exile. Political backsliding was bad enough; economic 

and political repression soon caused thousands of Haitians to flee on rickety 

boats, threatening an even more damaging humanitarian crisis. Economic sanctions and diplomatic efforts proved futile. Thugs in Cedras’ employ prevented 

United Nations personnel intended to retrain the Haitian Army and police 

from landing with small-arms fire and attacked the car of the United States 

Charge d’Affaires with clubs. United Nations Security Council Resolution 940 

authorized the application of the means necessary to restore democracy in 

Haiti. The United States took the lead with Operation Uphold Democracy

and prepared for two distinct contingencies. The 82d Airborne Division and 

selected Special Operations Forces prepared for forcible entry and the battlefield destruction of the Haitian Army. Meanwhile the 10th Mountain Division 

and other Special Operations Forces prepared for a permissive entry should 

diplomacy work in the eleventh hour. It did. With invasion imminent, a lastminute delegation headed by former President Jimmy Carter secured a nonviolent capitulation. The forcible entry air armada returned to its bases, and 

the permissive entry force landed on 19 September 1994. The newly arriving 

American soldiers and marines found themselves in an ambiguous situation, 

policing the streets alongside soldiers of the previously hostile regime while 

Cedras and his cronies prepared to depart and Aristide and his colleagues 

prepared to return. United States forces were to preserve civil order, protect the interests of American citizens and third-country nationals, restore 

the legitimately elected government, and provide technical assistance. They 
115

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

were not tasked to disarm Haitian forces or to undertake significant “nation 

building.” In Port-au-Prince they initially deferred to Haitian counterparts in 

maintaining public order and soon were embarrassed by egregious incidents 

of Haitian-on-Haitian violence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff sped an additional 

1,000 military policemen to the streets of Port-au-Prince, United States forces 

firmed up their grip there and in other cities, and Special Forces’ A Teams 

worked through community leaders to establish order in the rural interior. 

Criminals and pro-Cedras attachés were rounded up, Haitian police rotated 

through courses taught by international monitors, and the bloated Haitian 

Army downsized into a border patrol of 1,500. International forces arrived 

in increasing numbers, most notably the multinational Caribbean Command 

drawn from nations in the region. On 31 March 1995, the United States handed 

over its responsibilities to the newly formed United Nations Mission in Haiti 

(UNMIH). Despite some warts, Haiti offered a respectable model of greatpower-led peace enforcement followed up by United Nations peacekeeping.38

In many cases the Army and its sister services assumed missions because 

they offered readily available pools of organized manpower with useful equipment rather than because the task at hand was particularly military. Cases in 

point include humanitarian relief expeditions in the aftermath of a cyclone 

in Bangladesh (Operation Sea Angel) or the eruption of the Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines (Operation Fiery Vigil), both in 1991. These were 

not unlike domestic humanitarian relief in the aftermaths of Hurricane 

Andrew in Florida and Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii in 1992. Contingents committed to humanitarian relief could add up. Going into October 1992, for 

example, the Army had about 16,500 active component, 6,000 reserve component, 1,000 Department of the Army civilians, and 3,500 civilians under 

contract so employed. When coup and turmoil in Haiti provoked thousands 

to flee, the United States Coast Guard and Navy intercepted—in many cases 

rescued—huge numbers and deposited them safely at Guantanamo Bay for 

processing. By February 1992 more than 12,000 Haitian refugees were living 

there in hastily established camps, about half of them under the auspices of 

the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion. The Haitian refugee situation worsened until 

Operation Uphold Democracy and the United Nations mission in Haiti 

resolved the most pressing political issues. Cuban refugees fleeing a post–Cold 

War crackdown and economic malaise in Castro’s Cuba added to the challenge. Refugees in Guantanamo peaked at about 22,000 Haitians and 33,000 

Cubans in 1995. Joint Operation Sea Signal stood up with an Army brigade headquarters and 3,900 soldiers, including twenty-three security companies and a robust mix of combat service support, to support the refugees in 

Guantanamo. This effort spun off Operation Distant Haven in Surinam and 

Operation Safe Passage in Panama to accommodate refugees overflowing 

from Guantanamo. The Caribbean was also a transit route for illicit drugs, 

and the Army became increasingly involved in staunching the flow. In 1989 

Congress made the Department of Defense the federal lead agency for detecting the aerial and maritime transit of illegal drugs and for integrating relevant command, control, communications, and intelligence. Joint Task Force 

6 (JTF-6), commanded by an Army brigadier general, stood up at Fort Bliss, 
Kevlar Legions

116

Texas, to provide and coordinate reconnaissance, augment law enforcement 

agencies with military-specific capabilities, support intelligence analysis, and 

provide engineer support to civil authorities. By 1995 more than 4,000 soldiers 

and 46,000 flying hours were committed to counterdrug operations.39

The threefold increase in deployments during the period 1991–1995 had 

transformative effects on the Army. We have already discussed the manner in 

which installations such as Fort Bragg, Fort Hood, and Fort Stewart evolved 

into force projection platforms, routinely launching contingents of wildly varying sizes overseas, and continuing to support them once deployed through splitbased logistics. Procedures became routines. Within less than a year in Haiti, for 

example, troops from the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, New York, 

were replaced by troops from the 25th Infantry Division from Fort Shafter, 

Hawaii, who were replaced by troops from the 82d Airborne Division from Fort 

Bragg, North Carolina, who were replaced by troops from the 101st Airborne 

Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Deployments became an expectation 

and a way of life. Since the early 1980s over half of all soldiers had been married, 

and soldiers were considerably outnumbered by family members—this resulting 

from the shift to an all-volunteer Army. Leaders clearly understood that satisfying the family needs of deployed soldiers was central to retaining their services 

over the long haul. By the period of Desert Storm family support groups were 

required in deployable units and on most installations. These featured routine 

meetings for social or informational purposes, mechanisms to maintain contact 

with deployed soldiers, provisions for mutual support, access to counseling, recreational activities, and “telephone trees” or some other means to maintain communication. Quality varied, however, and little existed to define expectations. 

Well-intentioned volunteer group leaders too often devoted an overwhelming 

amount of their time to a tiny fraction of spouses who were overly demanding, 

excessively dependent, determined to secure the early return of their spouses, 

or beset with problems too deep for an amateur’s expertise. Failure with such 

hard cases was discouraging, and detracted from coping with the more modest 

emotional and practical needs of the vast majority of the families involved. 

Community resources too often went underutilized or untapped. Coordination 

among relevant supporting agencies too often fell short. Homecomings were 

too often imagined as to be unambiguously joyous, lulling family members to 

be unaware of potential problems associated with them. The Army Community 

and Family Support Center (CFSC), established in 1984, recognized a need for 

training and standardization. In 1994 it fielded a comprehensive package of 

instructional materials under the auspices of Operation READY (Resources 

for Educating About Deployment and You). The associated “Family Support 

Group Leader’s Manual” became the equivalent of doctrine and was incorporated into leadership training at every level. In the same year, a program labeled 

Army Family Team Building introduced a multilevel train the trainer program 

that encouraged volunteers and family members to progress through levels of 

preparation and responsibility. English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, 

originally targeted at soldiers, were now made available to spouses as well. 

Family support groups became miniature power projection platforms, capable 

of sustaining their members through the hardships of separation.40
117

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

The Army’s shift to an expeditionary posture and a radically increased 

operational tempo of deployments particularly affected the reserve component. Through the end of the Vietnam War and the advent of the all-volunteer 

Army, the National Guard and Army Reserve had provided strategic depth, 

forces available for mobilization at a pace somewhere between that of the 

active component and new units raised from scratch. After Vietnam a disproportional allocation of combat support and combat service support units 

to the reserve component guaranteed that they would be integral to major 

deployments and deployment plans of the active component. However, the relative absence of such deployments generally confined the new relationships to 

planning and some training. Desert Storm saw the first real test of the postVietnam system; Guardsmen and Reservists deployed in large numbers and 

were integral to the effort. Soon we will discuss post–Desert Storm efforts 

to enhance the readiness of reserve-component units. Here we want to discuss 

the transformative effects of recurrent deployments on the National Guard 

and Army Reserve. First, overseas deployment became more of an expectation 

and a routine. Although during General Sullivan’s tenure the deployment of 

individuals was by and large voluntary—“worked out” by official and unofficial means—every major deployment featured reserve-component soldiers. 

A bureaucratic manifestation of this increased usage was the extension of 

presidential call-up authority from 90 to 270 days (Section 673b of Public Law 

103–337). Once Guardsmen and Reservists were routinely deployed in appreciable numbers, ninety days offered far too little time for preparation, train-up, 

significant service overseas, and redeployment. Another innovation related to 

usage was the “derivative unit identification code” (UIC). “Derivatives” were 

a subset that allowed one to characterize a unit as “mobilized”—with all of 

the policy, procedure, and support that implied—when only selected personnel from the unit were actually on active duty. Second, like the active component, reserve-component units shifted focus from a single theater (generally 

Europe) to multiple contingencies overseas. The CAPSTONE program had 

given units direct wartime assignments to specific active-component units 

or headquarters and had associated them with specific war plans. Beginning 

in 1992 CAPSTONE morphed into the WARTRACE program, envisioning 

standing training relationships but anticipating a breadth of possible missions. 

Finally, the reserve component would be called on to assume the lion’s share 

of selected complex missions from the active component, rather than merely 

supplementing active-component units with respect to skills and numbers. A 

case in point was the composite 4-505th Parachute Infantry Battalion, activated on 4 November 1994, to serve in the Multinational Force and Observers 

(MFO) Sinai. Over 80 percent of this battalion consisted of volunteers from 

the reserve component. As the Army became increasingly challenged by overseas deployments, the reserve component would assume an increasing share of 

the weight. In due course this would change the nature of duty as a Guardsman 

or Reservist.41

Deployments following Desert Storm pushed American soldiers to lower 

levels of resolution with respect to alien cultures and peoples. This reflected 

more assertive United Nations and United States concepts of humanitarian 
Kevlar Legions

118

relief, as well as the underlying philosophies governing “engagement.” During 

the Cold War and prior, it was generally considered inappropriate for nations 

to meddle in the internal affairs of others. This did not mean that it was not 

done, but to do so risked international opprobrium. The sentiment stretched 

back at least as far as the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which in a series of 

treaties enshrined legal concepts that eventually contributed to the modern 

nation-state. The Cold War era was also the era of decolonization, and newly 

independent nations were acutely sensitive to any breaches of national sovereignty, regardless of justification. A number of America’s Cold War allies 

had dissident or potentially dissident minorities—Basques in Spain, Kurds in 

Turkey, Irish Catholics in the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland, to name a 

few—and preferred no precedents for international involvement. This reticence 

receded in the early 1990s. In quick succession the United Nations sanctioned 

American-led interventions into Northern Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti, while 

promulgating a dozen other interventions as well. The concept of a “failed 

state” gained currency as former colonies and dependencies triaged into the 

more, less, and least successful. Governments guilty of unconscionable abuse, 

neglect, or even genocide against their minorities could and should be acted 

against. This sensitivity eventually evolved into doctrine espousing an international “responsibility to protect.” During the period 1991–1995 this pushed 

American soldiers out of conventional war paradigms and into the streets for 

operations “amongst the people.” Squads went on joint patrols with Kurds, 

Somalis, Macedonians, Haitians, and United Nations troops from dozens of 

nations. The metaphor of the “strategic corporal,” the relatively low-ranking 

soldier whose actions in a media age could have international implications, 

became popular. In this environment, linguistic skills were at a premium, concerning which more later. For many American soldiers, the nature of overseas 

service itself was changing.42

Digitization

It is popular, and justifiable, to speak of the years surrounding the end of 

the twentieth century as marking the transition from the “Industrial” to the 

“Information” Age. As we have seen, the nearly simultaneous developments 

of HTML (hypertext markup language), HTTP (hypertext transfer protocols), 

practical browsers, and much improved personal computers made the Internet 

possible. Within a dozen years of 1991, 665 million users surfed forty million 

Web sites—up from zero when the period began. Digital technology heavily 

influenced or dominated broad ranges of human endeavor. Generals Sullivan, 

Franks, and others saw no reason to evade this trend but instead saw positive 

advantages to the Army in embracing it. The Army had appreciable experience 

with computers extending back through World War II, albeit not in a rigorously coherent fashion. The Army annually enlisted tens of thousands from 

the age cohorts most likely to be computer savvy. Desert Storm had flagged 

up specific Army shortcomings that digitization seemed to offer solutions for, 

and the shortcomings were compelling enough to attract congressional funding and support. If there was to be a revolution in military affairs, digitization 
119

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

would have something to do with it, and the United States armed forces were 

in a better position to lead the way than those of any other nation.43

The Army pioneered in the development of digital computers at least as 

early as its sponsorship of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer 

(ENIAC) during World War II. This thirty-ton behemoth sported 18,000 

vacuum tubes and was the marvel of its age, conducting calculations five hundred times faster than any previous device and sucking down 175 kilowatts—

enough to dim the lights across the entire University of Pennsylvania—when 

turned on. The successive inventions of the transistor, the integrated circuit, 

and the microprocessor enabled equivalent calculating power with far less 

mass. ENIAC and its immediate successors were intended to speed calculations associated with artillery ballistics and cryptography. During this same 

period card readers of various designs facilitated the management of personnel 

and logistical data. As technology advanced, computers and card readers converged with respect to design and capabilities, but the Army continued to envision their use in discrete, vertically integrated functional areas. Artillerymen, 

for example, progressed through a series of automated assistants to ballistics 

computations and fire support coordination, culminating in the Tactical Fire 

Direction System (Army) (TACFIRE) with which they fought Desert Storm. 

Similarly, air defenders, air traffic management controllers, personnel managers, logisticians, and the Army Security Agency (responsible for signals intelligence and electronic warfare) developed generations of hardware and software 

uniquely appropriate to their needs. The Army, in particular its Signal Corps, 

did attempt horizontal integration through such initiatives as Army Tactical 

Data Systems (ARTADSs) beginning in 1971 or Sigma Star beginning in 1978. 

These initiatives did not integrate the various “stovepipes” in a manner that 

was effective in the field. Even more troubling, commercial development and 

utilization of digital equipment began outstripping the Army’s ponderous 

development and acquisition cycle. Systems developed by and for the Army 

were too often obsolescent upon delivery. In 1984, to catch up with the digital 

revolution in progress, the Army approved procedures whereby units and agencies could directly acquire and use “nondevelopment items” of commercial 

design. Proponents of the existing stovepipes, and of some new ones as well, 

rushed to modernize themselves. The notion of Army-wide digital interoperability was temporarily abandoned.44

In the aftermath of Desert Storm, powerful incentives for horizontal 

integration and digital reform asserted themselves. The most harrowing and 

immediately visible was fratricide. Americans were shocked to find that almost 

one in five of their killed and wounded were victims of their own comrades. 

A major fraction of the British killed and wounded were also the victims of 

American firepower. It was true that less than 1 percent of the firing engagements executed during Desert Storm proved to be fratricidal and that 

performance with respect to fratricide was arguably better than that at the 

instrumented combat training centers or in earlier wars. These data points 

proved of little consolation to bereaved families, and the general public was 

baffled that its technologically sophisticated armed forces could be so deadly 

to themselves. In fact, the technologically sophisticated armed forces were 
Kevlar Legions

120

“hoist with their own petard.” The night-vision sights and redoubtable gunnery of the M1A1 tank, the Apache helicopter, and other modern direct-fire 

systems enabled them to reliably engage at ranges and under conditions that 

would have been inconceivable a few years earlier. Unfortunately, this capability promoted engagements at ranges beyond which gunners could reliably 

identify their target visually. Targets were indistinct blotches. Troop carriers 

such as Bradleys and M113s were particularly prone to be nondescript through 

thermal sights. Not wanting to surrender the advantages of superior range, 

Americans fought most of the ground war, making determinations whether 

or not to fire based on where the enemy was believed to be. About 1 percent 

of the time friendlies were where the enemy was believed to be, and superb 

American gunnery picked them off as well. Since the outranged and outclassed 

Iraqis were not inflicting significant casualties with return fire, these fratricides 

became disproportional to the total casualties. In the last twenty-four hours of 

the ground war commanders at various levels, mindful of recurring incidents 

of fratricide, imposed a potpourri of restrictions and clearance procedures on 

their forces engaged. Collectively considered, these impositions significantly 

impeded fire and maneuver and introduced a hesitation and timidity that 

could have proven lethal against a more capable foe. This is not to mention 

the shame and grief perpetrators bore with them through the rest of the battle 

and thereafter.45

In May 1991 the Army Chief of Staff established a task force to investigate 

the incidence of fratricide and recommend a way ahead. The associated Senior 

Officer Review Group, consisting of distinguished retirees, was adamant that 

restrictions imposed during the waning hours of Desert Storm were dysfunctional and dangerous, dismissing them as “defensive control measures for 

offensive operations.” Measures that would increase engagement times surrendered critical advantages to the enemy. Acknowledging the roles of fatigue, 

darkness—virtually all of the vehicle-on-vehicle fratricides occurred at night—

dust, smoke, rain, fog, featureless terrain, pace of operations, and the turmoil 

of combat as contributing factors, the task force boiled the root causes down 

to two: failures with respect to target identification and failures with respect to 

situational awareness. With creditable dispatch, the task force raced to design 

a live test scenario reflecting the circumstances of Desert Storm combat and 

invited major corporations to demonstrate proposed technological fixes during 

it. Corporate America responded with equal dispatch, and record trials were 

set for technology demonstrations beginning in April 1992. Given precedent, 

this demonstration of proposed fixes within less than a year of problem identification was breathtaking. Virtually all of the proposed fixes focused on target 

identification, with some equivalent of “identification friend or foe” (IFF) 

devices already on combat aircraft in mind. Hughes presented a laser interrogation by the potential shooter followed up by radio-linked reply by the potential target, all occurring automatically within milliseconds. AIL envisioned a 

laser detector on the potential shooter picking up on multispectral beacons 

from the potential target. Litton tested a laser on the potential shooter identifying an electronically shuttered corner reflector array in a retro-responder 

on the potential target. Raytheon envisioned the potential shooter making a 
121

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

range finder interrogation to which the potential target would automatically 

respond with global positioning system (GPS) derived coordinates. Magnavox 

also proposed GPS feedback from the potential target to the potential shooter, 

but via a unique power-managed UHF wave-form radio. McDonnell Douglas 

competed with low probability of detection millimeter wave transmitters on 

potential targets and directional receivers on potential shooters. C2NVEO 

proposed laser-activated thermal identification devices on potential target 

vehicles. The effect of encountering all these potential solutions in the same 

place was awesome. Wags compared the experimental range to the bar scene 

in the movie Star Wars; one encountered yet another alien thing with each 

step or turn. Interestingly, the only system seriously under consideration that 

focused on situational awareness rather than target identification was a variant 

of the Enhanced Position Location Reporting System (EPLRS), first fielded 

to the Army in 1987 and shepherded by Unisys. Available in man-portable 

or vehicle-borne versions, it automatically reported transmitter locations in 

coordination with an EPLRS Grid Reference Unit (EGRU). Initially EPLRS 

did not seem like much of a contender with respect to fratricide prevention; 

briefing officers did not even accord its slide the dignity of the boxed title 

and developmental timeline accorded the other systems in their briefing to the 

Senior Officer Review Group.46

EPLRS may not have seemed the likely winner at the vehicle identification technology demonstration, but its emphasis on situational awareness fit 

in well with efforts to resolve another dilemma exposed by Desert Storm, 

that of battle command and battle-space management. General Frederick M. 

Franks Jr., the TRADOC commander, had been the commander of VII Corps 

during Desert Storm. During the fast-paced maneuver war, he was struck 

by how primitive commanders’ means for tracking the battle were. Amid constellations of computers for various purposes with satellite telephones and 

precision-guided munitions on call, Tactical Operations Center (TOC) officers 

were still posting locations on acetate-covered maps with grease pencils, pins, 

and little sticky pieces of paper—techniques extending back at least as far as 

World War I. Reporting from combat units was generally by voice, relayed 

through several echelons by radio before other means became available. A 

favorite prewar training technique had been to visit battalion, brigade, and 

division TOCs at the same time during exercises and to ascertain the extent 

to which the maps in each TOC reflected a common picture shared by others. 

Generally there were significant discrepancies. It also could be unnerving to 

approach a map and find pins and sticky pieces of paper that had popped off 

it onto the floor. How long would it take to set that lost information right? 

EPLRS envisioned vehicles automatically self-reporting their locations at frequent intervals. Icons representing all of the reporting vehicles showed up on 

a map generated on a computer screen and could be interpolated visually into 

units on the same screen. If EPLRS or something like it could be horizontally 

integrated with other digital systems, even more could be achieved through 

automatic self-reporting. What if, for example, vehicles reported their fuel and 

ammunition status along with their locations? This would eliminate elaborate 

chains of logistical reports that progressed from radio to radio in parallel 
Kevlar Legions

122

with the tactical reporting—with just as many possibilities for discrepancies. 

During the last day of Desert Storm forward units were low on fuel, patchily 

supplied with respect to repair parts, and towing around far more ammunition 

than they needed. Theater logistics had generated awesome “iron mountains,” 

but too often difficulties in distribution overshadowed excesses of supply. The 

term total asset visibility emerged to describe the happy—albeit theretofore 

unachievable—state of knowing where everything was and who needed what. 

Some form of digitized self-reporting analogous to EPLRS might offer a way 

to achieve it.47

Deliberations with respect to fratricide, battle command, battle-space 

management, total asset visibility, and digitization were all grist for the modern 

Louisiana Maneuvers and the LAM Task Force. For his first several years 

General Sullivan “let a thousand flowers bloom” in the interest of maximum 

brainstorming. Hardware change recommendations for the M1A1 tank, for 

example, included both IFF and situational awareness/land navigation devices, 

along with two dozen other genres of technical improvement. It was in this 

freewheeling atmosphere that the combat identification technology demonstration transpired. Unfortunately, none of the IFF-inspired target identification 

devices particularly worked out. Technologies capable of keeping a few planes 

separated by miles of air space from shooting each other worked far less well 

in intermingled masses of dozens of vehicles. Those dependent on laser interrogation or response could be hugely degraded by omnipresent swirling dust. 

Even if vehicles were protected, nothing seemed suitable for protecting the 

dismounts. Meanwhile General Franks had an epiphany in another location. 

In September 1992 he observed the first National Training Center rotation of 

an M1A2 tank platoon, equipped with a situational awareness successor to 

EPLRS called the Inter-Vehicular Information System (IVIS). This featured 

small screens at the driver’s and commander’s stations that assisted navigation 

in a manner analogous to the commercial global positioning systems that had 

been hastily distributed prior to Desert Storm. The screens also depicted the 

locations of the other IVIS-equipped vehicles in the platoon. Conversations 

with crew members established that they quickly adapted to monitoring the 

screens and consistently had a refined appreciation of the locations of their 

fellow vehicles. To Franks, the solution to Desert Storm fratricide and the 

solution to Desert Storm battle command had run together. Target identification continued to be a training priority and tank tables and field exercises 

now included friendly targets down range, but technological solutions for 

target identification faded from view. Improved situational awareness would 

be the technological way ahead for preventing fratricide, and that improved 

situational awareness would be the product of digitization.48

Franks’ IVIS epiphany somewhat preceded General Sullivan’s determination that the Army was approaching a “good idea cutoff line” with respect 

to the modern Louisiana Maneuvers and LAM Task Force deliberations. At 

some point the bureaucracy had to be given tangible goals toward which it 

could progress. Ambitions had to come on line with funding and resources. 

Deep thinkers and near-term operators had to resume responsibilities for 

their respective lanes—albeit hopefully with more fluidity between them than 
123

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

before. We have already discussed the way ahead as it emerged with respect to 

expeditionary posture. With respect to modernization, the way ahead would 

be dominated by digitization. At the time the term digitization evoked the 

metaphor of the old cavalryman who, when asked about logistics, remarked 

that he did not know what logistics was, but he wanted some. Few senior leaders—indeed, few Army leaders of any rank—had much practical experience 

with the hardware and software that digitization implied. Nevertheless, the 

intellectual give-and-take of the last several years had hammered out broad 

parameters within which digitization would progress. First, digitization would 

be comprehensive, coherent, and centralized, progressing under the newly 

introduced label “Force XXI.” Force XXI featured axes for both the institutional and the deployable Army and synchronization matrices extending out a 

dozen years. Second, digitization would be by and large by appliqué with offthe-shelf technology onto existing weapons and systems over the near term. 

This approach would economize on funds, envisioned as limited for the foreseeable future. Third, the term off-the-shelf technology would no longer imply 

a grab bag of systems collected by independent agents. The Army Digitization 

Office (ADO), established on 8 July 1994, would discipline procurement, 

policy, and use. The ADO represented both the Army Acquisition Executive 

(AAE) and the Vice Chief of Staff. This meant it was empowered by both the 

Secretariat and the Army Staff, an important consideration in the aftermath 

of the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Fourth, digitization would be incremental and 

methodical. ATDs and AWEs would progress through units and headquarters of increasing size and complexity. Finally, digitization would progress in 

A Joint Forces Command digitized exercise 
Kevlar Legions

124

the light of all six imperatives—doctrine, force mix, modernization, training, 

leader development, and quality people—inherited from General Vuono. In 

July 1994 Sullivan pulled the LAM Task Force out of the cerebral atmosphere 

of the TRADOC headquarters and brought it to the Pentagon, to more directly 

facilitate the emerging Force XXI Campaign Plan. In April Task Force 1-70th 

Armor conducted an Advanced Warfighter Experiment at the task force level 

at the National Training Center. In December the 2d Armored Division from 

Fort Hood, Texas, was designated as the Experimental Force (EXFOR) for 

digital experimentation. In March 1995 Mr. Gilbert Decker, the Assistant 

Secretary of the Army for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASA 

[RDA]) and thus the Army acquisition executive, approved the “technical 

information architecture” for execution. This fleshed out details with respect 

to organization and appliqué. By the time of General Sullivan’s departure the 

use of digital equipment within the institutional Army was well advanced. Use 

in the deployable Army was modest, experimental, and prototypical. A way 

ahead, however, was clear.49

The United States Army in 1995

The most immediately visible difference between the Army of 1989 and the 

Army of 1995 was size. The active component numbered 510,000 en route to a 

target end strength of 495,000, down from 770,000 in 1989. Within the reserve 

component, the Army National Guard had dropped from 467,000 to 375,000, 

and the Army Reserve from 594,000 to 241,000 during the same period. The 

Army’s civilian workforce had declined from 488,000 to 324,000. Historically, 

downsizing is not something that the United States Army has done well. The 

collapse after World War II was qualitative as well as quantitative, resulting 

in the embarrassments of Task Force Smith and other early losses when the 

Korean War broke out. After the Korean War the downsized Army fell under 

the specter of the nuclear-centric “New Look,” which barely morphed into the 

more broadly capable “Flexible Response” in time to prepare for the Vietnam 

War. After Vietnam the downsized Army deteriorated so rapidly its own Chief 

of Staff characterized it as “hollow.” Vuono, Sullivan, and their colleagues 

were, as we have seen, determined to avoid repeating these unhappy experiences. They brought down force structure along with manpower. Eighteen 

active-component divisions shrank to ten. Some major headquarters such 

as Second Army and Sixth Army disappeared, whereas most others downsized or streamlined. Cuts in active-component force structure proportionally 

exceeded the 38 percent cut in the Army budget and the 35 percent cut in Army 

manpower between 1989 and 1995. This allowed the Army to keep the units 

that remained at full strength and to sustain the customary training operational tempo of eight hundred miles per vehicle crew per year. Seventy-seven 

battalions rotated through the combat training centers during FY1995 alone, 

for example.50

Carving out time and resources for training was a considerable achievement, given the demands downsizing placed on units and soldiers. Huge 

masses of vehicles and equipment from inactivating units had to be stood 
125

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

down, maintained, reprocessed and stored, redistributed, or disposed of. 

Much of the equipment was destined for the POMCUS sites of the Army 

War Reserve and thus had to be altogether battleworthy when stored. As had 

been the case with earlier “rollovers” from one fleet of vehicles to another, 

equipment turn-ins were elaborate multiweek processes incorporating detailed 

turn-in standards, inspections, scrambles to achieve compliance with inspection results, and reinspections. Even before their motor pools were emptied of 

departing vehicles, soldiers and family members from inactivating units began 

separating from the service or trickling into subsequent assignments. Tens of 

thousands more than usual were in motion at any given time. When the troops 

and equipment were gone, barracks and installations had to be cleaned up for 

turnover to whatever organization or agency was to inherit them. This process was bedeviled by the fact the installations had been occupied during eras 

when practices with respect to oil spills, pollution, and environmental damage 

were far more permissive than the era wherein they were being turned over. 

In FY1995 alone, the Army spent more than $1.6 billion on environmental 

cleanup. This is not to mention the fact that environmental cleanups can be 

extraordinarily manpower intensive.51

As proud as the Army might have been for sustaining a respectable training tempo amid the turbulence of downsizing, it had even more reason to be 

proud of the quality of the people it had retained. Sullivan, his colleagues, 

and allies in the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) and other 

organizations had taken great pains to convince the Joint Staff, Secretariat, 

and Congress that if downsizing had to occur, it should be gradual enough 

to avoid temporary eviscerations of units and uncontrolled hemorrhages of 

talent. Their arguments were assisted by ongoing operations and international 

challenges. Cuts came to an average of fewer than 50,000 a year, and were 

largely attritional, voluntary, and accompanied by incentives. For example, 

of 2,478 officers separated under various programs during FY1995, 258 went 

to the Voluntary Early Release/Retirement Program (VERRP), 1,079 to the 

Voluntary Selective Incentive Program (VSIP), 732 to the Early Retirement 

Program (ERP), and only 409 were involuntarily separated by a Selective Early 

Retirement Board (SERB). A dreaded involuntary “pink slip” reduction in 

force (RIF) had been contemplated for captains that year but proved unnecessary when enough applied for VSIP to cover the planned reductions. Enlisted 

downsizing that year progressed even more satisfactorily; no one involuntarily 

separated other than for cause. Reliance on voluntary means of separation 

and the continuing presence of visibly capable units favorably affected Army 

morale. Army lore holds that there is no place worse to be than in “a theater 

closing out.” This stems from World War II memories of shiftless hordes of 

men, masses of rusting equipment, unfathomable separation or redeployment 

policies, and general ennui in theaters that seemed to have lost their purpose. 

In the early 1990s gradualist separation policies worked out in such a manner 

that the truly qualified generally stayed if they wanted to, and if they did they 

belonged to capable, dynamic, and busy organizations. In this atmosphere 

retention proved relatively easy. During FY1995 the Army reenlisted 104 percent (19,960) of the first-termers and 100 percent (23,358) of the mid-termers 
Kevlar Legions

126

personnel managers sought to retain. 

It also inspired 105 percent (13,737) 

of the separating soldiers it sought 

to join the National Guard and 

Army Reserve. Perhaps even more 

important, it continued to attract 

and recruit young men and women 

of the highest caliber. Of 62,931 new 

accessions to the active Army during 

FY1995, over 95 percent were high 

school graduates and almost 70 percent scored test results in the highest 

categories of the Armed Services 

Vocational Aptitude Battery.52

The demonstrably talented manpower of the 1995 Army served in an 

organization that had, as we have seen, 

shifted to an expeditionary posture. In 

Korea the lines and missions associated with the Cold War remained the 

same. Elsewhere units were acquiring 

the training, habits, infrastructure, 

and experiences appropriate to the 

full-spectrum expeditionary doctrine 

espoused by the 1993 version of Field 

Manual 100–5, Operations. At the 

time, the Army had set itself the longterm goal of deploying a corps headquarters and one light and two heavy divisions to a distant contingency within 

thirty days and of bringing that force up to a full corps with five divisions within 

seventy-five days. In 1994 an independent study chose Mozambique as a scenario and determined that the means then available could approximate the goal, 

albeit with the divisions deployed at thirty days being two light and one heavy 

rather than one light and two heavy. Enhancements envisioned through FY2000 

would fully achieve the goal and considerably brought forward the first of the 

heavy brigades to arrive. Such a performance would double the pace of Desert 

Shield/Desert Storm, then the frame of reference for expeditionary combat. 

The frame of reference for the field training of the heavy force also remained 

Desert Storm, albeit with more guerrillas, unconventional operations, and 

operations other than war thrown into the mix than had been the case prior to 

1993. The frame of reference for the field training of the light force shifted to an 

ever heavier emphasis on operations other than war. By and large forces actually 

deployed to Kurdistan, Haiti, and Somalia had been light, and those deployed 

to deter Saddam Hussein heavy. The tactical equipment, organization, roles, and 

missions of the heavy forces had not appreciably changed since Desert Storm; 

what had changed was the pace at which they could make their presence felt in 

distant theaters.53

By the 1990s recruits were better 

educated than ever but still in need of 

a drill sergeant’s careful attention.
127

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

The reserve component was increasingly critical to plans for rapid deployment and operations other than war. They too had been hard hit by downsizing, and the downsizing had forced somewhat more specialization upon them. 

After extensive negotiation the Army Reserve committed to focus even more 

heavily on combat service support, whereas the National Guard committed to 

orient more on combat units. To this purpose the National Guard planned to 

turn over 128 units with 11,062 authorizations to the Army Reserve, whereas 

the Army Reserve would turn over 44 units with 14,049 authorizations to 

the National Guard. The National Guard would particularly focus resources 

and preparatory efforts on fifteen “enhanced” combat maneuver brigades. 

National Guard brigades would no longer “round out” or “round up” specific 

active-component divisions, but instead would serve as a readily accessible 

strategic reserve for the Army as a whole. The enhanced brigades benefited 

from cascades of modern equipment as active-component units inactivated 

and as contemporary procurement specifically targeted them. In one respect 

they were to lead the Army. Geographical dispersal, limited training time, and 

infrequent opportunities to field units as a whole on premier training facilities 

had long plagued the reserve component. These challenges seemed particularly 

appropriate for the use of simulations and distributed learning. Simulation 

in Training for Advanced Readiness (SIMITAR) originated in 1992 as an 

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) effort to apply the latest training 

technologies to reserve-component training issues. At about the same time, 

the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1993 directed that the active 

component expand its support to the reserve component from 2,000 to 5,000 

advisers. These men and women would work full time to enhance the training 

posture of the National Guard units to which they were assigned.54

Working definitions of modernization evolved. In 1989 modernization 

for units had meant wrapping up the fielding of the “big five” and related 

equipment. Ruminations concerning the more distant future were largely 

confined to TRADOC and the Army Materiel Command (AMC). The 1988 

AMC commander, General Louis C. Wagner Jr., described a 2010 scenario 

in the Army 1988–1989 Green Book wherein highly trained American troops 

turned back a Warsaw Pact invasion with a Buck Rogers array of directed 

energy weapons, robots, advanced power generation (to power the directed 

energy weapons and robots, one presumes), biotechnology, microelectronics, 

low observables, and space-based systems. Interestingly enough, the 1994 

AMC commander, General Leon E. Salomon, also chose to describe a 2010 

scenario in the Army 1994–1995 Green Book. In Salomon’s scenario the 

highly trained American troops were rescuing American citizens in the dark 

of night from a civil war ravaged land rather than hammering Soviet tank 

columns. The robots and ray guns were gone, replaced by decidedly digital assemblages of computers, sensors, visual displays, navigation devices, 

fire controls, and communications. The future had changed and with it 

approaches to modernization. The “big five” and related equipment were 

still being fielded, albeit increasingly in updated or product-improved forms. 

The distant future was still being tended to. Salomon’s article dutifully displayed a prototypical hypervelocity electronic rail gun, for example, and 
Kevlar Legions

128

experimentation with respect to cruise and high-altitude missile interception had been particularly intense. In addition to immediate modernization 

and long-term developments, however, a third venue of intermediate-term 

modernizations had emerged. These were envisioned as initially experimental, incremental, largely digital, and often off-the-shelf. Given the pace of 

commercial digital developments, procurement philosophies had to change. 

The Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research, Development, and 

Acquisition, Gilbert F. Decker, noted that the traditional military specifications (MILSPECs) process would have produced a 17-pound single-channel 

global positioning system that cost $34,000 each. Instead the Army bought 

acceptably durable olive drab colored 3-pound multichannel commercial 

global positioning systems for $1,300 each—and the price dropped to $800 

over the next several years. Cascades of digitized equipment swept into the 

Army, albeit more comprehensively and effectively in the institutional Army 

than in the turrets of tanks. The worldwide Secure Internet Protocol Router 

Network (SIPRNET) was an instant success, revolutionizing traffic in classified information. Intelligence operators leaped into whole new paradigms 

with respect to the volume, flow, synthesis, and distribution of information. 

Desktops throughout the Army sprouted with personal computers (PCs), 

and officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who had never learned 

to type were expected to use them. In due course civilian secretaries and 

company clerks would disappear, displaced by the expansive memories of 

the electronic devices now manned by their erstwhile bosses. Digitization in 

the field was more tentative, as systems generated to support AWEs competed with personal laptops brought along for the ride to be useful amid the 

turmoil, vibration, and dust of active operations. Someday tankers accompanied by robotic wingmen would streak across the battlefield armed with 

phased energy weapons and hypervelocity rail guns. Well before that time 

M1 tanks and M2/M3 Bradleys sporting an appliqué of digital equipment 

would conduct operations with old weapons and unprecedented information advantages. This intermediate future was Force XXI, and it was a work 

already in progress.55

Conclusions

On his first day as Chief of Staff, General Gordon R. Sullivan set himself 

and the Army the tasks of maintaining readiness while downsizing in accordance with congressional mandates, accomplishing contemporary missions, 

and preparing for wars the future might bring. The most measurable of these 

accomplishments was the superb caliber—with respect to manning, training, 

equipment, personnel quality, and much else—of the ten divisions and other 

units that remained when the downsizing was complete. The reserve component 

mirrored the accomplishments of the active component, with their enhanced 

brigades, for example, being even more battleworthy than those that had gone 

before. The mission accomplishment of the Army was also of a demonstrably 

high caliber. What embarrassments there were had little to do with the quality 

of the Army and its soldiers. Success with respect to future wars was immea-
129

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

surable, of course, since no one knew what the future would bring. There was 

reason for optimism, however. Processes for envisioning the future had been 

intelligently revamped, harnessing the latest in simulations technology to do 

so. Shortcomings identified during Desert Storm seemed well on their way 

to resolution. Most notably, the Army as a whole had made unprecedented 

advances toward achieving the expeditionary posture the new era demanded. 

Digitization—progressing at an uneven pace but in a sure direction—seemed 

to promise the resolution of battle management, fratricide, and logistical intervisibility issues. Concepts appropriate to the Information Age had progressed 

from the general brainstorming of the Louisiana Maneuvers to the comparative rigor of Force XXI. The reserve component was more capable and 

integrated than ever before, and the Army was accumulating experiences with 

respect to operations other than war that corresponded well with a renewed 

doctrinal emphasis on them. Deliberations had addressed doctrine, force mix, 

training, leader development, and quality people as well as modernization per 

se. The future Army was not to be a mere collection of gadgets. No American 

Army had ever demonstrated so much capability across such a broad spectrum 

of potential combat five years after a war. This was no mean achievement.
Notes

1

 General Gordon R. Sullivan, “Maintaining Momentum While Accommodating 

Change,” Army 1991 Green Book: The Year of Desert Storm, October 1991, 24–32; 

“General Gordon R. Sullivan,” in William G. Bell, Commanding Generals and Chiefs of 

Staff, 1775–2005: Portraits and Biographical Sketches of the Army’s Senior Officers 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2005); Speech to the 113th General 

Conference of the National Guard Association of the United States, in The Collected 

Works of the Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States Army (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 1995), 4–9; James L. Yarrison, The Modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1999), 1–8; Memorandum 

for Record (MFR) of Telephone Conversation, Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. 

Brown with General (USA, Ret.) Gordon R. Sullivan, 091300 May 2008, in Historians 

Files, CMH. 

2 Ibid.; “Resume of Service Career, General Gordon Russell Sullivan,” in The 

Collected Works of the Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States Army, xvi–xix. See 

also John L. Romjue, The Army of Excellence: The Development of the 1980s Army

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1997).

3 Robert A. Doughty, “The French Armed Forces, 1918–40,” in Military 

Effectiveness: The Interwar Period, ed. Allen R. Millett and Williamson Murray 

(London: Allen and Unwin, 1988), 39–69; Brian Bond and Williamson Murray, “The 

British Armed Forces, 1918–1939,” in Military Effectiveness: The Interwar Period, 

98–130; Manfred Messerschmidt, “German Military Effectiveness between 1919 and 

1939,” in Military Effectiveness: The Interwar Period, 218–55.

4

 General Gordon R. Sullivan’s Arrival Ceremony, in The Collected Works of the 

Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States Army, 3–4.

5 Army Command, Leadership and Management: Theory and Practice, A Reference 

Text, 1992–1993 (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: U.S. Army War College, 1992); 

Interv with Dr. Jacques S. Gansler, 12 September 2002, sub: Acquisition Policy: 

Research and Development—OSD, Defense Acquisition History Project, Center of 

Military History; Yarrison, 9–10; George C. Wilson, This War Really Matters: Inside 

the Fight for Defense Dollars (Washington DC: CQ Press, 2000). With respect to the 

motor pool in Aschaffenburg, the author was executive officer for the tank battalion 

stationed there, and when preparing for the arrival of the M1A1 found class IX repair 

parts, photos, and records relating to the earlier generations of tanks amid the debris 

being removed. The experience was akin to dating layers at an archaeological site by 

the shards of pottery discovered therein. 

6 Anne W. Chapman, The Army’s Training Revolution, 1973–1990: An Overview 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1994); Briefing, Center for Army 

Lessons Learned for the Chief of Military History, 20 January 2000, in Historians 

Files, CMH; General Frederick M. Franks, “After the OPFOR, the Medina Ain’t 

Nothin’!” Army 1991 Green Book: The Year of Desert Storm, October 1991, 72–77; 

Lieutenant General Ronald Houston Griffith, “In Their Most Proactive Role: The IGs 

and Desert Storm,” Army 1991 Green Book: The Year of Desert Storm, 175–76. 

7 Yarrison, 7–25; Army Command, Leadership and Management; Interv with Dr. 

Jacques S. Gansler, 12 September 2002, sub: Acquisition Policy: Research and 

Development—OSD. 8 Mark D. Sherry, The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2009), 67–121; General Edwin H. Burba 

Jr., “The Mission and the Base Force,” in Army 1992–1993 Green Book, October 1992; 
131

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

General Frederick M. Franks Jr., “TRADOC: Seeding Future Victories,” Army 1992–

1993 Green Book, October 1992; General Jimmie D. Ross, “Enlightened Balance Is 

AMC’s Watchword,” Army 1992–1993 Green Book, October,1992; Interv with General 

Donald R. Keith, in Reflections of Former AMC Commanders (Alexandria, Virginia: 

U. S. Army Materiel Command Oral History Program, 1989), 195–216. 

9

 Sherry, 67–121.

10 Ltr, General Gordon R. Sullivan to the author, in response to the author’s inquiries, 19 April, 1999, Historians Files, CMH. 

11 Yarrison, 7–25; General Fred Franks Jr. with Tom Clancy, Into the Storm: A 

Study in Command (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1997), 488–511; General Gordon 

R. Sullivan, “The Army in the Post-Industrial World,” speech to the Land Warfare 

Forum of the Association of the United States Army, 9 January 1992, in The Collected 

Works of the Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States Army, 23–27; Chief of Staff 

Message, “Louisiana Maneuvers 1994,” 9 March 1994, in The Collected Works of the 

Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States Army, 103–05. 

12 Yarrison, 20–75; General Frederick M. Franks Jr., “TRADOC at 20: Where 

Tomorrow’s Victories Begin,” Army 1993–1994 Green Book, October 1993; General 

Gordon R. Sullivan’s Speech to the Association of the United States Army Louisiana 

Maneuvers Symposium, 25 May 1993, in The Collected Works of the Thirty-second 

Chief of Staff, United States Army, 142–48; Memo, LAM Exercise Directorate 24 

February 1993, sub: Initial Planning Conference, GHQ-X 93, LAM TF Files, CMH; 

John C. Dilbert, “General Headquarters Exercise Insights,” Military Review (MarchApril 1997); Army Information Paper, 1 February 1994, sub: Special Digitization Task 

Force; Charter for the Army Digitization Office, 9 June 1994, signed by Vice Chief of 

Staff of the Army J.H. Binford Peay III and Assistant Secretary of the Army 

(Research, Development and Acquisition) Gilbert F. Decker, Historians Files, CMH; 

Major General Joe W. Rigby, “Digitizing Force XXI: A Team Effort,” Army (May 

1995): 36–44. 

13 Yarrison, 56–71; Sherry, 163–74.

14 National Military Strategy (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1992); 

General Colin L. Powell, Report on the Roles, Missions, and Functions of the Armed 

Forces (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1993); “Speed Bumps: 82nd 

Airborne’s Shaky Line in the Sand,” Army Times, 21 October 1991; General Gordon 

R. Sullivan, Address to the United States Military Academy Department of History 

Faculty Dining-In, 22 February 1992, in The Collected Works of the Thirty-second 

Chief of Staff, United States Army, 33–38; General Gordon R. Sullivan, “The Chief 

on Army Readiness: ‘No More Task Force Smiths,’” Army (January 1992); Roy K. 

Flint, “Task Force Smith and the 24th Division: Delay and Withdrawal, 5–19 July 

1950,” in America’s First Battles, 1776–1965, ed. Charles E. Heller and William A. 

Stofft (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1986), 266–99; Birger Bergesen 

and John McDonald, Assessment of Contingency and Expeditionary Force Capabilities 

(McLean, Virginia: Science Applications International Corporation, 1994). 

15 Sherry, 102–10; National Military Strategy, 1992; Field Manual 100–5, Operations 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1993); Franks with Clancy, 488–511.

16 General David M. Maddox, “Breakout at D+50: Projecting America’s Power in 

Europe into the Future,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 77–84; Charles 

E. Kirkpatrick, “Ruck it Up!”: The Post–Cold War Transformation of V Corps, 1990–

2001 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2006), vii–xv, 89–124; Army 

Regulation 210–20, Master Planning for Army Installations (Washington DC: 

Department of the Army, 1992); Dwight D. Oland and David W. Hogan Jr., 

Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1992 (Washington DC: 
Kevlar Legions

132

Center of Military History, 2001), 165–69, 178–84; Steven E. Everett and L. Martin 

Kaplan, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1993 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 2002), 112–16; L. Martin Kaplan, Department of the 

Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1994 (Washington DC: Center of Military 

History, 2000), 124–29. The author served as G–3, 24th Infantry Division, from June 

1992 through June 1993 and as G–3, Operations, III Corps, from June 1993 through 

November 1993. These positions intimately associated him with installation planning 

for Fort Stewart, Georgia, and Fort Hood, Texas, respectively.

17 Department of Defense Final Report to Congress, Conduct of the Persian Gulf 

War: Pursuant to Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and 

Personnel Benefits Act of 1991 (Public Law102–25) (Washington DC: Department of 

Defense, 1992), 377–90; Bergesen and McDonald; Lieutenant General Johnnie E. 

Wilson, “Power Projection Logistics Now . . . and in the 21st Century, Army 1994–

1995 Green Book, October 1994, 137–43; U.S. Transportation Command: A Short 

History (Scott Air Force Base, Illinois: U.S. Transportation Command Office of Public 

Affairs, 2005); MFR of Telephone Conversation, Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John 

S. Brown with General (USA, Ret.) Gordon R. Sullivan, 091300 May 2008.

18 Ibid.

19 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Pursuant to Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict 

Supplemental Authorization and Personnel Benefits Act of 1991 (Public Law 102–25), 

379–91; Kirkpatrick, 3–20, 34–39; Sherry, 106–12; JCS 1454/161, “Service 

Recommendations for Prepositioned Sealift Package in the Persian Gulf,” 8 February 

1980, cited in Sherry, 112; Wilson, “Power Projection Logistics Now . . . and in the 21st 

Century, 137–43; Lieutenant General James R. Ellis, “Third . . . Always First!” Army 

1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 113–19.

20 General Leon E. Salomon, “At AMC the Future Begins Today,” Army 1994–1995 

Green Book, October 1994, 69–75; Lieutenant General Paul E. Blackwell, “Winning the 

Wars of the 21st Century,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 121–34; “Army 

Weaponry and Equipment,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 233–319.

21 Bergesen and McDonald; Wilson, “Power Projection Logistics Now . . . and in 

the 21st Century, 137–43; Blackwell, 121–34. 

22 Bergesen and McDonald; Field Manual 100–5, Operations; Army Training and 

Evaluation Program 71–2 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1987); Army 

Field Manual 17–12–1, Tank Combat Tables (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 1987). The author’s description of tanker beliefs and prejudices comes from 

twenty-five years of serving as a tanker. The source of paratrooper beliefs and prejudices is Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) William Leszczynski, a lifelong friend, airborne 

Ranger, and former commander of the ranger regiment (MFR documenting this 

exchange appears in the Historians Files, CMH). Banter between the branches begins 

early, in the case of West Point graduates, during branch selection senior year—when 

branch representatives make the strongest possible cases to gain branch commitments. 

It lasts a lifetime. 

23 Bergesen and McDonald; Field Manual 100–5, Operations; Conduct of the 

Persian Gulf War: Pursuant to Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental 

Authorization and Personnel Benefits Act of 1991 (Public Law 102–25), 240–43, 393–

450; William G. Pagonis with Jeffrey L. Cruickshank, Moving Mountains: Lessons in 

Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard 

Business School University Press, 1992); Wilson, “Power Projection Logistics

Now . . . and in the 21st Century, 137–43; Kirkpatrick, 99–107; Gordon W. Rudd, 

Humanitarian Intervention: Assisting the Iraqi Kurds in Operation Provide Comfort, 

1991 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004); Walter E. Kretchick, 
133

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

Robert F. Bauman, and John T. Fishel, Invasion, Intervention, “Intervasion”: A 

Concise History of the U.S. Army in Operation Uphold Democracy ( Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1998); 

Lieutenant General Thomas M. Montgomery, “United States Forces, Somalia, After 

Action Report,” in United States Forces, Somalia, After Action Report and Historical 

Overview: The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Washington DC: Center 

of Military History, 2003).

24 Field Manual 100–5, Operations; Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Pursuant to 

Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and Personnel Benefits 

Act of 1991 (Public Law 102–25), 237–40, 589–98; Kirkpatrick, 3–32, 82–88; Army 

Training and Evaluation Program 71–2; Author’s personal experience as a battalion 

commander in Germany (1989–1991), division G–3 in Fort Stewart, Georgia (1992–

1993), and corps G–3 operations in Fort Hood, Texas (1993).

25 General Dennis J. Reimer, “The Tempo Increases for FORSCOM Units,” Army 

1992–1993 Green Book, October 1993, 36–45; Franks, “TRADOC at 20: Where 

Tomorrow’s Victories Begin,” 46–55; Lieutenant General Leon E. Salomon, “PowerProjection Logistics,” Army 1992–1993 Green Book, October 1993, 162–71; General 

Dennis J. Reimer, “Freedom’s Guardian: U.S. Army Forces Command Focuses on 

Readiness,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, 47–56; General Frederick M. Franks Jr., 

“Preparing the Army for the 21st Century, Army 1994–1995 Green Book, 59–66; 

Wilson, “Power Projection Logistics Now . . . and in the 21st Century, 137–43. 

26 Bergesen and McDonald; Powell; Mark D. Mandeles, Military Transformation 

Past and Present: Historic Lessons for the 21st Century (Westport, Connecticut: 

Praeger Security International, 2007), 48–70.

27 “Kuwait on Guard; US Beefs Up Forces; Iraq Air Force on Alert,” Arab Times, 

17–18 August 1995, 1; ARCENT-K Public Affairs Office, Current Public Affairs 

Summary, Camp Doha, Kuwait, 15 October 1995; “We’re Back: First Team Returns to 

Kuwait for Intrinsic Action,” Desert Voice, Camp Doha, Kuwait, 4 September 1995, 

1; Desert Voice Special Edition, Camp Doha, Kuwait, 17 October, 1995; 2d Brigade, 1st 

Cavalry Division, Intrinsic Action 95–3 After Action Review, 17 October 1995, 

Historians Files, CMH. 

28 Ibid.; Memo, General J. H. Binford Peay III, Commander in Chief, U.S. Central 

Command, for Major General James B. Taylor, Deputy Commander, Third U.S. 

Army, 12 October 1995, Historians Files, CMH; 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, 

Operation Plan (OPLAN) Brief, “If We Fight Tonight . . .,” Historians Files, CMH; 2d 

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, OPLAN Brief, “If We Fight Next Week . . .,” Historians 

Files, CMH; “Devil Dogs: Destination Desert,” Desert Voice, Camp Doha, Kuwait, 2 

October 1995, 1; “Combined Live Fire Exercise, 11 October 1995, Intrinsic Action

95–3,” Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, “ARG/MEU (SOC) Capabilities Brief,” 29 

September 1995, Historians Files, CMH.

29 “Kuwait on Guard; US Beefs Up Forces; Iraq Air Force on Alert,” 1; 

ARCENT-K Public Affairs Office, Current Public Affairs Summary, Camp Doha, 

Kuwait, 15 October 1995; “We’re Back: First Team Returns to Kuwait for Intrinsic 

Action,” 1; Desert Voice Special Edition, Camp Doha, Kuwait, 17 October, 1995; 2d 

Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Intrinsic Action 95–3 After Action Review, 17 

October 1995; “Mission Accomplished,” Desert Voice, Camp Doha, Kuwait, 16 

October 1995, 1; Briefing, “Intrinsic Action 95–3 Relief in Place Concept,” 

Historians Files, CMH. 

30 William J. Webb, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1990–

1991 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1997), 3–14; Oland and Hogan, 

3–10, 37–43; Everett and Kaplan, 3–6, 55–62; Kaplan, 3–7, 63–66; Stephen L. Y. 
Kevlar Legions

134

Gammons and William M. Donnelly, Department of the Army Historical Summary, 

Fiscal Year 1995 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004), 3–7, 46–48; 

William J. Clinton, National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement 

(Washington DC: White House, 1995).

31 William Echikson, Lighting the Night: Revolution in Eastern Europe (New York: 

William Morrow, 1990); John Keegan, The Second World War (London: Hutchinson, 

1989), 10–44; NATO Handbook (Brussels: NATO Office of Information and Press, 

1995), 43–58.

32 Oland and Hogan, 37–43; Everett and Kaplan, 55–62; Kaplan, 63–66; Graeme P. 

Auton, Arms Control and European Security (New York: Praeger, 1989); General 

Crosbie E. Saint, “Aftershocks and Challenges in the Cold War’s Wake,” Army 1992–

1993 Green Book, October 1992, 78–88; General David M. Maddox, “USAREUR: ‘A 

Highly Deployable Force,’” Army 1993–1994 Green Book, October 1993, 66–78; 

General David M. Maddox, “Projecting America’s Power in Europe into the Future,” 

Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 77–83; Kirkpatrick, 193–320. 

33 Echikson; NATO Handbook, 43–58; General William W. Crouch, “U.S. Army 

Europe: A Security Mission Redefined,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, October 1995, 

69–76; Kirkpatrick, 110–16; Major A. J. Koenig, “Partnership for Peace Exercise 

Summary,” V Corps History Office, July 1997; Partnership for Peace Framework 

Document (Brussels: North Atlantic Council/North Atlantic Cooperation Council, 

1994); Author’s personal experience and observations while serving as the Chief of 

Programs and Requirements, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Mons, 

Belgium, 1997–1998.

34 Oland and Hogan, 37–43; Everett and Kaplan, 55–62; Kaplan, 63–66; General 

Robert W. RisCassi, “No Letting Down Guard at Cold War’s Last Wall,” Army 1992–

1993 Green Book, October 1992, 104–10; Lieutenant General Johnnie H. Corns, “U.S. 

Power Is Vital to Asia-Pacific Peace,” Army 1992–1993 Green Book, October 1992, 

132–38; General Robert W. RisCassi, “Still Keeping Peace on Cold War Lines,” Army 

1993–1994 Green Book, October 1993, 80–91; Lieutenant General Johnnie H. Corns, 

“A Tradition of Hard-Won Battles and Cooperative Engagements,” Army 1993–1994 

Green Book, October 1993, 92–100; General Gary E. Luck, “Last Outpost of the Cold 

War,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 85–89; Lieutenant General Robert 

L. Ord III, “America’s Army in the Pacific,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 

1994, 103–10; Lieutenant General James R. Ellis, “Third . . . Always First!” Army 

1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 113–19.

35 John Hillen, Blue Helmets: The Strategy of UN Military Operations (Washington 

DC: Brassey’s, 2000); Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive 

Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (New York: United Nations, 1992); Field 

Manual 100–23, Peace Operations (Washington DC: United States Army, 1994); Peace 

Operations: Information on U.S. and U.N. Activities (Washington DC: U.S. 

Government Printing Office, 1995); John P. Abizaid, “Lessons for Peacekeepers,” 

Military Review (March 1993): 11–19.

36 Rudd; Donald G. Goff, “Building Coalitions for Humanitarian Operations: 

Operation Provide Comfort” (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: U.S. Army War 

College, 1992); Kurdish Relief and Repatriation: DOD-AID/OFDA Partnership, The 

Kurdish Response After-Action Report (Washington DC: U.S. Agency for International 

Development and Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, 1991).

37 Richard W. Stewart, The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 2004); Everett and Kaplan, 55–62; Kaplan, 63–66; 

Kenneth Allard, Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned (Washington DC; National 
135

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

Defense University Press, 1995); Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of 

Modern War (New York: Penguin Books 1999); Montgomery.

38 Kretchick, Bauman, and Fishel; Kevin M. Benson and Christopher B. Thrash, 

“Declaring Victory: Planning Exit Strategies for Peace Operations,” Parameters

(Autumn 1996): 69–80; Lester H. Brune, The United States and Post–Cold War 

Interventions: Bush and Clinton in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia, 1992–1998 (Claremont, 

California: Regina Books, 1998). 

39 Webb, 3–25, 134–39; Oland and Hogan, 37–43; Everett and Kaplan, 55–62; 

Kaplan, 63–66; Gammons and Donnelly, 46–49; Information Paper, Lieutenant 

Thomas J. Cleary, 27 October 1999, sub: Army Counterdrug Program, DCSOPS 

Security, Force Protection and Law Enforcement Division-Counter Drug; Newsletter 

Number 93–6, Operations Other than War (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army 

Center for Lessons Learned, October 1993); William G. Bell et al., Two Centuries of 

Service: The Army’s Civil Contributions to American Society (Washington DC: Center 

of Military History, 1975). 

40 Gammons and Donnelly, 46–49; Eric K. Shinseki, The Army Family: A White 

Paper (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2003); Army Families and Soldier 

Readiness (Santa Monica, California: Rand Arroyo Center, 1992); What We Know 

About Army Families (Arlington, Virginia: Army Research Institute for the Behavioral 

and Social Sciences, 1993); The Reciprocal Nature of Work and Family: Spouse’s 

Perception of the Army/Family Interface and Its Impact on Soldier Retention 

(Washington DC: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 1989). 

41 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress Pursuant to Title V of 

the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and Personal Benefits Act of 1991 

(Public Law 102–25), 471–86; James T. Currie and Richard B. Crossland, Twice the 

Citizen: A History of the Army Reserve, 1908–1995 (Washington DC: Office of the 

Chief, Army Reserve, 1997), 521–80; Michael D. Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History 

of the Army National Guard, 1636–2000 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 

2001); Major John R. D’Araujo Jr., “Army National Guard: The Nation’s Strategic 

Insurance,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 91–95; Major General Max 

Baratz, “Army Reserve: Committed Force of Citizen Soldiers,” Army 1994–1995 Green 

Book, October 1994, 97–99. 

42 Hillen, 1–33, 139–82; Rudd; Stewart; Kretchick, Bauman, and Fishel; NATO 

Handbook, 31–92; The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International 

Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (New York: United Nations, 2001); 

General Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (New 

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).

43 Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 

to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 307–474; Franks with Clancy, 488–511; 

James E. Dunnigan, The Evolution of High-Tech Weaponry and Tomorrow’s Brave New 

Battlefield (New York: St. Martin’s, 1996); James R. Blaker, Transforming Military 

Force: The Legacy of Arthur Cebrowski and Network Centric Warfare (Westport, 

Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2007), 1–200; Thomas K. Adams, The 

Army After Next: The First Postindustrial Army (Stanford, California: Stanford 

Security Studies, 2008). 

44 Ms, Clayton R. Newell, Digitizing the Army (Arlington, Virginia: Association of 

the United States Army); John D. Bergen, Military Communications: A Test for 

Technology (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1986); Rebecca R. Raines, 

Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1996), 352–74. 
Kevlar Legions

136

45 Fratricide: Reducing Self-Inflicted Losses (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for 

Army Lessons Learned, April 1992); Fratricide Risk Assessment for Company 

Leadership (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons Learned, March 

1992); Memo, 3d Brigade, 2d Armored Division (Forward), 10 March 1991, sub: 

Informal Investigation of the Night Attack Conducted by 3d Brigade on 26–27 

February, 1991, in Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Department of the Army, 

“Friendly Fire Determination,” 9 August 1991, in Historians Files, CMH; Patrick E. 

Tyler, “Pentagon Reassesses the Vulnerability of Its Tanks,” New York Times 

International, 15 August 1991, A10; “Thermal Sights of Tanks Linked to Worst Case 

of Friendly Fire Deaths in Gulf,” Providence Journal, 18 September 1991, B6.

46 Fratricide: Reducing Self-Inflicted Losses; Fratricide Risk Assessment for 

Company Leadership; Briefing, Combat Identification Task Force, 22 November 1991, 

sub: Combat Identification, in Historians Files, CMH; Ltr, Lieutenant Colonel John S. 

Brown to Colonel David O. Bird, Director, Combat Identification Systems Program 

Office, 20 January 1992, sub: Combat Vehicle Identification, in Historians Files, CMH; 

Ltr, Mr. Frank Fox, COLSA Inc., to Lieutenant Colonel John S. Brown, 6 February 

1992, sub: Tactical Scenario Concept, in Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Combat 

Identifications Systems Program Office to Senior Officer Review Group, 14 February 

1992, sub: Combat Identification Technology Demonstration Presentation, in 

Historians Files, CMH; Combat Identification Program Second Draft, 17 

October1991, in Historians Files, CMH. 

47 Franks with Clancy, 488–511; Franks, “TRADOC at 20: Where Tomorrow’s 

Victories Begin,” 46–55; Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress 

Pursuant to Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and 

Personal Benefits Act of 1991 (Public Law 102–25), 236–37, 393–450, 543–76, 589–98; 

Pagonis with Cruickshank; Kent Laudeman, “Theater Support,” in Leaders in War: 

West Point Remembers the 1991 Gulf War, ed. Frederick W. Kagan and Chris Kubik 

(New York: Frank Cass, 2005). 

48 Yarrison, v–ix, 33–56; Memo, Department of the Army, Program Executive 

Office, Armored Systems Modernization, 20 November 1991, sub: Abrams Tank ODS 

Lessons Learned—Hardware Change Recommendation, in Historians Files, CMH; 

Memo, Headquarters, VII (US) Corps, 22 March 1991, sub: VII Corps Master 

Gunners Conference, in Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Combat Identifications 

Systems Program Office to Senior Officer Review Group, 14 February 1992, sub: 

Combat Identification Technology Demonstration Presentation; Combat 

Identification Program Second Draft, 17 October 1991; Franks with Clancy, 509–11.

49 Yarrison, 49–71; Ltr, General Gordon R. Sullivan to the Army’s General Officers, 

5 March 1994, sub: Force XXI, in The Collected Works of the Thirty-second Chief of 

Staff, United States Army, 316–17; Msg, General Gordon R. Sullivan, Chief of Staff, 7 

March 1994, sub: Building the Force for the 21st Century—Force XXI, in The 

Collected Works of the Thirty-second Chief of Staff, United States Army, 318–21; 

Headquarters Department of the Army, Charter for the Army Digitization Office, 9 

June 1994; Information Paper, DACS-AD, 27 September 1994, sub: Army Digitization 

Office Status and Future Strategy; Army Digitization Office, Report to the Congress on 

Army Digitization, February 1995.

50 Webb, 3–14; Gammons and Donnelly, 3–7, 46–48; America’s First Battles, 1776–

1965, 266–353, Franks with Clancy, 84–127.

51 Gammons and Donnelly; Kirkpatrick, 20–28; Maddox, “Breakout at D+50: 

Projecting America’s Power in Europe into the Future,” 77–83.

52 Gammons and Donnelly; Sergeant Major of the Army Richard A. Kidd, “NCOs 

Make It Happen,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, 31–36; Major General Wallace C. 
137

The Sullivan Years, 1991–1995

Arnold, “The Army’s Most Valuable Resource: People,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, 

151–57.

53 Bergesen and McDonald; Wilson, “Power Projection Logistics Now . . . and in 

the 21st Century,” 137–43; Blackwell, 121–34; Field Manual 100–5, Operations, 1993.

54 Gammons and Donnelly; Currie and Crossland, 521–80; Doubler; D’Araujo, 

91–95; Baratz, 97–99; Kidd, 31–36; Arnold, 151–57

55 Gammons and Donnelly; Yarrison, 49–72; Adams, 25–45; General Louis C. 

Wagner Jr., “AMC’s Full-Throttle Effort to Capture Technology: Today’s Concepts, 

Tomorrow’s Edge,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1988,

100–109; Salomon, “At AMC the Future Begins Today,” 69–75.

Chapter 4

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

General Dennis J. Reimer was sworn in as Army Chief of Staff on 20 June 

1995. He was thoroughly familiar with retiring Chief of Staff General Gordon 

R. Sullivan’s vision of the way ahead for the Army and was well prepared to carry 

it forward. He had served as the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations 

and Plans (DCSOPS) during Desert Shield and Desert Storm and had 

served as Vice Chief of Staff through the first two years of General Sullivan’s 

tenure. Promoted to four stars, he commanded the United States Army Forces 

Command (FORSCOM) from April 1993 through his selection to be Chief of 

Staff. Thus he was a long-term member of General Sullivan’s four-star Board 

of Directors, experienced the initial brainstorming of the Louisiana Maneuvers 

from the vantage point of Vice Chief of Staff, and then followed concepts thus 

developed into the field as units under his command participated in the exercises, 

Advanced Technology Demonstrations (ATDs), and Advanced Warfighting 

Experiments (AWEs) that matured them. Reimer’s challenges continued those 

of Sullivan, albeit with new nuances in some cases and significant changes in 

others. Diverse and extensive obligations and operations overseas guaranteed 

a high operational tempo. Current missions inevitably were more time-sensitive 

than modernization, and they distracted attention from it. Downsizing was 

by and large complete, but austere budgets, slender manning, and tough fiscal 

decisions remained. With the Quadrennial Defense Review and its associated 

National Defense Panel, Congress, the Secretariat, and the Joint Staff involved 

themselves in Army deliberations with unprecedented organization, energy, and 

rigor. If there had been a grace period during downsizing it was over, and the 

Army’s long-term visioning had to be ever more visibly agreeable to others. Force 

XXI as it then existed became threatened both by those who preferred the Army 

as a low technology constabulary and by those advocating immediate leaps to 

technologies and organizations not yet proven. Soft-spoken, yet compelling as 

a speaker, Reimer persevered as an advocate of a middle course, evolutionary in 

the short run in order to be more efficiently revolutionary in the long. He particularly sought to keep the soldier visible in deliberations too often dominated by 

technology and simulation. A 1962 United States Military Academy graduate 

from Oklahoma, Reimer had served two tours in Vietnam and commanded at 

every level from battery through division. He consciously promulgated General 

Vuono’s six imperatives and echoed Sullivan’s holistic approach to transformation. His slogan was “Soldiers Are Our Credentials,” and one of his favorite 
Kevlar Legions

140

stories was the World War II incident 

in Brittany during which Brigadier 

General Charles Canham of the 8th 

Infantry Division coined the phrase. 

During his tenure, soldiers of all 

ranks would be challenged by the 

competing demands placed upon 

them.1

Force XXI

As General Reimer assumed 

responsibilities as Chief of Staff, 

Force XXI offered a broad template for leading the Army into the 

Information Age and a calendar for 

experiments of increasing size and 

complexity. The Army was to continue its shift from a “threat-based” 

force oriented on the Soviet Union 

to become a “capabilities-based” 

force designed for the full combat 

spectrum. Much hardware and software had been proposed, but little as yet 

had actually been developed and decided upon. Success in the Information Age 

implied a mastery of “C4ISR.” This horrific acronym stood for “command, 

control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance,” a laundry list inviting huge variations in interpretation or emphasis. 

Fortuitously Reimer’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) commander, General William W. Hartzog, had a knack for reducing complexity 

into essentials. In his view, reflecting insights developed during the course of 

the modern Louisiana Maneuvers, the “dominant knowledge” required of 

Information Age armies boiled down to achieving relative advantage with 

respect to three basic questions: “Where am I?” “Where are my buddies?” and 

“Where is the enemy?” If one knew the answers to these, effective command 

and control and modernized weaponry would enable one to destroy an adversary with fire and maneuver. Why would achieving advantage with respect to 

these three basic questions be revolutionary?2

Where am I? (The Problem)

Troops and units lost on the battlefield are a leitmotiv running through 

military history. West Point cadets marching several hundred feet from their 

barracks sally ports to occupy designated positions on the parade ground, 

send out unit guides to find and stand on markers placed in the grass, and thus 

ensure that units end up in the right place. Off the parade ground and onto 

the battlefield, everything becomes harder by at least an order of magnitude. 

One would be hard put to identify a major maneuver battle without significant 

General Reimer
141

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

contingents lost or disoriented at 

some point. United States military 

history begins with a battle named 

after the wrong hill, since the Battle 

of Bunker Hill was actually fought 

over Breed’s Hill, several hundred 

yards away. Brigadier General Irwin 

McDowell began the first battle 

of our greatest nineteenth-century 

war by dispatching a main attack 

that collided with friendly forces 

moving in a different direction and 

then, after sorting that out, inched 

along poorly reconnoitered routes 

through the Virginia countryside. 

This main attack finally got across 

Bull Run hours late, with predictable 

consequences. Twentieth-century 

developments dispersed soldiers in 

tiny groups across vast battlefields, 

rendering land navigation even 

more problematic. The lethality of 

modern weapons encouraged attackers to kick off in hours of darkness or 

limited visibility, further complicating the process of finding their way. One 

World War II technique for maintaining direction was to continuously fire 

machine guns with uniquely identifiable tracers along the boundaries between 

units. This worked when the soldiers were confident enough to look around, 

fires were not so prolific as to mask the tracers, and the machine guns did not 

get knocked out. World War II also surfaced navigational disconnects between 

infantrymen progressing at a mile or so an hour, tankers and other mounted 

troops aspiring to thirty miles an hour, and pilots cruising along at several 

multiples of that speed. The embattled Rangers holding out at Normandy’s 

Pointe du Hoc witnessed relieving American tanks racing back and forth 

past them several times before the tanks figured out where they actually were 

and made contact. Tankers had a special problem: their mammoth vehicles 

threw off commonly issued magnetic compasses. Indeed, the infantryman’s 

approved solution for using a magnetic compass was to ground his steel 

helmet several yards away. For tankers, the equivalent was to separate from 

one’s vehicle by half a football field. This was not often practical when under 

fire. Evidence concerning how much time troops spent disoriented or lost was 

anecdotal rather than empirical until the National Training Center (NTC) 

began accumulating a continuous record on instrumented exercises. Virtually 

every NTC after-action review featured a discussion of land navigation errors 

or unit disorientations, brief or prolonged. Qualification programs such as the 

Expert Infantryman’s Badge (EIB) or Expert Field Medical Badge (EFMB) 

emphasized land navigation but nevertheless lost a major fraction of their 

candidates to it. Theorists estimated that even in the best units as many as a 

General Hartzog
Kevlar Legions

142

third of the soldiers and weapons never came into play in combat. If improved 

land navigation could halve that figure, this alone would mark a revolution in 

military affairs.3

Where are my buddies? (The Problem)

In previous chapters we discussed the horrors of fratricide and difficulties 

with respect to battle command and battle-space management during Desert 

Storm. These issues were hardly new, of course. Fratricide, or “blue on blue” 

engagement, has been ever-present in war, and ever more vexing as the ranges 

and lethalities of weapons increased. Effective coordination of units and allocation of battle space is essential to the art of war. Knowledge of friendly locations 

is essential both to prevent fratricide and to enable command and control. As 

the twentieth century progressed, elaborate doctrinal protocols developed to 

ensure that commanders knew where subordinate units were—and that units 

each knew where the other was. Leadership down through the platoon level 

carried 1:50,000-scale maps covered with acetate and marked with proliferations of boundaries, phase lines, battle positions, checkpoints, target reference 

points, and routes or axes of multiple genres. These in turn became grist for 

battlefield reporting, first by wire strung along behind advancing columns, and 

then by radio. When moving, subordinates dutifully called in whenever their 

units crossed phase lines or passed checkpoints and advised their bosses when 

they had or lacked intervisibility with other friendly forces. When stationary, 

units submitted reports not less than daily detailing battle positions, contingent 

locations, activities, and logistical status. Responding to reports, officers and 

noncommissioned officers (NCOs) manning command posts updated maps 

with penned icons, pins, or sticky pieces of paper. Often they called back for 

clarification when they had not heard all that was transmitted or something 

did not look right when posted. Communications nets were alive with traffic 

of this sort, given that every headquarters commanded by a field-grade officer 

customarily had a half dozen to a dozen subordinate headquarters reporting to 

it. The cacophony was formidable even when things were going well and could 

become overwhelming when the acetate on someone’s map slipped, it became 

apparent people were working off of different overlays, or some other mishap 

required elaborate descriptions rather than terse commentary. The acting supply 

sergeant lost making a night logistical run, and not particularly good at reading 

a map, was a cultural icon for maneuver training. Hours could be spent talking 

him in, guessing what intersection he was at by his description of it, and drawing 

upon such landmarks as a dead tree leaning on a telephone pole, an open space 

with a herd of cows in it, or where the First Sergeant ran his jeep off the road 

last summer. An additional level of complexity could be achieved when trying to 

bring two small map-challenged contingents together in the dark of night—perhaps, for example, the wingman’s tank that had thrown track and mired deep in 

the woods and the M88 recovery vehicle commanded by a Specialist 4 that was 

riding to the rescue. Huge amounts of radio traffic and supervisory time were 

given over to keeping buddies apprised of each other’s location and activities. 

Commanders got in the habit of driving all of this chatter off of their command 
143

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

net, which they preserved for orderly conversations of which they approved, and 

onto one or more “admin-log” nets. This preserved the equanimity of a few key 

individuals without altering the volume of communications involved. This is not 

to mention the fact that admin-log nets were already busy with reports itemizing 

arrivals, departures, sick calls, maintenance status, resupply plans, and inventories of beans, bullets, repair parts, and the like. One estimate held that operators 

spent 70 percent of their time and effort collecting information and 30 percent 

planning what to do with it. Halving the time given over to collecting information would again in itself mark a revolution in military affairs. It would also be 

helpful if the buddy intervisibility built up on one radio net could be readily 

transferred to another. Historically, it has been challenging for maneuver units 

to keep supporting artillery apprised of their positions, and even more difficult 

to keep the Air Force informed. This accounted for disproportionate amounts 

of fratricide attributed to artillery and air support. It also accounted for the 

tendency of many ground commanders to forgo actual close air support and 

to direct pilots to the opposite sides of a fire support coordination line (FSCL), 

so far away it would be virtually impossible for the pilots to accidentally bomb 

them.4

Where is the enemy? (The Problem)

This, of course, has been the core intelligence requirement since antiquity. 

Ancient armies sent spies and scouts ranging well beyond the mass of their 

troops and fought for information closer in with light troops and cavalry. Every 

era has adapted the technology of its time to provide arrays of alarms, signals, 

and other communications speeding information on the enemy to the leaders 

who would act upon it. The dispersed and camouflaged battlefield of the twentieth century made information harder to find, and the advent of mechanized 

warfare reduced the time available to react. To be useful, intelligence had to be 

timely, accurate, and understandable. Timeliness could be compromised by the 

number of layers through which information had to travel. In ancient times, fleet 

scouts might ride directly to the supreme commander and report their findings. 

In the twentieth century scouts or outposts with eyes on the enemy reported 

through multiple layers of command. Each such transmission of information 

took time, and each presented a unique opportunity for the message to become 

garbled. What was true of information going up was also true of information 

going down. Frontline troops could remain blissfully unaware of alarming news 

that was already available to their senior headquarters. Garbled communications 

degraded the accuracy of intelligence as well as its timeliness. Accuracy could 

be degraded by multiple communications as well. Dispersed outposts reporting 

the same enemy element could create the impression of multiple elements. This 

was particularly likely if the outposts were not altogether sure where they were 

and lacked means to confidently determine the location of the enemy. This is 

not to mention sensory limits to seeing, hearing, smelling, or otherwise detecting 

the enemy in the first place. As information on the enemy accumulated, someone had to sort it out and make sense of it. Ideally, pieces of a puzzle could 

be brought together to reveal a coherent picture of enemy size, organization, 
Kevlar Legions

144

equipment, and capabilities—and perhaps even intentions. Familiarity with the 

enemy’s modus operandi facilitated this gathering of clues. Prisoners from different units captured in the same area could indicate the enemy was concentrating for an attack. Recurrent reports of vehicles moving about in the dark could 

indicate the same thing. Conversely, an unexplained drop in radio traffic could 

indicate the enemy was trying too hard to keep his preparations a secret, relying 

on alternate means of communications to mask his preparations. Commanders 

and their intelligence officers knew they needed to manage the clutter of information coming in and to focus assets on gathering the most noteworthy clues. 

By the 1980s this imperative had developed into the concept of commander’s 

critical intelligence requirements (CCIR). These valuable bits of information 

were to be sought, fought for, and speeded through the reporting system above 

all others. What could the Information Age bring to the timeless cat-and-mouse 

game of intelligence and counterintelligence? That was the intent of General 

Hartzog’s third question.5

The Army’s approach to developing and proofing Information Age technologies in the field was incremental. As we have seen, the modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers harnessed simulations to propose technological developments and 

first experimented with their implications in cyberspace. Results were informative, but not a substitute for testing actual equipment “in the dirt.” In September 

1992 an Inter-Vehicular Information System (IVIS)–equipped M1A2 tank 

platoon accompanied the 1st Cavalry Division to a National Training Center 

rotation. In December 1992 and March 1993 the Mounted Battlespace Battle 

Lab conducted Battlefield Synchronization Demonstrations at the company 

team level at Fort Knox and followed up by deploying an M1A2-equipped 

company team to a National Training Center rotation in July. Operations at 

the company level exposed significant difficulties sustaining communications 

across a mix of vehicles, some of which had the modernized equipment and 

some of which did not. Hastily assembled working groups addressed the phenomena of “Horizontal Technical Integration” (HTI) to ensure interoperability. 

By April 1994 field experimentation progressed to the task force level. The digitally equipped Task Force 1-70 Armor of the 194th Separate Armored Brigade 

(Fort Knox, Kentucky) participated in Desert Hammer VI, a 24th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized) rotation at the National Training Center. By this time it 

had become apparent that practical, in-the-dirt testing was progressing to a level 

beyond that wherein TRADOC could provide a realistic command and control 

overhead. In December 1994 the 2d Armored Division (later redesignated as 

the 4th Infantry Division [Mechanized]) at Fort Hood, Texas, was announced 

as the Army’s Experimental Force (EXFOR) for further digitization. It would 

eventually become the Army’s first digitized division, and its parent III Corps 

the Army’s first digitized corps. The next, and greatest, leap was to fully digitize 

a brigade combat team. A heavy brigade combat team features all branches and 

includes field-grade commands of armor, infantry, artillery, combat service support, and often engineers. Digitization required the installation and proofing of 

almost 5,000 pieces of equipment on over 900 vehicles. Of these pieces of equipment, 1,200 items were appliqué computers—appliqué because Force XXI by 

and large relied on traditional platforms and vehicles. Training and preparations 
145

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

drove toward two AWEs: a digitized 

brigade combat team NTC rotation 

in March 1997 and a follow-on division exercise integrating the digitized 

brigade at Fort Hood in November 

1997. The scope of the experimentation would be huge. The brigade task 

force would test almost a hundred 

discrete innovative concepts, fielding 

eighty-seven different systems to do 

so. More than 1,200 additional contractors and data collectors accompanied the brigade—about one for 

every four soldiers. Wags had it that 

the Army now deployed with as many 

contractors as the Marine Corps did 

with photographers. Be that as it 

may, the configuration represented 

a determined commitment to spiral 

development and to the integrated 

efforts of soldiers and industrial 

representatives in the field. For all 

these additional layers of complexity, 

however, the principal fruits of NTC 

Rotation 97–06 were still assessed 

in terms of General Hartzog’s three 

basic questions.6

Where am I? (The Solution)

Land navigation was being revolutionized by the general introduction of 

satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) technology. The Army hastily 

distributed commercial variants of GPS during Desert Storm, with impressive results. American formations raced across the trackless Iraqi desert with 

elegant precision, falling upon hapless Iraqis who were far more likely to be 

lost in their own country than the invading Americans. The experience was so 

satisfactory that Army procurement officers dropped the notion of “developmental” GPS receivers in favor of “nondevelopmental”—which is to say commercial—receivers instead. They also increased their appetite for such equipment. Original plans called for about 8,000 units, largely for aircraft and selected 

ground users. By the time of NTC Rotation 97–06 procurement plans called for 

94,000 units distributed ubiquitously. During Desert Storm GPS was available to but a few vehicles in a company, and satellite coverage was dangerously 

spotty. Virtually every vehicle in NTC 97–06 had a variant of GPS, and satellite 

coverage was worldwide and full time. The AN/PSN–11 precision lightweight 

GPS receiver (PLGR) could be used mounted or dismounted, and technological 

development was moving in the direction of achieving the same results with an 

Digitization became an important 

component of training in the field.
Kevlar Legions

146

embedded module and then a chip. Maintenance was simple; the direct support 

unit issued the operator a new PLGR and mailed the malfunctioning PLGR 

to the manufacturer. For all its virtues, GPS alone was not an immediate fix 

for all land navigation problems. Operator training was required, and soldiers 

acquired finesse with the equipment as they used it. Ironically, finesse seemed 

to be inversely proportional to age and rank, with the most effective users being 

disproportionately the youngest soldiers. Absent a map, it was not uncommon 

to become disoriented even when one knew one’s location, particularly when 

moving in the dark. This could occur because directions for further movement 

(e.g., “left twenty degrees” or “right thirty degrees”) became more radical as 

one closed on one’s destination. During Desert Storm, for example, one unit 

determined that it was in the right place but did not know what direction it 

was facing. It remedied this situation by calling on its supporting artillery to 

fire an illumination round over a stipulated point—a technique dating from 

World War I. When more GPS receivers were available and with more practice, 

a formation could avoid such disorientation if operators cross-talked and used 

sister vehicles as well as their own GPS as a frame of reference. By the time of 

NTC Rotation 97–06 even better methods were available. Appliqué computers 

featured downloadable digital maps that appeared on the screen and could be 

“zoomed in” or “zoomed out” to achieve different levels of resolution. Icons 

representing one’s own vehicle or PLGR and those of one’s comrades appeared 

on the screen as well. Armed with such information, a capable operator could 

orient on the terrain and his comrades to maintain his orientation at all times. In 

his 1997 update for the Army Green Book, General Hartzog chose to feature the 

proverbial acting supply sergeant speeding along on his resupply mission. The 

soldier was pictured intently perusing the appliqué computer mounted in the 

cab of his 21⁄2-ton truck. The screen of the computer prominently displayed his 

present location and depicted his vehicle and his destination superimposed on a 

topographical map of the terrain that surrounded and separated them. Soldiers 

were creative enough to find new ways of getting lost, but in the presence of 

GPS-derived technology the probability of doing so had become an order of 

magnitude less.7

Where are my buddies? (The Solution)

As we have seen, satellite-based GPS technology enabled each vehicle and 

PLGR to automatically and precisely identify its location at all times. Vehicles 

and PLGRs participating in NTC Rotation 97–06 featured transponders that 

forwarded this information into a shared tactical intranet. Appliqué computers translated this information into a visual representation on an electronic 

topographical map depicting the locations of all similarly equipped platforms. 

Information was updated automatically; transponders self-reported frequently 

enough that depictions remained current. Because of this automatic selfreporting, huge volumes of radio traffic altogether disappeared. The prolonged 

give-and-take of units reporting locations, headquarters confirming locations, 

travelers asking for directions to facilities, and contingents coordinating rendezvous points disappeared from the ether. All that information moved along 
147

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

quietly, effortlessly, and seamlessly on bandwidth other than that being used by 

the radios. We earlier mentioned the rule of the thumb that operators spent 70 

percent of their time collecting information and 30 percent of their time figuring 

out what to do with it. Operations officers committed to NTC Rotation 97–06 

asserted that they had reversed that statistic. The friendly tactical information 

they needed was readily at their disposal, with a minimum of effort. The capacity of the system to self-report logistical information was not yet so mature, concerning which, more later. Tactical Operations Centers (TOCs) were now quieter places and more in the way of planning was getting done. Issues remained. 

Information developed within one electronic network was not yet automatically 

available within another one. Air Force systems could not automatically depict 

Army positions, for example, and horizontal information across Army elements 

was incomplete. The several different batches of data could be packaged, however, and energetic TOC officers improvised ways to share relevant information with counterparts. They also rediscovered that not everyone had to know 

everything to the same level of detail. Their lessons learned would fuel further 

progress with respect to horizontal integration. Perhaps most significantly, easy 

intervisibility reduced the risk of fratricide. Operators knew where units and 

vehicles were with elegant precision. It was harder to keep track of dispersed 

dismounts, since man-packed PLGRs were more difficult to carry about and 

use than the vehicle-borne variety. Proportionately there were fewer PLGRs per 

dismount than there were PLGRs per vehicle, of course. Whatever the residual 

limits, knowledge of friendly locations had made a revolutionary leap forward.8

Where is the enemy? (The Solution)

Some believed that the technology of the Information Age would dissipate the proverbial “fog of war” forever. “Unblinking eyes” aloft in satellites would detect enemy movements and set in train a cycle of monitoring, 

assessment, and destruction that would incapacitate the enemy with little 

risk to friendly forces. Understandably, this line of argument was more 

widely believed in the Air Force than in the Army. Historical experience suggested that determined and adaptive adversaries would find ways to render 

themselves imperfect victims of American technology. Reimer, Hartzog, 

and their colleagues aspired to something less than absolute knowledge and 

pursued “dominant knowledge” instead. If you knew more that mattered 

about your enemies than they knew about you, had a capacity to build up 

useful intelligence more quickly than they did, and could act decisively in 

cycles that outpaced theirs, you could accrue huge—perhaps even revolutionary—advantages. Information can be overwhelming, and Information 

Age technologies had the capacity to serve up streams of data so vast they 

could become incomprehensible. Intelligence is about winnowing as much 

as it is about harvesting. Doctrine calls for overlapping and not entirely 

sequential cycles to plan, prepare, collect, process, and produce intelligence. 

Planning determines what one most wants to know. If you are conducting 

a tank attack, for example, you want to know where the enemy’s antitank 

weapons are. Preparation is positioning assets to gather the information 
Kevlar Legions

148

you most want, and collecting is gathering it. Processing is winnowing and 

establishing relationships, and producing is putting information in a usable 

format in the hands of the commander. In our example of a tank attack, 

a 1:50,000 topographical map depicting enemy antitank weapons would be 

such a product. Although imperfect at the time of NTC Rotation 97–06, the 

networks of computers committed to intelligence that deployed there seemed 

most promising with respect to processing and producing. Digitization significantly increased the pace at which data could be assessed and analyzed, 

and it radically increased the pace at which it could be disseminated. Once 

determined, a common picture of the enemy—generally an electronic map 

of some kind, but often text—arrived at all echelons of command simultaneously with the speed of thought. Means of collection registered advances 

during NTC Rotation 97–06 as well. The Air Defense Artillery matrices of 

sensors, radars, communications links, and automated slew-to-cue Avengers 

showed particularly well. In its first three “battles” the task force shot down 

12 of 16, 17 of 18, and 21 of 28 incoming enemy aircraft. The networked 

integration of sensors aboard Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar 

System (J-STARS) aircraft, helicopters such as the Apache Longbow, and 

ground scouts artfully distributed about the battlefield also collected useful 

data at an unprecedented rate—particularly when enemy vehicles were 

moving in mass. The Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) showed considerable promise, although maintenance and operator proficiency were as 

yet uneven. Information gained by these advanced means came in alongside 

that gathered by such traditional means as visual observation followed up 

by radioed spot reports. In short, revolutionary advances with respect to 

collecting, processing, and producing intelligence seemed within the grasp 

of NTC Rotation 97–06. Planning and preparing for intelligence remained 

more art than science, still leaning most heavily upon the skill and experience 

of intelligence operators.9

The Information Age technologies that tied together the players on the 

battlefield and radically improved the answers to Hartzog’s three questions 

were to be wedded to precise and effective fires to achieve optimal results. 

Thermal sights and other long-term initiatives to “own the night” considerably 

advanced this prospect, as did the precision-guided munitions then available. 

However, the breakthrough that truly redefined the paradigm in this regard 

was not yet apparent at the time of NTC Rotation 97–06. It would be shortly 

thereafter. In March 1997, precision-guided munitions still presented dilemmas with respect to cost-effectiveness. Costs affected inventories available, and 

the depletion of inventories reintroduced reliance on more primitive and less 

accurate munitions. In Desert Storm less than 8 percent of the ordnance 

expended was precision-guided, yet this accounted for 84 percent of the 

cost of ordnance expended. At close ranges such direct-fire systems as the 

M1A1 tank, benefiting from superb computer-facilitated fire controls, fired 

“dumb” munitions with such accuracy that cost-effectiveness was not a problem. During Desert Storm one representative tank battalion fired 168 main 

gun rounds and destroyed 103 armored vehicles, translating into several hundred dollars per vehicle destroyed. At greater ranges precision became more 
149

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

expensive. The Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) cost $400,000 

each. The Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile cost $730,000. The term highvalue target emerged to describe aim points worthy of such pricey munitions. 

Generally such high-value targets were not of much immediate interest to the 

embattled infantryman. In Desert Storm, for example, of about 120,000 

air sorties close to 20,000 were strikes against ground order of battle targets. 

These resulted in about a thousand tanks, personnel carriers, or artillery pieces 

destroyed. Clearly the ground order-of-battle targets were not the priority 

for air sorties and not a priority for the use of precision-guided munitions 

either. Even as NTC Rotation 97–06 progressed, the Air Force and Navy were 

taking delivery on prototype Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits for 

operational testing. These kits added aerodynamic controls, inertial guidance, 

and GPS navigation to “dumb” bombs in such a manner as to convert them 

into precision-guided munitions. The original incentive had been to use GPS 

to overcome the limits imposed by smoke, fog, dust, and rain on munitions 

dependent on infrared, lasers, and other weather-degradable means for terminal guidance. The JDAMs achieved a 95 percent circular error probable (CEP) 

of ten meters or less in the worst of such conditions. Even more remarkably, 

they were cheap. Originally estimated at $40,000 a kit, they were driven under 

$20,000 by the volume of sales and competitive bidding. Within a few years, 

and after further experimentation and training, these precision-guided munitions became practical components of the maneuver battle as it was fought at 

the battalion and brigade level.10

National Training Center Rotation 97–06 was a seminal event in advancing Force XXI and was, as we have discussed, part of a larger continuum of 

experimentation and spiral development “in the dirt.” By the time it occurred, 

General Reimer had declared mission complete for the LAM Task Force and 

reabsorbed its functions back into such traditional agencies as TRADOC and 

the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (ODCSOPS). 

The Army adopted the convention of characterizing Force XXI as the current 

process of transformation and Army XXI as the product that would emerge 

from that process. Army XXI could not emerge all at once; units would phase 

in as time and resources permitted. TRADOC began speaking of “Legacy,” 

“Interim,” and “Objective” forces. Legacy forces were those that then existed, 

less the instrumented Experimental Force. Interim forces would be capable of 

digital command and control and in the process of acquiring a full suite of 

digital equipment but would not yet be complete in that regard. The Objective 

Force would have altogether adopted the Force XXI design. The brigade task 

force of NTC Rotation 97–06 featured prototypes of the appliqué systems that 

were to characterize the Objective Force. The Army aspired to field an Interim 

Division by Fiscal Year (FY) 2000, an Objective Division by FY2003, and 

an Objective Corps slice by FY2006. Success would depend on funding. The 

Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research, Development, and Acquisition, 

Gilbert F. Decker, cautioned of a reduction of the budget within his purview 

from $29 billion in FY1986 to under $11 billion in FY1996. General Reimer 

directed a careful scrub of the funding projected through FY2003 to ascertain 

how realistic the Force XXI goals were. Answers to this question depended 
Kevlar Legions

150

on the battlefield operating system involved. Intelligence had long been a 

player with respect to digitization and was on track to equip a digitized division even prior to FY2000. Its linchpin All Source Analysis System (ASAS) 

had been robustly funded since 1984, was well along, and seemed capable of 

quickly integrating such new technologies as the Remote Battlefield Sensor 

System (REMBASS), tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (TUAV), and the 

integrated meteorological system (IMETS). Air Defense was not far behind. 

The sophisticated Patriot and Avenger air defense systems had been fielded in 

the 1980s and improved since, and the Forward Area Air Defense Command 

and Control (FAADC2) system had successfully weathered considerable 

testing. The air defenders did have their hearts set on getting their Stinger 

antiaircraft missile teams into the technologically advanced Bradley Stinger 

Fighting Vehicle–Enhanced (BSFV-E), and success in this regard depended 

on the supply of and priorities for Bradleys. Artillerymen similarly were in 

a competition for Bradleys for their fire support teams (FISTs) and had tied 

modernization plans to the not yet developed and fielded Crusader 155-mm. 

self-propelled howitzer. On the plus side, the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical 

Data System (AFATDS) was well advanced and robustly funded. It would 

field a division equivalent prior to FY2000 and benefited from predecessor 

systems in automatically managing data and providing fire support solutions. 

Command and control and logistics were patchy, dependent on fielding over 

a dozen systems each at the division level to achieve Force XXI objectives. Of 

these, some, such as the frequency-jumping (and thus more difficult to jam) 

Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System–System Improvement 

Program (SINCGARS-SIP), were already in the field and demonstrably successful. Others, such as a wireless local area network (LAN), were yet to be 

perfected. Some command and control and logistics systems were projected as 

available in division equivalent sets beyond FY2006, if then. Predictably, the 

greatest gap between Force XXI objectives and projected resources was with 

respect to the maneuver arms of armor and infantry and their supporting 

engineers. M1A2 tanks and appliquéd M2/M3A3 Bradleys were to be numerous and expensive in the Objective Force, as were swarms of vehicles that 

would directly support them. The Battlefield Combat Identification System 

(BCIS) was experiencing significant developmental problems, as previously 

discussed, and the Future Scout and Cavalry System (FSCS) depended on 

advanced technologies and accompanying robotics that seemed appreciably 

beyond the FY2006 horizon. Upgraded AH64–D Apache attack and OH58–D 

Kiowa Warrior armed reconnaissance helicopters were on hand, funded, and 

performing well, but the RAH–66 Comanche intended for the next generation 

was slipping to the right with respect to development. As is so often the case, 

the prospects for Force XXI generating Army XXI boiled down to money. 

NTC Rotation 97–06 demonstrated potentially revolutionary technologies in 

the hands of an organization well on the way to mastering them. The brigade 

involved was but a tiny fragment of the Army, however, and even a division 

would be but one in ten in the active Army. Were there to be a revolution 

in military affairs, it would ultimately require mass. The architects of Army 

transformation continued to wrestle with two distinct but related questions. 
151

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

How quickly could a consequential inventory of “Objective Force” units be 

fielded? How quickly could technologies and techniques developed in the 

EXFOR migrate into the “Legacy Force,” and would they be affordable and 

helpful if they did?11

Contingencies

Deployments overseas continued to escalate during General Reimer’s 

tenure, in accordance with the shape-prepare-respond grand strategy of the 

Clinton administration and for about the same reasons that underlay the escalation during General Sullivan’s tenure. In FY1996 an average of 21,500 soldiers were operationally deployed away from home station on any given day. 

By FY1999 this figure rose to 31,000. The elaborately executed “commuter 

containment” of Saddam Hussein continued, as did more traditional engagement and deterrence throughout the remainder of the Middle East, Asia, and 

the Pacific. Army capabilities continued to be tapped for military support to 

civilian authority, particularly in circumstances wherein nonmilitary assets 

could not come into play quickly or cheaply. Peacekeeping in the aftermath 

of wars in the Balkans drove the Army’s deployed manpower to new highs. 

Ironically, these very peacekeeping missions proved to be part of a larger 

framework that enabled the United States and its allies to consolidate success 

in the Cold War. Commitments overseas furthered evolutionary processes in 

venues as different as service lifestyle, expectations of the reserve component, 

and prospective force structure.12

Intrinsic Action 95–3, discussed in the previous chapter, was but one 

in a sequence of deployments intended to contain Saddam Hussein. Indeed, 

Intrinsic Action 95–3 tucked into the more expansive Joint Operation 

Vigilant Sentinel (August–December 1995), which itself was a successor to 

Joint Operation Vigilant Warrior (October–December 1994). In both cases 

political perturbations provoked Saddam to rail against his neighbors, and 

deployments of American ground forces provided precautionary deterrence. 

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and neighboring friendly states were loathe to 

host permanent American presences of significant size, so tiny American cadres 

in country coordinated the comings and goings of larger contingents and units. 

In August 1996 Saddam Hussein intervened in internal Kurdish fighting and 

seized the city of Irbil, allegedly on the behalf of the Kurdistan Democratic 

Party (KDP). This was an alarming intrusion into territories north of the 36th 

Parallel that had been protected by Operation Provide Comfort II since 1991. 

Within a few days the United States Navy and Air Force rained cruise missiles 

on Iraqi high-value targets in Joint Operation Desert Strike, prompting an 

Iraqi withdrawal. Concerned that the Iraqis might retaliate against facilities in 

Kuwait, particularly since some aircraft involved in the strike had been based 

there, the Joint Staff hurriedly deployed yet another brigade combat team 

onto the pre-positioned equipment at Doha. About this time Kuwait agreed 

to a near-continuous presence of American brigade combat teams, as long as 

each stayed for only a few months and participated in clearly distinct, albeit 

rotational, training exercises. The Saudis agreed to the continuous presence of 
Kevlar Legions

152

Patriot air defense battalions on about the same terms. A devastating terrorist 

attack on troops housed in the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killed nineteen U.S. airmen. This prompted redeployment to more isolated sites and the 

rotational presence of an infantry battalion, labeled Desert Focus, to secure 

U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia. The Iraqis became increasingly restive, firing at 

planes enforcing the no-fly zones of Operation Southern Watch and the 

newly instituted Operation Northern Watch (initiated on 1 January 1997 

as the follow-on to Provide Comfort II), refusing to cooperate with United 

Nations inspectors enforcing Gulf War sanctions against weapons of mass 

destruction, and threatening further havoc. Allied planes retaliated when fired 

upon, methodically debilitating Iraqi air defenses. One crisis followed another. 

Throughout most of 1998 Operation Desert Thunder provided a readily 

reinforcible shield to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the face of continuous saber 

rattling. In August 1998 terrorist bombings of the American embassies in 

Kenya and Tanzania provoked Operation Infinite Reach, missile strikes into 

Afghanistan and the Sudan. Shortly thereafter the United States and United 

Kingdom conducted Operation Desert Fox, a four-day bombing campaign 

to degrade potential Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities Saddam had 

rendered inaccessible to United Nations inspectors. Although these retaliatory 

and preemptive strikes were conducted by naval and air forces, Iraqi counterstrikes were likely to be on the ground. The visible presence of American 

troops preempted that threat. Army pre-positioned capabilities expanded 

from a heavy brigade to a heavy division in or proximate to the Persian Gulf 

during this period. In addition to the brigade set already in Kuwait, another 

brigade set went into Qatar, and Army War Reserve–3 (AWR-3) (afloat) was 

configured as a brigade set as well. Containing Iraq had matured into continuous rounds of operational deployments.13

The containment of Saddam Hussein was dynamic, altering to accommodate his bizarre yet threatening behavior. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Asia, 

and the Pacific, somewhat more routine, but no less important, deployments 

added to the operational tempo. North Korea seemed a particularly dangerous Cold War relic. The collapse of the Soviet Union and progressive economic developments in China degraded the enthusiasm of traditional props 

for the repressive and parasitic regime. The North Korean economy shrank to 

the point that malnutrition was significant, defections to South Korea rose, 

flight into China soared, and medicine was in perilously short supply. The 

North Korean economy shrank to one-twentieth the size of the prosperous 

South’s, yet the North Koreans continued to maintain a huge army, train it 

rigorously, and gave evidence of nuclear ambitions. The death of Kim Il Sung 

and the succession of his son Kim Jong Il improved nothing, and the possibility existed that a desperate North Korean military bureaucracy might lash out 

before it collapsed altogether. The American response was steady and visible 

support to its South Korean ally, including recurrent annual deployments from 

outside the theater. Exercise Ulchi Focus Lens annually exercised command 

and control, rehearsed campaign plans, and conducted selected operations 

from the theater through the tactical level. Exercise Foal Eagle annually 

exercised mobilization, special operations, and rear area security. In FY1999 
153

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

Foal Eagle involved 500,000 personnel, of whom 5 percent were Americans. 

Annual reception, staging, onward movement, and integration (RSO&I) exercises tested the ability of units to quickly fall in upon equipment pre-positioned 

in Korea. Exercises Balikatan in the Philippines, Cobra Gold in Thailand, 

and Bright Star in Egypt similarly demonstrated commitment to regional 

allies on a recurrent basis, as did a fistful of other bilateral and multilateral 

exercises scheduled less frequently. United States Army, Pacific (USARPAC), 

pursued an “expanded relations program” providing an umbrella for a wide 

variety of essentially bilateral exercises tailored to the interests and sensitivities of individual friendly armies. In some cases these were training for conventional operations, in other cases for demining, medical assistance, seminars, 

personnel exchanges, and so on. Although generally small, these investments 

did add up. In FY1995, for example, the expanded relations program deployed 

over 8,000 soldiers to twenty-six countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region. 

Another figure adding to overall totals was the thousand soldiers sustained in 

the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) Sinai, discussed earlier.14

Military support to civilian authority remained a significant incentive for 

deployments overseas and within the United States. Ten thousand soldiers 

were deployed to support the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Operation 

Safe Haven in support of Cuban refugees, discussed in the previous chapter, continued into this period, as did humanitarian relief efforts associated 

with operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti. In April 1996 soldiers from 

the Southern European Task Force (SETAF) deployed in Joint Operation 

Assured Response to rescue Americans and third-country nationals from 

factional fighting in Liberia. During FY1997 Operation Pacific Haven facilitated the evacuation and relocation of 6,000 Kurdish refugees particularly at 

risk in their own country. During this same period the Army supported the 

somewhat bizarre Task Force Marathon Pacific, whereby illegal immigrants 

from China were intercepted in the Atlantic Ocean, cared for and processed 

at Wake Island in the Pacific, and then repatriated. Throughout General 

Reimer’s tenure joint exercises such as Trade Winds and New Horizons

provided a framework through which to engage Latin American armies and 

funnel humanitarian assistance into their region. The National Guard and 

Army Reserve proved particularly active, visible, and suitable in these Latin 

American exercises. Engineer, medical, civil affairs, and other combat service support units rotated past each other in active-duty training that left 

behind a legacy of new schools, paved roads, medical services, and community support. U.S. Army, South’s tiny contingent of three thousand soldiers 

and two thousand civilians was thus reinforced annually by 25,000 from the 

reserve component. This effort spiked in commitment and effectiveness after 

Hurricane Mitch, one of the most powerful storms on record, savaged the 

Caribbean and Central America during the fall of 1998. Over ten thousand 

were killed, over two million left homeless, and half the paved roads in the 

path of the hurricane ruined. New Horizons participation surged to sustain 

two thousand soldiers committed at a time for months. Fifty-four separate 

medical exercises tended to 248,000 people and 30,000 animals. This excitement and effort incidentally eclipsed preparations for a historical watershed 
Kevlar Legions

154

within the region, the transfer of properties associated with the Panama Canal 

to the Panamanian government by 31 December 1999. Latin America was the 

principal setting for another genre of support to civilian authority, the “war” 

on drugs. Army aviators provided surveillance along the Mexican border and 

in the Caribbean. Within the United States Reconnaissance and Interdiction 

Detachments (RAIDs) based in thirty-one states supported law enforcement 

officers with state-of-the-art OH–58 reconnaissance helicopters. The National 

Guard averaged three thousand soldiers a week committed to counterdrug 

efforts as varied as surveillance, barrier construction, intelligence analysis, and 

canine support. This was in addition to the two hundred thousand man-days 

Guardsmen averaged in support of their own governors and states, generally 

in the course of disaster relief. Out of this broad portfolio of operations and 

commitments, few were particularly military in their genesis or in their essence. 

All made use of the Army as an organized reservoir of trained manpower. 

Collectively considered, they significantly drove up the operational tempo of 

troops deployed.15

Operations in the Balkans dominated as a source of escalating deployments 

during General Reimer’s tenure. We discussed the breakup of Yugoslavia in 

earlier chapters and the ineffectiveness of the United Nations Protection Force 

(UNPROFOR) in bringing peace to war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina. The North 

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and its member the United States, 

found itself increasingly drawn into efforts to curb violence and arrest aggressive “ethnic cleansing,” perpetrated most visibly by the Serbs. In August 1995 a 

particularly egregious mortar round lobbed into a Sarajevo market place provoked a 3,500-sortie NATO air campaign that broke the Serbian siege of that 

city. About the same time Croatians and Bosnian Muslims, evidently benefiting 

from outside assistance, began driving back the theretofore successful Bosnian 

Serbs on the ground. These reversals brought Serbian strongman Slobodan 

Milosevic to the conference table. Military provisions of the resultant Dayton 

Accords stipulated a NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) that would 

ensure compliance with the cease-fire, separation of forces, collection of heavy 

weapons into agreed cantonments, the safe withdrawal (or transfer to NATO 

control) of United Nations forces, and NATO control of Bosnian airspace. 

Mindful of how quickly the underarmed UNPROFOR had been cowed by the 

Serbs, NATO dispatched a heavily armed and armored force of sixty thousand, 

of whom about a third were Americans. Built up around the German-based 

1st Armored Division, the American contingent deployed overland through 

an intermediate staging base in Taszar, Hungary, to assume responsibility for 

the northern third of Bosnia-Herzegovina, headquartered at Tuzla. En route 

the Americans conducted a challenging late December pontoon bridging 

operation to get across the unseasonably swollen Sava River. Once deployed, 

IFOR accomplished its immediate military objectives fairly readily. The belligerents were war weary, and the military capabilities of the deployed NATO 

forces impressive. Energetic mounted and dismounted patrolling generated 

around-the-clock surveillance, zones of separation were emptied of opposing forces, and the cease-fire held. The former warring factions attempted to 

cheat with respect to accounting for heavy weapons, but NATO persistence 
155

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

brought them under inspection and under control. Profligate wartime use of 

land mines—perhaps more than 750,000 throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina—

had created huge hazards for soldiers and civilians alike. IFOR, contractors, 

and the former belligerents pecked away at clearing these as years-long projects. The routine of patrols, collateral training, and camp life was occasionally 

punctuated by spikes of violence, particularly when members of one ethnic 

group attempted to assert their freedom of movement through the territory of 

another, or to reclaim property lost in the fighting. Demonstrators could be 

media savvy, busing in “rent-a-mobs” when they particularly wanted to underscore a point. The American soldiers worked through all of this with patience, 

discipline, and imagination. Houses were rebuilt some, refugees resettled, elections held, and economic initiatives launched. Progress did not include much 

actual cooperation among the former warring parties, however. The results 

of ethnic cleansing by and large held, and the ethnic groups lived separated 

from each other by zones policed by NATO-led soldiers. Interplay between 

the groups was generally brokered by outsiders. This fragmented peace was 

infinitely preferable to what had gone before. In December 1996 IFOR transitioned to become the Stabilization Force (SFOR). Conditions had improved 

sufficiently that the force structure halved to about thirty thousand. The mission continued through 2004, when responsibility transferred from NATO to 

U.S. soldiers patrolling in Donja Dubrava, Bosnia-Herzegovina, April 1997
Kevlar Legions

156

the European Union (EU). The forces deployed steadily diminished, but a 

respectable international presence remained necessary. From December 1995 

through December 1996 the project in Bosnia-Herzegovina was labeled Joint 

Endeavor, from December 1996 through June 1998 Joint Guard, and from 

June 1998 through November 2004 Joint Forge.

16

Even as circumstances settled into an acceptable routine in BosniaHerzegovina, they spiraled out of control in nearby Kosovo. The root causes 

were Serbian determination to maintain control over a province that was now 

demographically 90 percent Albanian, and violent Albanian resistance to that 

domination. A shadowy Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) waged sporadic 

guerrilla warfare within the province, and the Serbs responded with occasionally stunning brutality. NATO-brokered peace talks at Rambouillet, France, 

broke down on 19 March 1999, when the Serbs refused to accept NATO 

peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. On 20 March heavily armed and armored 

Serbian forces launched a massive terror campaign that clearly had been under 

preparation for some time. They systematically ravaged towns and villages 

in an orgy of arson, mayhem, murder, and rape. Their intention was ethnic 

cleansing on a scale that would dwarf that of Bosnia-Herzegovina, reversing 

Kosovo’s demographic profile into an overwhelming Serbian majority. Soon 

thousands of Albanian Kosovars were dead and tens of thousands fleeing 

into the mountains or nearby Albania and Macedonia. The United Nations 

mounted a gigantic humanitarian relief effort, while NATO resolved to punish 

the defiant Serbs from the air. The Kosovo Air Campaign lasted seventy-eight 

days and launched 38,000 sorties, of which 60 percent were American. It featured the first general use of JDAMs, and these now cheaper precision-guided 

munitions accounted for 35 percent of the overall NATO strikes. An ineffectual 

asymmetry dominated the first half of the fighting, with NATO planes demolishing strategic targets in Serbia while artfully camouflaged Serbs terrorized 

Albanian Kosovars without much impediment. NATO had forgone a ground 

option other than the controversial Task Force Hawk, concerning which, more 

later. Eventually the KLA became effective enough to fill this empty space, 

forcing the Serbs to concentrate and facilitating air and missile strikes upon 

them with timely intelligence. NATO effectiveness shot up from sixty armored 

vehicles destroyed in the first sixty days of the air campaign to 350 destroyed 

in the two weeks after effective synergy with the KLA had been achieved. The 

Serbs capitulated and withdrew their forces from Kosovo, closely followed by 

NATO peacekeepers coming in behind them. The United States contingent 

numbered about seven thousand and assumed responsibility for one of five 

national sectors into which the province had been divided. Ironically, the 

lion’s share of that effort went to protecting remnant Serbian civilians from 

vengeful returning Albanian refugees—who generally regarded the Americans 

as liberators. The situation was complicated by rampant smuggling and lawlessness—unless clan mores qualify as law—and by the ambitions of some 

Albanian militants concerning immediate independence and expansion into 

ethnic Albanian holdings in Macedonia. Unlike Bosnia-Herzegovina, there 

were no effective zones of separation, and the demographics were so lopsided 

the resident Serbs had little capacity for self-defense except in the far north. 
157

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

Resettlement of the Albanian refugees progressed tolerably well, inversely 

mirrored by the migration of embittered Serbs from much of the province. 

Violence, horrific at first, did decline over time, in part because of NATO’s 

surer grip and in part because of the gradual removal of ethnic Serbs as a 

target. NATO soldiers undoubtedly saved thousands of lives that otherwise 

would have been lost in factional fighting, while softening the de facto ethnic 

cantonization that did occur.17

Operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo were creditable peacemaking and peacekeeping efforts in their own right. They also offered 

unprecedented opportunities for constructive engagement with soldiers of the 

former Warsaw Pact. The thirty-two nations represented in IFOR, for example, included Albanians, Austrians, Czechs, Estonians, Finns, Hungarians, 

Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Swedes, and Ukrainians. 

Whatever the fate of several million Bosnians and Kosovars, the paths followed by the hundreds of millions of citizens these soldiers represented would 

be far more consequential to the interests of the United States. The Cold War 

could not be considered successfully resolved unless democratic governance, 

civil rights, respect for private property, military deference to civilian authority, and the peaceful resolution of disputes were habitual throughout most 

or all of the former Warsaw Pact. As we have mentioned before, this was no 

sure thing. In the euphoria of 1989 a number of Eastern European nationalists assumed power politics alone would catapult them into alliances with 

a NATO eager to press its advantage and secure its frontiers. NATO took 

a different view, stipulating that aspirants would have to prove themselves 

worthy of membership. Within the military realm this included dismantling 

conscription-driven state-dominating military machines, deference to civilian 

authority, transparency in planning and expenditure, interoperability with 

NATO forces, and forswearing force to resolve border and other disputes. 

NATO did not want to alarm Russia by moving too quickly and certainly 

did not want to inherit such ancient border quarrels as Hungarian claims to 

Vojvodina or in the Carpathians. Partnership for Peace (PfP) offered a robust 

menu of training, education, and exchange opportunities that intermingled 

soldiers from NATO and NATO aspirant nations. The training became even 

more energetic and relevant as peacekeeping exercises prepared soldiers for 

actual peacekeeping operations. At higher echelons the PfP Planning and 

Review Process (PARP) grounded aspirants in transparent defense planning 

while helping them redesign forces compatible with those of NATO and the 

new security environment. Reluctantly at first, and then with more confidence 

and enthusiasm, senior delegations from NATO aspirants detailed force 

structure plans to NATO counterparts and to representatives from other aspirants. Preconditions for these talks included parliamentary oversight, public 

accountability, and the rejection of territorial claims beyond one’s borders. 

Wags had it that PfP stood for “policy for postponement” or “partnership 

for procrastination,” but sometimes ponderous processes of engagement did 

move in the right direction. Force structure came down, conscription relaxed, 

parliamentary leaders acquired a grip, and younger Western-oriented military leaders rose to the top. Forces actively training or operating with NATO 
Kevlar Legions

158

were particularly likely to be professionalized, volunteer, and be upgraded 

with respect to equipment and organization. They constituted an elite that 

served as an example to others and provided cadres from which future leaders 

could be drawn. Overwhelmingly their interface with the West was through 

the American soldier and his NATO counterparts. The non-Soviet Warsaw 

Pact militaries had been heavily ground centric, and the practical demands 

of peacekeeping were ground centric as well. It was no exaggeration for the 

United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), commander to refer to his soldiers 

as “our ambassadors for democracy,” a notion that fit in well with Reimer’s 

“soldiers are our credentials.” On 12 March 1999, Poland, Hungary, and the 

Czech Republic were admitted into NATO, an opportunity they had earned. 

They were different nations than they had been ten years before, served by even 

more different military establishments. A dozen other nations demonstrated 

similar interest and were somewhere along the path behind them. The Cold 

War only seemed to have been over in an instant. Turning apparent triumph 

into long-term success was an arduous process.18

Accelerating operational tempo continued to have a transformative effect 

on the Army as it further adapted to an expeditionary posture. Initiatives 

with respect to deployment infrastructure, pre-positioned equipment, sealift, 

and airlift that had begun during Sullivan’s tenure continued into Reimer’s. 

Notions of “home stationing” began to take root as well. Throughout the 

Cold War personnel managers had avoided “homesteading,” the sending of 

career soldiers to recurrent assignments in the same place. They needed to 

spread overseas and hardship assignments equably across the force and further 

argued that variety in jobs and geographical locations provided a breadth of 

professional experience. This was unlike practice in the Navy, which concentrated job opportunities in a relatively few mega-bases and tended to leave 

families in one place while their sponsors deployed and moved through various career positions. The difference can be illustrated by a 1991 conversation 

between an Army wife and a Navy wife when their husbands were attending 

the Naval War College. The Army wife said she felt sorry for the Navy wife, 

since her husband had spent so much of his career deployed at sea. The Navy 

wife replied that she felt sorry for the Army wife because her Army husband 

had dragged her all over the world to set up house in a variety of isolated 

“dumps,” whereas wherever her own Navy husband was ashore or afloat, at 

least she and her children were comfortably settled in San Diego. She might 

also have added that stability was ever more important to spouses as an increasing percentage worked outside the home. The Army was subtly shifting toward 

the Navy paradigm. Downsizing, base realignment and closures (BRAC), and 

withdrawal of forces from Europe closed well over a hundred bases and facilities. The precipitous drop in overseas tours (as opposed to overseas deployments) eliminated one of the principal arguments against homesteading. 

Expeditionary contingents flowed out of such growing mega-bases as Fort 

Bragg or Fort Hood, rightly recognized as where career opportunities increasingly resided. Conscious that the Army needed to recruit and retain families 

as well as soldiers, in 1996 Congress passed the Military Housing Privatization 

Initiative (MHPI), intended to eliminate inadequate housing. It featured an 
159

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

aggressive privatization program to attract private-sector capital to build, 

manage, and maintain on-post housing. Soldiers would be allowed to use 

their Basic Allowance for Housing to rent such housing. Significant advances 

also continued with respect to child care, vital if two spouses were working. 

By 2000 95 percent of all military child-care centers were accredited by the 

National Association for the Education of Young Children, as compared to 8 

percent nationwide. This was in sharp contrast to the 70 percent that did not 

even meet fire and safety codes two decades before and in part underscored the 

advantages of consolidating facilities. About this time a survey established that 

whereas 62 percent of spouses were satisfied with their housing, this included 

51 percent of those renting, about 55 percent of those in government housing, 

and a whopping 92 percent of those who had bought their own homes off 

post—most of whom had used their housing allowances to make payments. 

Clearly this was yet another argument for sufficient stability to plant roots 

in local communities. TRICARE, a program of medical coverage subsidizing 

access to civilian health-care facilities enacted in 1994 and implemented by 

1997, further supported the notion of living off post. Home stationing was not 

yet official policy, but Army families were informally positioning themselves 

for stability amid recurrent deployments.19

The Army Staff and staffs of subordinate headquarters attempted to track 

and control deployment tempo (DEPTEMPO) in order to spread the load 

across the force, sustain morale, and encourage retention. In 1997 General 

Reimer established a DEPTEMPO goal of not more than 120 days per unit 

per year, with the days at issue being those wherein a soldier did not sleep 

at his home station in his “own bunk.” In this he was staunchly supported 

by Secretary of the Army Togo D. West Jr., whose mantra was “doing right 

by soldiers” throughout his tenure. West went on to serve as the Secretary 

of Veterans Affairs. DEPTEMPO included local training, training off the 

installation, joint exercises, and operational deployments. A factor driving up 

DEPTEMPO was specialized training in anticipation of a specific operation 

or deployment, followed by more general “warfighting” training on a unit’s 

return to regain combat skills that might have atrophied. Units deploying to 

Bosnia, for example, spent weeks on and off post training extensively with 

respect to patrolling, crowd control, manning checkpoints, mine detection and 

clearance, civil military operations, and related subjects. This time was generally well spent; many soldiers commented on the extent to which the training 

paralleled their actual Balkan experiences. Upon their return, however, they 

would inevitably be less prepared for conventional wartime missions. This 

precipitated a spate of gunnery and maneuver training to refurbish eroded 

skills. Reimer understood these mechanics and that it would be impossible 

to stay beneath his goal in all cases, but he did stipulate that DEPTEMPO 

transcending 180 days would require his personal approval, unit by unit. Of 

1,462 reporting units, 126 (8.6 percent) exceeded the 120-day limit and 54 

(3.7 percent) exceeded the 180-day limit. The DEPTEMPO tracking system 

proved imperfect, but it did mark a dramatic advance in the Army’s capability 

to manage the personal consequences of escalating contingencies. Attention 

to these statistics did expose an aspect of DEPTEMPO that had previously 
Kevlar Legions

160

gone under-noticed, the disproportionate share borne by officers and senior 

NCOs. The issue was illustrated by a staff snit between Supreme Headquarters 

Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and USAREUR. Evoking Reimer’s guidance, 

USAREUR proposed to reduce its annual commitment to NATO exercises 

from 57,744 man-days to 24,575, its commitment to bilateral exercises from 

15,544 to 12,399, and its commitment to Partnership for Peace from 10,633 to 

10,068. For the same period, it proposed to leave its internal Army programs 

of exercises and training unchanged at 1,031,028 man-days, and anticipated 

no change in its mission to commit approximately 978,925 man-days to operational deployments. SHAPE protested that the National Military Strategy was 

shape (i.e., engage allies and potential allies), prepare (e.g., train), and respond 

(i.e., deploy on actual operations). USAREUR’s proposal would commit a 

mere 2.2 percent of its effort to shaping, whereas 50.5 percent would go to 

preparing and 47 percent to responding. USAREUR responded that the mandays committed to operational deployments were beyond its control, the mandays committed to Army exercises and training were overwhelmingly those 

of soldiers of junior rank, and the man-days committed to NATO, bilaterals, and Partnership for Peace disproportionately required officers and senior 

NCOs by a wide margin. Since these same officers and NCOs had to lead their 

units in training and, when deployed, some relief was necessary to keep the 

DEPTEMPO of these particular individuals within acceptable limits. A negotiated solution resolved the immediate priorities of the two headquarters, but 

the exchange underscored a phenomenon of the new era. Officers still serving 

could remember the damage done when recurrent tours to Vietnam coupled 

with training demands elsewhere and inadequate family support discouraged 

the reenlistment of mid-term NCOs and the retention of junior officers. This 

caused units to be under-led at the most basic level. No one wanted to repeat 

that experience.20

Fortuitously, the continuing transformation of the reserve component 

enabled it to offset an increasing fraction of the active component’s commitments, to include those that were leadership-intensive. We have already 

mentioned the extent to which the reserve component carried the weight with 

respect to deployments in Latin America, supported such regional initiatives as the war on drugs, and was heavily represented in deployments from 

Desert Shield on. With statistics such as 97 percent of the Total Army’s 

civil affairs and 86 percent of its psychological operations capabilities being 

Army Reserve, or 70 percent of its field artillery being National Guard, such a 

heavy representation was inevitable. Overall 52 percent of the Army was in the 

reserve component during this period, a statistic that accorded with funding 

available. With respect to leadership-intensive exercises such as Partnership 

for Peace or NATO bilaterals, one reason they were leadership-intensive is 

that they were often command post exercises (CPXs) wherein headquarters 

participated full up but maneuver units were simulated by computer. They 

might also be exchange visits involving key personnel for limited periods. Such 

exercises were of limited duration and could be worked into the annual rhythm 

of the reserve component. Indeed, an initiative pairing American states with 

nations newly independent of the Warsaw Pact seemed ideal for the low-key 
161

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

junior leader engagement Partnership for Peace envisioned. Some pairings 

evoked historical patterns of immigration, others reflected geographical 

similarities, some were matters of choice, and a few were near comical marriages of opposites—but all took pressure off of the active component while 

allowing America’s citizen-soldiers to represent democracy abroad. Alabama 

paired with Romania, Arizona with Kazakhstan, California with the Ukraine, 

Colorado with Slovenia, Georgia with Georgia, Illinois with Poland, Indiana 

with Slovakia, Louisiana with Uzbekistan, Maryland with Estonia, Michigan 

with Latvia, Minnesota with Croatia, Montana with Kyrgyzstan, Nevada 

with Turkmenistan, North Carolina with Moldova, Ohio with Hungary, 

Pennsylvania with Lithuania, South Carolina with Albania, Tennessee with 

Bulgaria, Texas with the Czech Republic, Utah with Belarus, and Vermont 

with Macedonia. Adding together participation in such exercises, training and 

operational deployments led to impressive totals. In 1987 the National Guard 

logged 143,000 man-days of federal service, whereas in 1997 it logged in 3.6 

million. This is not to mention its own internal training or support to state 

governors. The Army Reserve offset 5.8 million active-component man-days 

in 1996 alone. As a frame of reference, the previously discussed row between 

SHAPE and USAREUR had been over an exercise and deployment regime 

that totaled about two million man-days. Offsetting active-component mandays drew the reserve component ever more closely into the daily workings of 

the Army. Garrison Support Units (GSUs), for example, backfilled deploying active-component units by providing the installations they had departed 

from such support as transportation, supply, or medical services. An associate 

transportation company (ATC) was a “truckless truck company” whose soldiers fell in on the vehicles left behind when active-duty counterparts deployed 

to fall in on pre-positioned equipment overseas. The option existed to deploy 

this company as well, perhaps accompanied by newly acquired equipment, 

at some later point. In 1995 the National Guard activated the Operational 

Support Airlift Command (OSACOM), which took responsibility for all 

Army airlift support missions within the continental United States, whether 

active or reserve. Further examples abound. Downsizing and multiplying 

deployments forced the Army into greater reliance on the reserve component, 

both as troops and units deploying for full tours, and through imaginative uses 

of their skills and services for periods that better fit customary annual cycles. 

The reserve component in turn sharpened its ability to provide such support 

and evolved ever more effective integration with the active component.21

The continuing escalation of contingencies overseas drew the Army 

into diverse geographical and operational environments. It contained Iraq, 

engaged allies and potential allies, kept the peace, consolidated the aftermath 

of the Cold War, and served the country in other ways. The Army continued 

its transformation toward a more expeditionary posture. Units, installations, 

and families further adapted to rhythms of deployment and developed coping 

mechanisms that would see them through. The Army experimented with various means of controlling its deployment tempo in order to sustain morale and 

reenlistment and collaterally identified the internal segments of its population 

most roughly used. The National Guard and Army Reserve came forward to 
Kevlar Legions

162

relieve pressure, employing techniques both traditional and innovative. In the 

process the active component and reserve component became more integrated 

and interdependent, one seldom deploying in the absence of the other. These 

adaptive processes were valuable at the time and would prove even more critical in days that were to come. 

The Quadrennial Defense Review . . . and Related Subjects

Although the Goldwater-Nichols Act was signed into law in 1986, it took 

ten years to evolve processes to synchronize service and defense efforts in the 

pursuit of a post–Cold War force structure. As we have seen, the first initiative anticipating post–Cold War downsizing, Project ANTAEUS, was a secretive Army effort to stay conceptually ahead of budget cuts. General Colin 

L. Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, followed shortly with his 

own “Base Force” study. Base Force deliberations were largely confined to the 

Joint Staff, relied upon somewhat simplistic analysis, and came to recommend 

proportional budget cuts without much in the way of restructuring, redesign, 

or fiscal reapportionment. The results went in the direction ANTAEUS had 

anticipated but at an accelerated pace. The Army paralleled the Base Force with 

QUICKSILVER (applying to deployable units) and VANGUARD (applying 

to the institutional Army), efforts to keep in front of cuts mandated by the 

Joint Staff and Congress with an orderly program of downsizing. About this 

time the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) conducted studies of its 

own, including a detailed Defense Management Review (DMR). The DMR 

focused on overlaps and inefficiencies among major headquarters and agencies and resulted in little that directly applied to the deployable Army. All of 

these initiatives were effectively suspended by Desert Shield and Desert 

Storm and had not regained much traction before the political campaigning 

season that led to a change of administrations. Incoming President William 

J. Clinton’s new Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, undertook a “Bottom-Up 

Review” (BUR). This creditably integrated Secretariat, Joint Staff, and service representatives into standing committees addressing major topic areas. 

It proposed a two major regional contingency (MRC) grand strategy—Iraq 

and Korea, for example—as its premise. That strategy provoked debate with 

respect to credibility as deliberations progressed. More damaging, analytic 

underpinnings were spotty, with each service pressing its own metrics without appropriate referees or agreed joint doctrine. Results seemed to reflect the 

leverage of various defense programs in Congress more so than military thinking per se. This seemed understandable, given the large overlap between the 

BUR studies and those done by congressional staffers to support Aspin in his 

previous role as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Finally, 

results were in part compromised when Secretary Aspin assumed responsibility for failing to send armor when needed to Somalia and departed ingloriously. Shortly thereafter a congressionally mandated Commission on Roles 

and Missions (CORM) conducted a review of efficiencies, overlaps, and effectiveness within the defense establishment and made a number of recommendations. The services and Joint Staff were only marginally involved and noted 
163

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

the commission’s recommendations more so than embraced them. Decisions 

made by OSD and the Joint Staff during this period provided a framework 

within which the Army downsized, reduced its forward presence, and shifted 

to an expeditionary posture. These did not originate from a systematic defense 

establishment or Department of Defense decision-making process, however.22

Congress had taken note of these various efforts but was dissatisfied with 

post–Cold War defense transformation to that point. It directed a “comprehensive examination of the defense strategy, force structure, force modernization plans, infrastructure, budget plan and other elements of the defense 

programs and policies . . .” to be completed in 1997. 23 The initiative was envisioned as the first in a series of such reexaminations timed to each national 

change of administration and thus came to be called the Quadrennial Defense 

Review (QDR). This legislation included a National Defense Panel of distinguished outside experts to review and comment on the Pentagon’s product. 

Profiting from lessons learned in previous efforts, the Office of the Secretary 

of Defense attempted to construct an integrated analytic structure. A Senior 

Steering Group (SSG), cochaired by the Deputy Secretary of Defense and 

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with membership including the 

service Vice Chiefs of Staff, directed the effort. The Vice Chief of Staff of the 

Army at the time was General Ronald H. Griffith. In addition to this QDR 

responsibility and the day-to-day running of the Army, he also supervised 

a redesign of the institutional (TDA) Army—concerning which, more later. 

Six QDR functional panels—strategy, force structure, modernization, readiness, infrastructure, and human resources—were cochaired by relevant deputy 

under secretaries or assistant secretaries from OSD and one- or two-star officers from the Joint Staff and included one- or two-star representatives from 

the services as well. At lower levels subpanels, ultimately numbering over fifty, 

were similarly balanced among the Secretariat, Joint Staff, and services. An 

Integration Panel, upon which the Army was represented by its newly created 

Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, coordinated results and distilled them into findings “briefable” to the SSG and other parties. The Clinton administration’s 

newly minted National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, and 

the National Military Strategy (“shape, prepare, respond”) derived from it, 

drove deliberations. Published joint doctrine existed in the newly published 

Joint Publication 3.0, Joint Vision 2010, and several dozen subordinate 

manuals. This happy confluence of articulated strategy and published doctrine offered an overarching conceptual framework that had not previously 

existed. The Quadrennial Defense Review would avoid the phenomenon of 

each service hiring its own defense contractors and developing its own metrics 

by stipulating methods and models to be used and by directing multiservice 

analytic drills of its own. Of these, the most consequential for the Army would 

be the Dynamic Commitment exercise series and the Deep Attack Weapons 

Mix Study (DAWMS), concerning both of which, more later.24

The Army Staff had reason for both confidence and anxiety going into 

the Quadrennial Defense Review. On the plus side, the Army had worked 

extensively with simulations-based analyses during the modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers and before. It had thus acquired depth and polish with respect 
Kevlar Legions

164

to the genre of analyses and models OSD envisioned using; indeed, it had 

pioneered in the development of several of them. An influential contemporary 

congressman, Newt Gingrich, delighted in describing congressional stereotypes 

of service overtures for funding. The Air Force solicitor would present himself 

as a “fighter jock”: affable, engaging, and, incidentally, God’s gift to women. 

He would share a few platitudes about the clean efficiency of airpower but in 

the end deserved the money because he was so eminently likeable. The Navy 

request would be carried in by a leathery “old salt,” imbued with the aura of 

years at sea. There would be a few comments on the timelessness of sea power, 

but in the end you just had to trust him because he had seen and done so much 

that his understanding was beyond anything you (the congressman) could ever 

hope to comprehend. The Army representative would deploy with a phalanx 

of book carriers, chart tenders, and technical experts of all types. He had a 

prepared briefing with layers of detail and dozens of backup slides and was 

determined to take you (the congressman) as far through them as your bladder 

would allow. Insofar as these stereotypes were valid, they indicated an Army 

prepared for the excruciating analyses the Quadrennial Defense Review legislation described. Of concern to the Army, a difficult balance had to be struck 

with respect to technology, and a lot was at stake. The Army had committed 

to digital communications, advanced sensors, precision-guided munitions, networked computers, and other harbingers of the Information Age, but it could 

suffer if too much came to be expected of technology. If infallible sensors 

could invariably detect all relevant targets, digital command and control could 

perfectly match them up with appropriate “shooters,” and precision-guided 

munitions could flawlessly dispatch them on a one-for-one basis, why not let 

the Air Force do the job? A sizable defense lobby argued that ground forces 

were overbuilt for the new era dawning, since their battlefield role was merely 

going to be to detect targets for omnipresent aircraft and provide local security 

for air bases. Manpower was expensive. Dramatic cuts in Army manpower 

would free up funds for modernization, particularly the further modernization 

of the already highly technical Air Force and Navy. The Army manpower that 

remained could shed its heaviest equipment and reorganize itself, in all or in 

part, into standing constabularies to clean up battlefields after wars had been 

won or to assist in local security. The Army Staff believed such sentiments had 

already been responsible for disproportional losses the Army suffered in the 

aftermath of the Base Force Study and the Bottom Up Review. Two further 

divisions now seemed to be on the chopping block; the Army would be hard 

put to protect ten in its active structure. To succeed in the Quadrennial Defense 

Review, the Army would have to protect modernization efforts it already had 

under way while also diminishing arguments that technological advance alone 

would soon render maneuver warfare, “boots on the ground” or the “fog of 

war,” obsolete.25

Dynamic Commitment was a tiered series of seminars internal to the 

Quadrennial Defense Review that involved representatives from OSD, the 

Joint Staff, the services, and the major overseas commands. Ultimately participants worked their way through forty-six vignettes—scenarios—ranging from 

humanitarian relief through major regional wars. Historical precedents over 
165

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

the last dozen years were taken into account and served as models for over half 

the vignettes. This was good news for the Army, since it could easily establish 

that more than 60 percent of the force structure required over the broad mix 

of contingencies during that period had been Army. When one added in the 

Marines, the requirement for ground forces came to be over 80 percent of the 

totals required. The overseas commands became heavily involved in the deliberations, drawing on recent experience and their own contingency plans to 

frame requirements. Readiness issues, particularly those resulting from other 

contingencies (i.e., vignettes) played as going on or being recovered from, were 

taken into account. This discussion was considerably enriched by two collateral studies. The Baseline Engagement Force Study forecast the fraction of the 

force structure that would be routinely committed at any given time and thus 

not immediately available. The Multiple Lesser Regional Contingency/SmallScale Contingency Assessment distilled twenty years of actual experience into 

projections of forces likely to be deployed to such contingencies in the future. 

Predictably, the services jockeyed to get their favorite vignettes into play, with 

the Navy favoring maritime security and interdiction and the Air Force proposing a mosaic of no-fly zones to enforce. The Army and Marines competed 

to be the boots first put on the ground, and too often vignettes ended up with 

a mix of Army and Marines that made more sense with respect to service 

politics than with respect to the working mechanics of combat service support. 

Readiness became a matter of debate, with the Army’s fixed tiering based on 

anticipated deployment dates contrasting with the cyclical readiness favored 

by the Marines and Navy. Depending on the sequencing of the vignettes, 

readiness status could determine which service was most readily able to field 

a contingent. These interservice perturbations within Dynamic Commitment

were minor when compared with its overall result, a heightened awareness of 

the probable demands and complexities of prospective deployments extending 

through 2004. This in turn established different points of departure for separate studies addressing major theater contingencies. The Bottom Up Review 

had proposed two major regional conflicts, loosely Iraq and Korea, and then 

ground through simulations to identify the forces necessary to fight them. The 

Quadrennial Defense Review’s Two Major Theater Warfight Analysis ran multiple excursions of these scenarios varying timing, sequence, and the possible 

involvement of weapons of mass destruction. More important, it also took 

into account the insight from Dynamic Commitment and related studies that 

not all forces would start combat ready and at the home station. If seven divisions was an approved solution for bringing a major regional contingency to a 

successful conclusion, appreciably more than seven divisions would have to be 

in the force structure to account for all of the other commitments under way. 

At the top end of the requirements envisioned by the Quadrennial Defense 

Review, a Peer Competitor Analysis proposed war with an equivalent adversary in fifteen years’ time. This drill investigated modernization more so than 

force structure, but it did take force structure into account. On balance, the 

interplay among these various Quadrennial Defense Review analyses favored 

the Army, underscoring a sustained and undiminishing demand for ground 

combat troops.26
Kevlar Legions

166

Dynamic Commitment and the more specific studies clustered around it 

made the case that the quantitative Army force structure was, if anything, too 

small. Another study initiated before the Quadrennial Defense Review that 

rolled into it, the DAWMS, made a case favoring certain Army qualitative objectives as well. DAWMS proposed a mix of enemy targets worthy of engagement 

beyond direct-fire range and then simulated various weapons systems against 

each other to determine their cost-effectiveness in dealing with the targets. 

Modeling relied on the somewhat venerable but familiar simulation-driven 

Tactical Warfare Model (TACWAR) system, in addition to a new Weapon 

Optimization and Resource Requirements Model (WORRM) developed for 

the study by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). DAWMS sought technology and force structure that could carry the fight deep into enemy territory, 

allowing one to shape the battlefield and perhaps even inflict defeat while minimizing the costly attrition of front-line combat. Deep battle had traditionally 

been a purview dominated by the Air Force, and some Air Force advocates 

believed DAWMS would make a case for redirecting funding the Army spent 

on manpower into Air Force procurement and modernization. Such a redirection would prove particularly welcome to air enthusiasts, given escalating costs 

predicted for the F–22 and the Joint Strike Fighter. DAWMS deliberations 

yielded a different result. Army attack helicopters launching Hellfire missiles 

showed well in DAWMS, as did the surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile 

System (ATACMS). Even venerable tube artillery firing “dumb” munitions 

continued to show promise as a cheap way to suppress imprecisely located 

enemy air defenses. Army systems were generally cheaper, deployed farther 

forward, more tactically flexible, and more weather-proof. Air Force systems 

had greater range and destructiveness. In one “excursion” after another, balanced mixes of Army and Air Force systems performed more capably than 

those dominated by a single genre of weapons systems. If DAWMS had led to 

a redistribution of funding among the services, it would have led to a greater 

investment in Hellfire and ATACMS II. After eighteen months of joint work, 

the Army Staff’s greatest concern with respect to DAWMS was that the socalled “fixed-wing advocates” might discover a way to discount, discredit, or 

“walk away” from its results.27

In the end, the Quadrennial Defense Review came to modest recommendations. Results proposed that the Army would keep its ten divisions and merely 

shave 15,000 from its active-component and 45,000 from its reserve-component 

force structures. The Air Force would lose 27,000 from its active component 

and cut F–22 fighter purchases from 438 to 339 for the period projected. The 

Navy would keep twelve aircraft carrier groups but reduce its attack submarines from 73 to 50 and cut its purchase of new F/A–18 fighter bombers from 

1,000 to 548. The Marines would remain unaffected with respect to the boots 

they could put on the ground but would see purchases of the controversial 

and as yet unproven V–22 Osprey aircraft reduced from 425 to 360. Excess 

infrastructure from all services would be divested, should Congress permit. 

All factors considered, the platoons of Army analysts reflected in Gingrich’s 

stereotype had done their work well. In one working group after another they 

made a persuasive case for ground combat power, and they deflected cuts
A Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), capable of hitting targets at three 

hundred kilometers if firing the ATACMS missile

F–16 jet fighters
Kevlar Legions

168

 many thought would be far worse. Monies to be saved would come from fixedwing aircraft and submarines—genres wherein the United States was already 

supreme—more so than from soldiers and marines. The National Defense 

Panel, distinguished outside experts empowered to review and enlarge upon 

the Quadrennial Defense Review, were generally supportive of its results. 

They did suggest that the 1998–2003 focus of the analysis had not been deep 

enough and that the two major regional contingency “strategy” would not 

long survive as a paradigm defining future defense needs. Debate did not end 

with Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen’s “final” report to Congress, 

however. The Quadrennial Defense Review results were greeted with derisive 

rants, both from those advocating more sweeping and dramatic changes and 

from those taking issue with particular cuts and shortcomings. The particularists struck first. Congressional champions of attack submarines and various 

aircraft heard out their similarly interested constituents and jawboned their 

colleagues. Well-connected National Guardsmen reiterated that they had state 

as well as federal responsibilities, provoked hard negotiations with the Army 

Staff at an intra-Army off-site, and hunted down their senators and representatives state-by-state. Most of the cuts envisioned for these several parties 

soon evaporated from congressional consideration. The recommendations for 

further infrastructure cuts, on the other hand, fell on deaf ears. Within a few 

months’ time the somewhat baffled Joint Chiefs found themselves publicly 

scolded by Congress for not having asked for enough money in the first place 

and for having conducted the Quadrennial Defense Review in the context of 

budget caps Congress no longer supported—now that they saw where they 

would lead. Each Chief was required to submit a wish list for further funding 

and by and large focused on readiness. Congress responded with plus-ups of 

its own and by and large focused on construction and procurement. The economy was booming, and an additional $112 billion for defense during FY2000 

through FY2005 was agreed upon—and did not seem to either Congress 

or the administration as too much to pay. Critics lamented that the “pork 

machine” had undercut the Quadrennial Defense Review. Army participants 

had a more nuanced view. To this point the politically expedient approach to 

reduce defense spending had been to slash Army force structure, with lesser 

cuts for the programs of other services. During the Quadrennial Defense 

Review agreed processes of analysis reversed this trend, determined that the 

downsizing of ground forces had gone far enough, and recommended savings 

elsewhere. The fact that politics ultimately watered down the results as they 

played out in budgets did not diminish this underlying conceptual victory.28

Having built a case during the Quadrennial Defense Review that underscored the limits of technology, the Army exposed itself to critics who believed 

a “revolution in military affairs” was overdue, that the Quadrennial Defense 

Review results were unimaginative, and that the Defense Department once 

again demonstrated a sauropodian inability to reform itself. General Reimer 

and the Army Staff had anticipated such feedback. Even as the Quadrennial 

Defense Review was getting under way, Reimer took advantage of the annual 

meeting of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) to promote 

the Army’s approach to this issue. Describing recent or ongoing operations in 
169

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

Haiti, Bosnia, Liberia, Kuwait, Iraq, Ecuador, Peru, and elsewhere, he established that there would be no “time-outs” from immediate responsibilities. He 

also spoke to the limits of technology, remarking that it “takes soldiers . . . to 

separate warring parties, to reassure fearful civilians, to restore public order, to 

keep criminals from taking advantage of the vacuum in civil order, to deliver 

humanitarian assistance, to prevent and win the nation’s wars”—all of which 

required “boots on the ground.” He discussed Army XXI, the emerging result 

of methodical spiral development embedding Information Age technologies 

into contemporary platforms and organizations. Existing platforms and organizations would experience a rapid expansion in their capabilities without visibly changing all that much. Finally, he introduced the “Army After Next,” 

the radically different Army as it would be in 2025. Army XXI would be an 

intermediate step in the direction of the Army After Next. Army XXI would 

field technologies that proved reliable in the near term. The Army After Next 

would envision a more distant future, nominate technologies that did not yet 

exist for experimental development, and deliver a redesigned force wherein 

transformation was comprehensive rather than via appliqué. The approach 

to the Army After Next would begin with brainstorming seminars not unlike 

those of the modern Louisiana Maneuvers, but this process would be disciplined by the fact that Army XXI—tangible, programmed, and dependent on 

proven technology—would be achieved first. This framed the Army’s position 

for the Quadrennial Defense Review, which focused on the period through 

2003. Within this time horizon the Army would emphasize the tested, the 

proven, and the technologically reliable. Soldiers’ lives were immediately at 

stake; there would be no gambling. Army planners would unleash their more 

imaginative energies when queuing up prospective technologies for the Army 

After Next. Here they would cast their nets broadly. Indeed, as a prelude to 

a meeting of the Army’s most senior leaders, Reimer required a review of the 

controversial book Breaking the Phalanx by Colonel Doug Macgregor, one of 

the Army’s more creative thinkers and severest critics. Concerning this, more 

later. Whatever ideas emerged from this ferment, one presumes they would ultimately be tested and developed with the same rigor as the systems going into 

Army XXI. The pace of development and fielding would be heavily dependent 

on budgets, as was the case with Army XXI. The vision was thoughtful, deep, 

methodical, and evolutionary. The cumulative result might be a revolution in 

military affairs, but it would take a generation to mature. In support of this 

systematic approach, Army historians described the generation that separated 

the Battle of Cambrai from truly mechanized warfare as General George S. 

Patton practiced it, and similarly pointed out the evolutionary aspects of other 

so-called revolutions in military affairs. Conversely, they also described the 

hazards of such hasty redesigns as the Pentomic Division, wherein ambitions 

exceeded technological capabilities.29

The Army soon came under pressure to abandon this calculated approach. 

Task Force Hawk, the introduction of a ground component into the Kosovo 

war, encountered enough of Murphy’s Law to create operational hiccups 

and public relations disaster. On 4 April 1999, a Pentagon spokesperson 

announced that an AH–64A Apache attack helicopter task force would be 
Kevlar Legions

170

on the ground in the Balkans within eight days. The air war was not going 

well at the time, the formidable Apache had gotten rave reviews in the Gulf 

War for its effectiveness against ground targets, and the press anticipated it 

bringing an end to the asymmetry between high-flying planes and low-lying 

concealed targets. The eight-day goal captured media attention, but it never 

was particularly a mark on the wall for the Army. Indeed, the operations order 

defining the mission was actually issued on 22 April. Prior to that time the 

Macedonians balked at plans admitting such a force onto the airfield at Skopje, 

so basing shifted to the significantly less capable airfield at Tirana-Rinas, 

Albania. Albania was a much less secure environment than Macedonia would 

have been, so the manning of the overall task force ballooned from less than 

2,000 to more than 5,000 to accommodate additional security and increased 

expectations for artillery—to include incorporating twenty-seven long-range 

rocket launchers. Tirana-Rinas airfield was already overwhelmed with aircraft and agencies supporting humanitarian relief for refugees flooding into 

Albania, and unremitting spring rains turned the ground surrounding it into 

a morass. Task Force Hawk ultimately required 475 C–17 sorties to deploy 

and sustain itself, but weather conditions and the priority accorded humanitarian relief limited it to but a handful of sorties a day into Tirana-Rinas 

for appreciable periods. The mud was so bad and apron space so limited that 

engineers had to construct several dozen pads for the Apaches lest they sink 

upon landing. The AH–64As self-deployed from Germany but were delayed 

because the Austrians denied them overflight and the Italians took seven days 

to approve uploaded munitions. Commanders in the field and commanders 

in major headquarters worked through these perturbations in daily videoconferences, without becoming unduly exercised by them. Not so the press, 

who kept the originally announced eight days in mind. As it was, Task Force 

Hawk was mission-capable with fifty-one aircraft on 26 April, eighteen days 

after it kicked off and four days after it received an actual operations order. It 

did not attack the Serbs, however. Reimer visited the task force and assessed 

the battlefield and shared his operational concerns with General Wesley K. 

Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander. Routes into Kosovo were constrained 

by mountainous terrain, and the Serbs had considerably thickened their air 

defenses in this area in anticipation of an attack. Heavy artillery suppressive 

fires would be necessary to get the aviators through. Such fires would risk 

substantial and publicly visible collateral damage; flying without them would 

risk unacceptable casualties. Sentiment was again veering away from direct 

NATO ground force involvement. Better weather was improving fixed-wing 

bombing results, cooperation with the KLA was generating improved target 

information, and target-detection assets deployed with Task Force Hawk itself 

were generating targets more quickly than the airmen could engage them. The 

Serbs were cracking, and ground combat, with all its attendant risks of casualties, did not prove necessary.30

The non-use of the Apaches in Kosovo emboldened the Army’s critics. 

In their minds the Army had proven itself too slow, too cautious, and too 

evolutionary. They advanced this case by misunderstanding or misrepresenting much that had gone on in Albania, particularly the priorities and timelines 
171

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

the operators themselves had actually envisioned. Negative impressions fed 

into a larger critique characterizing the Quadrennial Defense Review results 

as too modest in scope, and all that had gone into Force XXI as too deliberate. It seemed the critics did not want the Army After Next after next, or even 

next; they wanted it now. The “weight” of the Army was particularly subject 

to vilification. The term weight is slippery when overall assessments of force 

structure and logistical means come into play, but recurrent metaphors evoked 

at the time were the Army’s continuing reliance on the seventy-ton Abrams 

tank and its aspirations for a nearly as hefty Crusader advanced self-propelled 

artillery system. To this point, significant advances with respect to strategic 

mobility had been made by virtue of Pre-positioning of Materiel Configured 

to Unit Sets (POMCUS) and improved sealift and airlift, without much altering of the “look” of the forces that would fight on the ground—although their 

capabilities had certainly improved. Indeed, the innovative Armored Gun 

System, intended to replace the antiquated M551 Sheridan as a lightweight, 

strategically mobile fighting platform, had recently fallen victim to budget cuts. 

The Army’s near-term approach to strategic mobility had been to move heavy 

forces faster and render light forces more capable with the Javelin antitank 

missile and other improved weapons. It would make the heavy force’s platforms lighter at some future time, probably with the Army After Next. General 

Reimer had experimented with a “Strike Force” based on the 2d Armored 

Cavalry Regiment, intended to capitalize on advanced information technologies and to more flexibly integrate diverse assets from the heavy, light, and 

sustainment forces. He envisioned the regimental headquarters as a “receptacle” into which one would “plug in” organizational mosaics of capabilities 

needed. This experimental design did not particularly address the avoirdupois

of vehicles on the ground, but rather the mix and match of units depending 

on them. Pressure would soon mount on the Army to speedily field lighter 

vehicles as a third way to strategic mobility. It remained unclear how such 

lighter vehicles would have played out in the mud of Tirana-Rinas airfield, 

where a donkey cart on pneumatic tires would have sunk into the morass, 

much less a multi-ton vehicle of any size.31

The Revolution in Military Contracting 

Contractors have had a long and colorful history in the United States 

Army. They were critical participants in military affairs even before the 

American Revolution and have remained so through today. During the Civil 

War contractors dominated the top and the bottom of the logistical spectrum, providing tens of thousands of laborers, stevedores, and teamsters and 

also providing skilled professionals and technicians who kept trains running, 

manned telegraph services, and provided medical support. This was in addition to their military-industrial dominance with respect to manufacturing, 

procurement, and supply. The battlefield visibility of contractors faded with 

the massive draftee armies of World Wars I and II and the early Cold War. 

General mobilization permitted the Army to draft tens of thousands of laborers, stevedores, teamsters, skilled professionals, and technicians; organize them 
Kevlar Legions

172

into combat service support units under military discipline; and deploy them 

overseas as circumstances required. Extensive reliance on what we now call 

“host-nation support” also made contracting less visible within the Army, 

although much of this support was in fact provided by contractors serving the 

host nation. Whether direct or indirect, contracting continued to imply risks 

with respect to reliability and quality control. During both world wars pilferage and damage attributed to contracted personnel was problematic in port 

operations and along lines of transportation in every theater. In the World 

War II Persian Gulf Command, for example, native truck drivers managed to 

drive the vehicular accident rate up an astonishing 900 percent—a feat they 

later approximated during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Nevertheless, sustaining operations without contracting for local support was never realistic. 

During the Korean War, for example, the 393,000 soldiers of the Far East 

Command were supported by 100,000 Koreans, 42,000 Japanese, and 14,000 

American civilians—the latter by and large Department of the Army civilians. 

Even with such robust reliance as a background, during the 1990s military 

contracting became dramatically more visible, pervasive, and consequential 

within the Department of Defense and the United States Army. This resulted 

from government policy, downsizing, the flexibility demanded by diverse operations on short notice, increasingly complex weapons systems and equipment, 

and worldwide expansion with respect to the sophistication, availability, and 

market savvy of military contractors.32

United States government policy has long espoused that the government 

should not compete with its citizens in venues best controlled by market 

forces. Commitment to a competitive free enterprise system is manifest in 

the Constitution and was formally reinforced by Bureau of the Budget bulletins beginning in 1955. Office of Management and Budget Circular A–76 

was promulgated in 1967 and has been repeatedly updated and reissued since. 

It holds that, excepting discrete “inherently governmental” functions, those 

goods and services that can be most economically provided by commercial 

sources should be. The interest of business leaders, lobbyists, and congressmen 

in such provisions is obvious. Through the long years of the Cold War most 

Department of Defense activities escaped scrutiny with respect to Circular 

A–76, exceptions being military-industrial activities with respect to manufacturing, procurement, and supply and Corps of Engineers projects within the 

United States. Indeed, “activities performed by military personnel who are 

subject to deployment in a combat, combat support, and combat service support role” were specifically identified by A–76 as inherently governmental. The 

Department of Defense could be as deferential to A–76 as it chose to be. As 

the Cold War evaporated, this insulation waned. The pursuit of the “peace 

dividend” manifested itself as a “bogey drill” to slash set percentages off of 

military budgets. Comparing projected with actual Defense budgets from 

1990 through 1999, Congress cut back $750 billion. Desperate service chieftains pursued efficiencies in management as an alternative to losing “muscle.” 

General Reimer, for example, negotiated a drop in active-component end 

strength to 480,000 rather than 475,000 by promising fiscal efficiencies to pay 

for the 5,000 he saved. In such efforts service chiefs were abetted by admin-
173

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

istration advocates for “reengineering government” and by advisory bodies 

with the ears of Congress. The National Defense Panel, for example, flagged 

up insufficient and insufficiently imaginative use of contracting in its critique 

of the Quadrennial Defense Review. Expert opinion held that an organization 

under fiscal pressure should focus on its “core functions,” and divest “noncore” functions to other agencies or to contractors. The Office of the Secretary 

of Defense took up the refrain. In 1998 Defense Reform Initiative Directive 20 

(DRID 20) made virtually every element of the Defense establishment subject 

to study with respect to the relative advantages of contracting. In its pursuit 

of efficiencies and budget reductions, the Department of Defense clearly 

endorsed much increased contracting as a feasible way ahead.33

Downsizing greatly reinforced incentives to rely upon contracting. Most 

visibly, combat service support units and personnel dropped in number. 

Within the active component these dropped even more sharply than in the 

reserve component, given a desire to maximize the number of “trigger pullers” within organizations most ready to deploy. The drop in Department 

of the Army civilian manpower was even more dramatic than the drop in 

uniformed manpower. Their numbers went from 487,852 in 1989 to 224,900 

in 1999. This civilian workforce dominated base operations, depot operations, and most aspects of communications and logistics within the United 

States. Their workload did not decrease at the same pace as their numbers. 

Congress was loath to approve stateside base closures, and the Army was 

called upon to maintain infrastructure the Department of Defense might 

otherwise have divested itself of. Base and depot operations cannot necessarily be scaled back in the same proportions as the personnel or items of 

equipment they support. A certain overhead of skills and capabilities is necessary to service a population of M1A1 tanks, for example, regardless of 

their number. The inverse of achieving economies of scale as numbers go 

up is experiencing ineconomies of scale as numbers go down. Similarly, the 

sustainment of communications and logistics within the United States also 

implied a numerical floor with respect to manpower regardless of the overall 

population being served. To the advocates of DRID 20 and its predecessors, 

stateside functions that had already been civilianized seemed particularly 

amenable to contracting. Definitions of “inherently governmental” functions 

migrated up the supervisory chain. In 1989 the average Department of the 

Army civilian was forty-three years old with thirteen years of government 

service. In 1999 he or she was forty-seven years old with over seventeen years 

of government service. Increasingly policy and management decisions were 

made by Department of the Army civilians and executed by contractors. 

Where the work was repetitive and steady, habitual relationships developed. 

Contractors became a shadow workforce, backfilling government employees they had replaced and often demonstrating considerable job stability. 

Indeed, an iconic figure of the time was the civilian, soldier, or noncommissioned officer who terminated his government employment one day and 

came back to the same position as a contractor the next. In several functional areas contractors rose to elevated positions in the supervisory chain. 

In 1996 Congress passed the Military Housing Privatization Initiatives Act, 
Kevlar Legions

174

encouraging the services to draw upon private-sector expertise and capital to 

refurbish their housing. Agencies like DynCorps were contracted to take over 

the maintenance and management of post housing from Department of the 

Army civilian housing offices that had formerly done the job. In 1999 a pilot 

program at Fort Carson, Colorado, went even further. Contractors built or 

refurbished more than 2,600 housing units, managed and maintained them, 

and collected rent directly from their military tenants. These tenants in turn 

received a housing allowance equivalent to what they would have been paid 

had they lived off post. In an earlier era uniformed community and agency 

leaders, routinely rotating in and out of jobs, had relied on Department of 

the Army civilians to provide stability, continuity, and depth of knowledge. 

Now repeat contractors would share this load.34

Insofar as operations overseas were concerned, both raw numbers and 

a need for flexibility provided incentives to contract. Cuts in force structure 

drove even larger proportions of the Army’s combat service support structure 

into the reserve component, and even in the reserve component these assets 

would have been too thin for many contingencies. Capabilities as diverse as 

heavy equipment transport, water supply, petroleum transport, linguists, and 

regionally savvy civil affairs units—along with much else—were less available 

than operational circumstances were likely to require. Even if such assets could 

have been mobilized and brought to a deployable status in a timely manner, 

they would tie up precious airlift and sealift at awkward times. Cold War 

Germany and Korea were mature theaters with ample logistical capabilities 

already deployed forward. Post–Cold War contingencies seemed likely to send 

troops where combat service support did not yet exist. In 1992 the Army initiated the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) with the Corps 

of Engineers as executing agent. Under its auspices Brown and Root Services 

Corporation provided extensive infrastructure and combat service support in 

Somalia, Haiti, Croatia, Hungary, Bosnia, and elsewhere. In 1997 responsibility for LOGCAP migrated to the Army Materiel Command (AMC), and 

DynCorps assumed responsibility as the primary contractor. The contract 

signed with DynCorps was the commercial equivalent of a contingency plan. 

DynCorps would plan for and be prepared to initiate specified support for a 

force of up to 20,000 for 180 days in one of five geographic regions. It would 

anticipate one rear area base and four forward operational areas and operate 

beyond 180 days and in support of up to 50,000 personnel if required. The 

contract envisioned DynCorps as a fallback source for whatever the Army 

did not have enough of or forgot to bring, in addition to providing specified 

support up front. DynCorps would provide its own commercial transportation into theater, thus eliminating competition for strategic airlift and sealift. 

The business model assumed DynCorps would import supervision and critical 

equipment from the United States but hire labor and procure other equipment 

and supplies locally insofar as possible. It was not long before contractors 

were embedded amid the key leadership planning or executing operations, 

taking over many functions that had previously gone to uniformed contracting officers. As early as 1992 V Corps Exercise Dragon Hammer, an “out of 

sector” deployment to Sardinia, concluded that LOGCAP and “those guys 
175

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

with the briefcases full of money” would be critical to future deployments. 

When Task Force Hawk hastily dispatched its reconnaissance party to TiranaRinas Airport, a contracting officer, a representative of Brown and Root 

Services Corporation, and a civilian real estate expert were among the first on 

the ground.35

Contractors had long provided specialized technical skills to the Army. 

The railroad and telegraph personnel of the Civil War have already been mentioned. Bell Telephone dispatched two hundred female switchboard operators 

to the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I. In 1969 over 

two thousand contract maintenance personnel or field service representatives served in Vietnam, primarily because of the proliferation of helicopters 

and communications systems of civilian design. Within the Department of 

Defense, the equipment categories most likely to require contracted maintenance support or contractor field service representatives have traditionally 

been aircraft, missiles, communications and electronics, and items in the 

process of research and development. The transforming Army was making 

significant investments in each of these areas. Attack helicopters experienced 

nearly continuous upgrades, with the Apache Longbow pushing the state of 

the art and the Comanche envisioned as the wave of the future. Missiles were 

proliferating in numbers and roles, ranging from strategic weapons for highaltitude air and missile defense through surface-to-surface ATACMS, air-toground Hellfires, and such close-in tactical systems as the Javelin or Dragon. 

Aviation repair in Bosnia: Even though staged far forward, maintenance of advanced technology remained heavily dependent on defense contractor support.
Kevlar Legions

176

Communications and electronics of civilian design were a particularly energetic growth area within the Army. The shift to “off-the-shelf” technology 

and decisions to appliqué Force XXI onto legacy platforms accelerated the 

process. The Information Technology Management Reform Act (ITMRA) 

and the Federal Acquisition Reform Act (FARA) of 1996, together referred 

to as the Clinger-Cohen Act, streamlined the acquisition of off-the-shelf 

communications and electronics and raised the thresholds at which purchases 

were subject to review. Information technologies flooded both the deployable 

and the institutional Army, and hastily cobbled together systems electronically linked networks into ever larger wholes. Each of these networks had its 

own contingent of contracted information technology specialists, affectionately referred to as “geeks,” to ensure that systems performed as designed. 

During this period virtually every material program within the Army, from 

several-ounce meals ready to eat (MREs) through seventy-ton M1A2 tanks, 

was in the process of research and development. Product improvements (PIPs) 

superseded each other in continuous flows of modernization. This advance 

almost inevitably came accompanied by contract maintenance personnel or 

field service representatives of some sort. We have already mentioned National 

Training Center Rotation 97–06, wherein 5,000 soldiers were accompanied by 

1,200 contracted technicians and data collectors. This was an extreme case, 

but it underscored the critical role contractors had assumed when sustaining 

newly developed or acquired equipment.36

Military contractors were more sophisticated, available, and broadly capable than they had been before. This was a worldwide phenomenon. The end 

of the Cold War led to a dramatic downsizing of armies on both sides of the 

former Iron Curtain, releasing considerable military talent and experience into 

the civilian sector. This was in addition to that already available by virtue of 

routine retirement. During the same period, former Warsaw Pact countries were 

eager to redesign their armies along Western lines, a flush of post–Cold War 

idealism propelled United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) into troubled regions in unprecedented numbers, and a number 

of Third World countries lost their Cold War patrons. Pursuing stability, the 

Department of Defense quadrupled its budget for International Military 

Education and Training (IMET) between 1994 and 2002. For practical and 

political purposes, much of this training was executed by or in cooperation 

with private firms. Military Professional Resources International (MPRI), 

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Vinnell, DynCorps, 

and other contractors hired veterans from many nations and trained tens of 

thousands of military personnel in the Balkans, former Warsaw Pact countries, Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere. Their ability to field seasoned 

instructors was drawn on within the United States as well. Downsizing slashed 

uniformed manpower within the institutional Army at least as dramatically as 

within the deployable Army. During the 1980s TRADOC schools were well 

populated with faculties of intermediate rank responsible for course development, doctrine writing, and instruction. An easy fluidity existed between those 

who wrote doctrine and those who taught it, and the vast majority of those 

who wrote and taught doctrine cycled back into the deployable Army to apply 
177

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

their acquired knowledge in the field. During the 1990s TRADOC experienced 

huge cuts. Course development and doctrine writing by and large migrated 

to contractors, as did an appreciable amount of the instruction. Contractors 

were pervasive at all levels. Even such highly sophisticated training programs 

as the Battle Command Training Program (BCTP) benefited from the return 

of retired senior general officers, “gray beards,” under contract. The intellectual footprint of contractors was not confined to training and education; 

we have already mentioned the influence of “think tanks” for hire such as 

IDA, RAND, and SAIC upon the Quadrennial Defense Review. In the former 

Third World contractors were pervasive and at times pernicious. NGOs pushing into post–Cold War vacuums for humanitarian reasons often encountered 

high-risk security situations. If locally hired security proved unreliable, such 

international firms as Erinys, Executive Outcomes, or Stabilico might provide 

better services. These international firms often hired locals but superimposed 

seasoned supervision. In 1994 the U.S. State Department took to contracting with private security contractors in countries where it felt exposed or at 

risk. Many governments, corporations, and even citizens in the former Third 

World had come to rely on private security contractors, at times characterized 

as mercenaries.37

In 1999 Blackwater, Halliburton, and Southern Cross Security were 

not yet household words, but the Department of Defense and the United 

States Army had crossed important watersheds with respect to reliance 

on military contractors. In addition to traditional external interfaces with 

respect to manufacturing, procurement, acquisition, and supply, they were 

now heavily dependent on contractors for internal functions as well. Most 

base and depot operations, broad genres of logistical support at home and 

abroad, an increasing menu of technical and maintenance services, and a 

substantial fraction of institutional intellectual capital were in the hands of 

private contractors. The firms providing such services were heavily populated by military veterans and retirees, most of whom welcomed this opportunity to continue to serve. Nevertheless, the shift to reliance on contracting 

was not problem-free. In the short run contracting often proved to be more 

expensive than reliance on civil servants. Savings were downstream in the 

form of reduced commitments to pensions, medical benefits, and the like. 

Contracts gave one flexibility if one got them right on the first iteration, but 

they could be difficult and expensive to change if not. The relative ease of 

redirecting the energies of soldiers and civil servants was no longer there. 

Contractors could be patriots, but inevitably they were businessmen. To succeed they had to turn a profit, and this imperative could trump commitment 

to a mission per se. Contractors were not under military discipline in a legal 

sense, although a number of mechanisms served to control the behavior of 

United States citizens on the battlefield—and some governments similarly 

influenced the behavior of their nationals contracted to the United States. 

Contractors demonstrating the courage of soldiers when under duress did so 

because of personal character, not legal commitments. Contractors tended 

to be secretive with respect to knowledge that affected their profits. Lack of 

transparency virtually guaranteed disconnects when transforming a body of 
Kevlar Legions

178

work from one contractor to another. Knowledge acquired by contractors 

did not necessarily migrate to uniformed counterparts either. In an earlier 

era young uniformed instructors and doctrine writers rotated to and from 

the “schoolhouse” and the “line,” to the mutual benefit of both, and reinforced the professional development of the soldiers involved. Contracted 

instructors and doctrine writers did not rotate in such a manner. This litany 

of complications provoked more than one survey respondent to exhort 

“reclaim the Army from the contractors!” That horse was already out of the 

barn. Multiple causes of a greater reliance on contracting were irreversible, 

and soldiers, civil servants, and contractors were just going to have to work 

things out.38

The United States Army in 1999

The United States Army of 1999 was smaller than that of 1995, but not by 

large numbers. The active component had dropped from 510,000 to 480,000. 

Within the reserve component the Army National Guard had dropped from 

375,000 to 357,000 and the Army Reserve from 241,000 to 208,000. The most 

dramatic post–Cold War downsizing was complete by 1995, and cuts beyond 

that point were on a gentler scale. As we have seen, the Army and its advocates arrested the risk of substantial further cuts during the course of the 

Quadrennial Defense Review. The Army’s civilian workforce fared less well 

during this period, dropping from 324,000 to 225,000. Much of this related 

to privatization and outsourcing more so than downsizing per se, as previously discussed. Relative stability in the uniformed ranks allowed the Army to 

regain its footing with respect to assignment cycles, progressive assignments, 

and career development. The Army once again met Defense Officer Personnel 

Management Act (DOPMA) time-of-service guidelines for promotions, for 

example, and soldiers could once again generally anticipate three-year tours 

at most accompanied stations. In the case of junior officers and noncommissioned officers, this allowed time for the mix of jobs most likely to be developmental. During the downsizing evaluative ratings had understandably inflated, 

largely because officers and noncommissioned officers performing less well 

had left in huge numbers. More than 85 percent of officers had received a “top 

block” from senior raters on their most recent officer evaluation report (OER), 

for example. This prompted General Reimer into a dramatic overhaul of the 

OER system, accompanied by a year-long Army-wide draconian tutorial 

directed at senior raters to recover something looking like a bell curve. In its 

first year the new OER system drove top blocks under 30 percent, restoring the 

OER’s apparent value as a basis for comparison. This initiative was embedded 

in Officer Personnel Management System XXI (OPMS XXI), a larger effort to 

revamp the personnel system to best support Force XXI. OPMS XXI sought 

to place middle-grade officers inclined to information operations, operational 

support, and institutional support on a more equal footing with those in the 

traditionally more successful operations (deploying, employing, and sustaining 

land combat forces) career field with respect to assignments and promotion. 

Revisions included solidifying assignment progressions within the alternative 
179

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

career fields, deemphasizing such prestige assignments as battalion command 

in specialties wherein they were less relevant, and heavily emphasizing counseling and mentorship in selecting and developing officers within all career fields. 

With respect to the enlisted ranks, prolonged downsizing had created a bit of 

a holiday with respect to emphasis on recruitment. As downsizing bottomed 

out, the necessity of continuous refurbishment via recruitment returned. 

In 1999 the United States economy was booming, and the Army faced stiff 

competition for the thirteen out of a hundred young Americans who were at 

that time fully qualified to join it. Recruiting fell short. The active component 

recruited 68,209 new soldiers (down 8 percent from its target), and the Army 

Reserve recruited 57,090 (down 20 percent). The National Guard did recruit 

52,084 to squeak by at two-tenths of a percent over its target. Fortuitously 

these shortfalls were offset by abundant retention. The active component 

reenlisted 20,803 first-termers (103 percent of its target), 24,174 mid-careerists 

(105 percent), and 26,130 career soldiers (120 percent). Manning remained 

robust, although soldiers were older.39

Gentler downsizing and renewed stability in units allowed the Army to 

improve on its training posture as well as its professional development. In 

FY1995 seventy-seven combat battalions rotated through the major combat 

training centers at Fort Irwin, Fort Polk, and Hohenfels. In 1999 181 did. 

The perturbations caused by increased operational tempo (OPTEMPO) were 

more than offset by the end of unit inactivations, relocations, and base closures and the prolonged preparations associated with each. Active-component 

commanders reasonably anticipated at least one combat training center rotation during their tour of duty, and their tours of duty generally lasted two 

years. The combat training centers were employed to reinforce preparations 

for deployments—particularly those to the Balkans—as well as to prepare 

for the more traditional combat envisioned in unit mission-essential task 

lists. This preparation came in two formats. All units cycling through the 

combat training centers experienced an infusion of “operations other than 

war” type missions in addition to their customary mechanized bashes with 

Soviet-style opponents. In addition, units on the verge of deployment rotated 

through “mission-rehearsal exercises” or “mission-readiness exercises” adapting combat training center equipment and usages to scenarios inspired by 

the circumstances into which they expected to deploy. These exercises could 

be surprisingly prescient. An informal 1996 survey of soldiers in Bosnia, for 

example, determined that virtually all of their experiences once deployed had 

been anticipated by training they had received in Hohenfels. The combat training centers provided capstone events of several weeks’ duration for unit training cycles. Since the 1980s units had organized annual training in accordance 

with the principles of Field Manuals 25–100 (Training the Force) and 25–101

(Battle-Focused Training). These prescribed an orderly structure that included 

determining a mission essential task list (METL), echeloned quarterly training 

briefs (QTBs) committing to specifics in pursuit of METL training, training 

schedules agreed to well in advance by all echelons involved, and the systematic mustering of resources to ensure that training objectives were achieved. As 

downsizing tapered off, FORSCOM rededicated itself to this proven training 
Kevlar Legions

180

doctrine. Gates such as Table XII (platoon live-fire qualification), company/

team combined-arms live-fire exercises (CALFEXs), and battalion/task force 

force-on-force external evaluations were ever more consistently and reliably 

achieved. The renewed emphasis on fundamentals extended into the training 

base, wherein basic training itself was extended from eight to nine weeks. The 

Army was concerned that units rotating through peacekeeping in the Balkans 

would lose their edge with respect to warfighting somewhere else. Happily, 

operational experience, training, and the use of simulators while deployed kept 

up individual and small units’ skills. Returning units could generally refurbish their training standards at company level and above with rigorous field 

exercises of a few weeks’ duration. These did have to work through General 

Reimer’s DEPTEMPO guidance, discussed above, a requirement that could 

delay the recovery of full-spectrum readiness in the interest of retaining seasoned personnel for the long haul.40

We have already discussed the ever-expanding role of the reserve component participating in and supporting deployments. Of 160,479 soldiers 

deployed by FORSCOM in 1998, 40,885 were from the reserve component. 

Across the Department of Defense as a whole, reserve-component man-days 

of service doubled in five years—to 12.5 million man-days in FY1999. This 

had implications that played out in training. Over 40,000 National Guardsmen 

rotated through combat training center rotations. Fifteen enhanced separate 

brigades had been designated within the National Guard. These combat 

brigades received priority with respect to equipment and training in the 

anticipation that they would be ready to deploy as combat brigades in less 

An after-action review following rigorous National Training Center (NTC) training 
181

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

than 90 days, as opposed to the upwards of 150 expected of other National 

Guard combat brigades or divisions. One National Training Center and one 

Joint Readiness Training Center rotation a year were to be given over to the 

enhanced brigades, in the expectation that they would rotate through on an 

eight-year cycle. Expectations of units of smaller size and combat support 

or combat service support missions were even greater. Fifty-two reserve-component units of company size rotated through the Joint Readiness Training 

Center in 1999, of which a number were expected to be able to deploy in as 

few as ten days. Combat training center rotations were capstone events, with 

far more training taking place at home stations or in local exercises. Training 

affiliations between active-component and reserve-component units deepened 

in the expectation the reserve-component units would be deploying earlier and 

more frequently. Teaming paired units from the two components with liketype counterparts for training and training support. Multicomponent units 

blended contingents from the two components into the same organization. 

Cases in point included the 32d Air and Missile Defense Command at Fort 

Bliss, Texas, and the United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological 

Operations Command (USACAPOC), a major subordinate command of the 

Special Operations Command. These blended commands actively controlled a 

mix of active, National Guard, and Army Reserve units. The newly reactivated 

24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Fort Riley, Kansas, and 7th Infantry 

Division at Fort Carson, Colorado, were also multicomponent, each directing 

the training of enhanced brigades and other units. The Army school system 

battalions of the Reserve divisions (institutional training) in part offset the 

damage done by declining TRADOC force structure. These Reservists filled 

in to provide skill qualification, leadership, and professional development 

training—as they would in wartime. Reserve initial-entry battalions similarly 

provided basic combat training and one-station unit training. Unfortunately, 

manning cuts did adversely affect the availability of full-time personnel within 

the reserve component. A mix of full-time Guardsmen and Reservists, civil 

servants, military technicians, and detailed members of the active component 

provided full-time service to the reserve component. In FY1999 this cadre fell 

28 percent short in the National Guard and 38 percent short in the Army 

Reserve, a considerable constraint on readiness overall. The United States 

Army had become heavily dependent on the reserve component to succeed in 

its ongoing missions, but had not yet achieved the resources and processes that 

would render it more fully prepared for these increased responsibilities.41

We have discussed the transformational efforts of Force XXI, with a 

particular emphasis on tactical maneuver units. We have also discussed the 

operational and strategic implications of an enhanced expeditionary posture, 

both in theory and in practice. We should also mention the focus and attention 

the Army gave to space during this period. In 1997 the United States Army 

Space and Missile Defense Command stood up. It furthered the traditions of 

a number of previous commands—the Army had been into missiles and missile defense since the early Cold War—and brought together a potpourri of 

space-related agencies under one roof. Broadly, the new command oriented on 

two principal missions: securing space assets and their products to soldiers in 
Kevlar Legions

182

the field and providing effective missile defense to the nation and its deployed 

forces. Of these missions, the first saw explosive growth and the second dramatic technological breakthroughs during the 1990s. Satellite-based GPS rapidly proliferated with respect to numbers and functions after Desert Storm. 

By 1999 they were the approved and increasingly irreplaceable solution for 

navigation, determining position, blue force tracking, and precision strikes 

in the form of JDAMs. In addition to GPS support, satellites were increasingly essential for communications and provided a vast array of intelligence 

products drawn from across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. The Space 

and Missile Defense Command ensured that soldiers had the equipment and 

training to take advantage of these capabilities, negotiated with joint counterparts to ensure appropriate satellite support for the Army, and contributed to 

the physical and electromagnetic security of satellites. Physical security shaded 

into its other mission, missile defense. The ever-improving Patriot Advanced 

Capability–3 (PAC-3) and the experimental Theater High-Altitude Air 

Defense (THAAD) both featured hit-to-kill technologies—“hitting a bullet 

with a bullet,” as wags were prone to say. Unlike interceptors fielded during 

the Cold War, hit-to-kill technologies did not require nuclear warheads to reliably destroy incoming missiles, rendering them enormously more flexible with 

respect to the circumstances in which they could be used. Engagement times 

could be dropped by precious seconds through “slew-to-cue” technologies. Air 

defense missile systems such as the Avenger were upgraded in such a manner 

that they responded automatically to sensors other than their own electromagnetically networked with them. Thus their armaments were slewing to an 

incoming target before their own sensors could detect it. When their sensors 

picked up the target, they were already on it. Such a capability would prove 

particularly useful in the case of cruise missiles. Cruise missiles are air breathing and fly at low altitudes, leaving them far more fleetingly visible than traditional missiles exposed along the full trajectory of a ballistic arc. During 1999 

field tests wedded slew-to-cue technology with the Joint Land Attack Cruise 

Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS), a long name for a 

blimp or “aerostat,” tethered high above the battlefield. The JLENS looked 

down on cruise missiles with multiple sensors and networked with firing batteries for instant queuing. The tests were successful, with JLENS able to track 

multiple targets simultaneously and pass them off to both ground-based and 

sea-based interceptors. True to the Army’s continuing commitment to Vuono’s 

six imperatives, the Space and Missile Defense Command never viewed its mandate as technological alone. Its Force Development and Integration Center, 

also established in 1997, developed guidance with respect to doctrine, training, 

organization, and personnel management. To guarantee future leadership, the 

Army established a career functional area for space-related assignments, to 

which officers first accessed in 1999. Inevitably colleagues referred to these 

young people as “space cadets,” a friendly term of derision often followed by 

mimicking the theme music from Twilight Zone, a popular television series 

evocative of the bizarre. Whatever the cultural commentary, the Army was in 

space to stay. The panoply of Force XXI would be dependent on space-based 

assets and would operate under multiple layers of missile defense.42
183

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

Conclusions

General Reimer’s tenure consolidated the post–Cold War transformational initiatives of the Vuono and Sullivan eras and carried them forward. 

In 1995 Force XXI was vision and programs more so than proven organization and hardware. By 1999 field experimentation had progressed through 

the division level. A full brigade sported appliqué versions of the Force XXI 

panoply and had tested them in the field. Force XXI technologies as envisioned were sufficiently mature to spread them across the force, had funding 

permitted. Downsizing was complete, and the now smaller Army reestablished 

the traditional personnel and training regimes that guaranteed readiness. 

The end of downsizing—and thus stability—was not entirely fortuitous; the 

Army’s performance in the Quadrennial Defense Review persuaded most that 

further diminishment of ground forces would be dysfunctional. Operational 

missions to the Middle East, the Balkans, and other overseas locations continued unabated; indeed they increased by half. Capabilities with respect to 

pre-positioning, airlift, sealift, expeditionary infrastructure, and expeditionary culture within the Army improved as well. Deployments increasingly were 

a way of life for the active component and also made significant demands 

on the reserve component. In this challenging environment the roles and missions of active and reserve intermingled as never before. Collaterally, operations in the Balkans and Partnership for Peace advanced the transformations 

of Warsaw Pact armies as well as our own, consolidating Cold War success. 

Contractors were ever more present and relied upon throughout the Army, 

compensating in part for downsizing, multiple prospective venues for deployment, and increased technological complexity. General Reimer had sustained 

a demonstrably capable full-spectrum force, executed current missions, and 

significantly advanced Army transformation. The soldiers that had been his 

credentials stood on the cusp of the twenty-first century considerably better 

prepared for its challenges because of their actions and preparations during 

the last four years.
Notes

1

 General Dennis J. Reimer, “Maintaining a Solid Framework While Building for 

the Future,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, October 1995, 21–26; “General Dennis J. 

Reimer,” in William G. Bell, Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff, 1775–2005: 

Portraits and Biographical Sketches of the Army’s Senior Officers (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 2005), 162; General Dennis J. Reimer, “Where We’ve 

Been—Where We’re Headed,” Address at the Dwight David Eisenhower Luncheon, 

Annual Meeting of the Association of the United States Army, Washington DC, 17 

October 1995, in Soldiers Are Our Credentials: The Collected Works and Selected 

Papers of the Thirty-third Chief of Staff, United States Army (Washington DC: Center 

of Military History, 2000), iv, 6–11; James L. Yarrison, The Modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1999), 77–84.

2

 Yarrison, 77–84; Land Combat in the 21st Century (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. 

Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1996); Stuart E. Johnson and Martin C. 

Libicki, eds., Dominant Battlespace Knowledge (Washington DC: National Defense 

University Press, 1996); John Ferris, A New American Way of War? C4ISR in 

Operation Iraqi Freedom, A Provisional Assessment (Calgary, Canada: Centre for 

Military and Strategic Studies, 1994); General William M. Hartzog, “TRADOC: 

Moving the Army into the Future,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 1997, 

49–54.

3 Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 281–92; W. Glenn Robertson, “First Bull 

Run, 19 July 1861,” in America’s First Battles: 1776–1965, eds. Charles E. Heller and 

William A. Stofft (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1986), 81–108; John 

S. Brown, Draftee Division: The 88th Infantry Division in World War II (Lexington, 

Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), 105–24; “Pointe du Hoe, 2d Ranger 

Battalion, 6 June 1943,” in Small Unit Actions (Washington DC: War Department 

Historical Division, 1946), 4–68; Fratricide Risk Assessment for Company Leadership 

(Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons Learned, 1992), 1–3; Fratricide: 

Reducing Self-Inflicted Losses (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons 

Learned, 1992), 28, 31; Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, Understanding War: History and 

Theory of Conflict (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987); Colonel Trevor N. 

Dupuy, Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War 

(Fairfax, Virginia: Hero Books, 1990).

4

 Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Schrader, Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire 

in Modern War (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, 1982); Geoffrey 

Reagan, Blue on Blue: A History of Friendly Fire (New York: Avon Books, 1995); 

General Fred Franks Jr. with Tom Clancy, Into the Storm: A Study in Command (New 

York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1997), 488–511; Field Manual 101–5–1, Operational Terms 

and Graphics (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1997); Combat Support 

Systems (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons Learned, 1986); 

Command and Control System (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons 

Learned, 1987); Battlefield Logistics (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army 

Lessons Learned, 1991); General Dennis J. Reimer, “The Army Is People,” Army 1998–

1999 Green Book, October 1998, 17–26. 

5

 Homer, The Iliad, trans. Samuel Butler (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970), 144–

57; John Warry, Warfare in the Classical World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980); 

Seven Operating Systems (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons 

Learned, 1986); Intelligence (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons 
185

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

Learned, 1986); Deception (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Center for Army Lessons 

Learned, 1988); Field Manual 2.0, Intelligence (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 2004); Lieutenant General Paul E. Menoher Jr., “Tailoring Intelligence to Meet 

the Needs of Force XXI,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, October 1995, 121–26; 

Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, “Army Intelligence: Improving Support to 

Commanders,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 1997, 129–32.

6

 Yarrison, 119–27; Franks with Clancy, 488–511; George H. Del Carlo, “A Glimpse 

of the Digitized Battlefield at the National Training Center,” Landpower Essay Series 

(Arlington, Virginia: Association of the United States Army, 1993); John C. Johnston, 

“The Journey to Force XXI’s Mounted Component,” Armor (March-April 1994): 

14–16; U.S. Army News Release, Army Selects Experimental Force, 2 December 1994; 

General William W. Hartzog, “A Time for Transformation: Creating Army XXI,” 

Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 53–59; General David A. Bramlett, 

“Forces Command: Combat Ready Soldiers for All Unified Commands,” Army 1997–

1998 Green Book, October 1997, 41–46; Hartzog, “TRADOC: Moving the Army into 

the Future,” 49–54.

7 Hartzog, “TRADOC: Moving the Army into the Future,” 49–54; “Army 

Weaponry, Equipment and New Technologies,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 

1997, 294–96.

8 Hartzog, “TRADOC: Moving the Army into the Future,” 49–54; “Army 

Weaponry, Equipment and New Technologies,” 294–96; Reimer, “The Army Is 

People,” 17–26. 

9 Lieutenant Colonel H. R. McMaster, Crack in the Foundation: Defense 

Transformation and the Underlying Assumption of Dominant Knowledge in Future 

War, Historians Files, CMH; Field Manual 2–0, Intelligence; Hartzog, “TRADOC: 

Moving the Army into the Future,” 49–54; Intelligence, 1986; Deception, 1988; 

Menoher, 121–26; Kennedy, 129–32.

10 Information Paper, Tim Muchmore, Precision Guided Munitions: They Cannot 

Do It Alone, annotated for Army senior leaders, 7 August, 2001, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army Senior Leader Update, Precision Strike: A Unique American Military 

Advantage . . . but with Limitations, 14 August 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Peter 

Grier, “The JDAM Revolution,” Air Force Online: The Journal of the Air Force 

Association, September 2006.

11 Yarrison, 77–95; Briefing, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to the 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, “Force XXI WFLA FY99–09 

Modernization Recommendations,” 31 January 1997, Historians Files, CMH. 

12 Connie L. Reeves, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1996

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2002), 72–79, 97: Jeffery A. Charleston, 

Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1999 (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 2006), 8–12, 48–54, 74–76.

13 Ibid.; Lieutenant General Steven L. Arnold, “Third U.S. Army: Always First,” 

Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 173–78; Lieutenant General Tommy R. 

Franks, “Third U.S. Army: Providing Deployable Warfighting Headquarters,” Army 

1997–1998 Green Book, October 1997, 173–77; Lieutenant General Tommy R. Franks, 

“Third U.S. Army: ‘One Team, One Fight, One Future’ Is a Reality,” Army 1998–1999 

Green Book, October 1998, 177, 181; Lieutenant General Tommy R. Franks, “Third 

Army: Ready to Respond and Regionally Engaged,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, 

October 1999, 193–98.

14 Reeves, 72–79; Charlston, 8–12, 48–54; General Gary E. Luck, “Vigilance on 

Freedom’s Frontier to Counter the ‘Face of Uncertainty,’” Army 1995–1996 Green 

Book, October 1995, 77–83; Lieutenant General Robert L. Ord III, “U.S. Army 
Kevlar Legions

186

Pacific: Historic Ties, Dynamic Future,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, October 1995, 

99–105; General John H. Tilelli Jr., “One of the Cold War’s Last Hot Spots, Korea: 

Deterring War and Defending Freedom,” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 

79–86; Lieutenant General William M. Steele, “America’s Army in the Pacific: ‘Writing 

a Glorious Page in the Nation’s History,’” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 

109–14; General John H. Tilelli Jr., “Korea: A Team Defense Against a Renewed 

Threat,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 1997, 73–80; Lieutenant General 

William M. Steele, “A Century of Commitment to the Asia-Pacific,” Army 1997–1998 

Green Book, October 1997, 103–08; General John H. Tilelli Jr., “Our Quality Troops: 

A Bedrock of Peace and Stability,” Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 87–94; 

Lieutenant General William M. Steele, “U.S. Army Pacific: Relevant, Responsive and 

Ready,” Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 113–18; General John H. Tilelli 

Jr., “Joint/Combined Operations Are Integral to Korea’s Defense,” Army 1999–2000 

Green Book, October 1999, 99–104; Lieutenant General Edwin P. Smith, “USARPAC: 

A Vast Area with Expanding Importance,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, October 

1999, 123–30.

15 Reeves, 72–79; Charlston, 8–12, 48–54; Major General Lawson W. Magruder III, 

“A Total Effort Supporting Regional Democracy,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, 

October 1995, 157–61; Major General William A. Navas Jr., “The Army National 

Guard: Flexible, Accessible Force,” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October, 1996, 

89–94; Major General Max Baratz, “Ready and More Relevant Than Ever: A 

Restructured Army Reserve,” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 97–107; 

Major General Lawson W. Magruder III, “U.S. Army South: Fostering Peace in 

Central and South America,” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 181–86; 

Major General Philip R. Kensinger Jr., “U.S. Army South: Expanding to New 

Horizons,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 1997, 179–84; Major General Philip 

R. Kensinger Jr., “U.S. Army South: Peacefully Engaging Our Regional Partners,” 

Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 183–87; Major General Roger C. Schultz, 

“Army National Guard: Continuing the Transformation,” Army 1999–2000 Green 

Book, October 1999, 107–13; Major General Thomas J. Plewes, “The Indispensable 

Army Reserve: One Part of a Synchronized Force,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, 

October 1999, 115–22; Major General Philip R. Kensinger Jr., “U.S. Army South: 

Moving Out and Continuing the Mission,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, October 

1999, 199–202.

16 R. Cody Phillips, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The U.S. Army’s Role in Peace Enforcement 

Operations, 1995–2004 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2005); Charles E. 

Kirkpatrick, “Ruck It Up!”: The Post–Cold War Transformation of V Corps, 1990–

2001 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2006), 387–458; General William 

W. Crouch, “U.S. Army Europe: Forward Deployed and Projecting Power,” Army 

1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 69–77; General Eric K. Shinseki, “America’s 

Soldiers: Our Ambassadors for Democracy,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 

1997, 65–70; General Eric K. Shinseki, “U.S. Army Europe: Ready Today, Ready in 

the 21st Century,” Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 79–85; Christopher 

Bennett, Yugoslavia’s Bloody Collapse: Causes, Course and Consequences (New York: 

New York University Press, 1995); Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: 

Random House, 1998).

17R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2006); Kirkpatrick, 459–534; General 

Montgomery C. Meigs, “U.S. Army Europe: On Point for the Nation,” Army 1999–

2000 Green Book, October 1999, 89–97; Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons and 

Non-Lessons of the Air and Missile Campaign in Kosovo (Westport, Connecticut: 
187

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

Praeger, 2001); R. Craig Nation, War in the Balkans, 1992–2002 (Carlisle Barracks, 

Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute, 2003). 

18 NATO Handbook (Brussels: NATO Office of Information and Press, 1995), 

50–69; The Military Balance 1996/1997 (London: Oxford University Press, 1996), 

32–103; Kirkpatrick, 110–16; Major A. J. Koenig, Partnership for Peace Exercise 

Summary, V Corps History Office, July 1997; Partnership for Peace Framework 

Document (Brussels: North Atlantic Council/North Atlantic Cooperation Council, 

1994); General Wesley A. Clark, “Transforming NATO’s Military for the 21st 

Century,” SHAPE Officer’s Association Newsletter, no. 109, 5–7; Admiral Guido 

Venturoni, “NATO—The Search for Peace,” SHAPE Officer’s Association Newsletter, 

no. 109, 11–16; Jeffrey Simon, “NATO”s Membership Action Plan and Defense 

Planning: Credibility at Stake,” Problems of Post-Communism (May-June 2001): 28–36; 

Shinseki, “America’s Soldiers: Our Ambassadors for Democracy,” 65–70; Author’s personal experience and observations while serving as the Chief of Programs and 

Requirements, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Mons, Belgium, 1997–

1998.

19 Eric K. Shinseki, The Army Family: A White Paper (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2003), 7–25; Interv with Mary Beth Brown, 15 August 2008, 

Historians Files, CMH; Army Families and Soldier Readiness (Santa Monica, 

California: Rand Arroyo Center, 1992); What We Know About Army Families

(Arlington, Virginia: Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 

1993); Survey of Army Families, IV (Arlington, Virginia: Army Research Institute for 

the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2001); TRICARE Prime Handbook (Washington 

DC: Department of Defense, 2005).

20 Charlston, 48–50; Phillips, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 16–18; Kirkpatrick, 57–67, 421–

25; Crouch, 69–77; Shinseki, “America’s Soldiers: Our Ambassadors for Democracy,” 

65–70; Shinseki, “U.S. Army Europe: Ready Today, Ready in the 21st Century,” 79–85; 

E-mail, Brigadier General John S. Brown (SHAPE) to Major General David D. 

McKiernan (USAREUR), 21 August 1998, sub: Hungarian IAP and USAREUR 

Exercise Reduction, Historians Files, CMH. 

21 Reeves, 3–8,72–79, 97–98; Charlston, 48–54, 74–76; Major General John R. 

D’Araujo Jr., “Army National Guard: A Vision for the Future,” Army 1995–1996 

Green Book, October 1995, 85–89; Major General Max Baratz, “U.S. Army Reserve: 

More Ready, More Focused and More Capable,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, 

October 1995, 91–97; Major General William A. Navas Jr., “The Army National 

Guard: Flexible, Accessible Force,” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 89–94; 

Major General Max Baratz, “Ready and More Relevant Than Ever: A Restructured 

Army Reserve,” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, October 1996, 97–107; Major General 

William A. Navas Jr., “The Army National Guard: Capable, Cost-Effective and Vital 

Force,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 1997, 85–90; Major General Max 

Baratz, “A Reorganized Army Reserve: Relevant and Ready,” Army 1997–1998 Green 

Book, October 1997, 93–100; Major General Roger C. Schultz, “The National Guard’s 

Secret to Success,” Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 95–100; Major 

General Thomas J. Plewes, “Army Reserve: A True Partner in America’s Army,” Army 

1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 103–11; Schultz, “Army National Guard: 

Continuing the Transformation,” 107–13; Plewes, “The Indispensable Army Reserve: 

One Part of a Synchronized Force,” 115–22. 

22 Mark D. Sherry, The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2008); Briefing, “Project ANTAEUS: 

Analyzing the Army in Evolving U.S. Strategy,” 8 December 1988, Historians Files, 

CMH; Project Vanguard Final Report (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 
Kevlar Legions

188

1990); Lorna S. Jaffe, The Development of the Base Force, 1989–1992 (Washington DC: 

Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1993); Secretary of Defense Les 

Aspin, Report on the Bottom-Up Review (Washington DC: Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, 1993); Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., The Bottom-Up Review: An Assessment 

(Washington DC: Defense Budget Project, 1994); Directions for Defense: Report of the 

Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces (Washington DC: Department 

of Defense, 1995); Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., Missed Opportunities: An Assessment of 

the Roles and Missions Commission Report (Washington DC: Defense Budget Project, 

1995). 

23 Section 923(a) of H.R. 3230, National Defense Authorization Act of 1996, Public 

Law 104–201.

24 Sherry; H.R. 3230, National Defense Authorization Act of 1996, Public Law 

104–201; Joint Staff, Charter for the Quadrennial Defense Review, 1996, Historians 

Files, CMH; Briefing, DAMO-SS Strategy Task Force, 1 November 1996, Historians 

Files, CMH; Briefing, “Quadrennial Review (QDR): Army Plans and Preparations,” 

October 1996, Historians Files, CMH; President of the United States, A National 

Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington DC: White House, 

February 1995); Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, The National Military Strategy 

of the United States of America (Washington DC: Office of the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, 1995); Joint Publication 3.0, Joint Operations (Washington DC: Office 

of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995); Joint Vision 2010 (Washington 

DC: Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995).

25 Sherry; Briefing, DAMO-SS Strategy Task Force, 1 November 1996; Briefing, 

“Quadrennial Review (QDR): Army Plans and Preparations,” October 1996; 

Presentation, Congressman Newt Gingrich to the (New) Brigadier General 

Orientation Course, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, October 1997; Michael G. Vickers, 

Warfare in 2020: A Primer (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary 

Assessments, 1996); McMaster. 

26 Sherry; Briefing, J8, “Dynamic Commitment: The Transitions Wargames Series 

in Support of the Quadrennial Defense Review,” 23 December 1996, Historians Files, 

CMH; Briefing, J8 Forces Division, “Baseline Engagement Force Status Report,” 23 

December 1996, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, J8, “Multiple LRC Assessment,” 23 

December 1996, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, J8, “SECDEF Review Briefing: 

Smaller-Scale Contingency Force Requirements Study,” 25 April 1997, Historians 

Files, CMH; Dynamic Commitment 4 Game Book (Washington DC: Joint Staff, 1997); 

Briefing, QDR Executive Session, “A Risk Assessment of the POM Force Against the 

JSR World: J8/SAGD Gaming Input to the Force Assessment Panel,” 25 April 1997, 

Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, CMH, “Evaluation of Army Readiness,” Historians 

Files, CMH; DAMO-SS Slide Series, “Army Units Have Contributed Over 60% of the 

Engaged Forces on 25% of the Budget,” Historians Files, CMH. 

27 Sherry; Briefing, DAMO-FDX, “Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study (DAWMS) 

and the Close Support End to End Assessment (CSEEA),” November 1996, Historians 

Files, CMH; John Y. Schrader, Leslie Lewis, and Roger Allen Brown, Quadrennial 

Defense Review(QDR) Analysis: A Retrospective Look at Joint Staff Participation 

(Santa Monica, California: RAND, 1999); DAMO-SS Fact Sheet, Army Lessons 

Learned from DAWMS, Historians Files, CMH.

28 Sherry; William S. Cohen, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington 

DC: Department of Defense, 1997); Defense Planning Guidance, FY 1998–2003 

(Washington DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1996); Transforming Defense: 

National Security in the 21st Century (Washington DC: National Defense Panel, 1997); 

William S. Cohen, Defense Reform Initiative Report (Washington DC: Department of 
189

The Reimer Years, 1995–1999

Defense, 1997); Wayne P. Hughes Jr., ed., Military Modeling for Decision Making 

(Alexandria, Virginia: Military Operations and Research Society, 1997); James S. 

Thomason, ed., The Quadrennial Defense Review, Lessons Learned from the 1997 

Review and Options for the Future (Washington DC: Institute for Defense Analysis, 

1998); Tim Weiner, “Two War Strategy Is Obsolete, Panel of Experts Says,” New York 

Times, 2 December 1997; Thomas E. Ricks, “Panel Calls for the Pentagon to Change 

the Way It Thinks About Future Operations,” Wall Street Journal, 1 December 1997; 

George C. Wilson, This War Really Matters: Inside the Fight for Defense Dollars 

(Washington DC: CQ Press, 2000), 25–192.

29 Wilson, This War Really Matters, 25–145; General Dennis J. Reimer, “Address at 

the Dwight D. Eisenhower Luncheon, Annual Meeting of the Association of the 

United States Army, Washington, D.C.,” 15 October 1996, in Soldiers Are Our 

Credentials, 70–75; Thomas K. Adams, The Army After Next: The First Postindustrial 

Army (Stanford, California: Stanford Security Studies, 2008), 1–101; Note, General 

Dennis J. Reimer to Brigadier John S. Brown, 16 April 1999, sub: Comparing Interwar 

German Army Innovation with That of the Post–Cold War U.S. Army, Historians 

Files, CMH.

30 Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian; Kirkpatrick, 459–534; Meigs, 89–97; 

Cordesman; Nation.

31 Ibid.; Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War (New York: Public Affairs, 2001); 

“How Fear of Losses Kept Super-Copters from Kosovo Action,” Herald Tribune, 30 

December 1999; Sean D. Naylor, “Commander Defends Mission That Launched a 

Thousand Criticisms,” Army Times, 17 April 2000; General Dennis J. Reimer, “The 

Strike Force Operational Concept Paper,” in Soldiers Are Our Credentials, 254–63.

32 Vincent Demma, Contractors on the Battlefield: An Historical Survey from the 

Civil War to Bosnia, Historians Files, CMH; Supplementary Report on Army 

Contracting, Historians Files, CMH. 

33 Ibid.; Sherry; “Constitution of the United States and Amendments,” in Mary 

Beth Norton et al., A People and a Nation: A History of the United States (New York: 

Houghton Mifflin, 2005), A29–A37; Office of Management and Budget Circular 

A–76, Performance of Commercial Activities, 1999; Interv with Joseph V. Charyk, 

Chief Scientist, identified in Defense Acquisition History Project: Oral Finding Aid 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2005), 51; Cohen, Report of the 

Quadrennial Defense Review; Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st 

Century; The Beauchamp Years: Oral History Interviews with MG Roy E. Beauchamp, 

TACOM Commanding General 10 July 1997–13 August 1990 (Warren, Michigan: 

United States Tank–Automotive and Armaments Command, 2002), 1–78; Interv with 

Mr. Dale G. Adams, Principal Deputy for Acquisition, in Reflections of Senior AMC 

Officials, Volume II (Fort Belvoir, Virginia: U.S. Army Material Command Historical 

Office, 2006), 167–92; Memo, Deputy Secretary of Defense, 16 January 1998, sub: 

Department of Defense Reform Initiative Directive #20: Review of Inherently 

Governmental Functions; E-mail, General Dennis J. Reimer to Brigadier General John 

S. Brown, 12 January 2009, sub: Book Project, Historians Files, CMH.

34 Vincent Demma, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1989 

(Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1998), 11–12, 109–10, 133–39, 191–96; 

Charlston, 3–13, 32–35, 101–03, 108–09; Major General David A. Whaley, 

“Installations: Linchpin of America’s Army,” Army 1997–1998 Green Book, October 

1997, 141–44; Major General David A. Whaley, “Installations: Maintaining Quality 

Where Soldiers Live,” Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 145–50; Major 

General Robert L.Van Antwerp Jr., “Readiness, Retention and Quality of Life Depend 

on Sustaining Army Communities,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, October 1999, 165–
Kevlar Legions

190

70; Wilson, This War Really Matters, 146–65; Interv with Mr. George L. Jones, AMC 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, in Reflections of Senior AMC Officials, Volume 

II, 195–213; Daniel H. Else, Military Housing Privatization Initiative: Background and 

Issues (Washington DC: Congressional Research Services, 2001). 

35 Demma, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1989, 3–13, 

63–71, 109–10, 137–59; Charlston, 3–13, 25–34, 61–80; Demma, Contractors on the 

Battlefield: An Historical Survey from the Civil War to Bosnia; Supplementary Report 

on Army Contracting; Interv with Mr. A. David Mills, Principal Deputy for Logistics, 

in Reflections of Senior AMC Officials, Volume II, 149–66; General Johnnie E. Wilson, 

“AMC: Changing Today to Sustain and Equip Tomorrow’s Soldier,” Army 1998–1999 

Green Book, October 1998, 71–76; Kirkpatrick, 416, 482.

36 Demma, Contractors on the Battlefield: An Historical Survey from the Civil War 

to Bosnia; Supplementary Report on Army Contracting; “Army Weaponry and 

Equipment,” Army 1995–1996 Green Book, October 1995, 218–320; “Army Weapons 

and Equipment,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, October 1999, 260–334; Reeves, 63–67, 

111–19; Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Desk Reference, vol. I,

Foundation Documents (Washington DC: Department of Defense, 2006); Hartzog, 

“TRADOC: Moving the Army into the Future,” 49–54. 

37 Deborah D. Avant, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing 

Security (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Interv with Lieutenant 

General James M. Link, in Reflections of Senior AMC Officials, Volume II, 81–112; 

Wilson, “AMC: Changing Today to Sustain and Equip Tomorrow’s Soldier,” 71–76; 

Multiple Responses to Secretary of the Army–directed Think Piece on Intellectual 

Capital, June 2002, Historians Files, CMH.

38 Ibid.

39 Charlston, 25–40; Ltr, General Dennis J. Reimer to Army General Officers, 2 

June 1998, in Soldiers Are Our Credentials, 208–11; Lieutenant General David H. Ohle, 

“Designing a Holistic System for Human Resource Management,” 1999–2000 Army 

Green Book, October 1999, 157–64. 

40 Charlston, 41–48; General Dennis J. Reimer, “Training: Our Army’s Top Priority, 

and Don’t You Forget It!” in Soldiers Are Our Credentials, 51–56; Field Manual 

25–100, Training the Force (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1988); Field 

Manual 25–101, Battle-Focused Training (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 

1990); General Thomas A. Schwartz, “The Power of FORSCOM Is the Power of 

People,” 1999–2000 Army Green Book, October 1999, 57–68; General John N. Abrams, 

“Training and Doctrine Remain the Keystones of Readiness,” 1999–2000 Army Green 

Book, October 1999, 71–76.

41 Charlston, 45–48, 61–80; Schultz, “Army National Guard: Continuing the 

Transformation,” 107–13; Plewes, “The Indispensable Army Reserve: One Part of a 

Synchronized Force,” 115–22; Michael D. Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History of the 

Army National Guard, 1636–2000 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2001), 

360–68.

42 Charlston, 58–60; James Walker and James T. Hooper, Space Warriors: The Army 

Space Support Team (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004); James 

Walker, Lewis Bernstein, and Sharon Lang, Seize the High Ground: The Army in Space 

and Missile Defense (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004); Ltrs, General 

Dennis J. Reimer to Army General Officers, 4 December 1996 and 13 February 1997, 

in Soldiers Are Our Credentials, 93–94, 99–101; Lieutenant General John Costello, 

“Space and Missile Defense Challenges for the 21st Century,” 1999–2000 Army Green 

Book, October 1999, 183–88.
Chapter 5

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

General Eric K. Shinseki became Chief of Staff of the Army on 22 June 

1999. He was thoroughly familiar with retiring Chief of Staff General Dennis 

J. Reimer’s vision of the way ahead for the Army and was well prepared to 

carry it forward. General Reimer brought him out of command of the 1st 

Cavalry Division in July 1995 to serve as the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff 

for Operations and Plans (ADCSOPS), and he was elevated to DCSOPS a 

year later. In July 1997 he pinned on a fourth star and assumed command 

of the United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), and the Seventh Army. In 

this capacity he commanded the Allied forces in Bosnia through sixteen trying 

months. He returned to serve as Reimer’s Vice Chief of Staff from November 

1998 through his elevation to Chief of Staff. As ADSCOPS and DCSOPS 

he was central to the design and implementation of Force XXI. In Bosnia 

he experienced post–Cold War operational realities firsthand. As Vice Chief 

of Staff he was, of course, the Chief of Staff’s right-hand man. Shinseki’s 

centrality to Army transformation thus far made him an obvious choice for 

Chief of Staff. It also exposed him to critics grousing about the undramatic 

recent Quadrennial Defense Review results, or trying to parlay criticisms of 

Task Force Hawk into a mandate for accelerated transformation—or for 

Army diminution. Shinseki would be challenged to visibly pick up the pace of 

transformation while nevertheless maintaining orderliness. 

Halfway through his tenure the devastating attacks of 11 September 2001 

propelled the nation and the Army into the Global War on Terrorism. From 

that point the Army would be transforming while at war. Shinseki balanced 

the design of a full-spectrum force appropriate for an uncertain future with the 

narrower and more specific demands of immediate operations. Thoughtful, 

self-effacing, and deliberative by nature, Shinseki maneuvered to satisfactorily 

address both the future and the present without inciting undue resistance or 

acrimony. He had worked his way through hard times before. Twice wounded 

in Vietnam, he had lost much of his right foot and remained in the Army only 

after securing an exception to policy approved by the Secretary of the Army. 

Prolonged convalescence steered him into staff and academic assignments for 

a time. During the course of these he secured a master’s degree and taught 

comparative literature at the United States Military Academy. Upon returning to troop duty he progressed through operational assignments steadily, 

commanding at every level through division and serving as a division and a 
Kevlar Legions

192

corps operations officer as well. In 

the Pentagon he served as a force 

integration staff officer and as the 

director of training in the Office 

of the Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Operations and Plans (ODCSOPS), 

valuable experience in what he later 

characterized as budgetary “short 

sword fighting.” 

He and his wife, Patty, whom 

he married immediately after his 

graduation from West Point in 

1965, shared an iconic affection 

for turtles. Turtles symbolized the 

steadiness of effort with which 

they reconstructed his body and 

his career. The metaphor reminded 

them that myriads of small supporting efforts translated into overall 

success and that in their case such 

support had included considerable 

family sacrifice. Shinseki often reintroduced this little picture of collective individual efforts when deliberating with transformational enthusiasts too captured by the big picture of 

technological leap-aheads. The little picture included the daily welfare of 

soldiers, attention to families and their morale, and services that could only 

be rendered by “boots on the ground.” Creative tension between the big picture and the little picture would define yet another balance Shinseki would 

fight to achieve.1

Army Transformation

During General Shinseki’s tenure, Army Transformation appeared written with a capital T. This reflected institutional emphasis and “strategic 

communications.” Shinseki addressed both priorities even before he assumed 

his new position. Army Chief of Staff designates generally assemble a transition team of specialists and confidants to help them be broadly informed 

and to “hit the ground running” from their first day in office. Shinseki was 

familiar with the practice and undertook a particularly elaborate version to 

gather information and facilitate support for his programs downstream. An 

assessment group of over a dozen seasoned officers and command sergeants 

major headed by a brigadier general fanned out to interview over 350 selected 

general officers, members of the secretariat, congressional representatives and 

staffers, academics, and pundits. They also conducted sensing sessions with 

groups of field-grade officers, company-grade officers, warrant officers, noncommissioned officers, junior enlisted men and women, and family members. 

General Shinseki
193

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

This assessment group consolidated its results and fed them to an integration 

group, charged with developing short- and long-term campaign plans. The 

integration group authored drafts of the speeches and releases proposed for 

Shinseki’s first two weeks, laid out a detailed program for his first six months, 

and outlined his entire tenure with respect to such foreseeable programs as 

Army Transformation. Most of the members of the integration group were 

senior field-grade officers already identified to serve on the CSA Staff Group 

(such as on the Army Chief of Staff’s personal staff) once Shinseki became 

Chief, thus ensuring continuity as plans played out. A consulting group of 

selected senior officers and retirees reviewed the products of the assessment 

and integration groups as they emerged, and an executive group headed by 

a brigadier general coordinated the activities of the three other groups and 

shepherded administrative support. The entire exercise seemed a miniature 

and compressed version of General Sullivan’s modern Louisiana Maneuvers 

without the field portions, pursued for about the same reasons. Sullivan had 

envisioned and Reimer had followed through on Force XXI, and now an Army 

with demonstrably improved expeditionary capabilities featured one brigade 

and a few headquarters equipped with field-tested appliqué Information Age 

hardware and software. Continuing on its present course, the Army could 

infuse the rest of its force with this appliqué over time, deferring more dramatic 

changes to the still-distant Army After Next. This evolutionary approach, as 

we have seen, attracted a swarm of critics outside the Army. Inside the Army 

experiences over the last eight years bubbled up in the form of recommended 

edits or adjustments. Not the least of these experiences were those of Shinseki 

himself in Bosnia, where tanks and Bradleys demolished fragile road networks 

while troops patrolling in much lighter high mobility multipurpose wheeled 

vehicles (HMMWVs) were horribly exposed. Shinseki’s Special Staff Study 

Group, the name he gave to his four-part transition team, existed for two 

months, canvassed the most advanced and the most representative thinking 

within and about the Army, identified areas of concern or recommended 

effort, and proposed ways ahead that built upon the past while adjusting for 

the future.2

A recurrent theme in the opinions surfaced by Shinseki’s Special Staff 

Study Group had to do with the image of the Army. The Army might have 

been steadily transforming itself to deal with an uncertain future, but it was 

not getting credit for it. During the Quadrennial Defense Review and its aftermath Army representatives repeatedly cautioned against an overreliance on 

technology. To some, they came across as anti-technology. Field experimentation with digitization thus far involved only a small fragment of the Army 

and could be invisible to outsiders unless they were paying attention. Other 

than officers actually working with the transformational technologies, few 

within the Army could persuasively articulate what they were about or where 

they were going. Recurrent deployments were inevitably of more interest and 

more visible to the public—and to soldiers. We have already discussed the 

public relations dilemma provoked by Task Force Hawk. A joke making the 

rounds asked what the difference was between the Army Staff and Jurassic 

Park. The answer was that one was a zoo full of dinosaurs and the other was 
Kevlar Legions

194

a popular motion picture. Shinseki determined to change this image. He did 

envision substantive changes in the direction transformational efforts had 

taken thus far, but he also intended to get the entire Army on message with 

a commonly understood vision of where it was going and how it was going 

to get there. His somewhat expansive “Thoughts on the Line of Departure” 

worked their way through a fistful of imperatives before focusing on a final 

imperative to develop and communicate an Army vision. In addition to 

audiences within the Army, the vision had to address the American people, 

Congress, the Department of Defense and Joint Staff, the “CINCdoms” 

(such as major commands at home and overseas), other services, corporate America, the media, academe, allies, and potential adversaries. Tools 

included speeches, communiqués, conferences, symposia, meetings, visits, 

news releases, interviews, films, professional publications, and the Internet. 

Approaches would be nuanced to audiences. The Office of Congressional 

Liaison, for example, would ensure that itinerant general officers en route to 

“the Hill” had a clear understanding of Army Transformation, whereas the 

Center of Military History would attempt to be similarly helpful to those 

destined for scholarly forums. In a pithy statement of intent released as he 

assumed his position, Shinseki acknowledged that most of the business of 

the Army would roll along under the supervision of leaders subordinate to 

him, and he foresaw six objectives that would particularly require his personal attention: increasing strategic responsiveness, developing a clear longterm strategy to improve operational jointness, developing leaders for joint 

war fighting and change, completing the integration of the active and reserve 

components, manning war-fighting units, and providing for the well-being 

of soldiers, civilians, and family members. Of these, the first four were clearly 

transformative. Shinseki came into office with a vision and a campaign plan 

and allowed himself four months to mature a supportive coalition within 

the Army for the changes he envisioned. Senior planning groups chaired by 

the Vice Chief of Staff, General Jack Keane, and others worked on details, 

drafted implementing strategies, and reinforced a sense of urgency. Shinseki 

particularly briefed and garnered the support of the Secretary of the Army, 

the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Some of the Army’s severest critics resided in the Secretariat and the Joint 

Staff, and Shinseki wanted “top cover” in those domains when he came forward with fleshed-out plans. Happily, and by design, the four-month mark 

coincided with the annual meeting of the Association of the United States 

Army (AUSA). Shinseki and Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera effectively elevated “Strategic Communications” into a principal staff agency 

transcending traditional public affairs functions alone and reporting directly 

to the two of them. The annual AUSA meeting provided an ideal forum in 

which to exercise it.3

The Eisenhower Luncheon of the annual meeting of the AUSA is a glittering affair. A grand ballroom in a major Washington, DC, hotel deploys its best 

tableware across hundreds of tables. Platoons of waiters and waitresses whisk 

elegantly presented menu courses in and their smeared remnants out with 

remarkable precision. An elevated head table running much of the length of 
195

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

the room seats the Army’s four-star generals, AUSA illuminati (most of whom 

are retired generals), and selected guests of honor. Intermittent welcoming 

remarks, invocations, announcements, and inspiring film clips emanate from 

a podium in the midst of the head table. Seating radiates across the room and 

into the balconies from this podium, with the most prestigious tables most 

proximate to it. Tables generally feature a designed mix of corporate leaders, 

serving military personnel, and invited guests. Most present are in the upper 

tiers of careers in industry, politics, or the military, but tables often seat a junior 

officer, noncommissioned officer (NCO), or soldier or two selected by their 

commands and hosted by the AUSA or its corporate members. Thus each table 

is a miniature version of what some might call the military-industrial complex, 

grounded by the presence of soldiers just in from the field. The tables reflect 

the social composition of the AUSA meeting itself, a five-day extravaganza of 

luncheons, symposia, presentations, speeches, classes, tutorials, and corporate 

displays sprawling over acres of floor space. Those seated at tables somewhat 

removed from the podium at the Eisenhower Luncheon will not miss the show, 

for massive wall screens project live televised imagery of the speakers and of 

whatever slides and film clips the speakers or hosts choose to project. Indeed, 

observers not even in the room can capture the substance of the presentations, 

if not altogether the atmosphere in which they are presented. Presentations 

are largely in the background until dessert and coffee are served, and then 

all attention focuses on the keynote speaker, the Chief of Staff of the United 

States Army. This is the Army’s equivalent of the President’s Annual State of 

the Union message, an opportunity to summarize progress and communicate 

vision to the audience most immediately instrumental to the success of the 

Army, while reaching through that audience to transmit the same message to 

the entire Army “family” and all who care about it. On 12 October 1999, the 

keynote speaker was General Eric K. Shinseki. Appropriately, and perhaps 

poignantly, he was introduced by General (Retired) Gordon R. Sullivan, now 

the president of AUSA. The author of the modern Louisiana Maneuvers 

would listen as the transformation he had sought took its next steps. Shinseki, 

waving aside the pedantry of Army historians who counseled that the next 

millennium actually began on 1 January 2001, started with the premise that 

the Army was but weeks away from the next century and the next millennium 

and had huge strides to make to prepare for both. He evoked the memory of 

Elihu Root and the last turnover of a century, and the gigantic transformation at that time from a frontier army to an army with global responsibilities. 

In his view the Army was now between wars but was unlikely to have much 

time before it was tested again. Army transformation would be his highest 

personal priority as Chief of Staff, a priority that would redefine it as Army 

Transformation.4

Army Transformation, as unveiled at the Eisenhower Luncheon and further promulgated in subsequent forums, artfully repackaged much that had 

gone before while integrating new initiatives envisioned by Shinseki. The basics 

could be, and often were, briefed from a single PowerPoint slide. The so-called 

“Trident” became ubiquitous, an organizing principle for massive multislide 

briefings, the preeminent slide in slender packets intended for those who could 
General Shinseki’s iconic slide depicting his vision for Army Transformation
197

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

give the subject but limited time, and a decorative logo on virtually anything 

published that had to do with Army Transformation. Junior officers and 

NCOs in the training base, seasoned leaders throughout the Department of 

Defense, and key players in government and industry all were talked through 

this slide by Army Transformation’s enthusiastic advocates. The top prong of 

the Trident was the Legacy Force, in essence the Army XXI that was emerging from Force XXI. The Legacy Force would trundle on in such venerable 

vehicles as the M1A1 Abrams and M2/M3 Bradley, sporting appliqué versions of Information Age hardware and software. Its massive firepower and 

formidable armor would outclass prospective adversaries for years to come, 

and it would fight America’s battles until superseded. Deficient with respect to 

strategic mobility, the Legacy Force would rely on now much-improved sealift and Pre-positioning of Materiel Configured to Unit Sets (POMCUS) to 

deploy. The middle prong of the Trident was labeled the Objective Force, similar to the Army After Next, albeit on a more ambitious timeline. The Objective 

Force was a vision of future warfare depending upon technologies that did 

not yet actually exist. Information Age technologies would be intrinsic rather 

than appliqué, platforms would be lighter yet better protected, weapons would 

be more precise and more lethal, futuristic capabilities such as robotics and 

stealth technology would be ubiquitous, and distinctions between light and 

heavy forces would have blurred. The third prong of the Trident, the Interim 

Force, was new. Honing in on Shinseki’s conviction that contemporary heavy 

forces were too heavy and light forces too light, it would build and deploy 

brigade-size units of intermediate weight equipped with the most advanced 

technologies immediately available. The Interim Force borrowed ideas from 

both the Experimental Force (EXFOR) and Reimer’s Strike Force but was 

to be neither one of a kind nor experimental. The Interim Force would rapidly deploy sufficient brigades, six, to be operationally significant. By their 

very nature Interim Brigade Combat Teams would offer opportunities to 

develop training and doctrine appropriate to the Objective Force, but they 

were to be deployable fighting units in their own right from the beginning. 

The three prongs of the Trident would be parallel and complementary but 

distinct for about a decade. Around 2010 or shortly thereafter the technologies 

of the Objective Force would be mature, and deployable units featuring them 

fielded. From that point units would roll over into the new equipment and the 

three prongs would converge onto a single axis, the Objective Force. Along 

the bottom of the Trident slide the words “Responsive, Deployable, Agile, 

Versatile, Lethal, Survivable, and Sustainable” reminded the briefer and those 

being briefed of the character the Transformed Army would have.5

From the beginning Shinseki specified tangible goals for the forces he 

advocated and programmed actions and assets to achieve them. The Objective 

Force was to be capable of deploying a combat-ready brigade anywhere in the 

world within 96 hours, a division within 120 hours, and five divisions within 

30 days. Interim Brigade Combat Teams would have similar strategic mobility, 

albeit not the same depth-of-force structure. Backward planning from these 

tangible goals drove a proliferation of specifics and details: vehicles that fit 

into aircraft of contemporary design; load plans such that vehicles, crews, 
Kevlar Legions

198

accoutrements, and several days of supply could travel together; scaled-down 

logistical footprints at the far end; appreciable sustainment from the home 

station; and so on. Shinseki even set milestones for answering the questions 

that were at the time unanswerable. Unrelenting and focused research efforts 

would identify achievable technologies within three or four years’ time. These 

in turn would be harnessed to begin producing fully equipped Objective Force 

units in eight to ten years’ time. The Objective Force would feature a panoply 

of sensors, communications nodes, unmanned aircraft, robotics, and other 

advanced hardware but at its core would be the common vehicle platform of 

the future combat system (FCS). Variants would provide direct fires, indirect 

fires, and logistical support; serve as troop carriers; and deploy as platforms for 

advanced communications and sensors. The FCS vehicles would weigh twenty 

tons or less and displace between three hundred and four hundred cubic feet 

of internal volume. This would make it about 70 percent lighter and 50 percent 

smaller than the M1A1 Abrams tank. Stealth technologies and variations of 

“smart” armor would nevertheless render the FCS vehicles as survivable as the 

Abrams. Decisions concerning the technologies FCS would incorporate would 

be made in 2003, while Shinseki was still Chief of Staff. “System Development 

and Demonstration” would occur in 2006—within three years of the so-called 

“good idea cutoff line.” Five hundred million dollars would go into science and 

technology (S&T) funding for FCS during Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 alone. Each 

prong on the Trident slide had resourcing imperatives overprinted on it, from 

which specifics with respect to funding and timing would flow. For the Legacy 

Force the imperatives were to sustain and recapitalize, ensuring that the force 

was in fighting trim until superseded. For the Objective Force, investments in 

science and technology would flow into more specific research and development that in turn would be followed by procurement. The Interim Force would 

start with an initial brigade combat team without specialized equipment that 

would mature into an interim brigade combat team with specialized equipment, once a family of interim armored vehicles (IAVs) had been selected and 

procured. Concerning the interim brigade combat teams, more later.6

Although the Objective Force featured advanced technologies likely to 

be most effective in high-intensity conflict, Army planners were careful to 

anticipate the full spectrum of conflict when designing it. This reflected both 

prudent historical sensibility and mindfulness that yet another Quadrennial 

Defense Review would report out in 2001. Months before unveiling Army 

Transformation at the Eisenhower Luncheon General Shinseki and Secretary 

Caldera pressed Army historians to provide context for the effort and supported contracted historical studies for the same purpose. Much of this work 

focused on previous “Revolutions in Military Affairs” and sought usable lessons for Army Transformation in such seminal watersheds as the introduction 

of drilled musketry or the development of Blitzkrieg. As helpful as these analyses may have been, Army historians cautioned that most of the Army’s historical activity had been operations other than war and that the post–Cold War 

era seemed to be no exception. The Commandant of the Army War College, 

Major General Robert H. Scales Jr., picked up on this refrain. The Army 

War College was tucked under TRADOC and was to host a series of Army 
The transformed Army would have to be capable of both high- and 

low-intensity combat operations.
Kevlar Legions

200

Transformation war games clustered under the label Vigilant Warriors to 

test concepts and identify desired capabilities. The series borrowed heavily from 

the Dynamic Commitment series of the first Quadrennial Defense Review 

and, like Dynamic Commitment, featured simultaneous mixes of operations 

at various points along the combat spectrum. A series beginning in July 2001, 

for example, featured a conventional invasion of Azerbaijan, Chinese threats 

to a newly reunified Korea, Iranian operations against the Straits of Hormuz, 

insurgency in Indonesia, narco-terrorism in Colombia, outsized criminal syndicates in Albania, cyberattacks on the Federal Reserve, and a mix of imaginative terrorist attacks within the United States. The scenarios were set in 

2019–2021, when eight of twenty divisions were Objective Force “Air Ground 

Task Forces.” Predictably, the much-transformed Army of 2020 hammered 

the “Anfarian” invaders of Azerbaijan and arrived in time to face down the 

garrulous Chinese. Perhaps even more prescient, Red Team opponents playing against the Americans forced challenging transitions in operational tempo 

upon them. Forces in Sumatra, for example, jumped from humanitarian 

relief to peace enforcement to combat to post-combat operations to deployments elsewhere. Operations overlapped, forcing near continuous reliance 

on the reserve component. Terrorist attacks while operations overseas were 

under way embarrassed civil authorities since so many police, firefighters, and 

paramedics—“first responders”—were in the reserve component and already 

activated. The exercise identified pernicious shortages with respect to “high 

demand/low density” specialties that there never seemed to be enough of: linguists, civil affairs experts, psychological operators, military police, intelligence 

collectors, explosive ordnance disposal specialists, information operators, and 

others. The transformed Army’s utter dependence on assured communications 

and access to space assets at every level of the combat spectrum was further 

underscored. The Vigilant Warrior series did a creditable job of sustaining 

a broad focus as the Army imagined and sought to develop an Objective Force. 

It also laid groundwork for the next Quadrennial Defense Review, which ultimately went to Congress on 30 September 2001. Operating on the assumption 

that no decision made “inside the Beltway” (i.e., within the circumference of 

Highway 495 and thus within the National Capital Region) is ever permanent, Army planners found it prudent to reemphasize scenarios helpful during 

the first Quadrennial Defense Review wherein the presence of boots on the 

ground trumped easy technological solutions. This once again put the Army in 

the ambivalent position of seeking prudent technological advance while cautioning enthusiasts not to overrate the advantages of technology alone. The 

Vigilant Warrior series did seek to be inclusive, transparent, and broadly 

visible. In addition to Army major commands, schools, and training centers, 

participants included sister services, joint commands, civilian “think tanks,” 

intelligence agencies, allied nations, selected pundits, the National Security 

Council Staff, and the Departments of State, Defense, and Transportation.7

Army Transformation was to be program as well as policy. Each of the 

prongs on the Trident slide required a multiyear funding stream, generated 

through the give-and-take of the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and 

Execution System (PPBES) and ultimately supported by the administra-
201

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

tion and Congress. Army Strategic Planning Guidance, a routinely promulgated formal institutional strategy, had to fit within the national strategy, 

national military strategy, and relevant planning, programming, and budgeting documents promulgated by the Department of Defense. To this end 

the Army Staff laboriously coordinated and produced a comprehensive 

Transformation Campaign Plan. The document fell roughly into two halves: 

a general discussion of philosophy, doctrine, timing, and phasing up front 

and specific tasks to each of dozens of Army leaders and agencies in the 

rear. The plan noted security trends drifting away from conventional warfare 

in the direction of such asymmetric threats as terrorists, insurgents, narcotraffickers, organized criminals, and rogue states armed with weapons of 

mass destruction. The Department of Defense had stipulated six goals for 

Transformation: protecting critical bases, projecting and sustaining forces, 

denying sanctuary, ensuring information systems, enhancing space systems, 

and leveraging information technology. The “pillars” of Transformation 

would be strengthened joint operations, wide-ranging science and technology, intelligence advantages, and new approaches to warfare. Operating 

within this Department of Defense framework, the Army developed twelve 

“lines of operation” to focus responsibility: Joint and Army strategy (concepts, requirements, and plans); modernization and recapitalization; manning the force and investing in quality people; managing Army readiness 

and training; training and leader development; Army doctrine; Operational 

Force design; command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); deploying and sustaining; developing and acquiring advanced technology; management of force programs; 

and installations. Each of these lines of operation was explained in the text, 

and responsibilities toward them were specified in thirty-some pages of 

tasks to subordinates. The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) 

commander, for example, was the proponent for training and leader development, Army doctrine, and Operational Force design, whereas the Army 

Materiel Command (AMC) commander was the proponent for developing 

and acquiring advanced technology. The Army operations and training 

officer (G–3) was to serve as “overall integrator and synchronizer,” and the 

director of program analysis and evaluation (PA&E) had the unenviable mission of designing the funding strategy. The Transformation Campaign Plan 

coordinated myriad efforts across the breadth of the Army and identified 

the relative timing of key decisions that had to be made. Perhaps the most 

notable of these decision points was “FCS Milestone B,” the point at which 

the technologies of the future combat system would be settled and concept 

testing would transition into system development. The plan called for FCS 

Milestone B in May 2003, the decision to transition from the Interim to the 

Objective Force in FY2008, and the fielding of the first Objective Force–

capable unit in FY2010. Shinseki established a three-star Objective Force 

Task Force, headed by Lieutenant General John M. Riggs, to serve as “the 

single overarching integrating activity . . . that provides the direction, means 

and impetus for the Objective Force. . . .” By the time the Transformation 

Campaign Plan matured, the Objective Force Task Force was already heavily 
Kevlar Legions

202

engaged in deliberations to bring major features of the Army After Next 

forward to serve in the Objective Force. This was still a somewhat distant 

target, however. The near target was the Interim Force and its constituent 

Interim Brigade Combat Teams.8

The Interim Brigade Combat Team

Of the three prongs of Shinseki’s “Trident,” the Interim Force was altogether new, yet Shinseki envisioned the first of its units, an Interim Brigade 

Combat Team, would be fielded during his watch. A two-brigade Initial Force 

training with legacy and surrogate equipment was to transition onto newly 

procured IAVs and be redesignated as the Interim Force in 2002. The first 

of these brigades was to achieve initial operating capability (IOC) in 2003. 

Given that the IAV had not yet been selected and most of the specific technological and organizational features of the Interim Brigade Combat Team were 

not yet agreed on, these objectives imposed an extraordinary timeline. Force 

development processes that customarily took years were to be compressed 

into months. The first Interim Brigade Combat Team, the 3d Brigade of the 

2d Infantry Division, was in fact certified as ready to deploy in May 2003, 

after elaborate deployment exercises and back-to-back rotations through the 

National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, and the Joint Readiness 

Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana.9

Although the Interim Brigade Combat Team was to be deployable more 

so than experimental, there was to be an experimental aspect to it. The first 

of the Interim Brigade Combat Teams would have to experiment with new 

vehicles, equipment, and doctrine to perfect themselves, and they would accumulate experience relevant to the Objective Force as they did so. Insofar as the 

IAV was a surrogate for the FCS, the Interim Brigade Combat Team would 

provide a test bed for the tactics, techniques, and procedures of the Objective 

Force. This could have led to an embarrassing surfeit of quasi-experimental 

units. When Shinseki assumed office, the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment at 

Fort Polk, Louisiana, was already designated as the experimental Strike Force, 

pursuing the modularity, flexibility, and strategic mobility Shinseki’s Interim 

Force envisioned. The brigades and several headquarters of the 4th Infantry 

Division at Fort Hood, Texas, were still the EXFOR, pushing along the technological appliqué of Force XXI. This herd of experimental units needed to 

be thinned. Fortuitously, the Strike Force had not yet advanced to the point 

of significant organizational or material change. Its conceptual underpinnings 

were applicable to both the Interim and the Objective Forces, so minimal 

ground was lost in shifting their initial point of application from Fort Polk 

to Fort Lewis, Washington. Fort Lewis was a better location for the administrative and logistical overhead and for the intermodal transportation access 

Shinseki associated with the first of the Interim Brigade Combat Teams. The 

3d Brigade of the 2d Infantry Division and the 1st Brigade of the 25th Infantry 

Division, both at Fort Lewis, would be the first and second Interim Brigade 

Combat Teams. The 172d Infantry Brigade (Separate) in Alaska would be 

third, and the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment shuffled to be the fourth in 
203

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

line. The situation with the 4th Infantry Division was more complex. It had 

served as EXFOR since 1995 and had accumulated substantial quantities of 

digital equipment and experience. One of its brigades, as we have seen, had 

maneuvered through National Training Center Rotation 97–06 in a full-up—

albeit often surrogate—Force XXI digital appliqué panoply. Another of its 

maneuver brigades and its support brigades were substantially equipped with 

appliqué digital equipment. Most significantly, proof-of-principle exercises for 

the division as a whole and its interface with corps calendared out over the 

next two years. Force XXI was now to be Legacy Force, destined to upgrade 

digitally on already-fielded platforms without throwing off progress toward 

the Interim Force or the Objective Force. Tight choreography would be necessary to bring its desired capabilities to fruition. Division Capstone Exercise I 

(DCX I) at the National Training Center in April 2001 and Division Capstone 

Exercise II (DCX II) sprawling across much of Texas in October 2001 exercised 

the emergent digital Army Battle Command System over extended distances 

from the lowest levels through to a corps interface. Although significant issues 

remained with respect to training, bandwidth, maintenance, and durability, 

the results were sufficiently encouraging to declare victory. The 4th Infantry 

Division was declared deployable and assumed the Forces Command Division 

Ready Brigade (DRB) mission in November 2001. The 1st Cavalry Division 

was scheduled to convert to the Force XXI hardware and software in 2003, followed by other divisions in turn. Force XXI was now a stipulated posture that 

units, when funded, would roll over into. It was no longer an experiment—

although considerable experimentation and technical development remained 

to be done. These further improvements were to be incremental and evolutionary. The field was clear for the Interim Brigade Combat Team to serve as the 

leading edge of Army Transformation.10

An organizing principle of the Interim Brigade Combat Team was that 

its combat vehicles would be on a common chassis. This would radically 

reduce maintenance, repair parts, and logistical overhead while streamlining 

procurement. Downsized support requirements would in turn facilitate rapid 

deployment and reduce the unit’s logistical footprint once deployed. Vehicle 

variants would serve as infantry carriers, reconnaissance vehicles, mortar 

carriers, antitank guided-missile platforms, engineer vehicles, ambulances, 

nuclear-biological-chemical surveyors, command posts, fire-support coordination centers, mobile direct-fire gun systems, and artillery platforms. This 

family of vehicles was to be of medium size, air transportable by the venerable C–130 and all larger cargo aircraft. This implied a weight of nineteen 

tons or less and not more than 13,000 pounds of axle weight. The integral 

armor was to be proof against 7.62-mm. armor-piercing ammunition, and 

add-on armor the crew could mount within two hours of landing was to 

be proof against 14.5-mm. armor-piercing ammunition and the ubiquitous 

RPG7 antitank rocket. This stipulation concerning add-on armor led to some 

confusion as developments progressed, concerning which more later. The IAV 

also had to be essentially “off-the-shelf” to meet Shinseki’s ambitious timelines. Beginning in December 1999, the United States Army Armor Center 

at Fort Knox, Kentucky, hosted a “platform performance demonstration”
Kevlar Legions

204

to refine operational requirements documents for the IAV, survey the market 

with respect to near-term industrial possibilities, and anticipate required technology insertions. Thirty-five candidate platforms from eleven major contractors and over a half dozen countries hastily assembled at Fort Knox.11 Army 

agencies examined and tested the systems with respect to on- and off-road 

mobility, day and night live fire, carrying capacity, tactical maneuverability 

in multiple training scenarios, logistical requirements, C–130 deployability, 

adaptability to multiple variations and technology insertions, and safety. 

Shinseki likened the kaleidoscopic mixture of vehicles and activities to the 

chaotic bar scene from the motion picture Star Wars, but there was at least 

one underlying theme: the recurrent historical competition between wheeled 

and tracked vehicles as combat platforms of intermediate weight. Wheels once 

again demonstrated themselves to be superior with respect to speed, gas mileage, noise, comfort, target acquisition on the move, and maintainability. Tracks 

once again proved themselves to be superior with respect to off-road mobility 

and turning radius. Traditionally off-road mobility had trumped all other considerations, but Shinseki, mindful of the full range of scenarios contemplated 

and his own Balkan experiences, made it clear that did not necessarily have 

to be the case this time. After almost a year of deliberation and evaluation, 

in November 2000 the Army announced its selection of the wheeled Light 

Armored Vehicle III (LAV III) competed by General Motors of Canada Ltd. 

and to be contracted to a partnership between General Motors and General 

Dynamics Land Systems. This did not sit well with some traditional armor 

advocates, tracked-vehicle enthusiasts, and the United Defense LP producers 

of the tracked M113A3. Even as the first brigades’ worth of LAV IIIs were 

being fielded, these opponents mustered congressional support to force on 

the Army an elaborate side-by-side comparison of the two vehicles. Carefully 

observed by interested parties, the Army Test and Evaluation Command 

finally finished further field trials in January 2003, with results understandably similar to those of three years earlier. By that time the horse was pretty 

far out of the barn, and the M113A3 initiative succumbed—albeit not without 

further grumbling and criticism. A perhaps less weighty dialogue developed 

over what to name the newly acquired vehicle. After methodical deliberation, the Army’s Center of Military History compiled a list of candidates and 

recommended the “Buford” in honor of Major General John Buford Jr. of 

Civil War fame. To the Center, Buford’s brilliant performances at Oak Ridge, 

on the first day at Gettysburg, and elsewhere epitomized the dragoon-like 

qualities to which the mechanized Interim Brigade Combat Team aspired. 

Shinseki, when briefed, considered the recommendation thoughtful, but 

tone deaf. It was hard to imagine grizzled mechanized warriors swaggering 

around bragging about their “Bufords.” He reached somewhat further down 

on the list and picked “Stryker” in honor of two unrelated Medal of Honor 

recipients. Private First Class Stuart S. Stryker (World War II) and Specialist 

Robert F. Stryker (Vietnam) epitomized extraordinary courage and selfless 

sacrifice, even if they had little to do with mounted or mechanized warfare.

The Interim Brigade Combat Teams soon came to be known as the Stryker 

Brigades.12
205

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

The Army did not wait upon 

the selection and receipt of the 

Stryker to organize and train the 

first Interim Brigade Combat Team. 

The vehicle to be chosen was to be 

but a platform for Information Age 

technologies and for medium-weight 

units more adaptable to the full spectrum of combat—particularly at its 

lower end. On 9 November 1999, 

Shinseki appointed Major General 

James M. Dubik as TRADOC 

Deputy Commanding General for 

Transformation. Within a month 

implementing documents had been 

drafted and a Brigade Coordination 

Cell established at Fort Lewis to 

coordinate reorganizing and retraining the 3d Brigade of the 2d Infantry 

Division. Doctrine and a vision of 

the future force preceded the actual 

hardware with which it was to be 

equipped; Dubik anticipated the 

brigade would have its combat vehicles by the time it actually needed them. 

In the meantime, beginning in February 2000 the brigade made use of thirtytwo LAV IIIs borrowed from the Canadian armed forces and other vehicles 

available locally to serve as surrogates for training. Before reorganizing, the 3d 

Brigade consisted of two Abrams tank battalions and a Bradley infantry battalion. Notable organizational changes from that point included transitioning 

to three infantry battalions; adding a reconnaissance, surveillance, and target 

acquisition (RSTA) squadron; and permanently assigning customary attachments of the supporting arms to the brigade combat team as organic units. A 

Bradley infantry fighting vehicle customarily has a three-man crew and theoretically can carry up to seven dismounts as well. At full strength a Bradley 

platoon fields twenty-seven dismounts and a Bradley company eighty-one. 

The envisioned interim armored vehicle was to have a crew of two and dismount nine. The mathematics would lead to 36 dismounts in a platoon and 

108 in a company. Considering that the 3d Brigade was being reorganized to 

have three infantry battalions (nine companies) rather than one (three companies), the number of dismounts available leaped from 243 to 972—a 400 

percent increase. Clearly the interim brigade combat team was as much about 

putting more “boots on the ground” in the uncertainties of the post–Cold War 

environment as it was about technological advance. Technological advance did 

remain central to the vision, however. The swarms of interim armored vehicles 

filling their various roles—and thus the infantrymen who rode in them—would 

be seamlessly linked together by a digital network that provided information 

on demand and continuously updated a common battlefield picture. This 

General Dubik

(Photograph taken in late 1997.)
Kevlar Legions

206

technological advantage peaked 

with the RSTA squadron. In addition to three reconnaissance troops 

mounted on a reconnaissance variant of the interim armored vehicle, 

the squadron also featured a composite military intelligence company 

with an unmanned aerial vehicle 

(UAV) platoon; a nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) reconnaissance platoon; and a potpourri of 

manned and unmanned sensors 

that grew and changed over time. 

As the digital network and the ability to detect the enemy progressed, 

advances were often first visible in 

the RSTA battalion. The 3d Brigade 

was further reorganized to have 

an organic artillery battalion and 

support battalion and an organic 

antitank company, engineer company, signal company, military intelligence company, and headquarters 

company as well. Former customary 

relationships transitioned into organic constituents at the company level as 

well; each line company received an antitank platoon and a mortar section. 

Transformation planners anticipated that a direct-fire mobile gun system 

and a 155-mm. artillery piece on the common chassis would trail the chosen 

interim armored vehicle by some years, so they opted for tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missile vehicles in the antitank platoons and 

a mixture of towed 155-mm. artillery and mortars for indirect fire. The reorganization envisioned a requirement for 309 interim armored vehicles overall, 

and an interim brigade combat team personnel strength of about 3,500. The 

brigade would displace about 13,000 tons and require the equivalent of 254 

C–17 sorties to deploy, as opposed to about 30,000 tons and 480 sorties for 

the legacy brigade it was replacing. It would have somewhat fewer vehicles and 

several times the dismounted strength of its predecessors.13

Dubik and his Brigade Coordination Cell improvised a training regime for the 

Interim Brigade Combat Team even as the 3d Brigade of the 2d Infantry Division 

was reorganizing into its new configuration. The reorganization itself took time, of 

course, as hundreds of tankers departed, considerably more infantrymen arrived, 

and supporting arms experienced similar turbulence on a smaller scale. The reconfigured brigade was on the ground beginning in May 2000 but had none of the 

combat vehicles and relatively little of the digital equipment envisioned. Initial 

training documents were drafts hastily conjured up by the Brigade Coordination 

Cell to transform doctrinal vision into materials concrete enough to train troops 

with. Beginning in April, these were superseded by TRADOC publications that 

General John N. Abrams observes a 

technology demonstration.
207

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

had been more thoroughly staffed. As training progressed lessons learned fed back 

into nearly continuous revisions of tactics, techniques, and procedures. Training 

plans and documents understandably had a whiff of the provisional about them, 

a characteristic that reflected the prototypical nature of the organization being 

trained and its heavy reliance on surrogate equipment when in the field. The 

selection of the LAV III as the interim armored vehicle in November certainly 

helped solidify thinking, but for some time there would not be enough on hand for 

other than small unit training—which companies rotated through. For all of the 

improvisation, the Brigade Coordination Cell did have a vision of the direction 

the brigade was to go in, and TRADOC had had at least a decade of experience 

electronically simulating training experiences it could not produce in fact. Digital 

capabilities accumulated more quickly than vehicles or equipment, and simulated 

operations evolved through increasing levels of scale and complexity. These culminated in a brigade-wide Battle Command Training Program (BCTP) Warfighter 

exercise (WFX) in September 2001. By this time newly fielded light digital Tactical 

Operations Centers (TOCs) were on hand for the headquarters and in constituent units. The Warfighter proofed all of this digital connectivity while exercising 

doctrine and training packages. Technologies not yet on hand were simulated, and 

the brigade operated in the context of an I Corps scenario. In April 2002 the Army 

received the first of its newly named and manufactured Strykers. From that point 

the use of surrogates and simulations decreased as troops increasingly trained with 

equipment their tables of organization envisioned. Field training at Fort Lewis 

and Yakima was complemented by rotations through the National Training 

Center and Joint Readiness Training Center. Joint Forces Command sponsored 

Exercise Millennium Challenge 2002, which prominently featured contingents 

of Strykers strategically delivered by various means of transportation, to include 

C–130s. As practical experience with the Stryker accumulated, TRADOC committed to finalized field manuals and regulations: those governing the company in 

January 2003, those governing the brigade in March, and those governing the battalion in April. During the period 4 March through 28 May 2003, the 3d Brigade, 

2d Infantry Division—by now often called Stryker Brigade Combat Team One, 

or SBCT 1—undertook its most exhaustive training yet. Deployment exercises 

on every conceivable means of transportation, to include tractor trailer, rail, C–5, 

C–17, C–130, and the fast sealift ship Bellatrix, spanned the entire period. Within 

the period the brigade conducted a full-up fire and maneuver rotation through the 

National Training Center 1–11 April and through the Joint Readiness Training 

Center 17–27 May. Every effort was made to replicate the full spectrum of conflict, give the brigade multiple missions at the same time, spread operations across 

extended distances, and stress digital connectivity. In the aftermath of this rigorous proofing, TRADOC declared SBCT 1 deployable. Less than two months later, 

the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army then acting as Chief, General Jack Keane, 

announced that it would soon deploy to Iraq.14

When General Shinseki retired in June 2003, he could take considerable 

pride in the Stryker Brigade Combat Team that had evolved from a mere concept to a practical reality during the four short years of his tenure as Chief 

of Staff. The organization and its doctrine, training, and equipment were all 

new. The Army as a whole was not yet altogether certain what it had gained, 
Kevlar Legions

208

however. At an Army Staff meeting in 2002 General Keane, a paratrooper 

by provenance who had commanded the 101st Airborne Division and the 

XVIII Airborne Corps—and perhaps had seen the motion picture A Bridge 

Too Far yet another time—asked the Chief of Military History for a “think 

piece” concerning what would have happened if an Interim Brigade Combat 

Team (IBCT) had been available to the Allies at Arnhem in 1944. Faithfully 

reconstructing the historical scenario and acquiring assistance from mathematical modelers to represent the weapons systems involved at a common 

level, the Center came to the not particularly flattering conclusion that with 

its greater battlefield awareness the IBCT would have had the good sense to 

flee to the south bank of the Rhine as soon as it detected two panzer divisions 

lurking in the woods northeast of Arnhem, taking the British 1st Airborne 

Division with it. Arnhem would still have been a bridge too far, but it would 

not have cost 7,500 paratroopers to prove it. Some, although certainly not 

General Keane, considered the Center disloyal for not having had the IBCT 

dispatch the German opposition with a single stroke. Close quarters combat 

with heavy armor and massed artillery was precisely the wrong fight for the 

IBCT, the historians replied. Until the technologies of the Objective Force 

matured, the Legacy heavy divisions would be responsible for such a fight, 

with the IBCTs as useful auxiliaries. The IBCTs also had not displaced the 

Legacy airborne and air assault divisions with respect to early entry. Critics 

groused that the Stryker did not roll off a C–130 fully combat-loaded and 

with its guns blazing. Only four of eleven infantrymen could accompany the 

Stryker on the C–130, it took a few minutes to remount antennas and remote 

weapons systems upon landing, and it took a few hours to mount the add-on 

armor required to defeat munitions above 7.62-mm. and rocket-propelled 

The Interim Brigade Combat Team at the National Training Center, April 2003
209

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

grenades (RPGs). Strykers airlifted by C–130s were feasible for the second 

wave of an airfield takedown, but not the first. If it was unwise to pit Strykers 

hull-to-hull against tanks or to drop them onto airfields still under enemy 

control, it was also flawed logic to perceive them as merely “peacekeepers.” 

A Stryker battalion’s firepower dwarfed that of its light or airborne counterparts, yet the prospects of successfully deploying it to an austere setting were 

appreciably better than those of a heavy battalion. Given enough space to 

take full advantage of its tactical mobility and information infrastructure, 

the Stryker could show its considerable strengths to best effect. Some whiff 

of this potential came across in the several National Training Center rotations of 2002 and 2003. The opposing force (OPFOR) of the 11th Armored 

Cavalry Regiment came to be wary of the Stryker Brigade’s unpredictable 

tactical dispositions. Familiar with Bradley infantry, they theretofore only 

had to find the tracked vehicles to ascertain the entirety of a mechanized 

Blue Force’s battle plan. The Strykers carried far more infantry and with their 

greater mobility were far more prone to deposit them to distant points and to 

recover them later. Undetectable dismounted ambushes became a huge risk 

to the OPFOR, as did the hybridization of heavy and light characteristics in 

the same organization. At the time the “dominant knowledge” Information 

Age technologies of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team were still not entirely 

reliable or mature. The questions “where am I” and “where are my buddies” 

were being answered more reliably than ever, but the question “where is the 

enemy” remained problematic. Technical delays, equipment malfunctions, 

processing times, and OPFOR subterfuge combined to continue the fog of 

war. On the plus side, the Stryker Brigade had the firepower to fight for 

information if it needed to, could fall back on traditional radio communications to fill holes in the shared operational picture, and recognized that there 

was a huge capacity for further growth inherent in the digital equipment 

rattling around in its vehicles. The 3d Brigade of the 2d Infantry Division, 

now deployable, would experience this further growth on the battlefield.15

9-11 and Homeland Defense

At 0846 Eastern Daylight Time on 11 September 2001, American Airlines 

Flight 11 smashed into the 96th floor of the New York World Trade Center’s 

North Tower. Sixteen minutes later United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into 

the 80th floor of the South Tower. Thousands of gallons of aviation fuel 

spewed into the buildings and ignited into firebombs nearing 2,000 degrees 

Fahrenheit. Hapless survivors caught above the strikes sought rooms free of 

smoke and debris or made their way to the roofs in the hopes of rescue; those 

below the strikes fled the buildings in an ever-growing stream. Hundreds of 

policemen and firemen rushed the other way, striving to clear the buildings 

and bring out as many alive as possible. Thousands of tons of concrete, steel, 

and furnishings above the points of impact proved too much for the weakened structures to bear. At 0959 the South Tower collapsed, and within thirty 

minutes the North Tower collapsed as well. Buildings 110 stories high had 

been reduced to 150 feet of rubble. Shortly before the South Tower collapsed, 
The World Trade Center, above, and the Pentagon, below, were 

attacked on 11 September 2001.
211

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

American Airlines Flight 77 roared into the western face of the Pentagon. 

Here the resultant firebombs were as severe, but the squat compartmented 

structure resulted in considerably less destruction. Somewhat later United 

Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It 

seems the passengers had heard of the fates of the other aircraft by cellular 

telephones, and Flight 93 went down in the midst of a struggle between passengers and crew and the hijackers to gain control. A total of 2,435 civilians, 

343 firemen, and 23 policemen died in the World Trade Center; 125 employees and servicemen died in the Pentagon in addition to those aboard the 

plane; and 40 passengers and crewmen died aboard Flight 93. The United 

States had been attacked on its own soil. Americans had a new date that 

would live in infamy, “9-11.”16

Within a few days the identity of the attackers was known. Five-man 

(except in the case of Flight 93, which seems to have been one short) teams of 

terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden’s shadowy “World Islamic Front for 

Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders” had smuggled plastic weapons aboard 

each aircraft and overwhelmed the crews. They then substituted one of their 

own for the pilots and converted each massive jetliner into a suicide bomb. 

Osama bin Laden was the eleventh child in a family of fourteen children, his 

family being among the wealthiest in Saudi Arabia. He was a veteran of the 

Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation (1979–1989) and reputedly supported by a personal fortune of over $300 million. Over time he had developed 

the organization al-Qaeda as a personal following dedicated to replacing the 

pro-Western Saudi government with an anti-Western Islamic state, the withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia, and the recovery of Jerusalem 

from Israel. The World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders 

also seems to have included Al-Gama’a Al-Isamiyya committed to establishing 

an Islamist state in Egypt, Al-Ittihad al-Islami dedicated to establishing an 

Islamic state in Somalia and expelling Western influences, Abu Sayyaf seeking Islamic autonomy in Mindanao, Harakut ul-Ansar seeking to liberate 

Jammu and Kashmir from India, and a “Movement for Islamic Change” that 

had seven other aliases and presumptively anti-American goals. The actual 

relationships and working mechanics among these organizations remained 

unclear, as did their strengths, capabilities, and resources. It seemed that even 

smaller splinter groups had broken off from earlier revolutionary organizations and established clusters of ultraradical compartmentalized cells. This 

secretive cellular structure made detection more difficult, and the compromise 

of one cell did not necessarily compromise others. “Traditional” Islamic organizations identified as terrorist, such as al-Fatah, Hezbollah, or Hamas, had 

tended to have a geographical focus and recruited locally from not particularly 

cosmopolitan sources of manpower. Al-Qaeda, on the other hand, was able to 

recruit and inspire operatives familiar with air travel, cellular phones, computers, the Internet, the Muslim diaspora residents throughout Europe and the 

Americas, and languages used on those continents. The World Islamic Front 

for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders may have had diverse objectives, but 

those within it viewed the United States as a central impediment to achieving them. The Twin Towers were not only a symbol of the wealth and pride 
Kevlar Legions

212

of the United States but also a symbol of the secularized, liberal capitalist 

global economic community that had been an objective of American foreign 

policy for generations—and of pro-Western regimes within the Islamic World 

that cooperated with it. Almost five hundred—more than one in five—of the 

dead at the World Trade Center were from more than eighty nations other 

than the United States. Contingents from such leading financial institutions 

as Switzerland’s Credit Suisse Group, Germany’s Deutsche Bank, and Japan’s 

Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank perished in the catastrophe. For the United States 

Army, and for Army Transformation, the 9-11 attacks substantially altered 

the operational paradigm. Since 1991 the Army had been transforming on 

the assumption that it was between wars. Now it was at war. Defense planners 

had dutifully catalogued terrorism along with such other threats as drug traffic, humanitarian crises, and rogue state use of weapons of mass destruction 

in lists of the challenges for which the nation had to prepare. Now terrorism 

dwarfed all else on the list and in the national psyche, and a “Global War 

on Terrorism” commenced. That war, or at least its most recent episode, had 

begun on American soil. Homeland Defense now numbered among the highest priorities for the transforming Army.17

Homeland Defense involves the National Guard, by definition. When not 

in federal service, the National Guard is heir to the militia tradition of organized forces readily available to state governors under duress. As news of the 

attack on the World Trade Center spread, New York Guardsmen gathered 

in their armories, many without notification. This informal mobilization was 

well under way when New York Governor George Pataki declared a state of 

emergency, and his Adjutant General ordered 8,000 Guardsmen to state active 

duty. By the evening of 11 September, 1,500 Guardsmen were already on duty 

amid the wreckage of the World Trade Center, or at Ground Zero as the site 

soon came to be called. The balance of the 8,000 was en route to duty stations 

nearby. The catastrophe pressed the New York City police to the limit with 

respect to security and traffic control, roles the Guardsmen immediately undertook. Missions expanded to include debris removal and marking, providing 

and coordinating transportation, medical support, mess support, shelter and 

lodging, mail delivery, and escort. Individual Guardsmen provided specialized 

skills with respect to civil engineering, stress management, financial management, and other unique capabilities. Units were also called upon to provide 

honor guards for memorial services. At the Pentagon, Maryland and Virginia 

National Guardsmen served in some numbers, but the mix providing military 

support to civilian authority was different than in New York. The catastrophe 

at the Pentagon was at least an order of magnitude less than that in New 

York, and collateral responsibilities to manage the disaster were more in line 

with the capabilities of local firemen, police, paramedics, and rescue personnel 

who rushed to the scene. The Pentagon was on federal property and mustered 

considerable resources of its own from the Military District of Washington. 

Patches of open ground west of the Pentagon were organized for triage, treatment, and emergency medical response. Casualties were evacuated, personnel 

accountability established, survival assistance officers appointed, and families 

notified. About one-tenth of the building was sealed off as unusable and as 
213

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

a crime scene. The rest of the building returned to duty. Soldiers from the 

Military District of Washington procured an outsized twenty-by-forty-foot 

American garrison flag from nearby Fort Myer and draped it over the wound 

in the building. Passing motorists were cheered by this act of defiance; soon 

American flags were prominently displayed all over the country in an outpouring of patriotic solidarity and indignation. On the first day of the Global 

War on Terrorism the Army stepped into a role somewhat different than its 

transformative efforts had theretofore focused on. Humanitarian relief and 

the immediate security of American citizens and vital infrastructure trumped 

other priorities. Americans and their Army reacted to the catastrophic attack 

and absorbed what had happened to them.18

Attention soon turned from the disaster sites to the larger issue of defending the nation as a whole. The Department of Defense launched Operation 

Noble Eagle to defend the homeland and facilitate recovery from the attacks. 

Combat air patrols prowled the skies above New York and other major cities, 

coordinated by Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft 

that soon included a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) contingent 

in their number. On the ground, Army National Guardsmen fanned out to 

secure 444 airports considered the most vulnerable to further attacks. Most 

of these Guardsmen remained under state control, but a further 35,000 were 

called to federal service to augment security at military bases, ammunition 

storage sites, and other federal facilities. The Guardsmen were joined by more 

than 14,000 of their Army Reserve brethren also called to active service. These 

National Guardsmen on duty at “Ground Zero” soon after the attacks
Kevlar Legions

214

too provided a ready supply of organized manpower to augment the security of critical sites. They were a reservoir of technical, administrative, and 

combat service support skills now much in demand. As national and local 

leaders fathomed the implications of the 9-11 attacks, requirements increased. 

Guardsmen under state control were dispatched to secure bridges, tunnels, 

rail stations, dams, power plants, waterways, and harbors. Understandably, 

nuclear power plants assumed particular prominence among community concerns. The Army Corps of Engineers directly employed over 26,000 military 

and civilian professionals and routinely contracted the services of 150,000 

more. Now it bumped up security, much of it contracted, for its mammoth 

continent-spanning responsibilities: over 12,000 miles of waterways, over 300 

major commercial seaports and 600 lesser harbors, 383 major reservoirs, 276 

locks, 75 hydropower plants of its own and 67 nonfederal hydropower plants 

colocated at its dams, and twelve million acres of forest and watershed. The 

Canadian border, not high as a defense priority since the early nineteenth 

century, suddenly was significant again. Cells linked to al-Qaeda reputably 

operated out of Montreal, and the open border now seemed recklessly vulnerable. About 12,000 cargo trucks a month passed through Vermont’s Highgate 

Springs border crossing along Interstate 89, for example, along with tens of 

thousands of automobiles. Guardsmen hastily reinforced the U.S. Customs 

Service at border crossings, relieving agents who were already putting in 

sixteen-hour shifts. Quaint back roads that routinely had been protected by 

nothing but a sign now were National Guard outposts. The Mexican border, 

as we have seen, was already under considerable military-assisted surveillance because of the “War on Drugs.” Now Joint Task Force–6 (JTF-6) and 

related Defense agencies expanded their portfolios to provide increased attention to prospective terrorism. An additional 1,500 soldiers deployed to assist 

the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Immigration and 

Naturalization Service. As time went on, officials newly mindful of terrorism sought and obtained additional security for highly visible events. The 

Utah Olympic Public Safety Command, for example, procured an increase 

from 1,000 to 5,000 in the National Guardsmen serving at the 2002 Winter 

Olympics. The Army Reserve’s 310th Chemical Company, one of the Army’s 

two Biological Integrated Detection System (BIDS) companies, provided biological surveillance at this highly visible event. Throughout the country the 

Army was called upon to provide both raw, albeit organized, manpower and 

specialized technical skills in its military support to civilian authority.19

The initial infusions of Army manpower and resources into homeland 

security after the 9-11 attacks were hasty responses to an uncertain situation. 

As time went on more permanent arrangements were worked out. Operation 

Noble Eagle continued scouring American skies, albeit with fewer planes in 

the air and more on ten-minute alert at over two dozen air bases around the 

country. The massive task of airport security migrated to the newly organized 

Transportation Security Agency (TSA). It took some time for the fledgling 

organization to get under way, but as it did the National Guard presence at 

airports diminished and uniformed TSA agents took over. Within a few years’ 

time some 50,000 of them secured and serviced over 450 airports and coordi-
215

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

nated security for related rail and highway transportation as well. Security on 

federal property or for facilities deemed critical by governors likewise morphed 

over time to contracted personnel or to civilian agencies. Requirements for 

military manpower overseas escalated dramatically, as we shall see. In the 

absence of conscription it was vital to disengage deployable soldiers from 

routine local security within the United States. In November 2002 Congress 

passed legislation establishing the Department of Homeland Security. This 

new mega-agency subsumed the missions of almost two dozen other agencies 

in the largest reorganization of the federal government since the establishment of the Department of Defense in 1947. In due course the Department of 

Homeland Security directly employed 210,000 and undertook such monumental tasks as screening two million travelers daily and surveying for radiation 

more than 97 percent of the cargo inbound through American seaports. TSA 

worked for the Department of Homeland Security, as did the Coast Guard, 

Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Federal Emergency 

Management Agency, Nuclear Incident Response Team, and many others. 

Responsibilities transferred from the Department of Defense portfolio were 

relatively modest: the National Biological Warfare Defense Analysis Center 

and the National Communications System. The presence of soldiers actively 

involved in Homeland Defense thinned, although they remained a ready 

reserve for surge requirements, natural disasters, or unanticipated contingencies. This reserve posture implied recurrent major commitments. Prior to the 

9-11 attacks there was ample precedent for having 30,000 National Guardsmen 

providing natural disaster relief at one time, and the Global War on Terrorism 

did not set Mother Nature aside. Demands also surged in such special cases 

as the Winter Olympics, and the military skills fielded under the auspices of 

Joint Task Force–6 remained in demand. Local law enforcement agencies and 

other first responders demonstrated accelerated interest in training related 

to nuclear, biological, or chemical contamination, weapons of mass destruction, and mass casualty situations. Since the Domestic Preparedness Training 

Initiative of the Defense Authorization Act of 1997, local commanders had 

routinely provided such training as directed by and coordinated through the 

United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). With interest at an alltime high, these efforts redoubled. On balance, efforts to routinize Homeland 

Security for the long-term demands of the Global War on Terrorism tended 

to free up military manpower for deployments overseas and to commit it to a 

reserve status for crises at home. This proved timely, as requirements overseas 

escalated dramatically.20

The newly intense interest in Homeland Security transcended the threat of 

terrorism alone and imparted further momentum to programs already under 

way with respect to missile defense, securing space assets, and cybersecurity. 

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had been intensely interested in missile 

defense when he assumed office. One of his first acts was to reorganize the 

Missile Defense Agency and redirect its focus to achieving a single, layered 

ballistic missile defense system fully integrating ground, sea, air, and space 

assets—eliminating redundancy where circumstances required. Eliminations 

of redundancy could put service programs at risk, of course. For the Army, 
Kevlar Legions

216

Rumsfeld’s emphasis increased priority accorded to developing the next generation of ground-based midcourse missile interceptors, already one of the 

most mature of the developing ballistic missile defense technologies. The 9-11 

attacks reinforced anxieties concerning potential strategic surprises of many 

types. The Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization accelerated 

its efforts to define a concept of operations that melded service, theater, and 

strategic assets into a seamless joint global architecture. For the Army relevant systems included the emerging Medium Extended Air Defense System 

(MEADS) and the Patriot Advanced Capability3 (PAC3). The Army was also 

heavily invested in a suite of capabilities associated with the Joint Land Attack 

Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) that used 

networks of high-level sensors to cue enemy cruise missiles for destruction 

by the formidable PAC3. Some cost cutters perceived the Army’s PAC3 as in 

competition with the Navy’s Aegis and the MEADS as in competition with 

Air Force alternatives. The post 9-11 environment mellowed cost cutting, however, and reversed whatever willingness there had been to take strategic risks. 

Now it seemed no service initiative needed be eliminated; multiple systems 

were complementary, not competitive. Briefing slides, collegially developed by 

representatives from all services, evolved the terms integrated and layered to 

mean valuable assets nested comfortably under elaborate matrices of bubbles, 

Missile defense remained an important priority for Army Transformation.
217

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

each bubble representing the firing arc of a different air or missile defense 

weapon—the sum of which came to be all of the weapons under development at the time. Protection that might have been considered gold-plated several months before seemed prudent now. The glue holding this architecture 

together was reliable communications, much of it space based. The physical 

protection of space assets emerged as a doctrinal priority, but as a practical 

matter kinetic attacks in space any time soon seemed unlikely. Only Russia 

and perhaps China had such capabilities, and little suggested that they were an 

immediate threat. Cyber-attack seemed more likely, and this threat inspired an 

even greater interest in cybersecurity. The Department of Defense had recently 

weathered an expansive cyber-scare in its preparations for “Y2K”—the Year 

2000. It seemed that the transition to a year that ended in three zeros, and certain collateral oddities such as the Julian date 90909, might stress out unprepared systems dependent on binary codes. Preventative programs progressed 

amid public fanfare, to include a made-for-television movie in which computers rendered berserk by undigestable digits destroyed urban civilization amid 

spectacular special effects. Prospective consequences briefed to Army leaders 

were somewhat more modest: unlivable buildings without temperature controls, toilets that would not flush, phones that would not work, and a command 

and control system that collapsed back into messengers and short-range radio 

communications. The Army spent $600 million proofing over 1,200 sprawling 

systems in a five-phase remediation process. In the course of this it actually 

inventoried all of the computers it had accumulated over time and forced commanders into an awareness of where their computers were and why they had 

them. This tightened the grip of the Army’s Chief Information Officer (G–6) 

in evolving and protecting information management. Information operations (IO) training expanded to include a robust portfolio of courses dealing 

with computer security, hacking, detecting intrusions, and incident response. 

The National Guard took the lead for several aspects of military computer 

defense and stood up computer emergency response teams (CERTs) in every 

state to defend against intrusions on both state and federal systems. Post 9-11 

Homeland Security measures were galvanized by the terrorist acts but went 

well beyond terrorism in the threats they addressed.21

The post 9-11 emphasis on terrorism and Homeland Security 

affected Army Transformation, but it did not alter it altogether. Before 9-11 

Army planners consistently catalogued a long list of challenges in defining 

capabilities the future Army would need, and these challenges invariably 

included terrorism and a variety of threats to the continental United States. 

This broad appreciation of risks was echoed by others. Indeed, the report 

of the 1998–2001 U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, 

chaired by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman, downplayed 

conventional threats, presciently recommended a “National Homeland 

Security Agency,” and recommended that Homeland Security become the 

primary mission of the National Guard—with reorganization, retraining, 

and reequipping to follow. Army Transformation efforts balked at so radical 

a realignment, in theory pursued a more balanced full-spectrum force, and in 

practice continued to develop and field forces that would show best toward 
Kevlar Legions

218

the upper levels of the combat spectrum. Immediate post 9-11 deployments 

thrust the National Guard and Army Reserve into the middle of things with 

respect to Homeland Security, although over time civilian agencies resumed 

the lead with Army units in auxiliary, backup, and reserve roles. Certain specialized contributions remained uniquely military, interagency cooperation 

became more expected and more pervasive than ever, and the thresholds at 

which local and community leaders called for and expected military support 

to civilian authority had been permanently lowered. Command relationships altered with the circumstances. The Army had long been the executive 

agent for Department of Defense relationships with the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency, and immediately after the 9-11 attacks was appointed 

Department of Defense executive agent for Homeland Security pending 

a review of the Unified Command Plan. In due course the review of the 

Unified Command Plan recommended restructuring and the establishment 

of the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) to command 

and control Department of Defense Homeland Defense efforts and coordinate military support to civilian authority nationwide. This command stood 

up on 1 October 2002. USNORTHCOM would have a three-star National 

Guard Deputy Commander, recognition of the ever larger and increasingly 

complex role the National Guard played in its responsibilities. This mirrored 

further growth in the roles played by the National Guard and Army Reserve 

overall—at home and abroad. In 2000 the Director of the Army National 

Guard and Chief of the Army Reserve were both major generals, equivalent in 

rank to the Assistants to such Deputy Chiefs of Staff as those for Operations 

and Plans, Logistics, Intelligence, or Personnel. By the end of 2001 they were 

lieutenant generals, equivalent to the Army Staff principals within each of 

those venues. Inevitably, momentum developed toward the appointment of a 

National Guard four-star general, empowered to represent the diverse roles 

and unique interests of Guardsmen at the highest levels of the Department 

of Defense. The Guard, Army Reserve, and Army Transformation were in 

the process of accommodating new expectations with respect to Homeland 

Security at the same time that they undertook combat requirements overseas 

unprecedented for an American volunteer army.22

Transforming While at War

Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda bore responsibility for the 9-11 attacks, 

but their base of operations was nested in Afghanistan under an umbrella of 

security provided by that country’s fanatic Taliban regime. Striking back at 

al-Qaeda required invading Afghanistan. The Taliban were fierce Islamic fundamentalists who seized power in bloody fighting following the withdrawal of 

Soviet forces in 1989. They were primarily drawn from the country’s Pashtun 

majority, and active resistance to them broke out along largely ethnic lines. 

A Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras controlled about 10 

percent of the country and fought against Taliban repression. Taliban leaders surrounded themselves with a core of experienced fighters, about 20,000 

all told, to which volunteers and conscripts were added to perhaps triple 
219

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

their numbers as the need arose. This capability was considerably reinforced 

by foreign fighters present as “guests” who shared the regime’s ideology. 

Of these 7,000 Pakistanis were the most numerous and 3,000 multinational 

al-Qaeda the most formidable. An American air and missile campaign, the 

opening phase of Operation Enduring Freedom beginning 7 October, had 

little effect. The Taliban themselves presented few targets worthy of strategic bombing and seemed largely indifferent to hardships that might be 

visited on the Afghan people. Campaign ineffectiveness changed dramatically beginning 19 October, when twelve-man Special Forces Operational 

Detachment A teams began arriving by helicopter to assist the Northern 

Alliance (Map 3). About three hundred such soldiers deployed: eighteen A 

teams, four B teams (company level), and three C teams (battalion level). 

The Special Forces detachments radically altered tactical circumstances on 

the ground. The Taliban had some decrepit Soviet heavy equipment that 

they maintained and used poorly but generally relied on militia infantrymen armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and machine guns 

speeding around the countryside in pickup trucks. The Northern Alliance 

was similarly equipped, albeit somewhat more tribal and thus more capable 

of traditional Afghan long-range sniping. The A teams arrived with global 

positioning systems (GPSs), laser designators, advanced optics, and satellite 

communications. When embedded with and assisted by Northern Alliance 

forces, they could precisely locate Taliban targets and call in air strikes on 

them. The American inventory of precision-guided munitions now included 

large numbers of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs)—cheap, GPSguided, and appropriate for pouring out of numerous high-flying B–52 

bombers—in addition to more expensive laser-guided missiles generally 

fired from nimbler fighter-bombers. The unarmored Taliban were horribly 

exposed to munitions fragmentation when their positions were known, and 

the combined efforts of Northern Alliance militiamen and Special Forces 

teams saw to it that their positions were found. In seventy-six days of fighting 

6,500 strike missions expended 17,500 munitions, with horrific effects. The 

Northern Alliance speedily regained the territories traditionally inhabited 

by Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara and advanced on Kabul. The revolt spread 

to the Pashtun south with the intervention of expatriates Hamid Karzai and 

Gul Agha Sharzai, both of whom benefited from Special Forces A teams 

as they raised and deployed their forces. The Taliban fled, and the various 

leaders—warlords—who had united against them set about consolidating 

their collective grip on the country. After considerable negotiation and 

appreciable United States and United Nations involvement, Hamid Karzai 

was sworn in as the prime minister of an interim government of Afghanistan 

on 22 December 2001.23

By the time Karzai was sworn in, the easy romp through Afghanistan was 

over. The tiny Special Forces contingents had been potent auxiliaries, but they 

exerted no real control on the ground. Afghan domestic warfare included 

considerable parleying, much of which progressed among the combatants 

without Americans being particularly aware. Fighting could be vicious and 

retaliations gruesome, but consanguine consciousness and local deal making 
I I

1 87(-)

USMC

SF TF DAGGER

SF TF K-BAR

X X

CJTF MOUNTAIN

I I

1 87

I I

4 31

X

2 10

X

3 101

X

3 101

Tora Bora

LZ

LZ

LZ

LZ

LZ

Nov 01

OBJECTIVE RHINO

OPERATION ANACONDA Mar 02

Dec 01

Jan 02

Indus River

TURKMENISTAN

PAKISTA N

TAJIKISTAN

UZBEKISTAN

Maza ̄r-e Shar ̄fı Kondoz Taloqa ̄n

KABUL

Bagra ̄m

Sha ̄h ̄ Kow ı t

Kandaha ̄r

October 2001–March 2002

AFGHANISTAN

MAJOR U.S. OPERATIONS

U.S. Special Forces Movement

U.S. Airmobile Movement

Landing Zones (approximate)

Province (vela ̄ yat) Boundary

0 150

0 150 Kilometers

Miles

Map 3
221

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

softened many blows. As Kandahar fell Taliban leader Mohammed Omar 

and hundreds of his adherents vanished unmolested into the night, clearing 

the way for Karzai’s and Sharzai’s triumphant fighters. American intelligence determined that Osama bin Laden and his adherents had fled into the 

Tora Bora mountains. Afghan allies picked their way carefully toward them 

through the rugged terrain. Deep cave complexes and extreme topographical 

relief limited the effectiveness of precision-guided munitions. Hundreds of 

al-Qaeda and Taliban do seem to have been killed, but even more—including 

Osama bin Laden himself—slipped mysteriously through the encirclement 

into nearby Pakistan. Some deals backfired. Northern Alliance militiamen 

advancing to secure ostensibly abandoned Konduz were ambushed by diehards, and a dozen Mullahs finalizing surrender terms in Mazar-e Sharif were 

gunned down by Pakistanis not party to the arrangements. Prisoner control 

was lax. Afghan prisoners often simply wandered away—after some kind of 

ransom, one suspects. Foreign prisoners took over the Quali Jangi fortress 

and the Kandahar hospital in spectacular revolts. Concerns for anarchy led 

to an increasing infusion of American conventional forces. Marines secured 

an airfield south of Kandahar. The 10th Mountain Division, then based 

in Uzbekistan, sent troops to assist in the bloody suppression of the Quali 

Jangi uprising. Units fanned out to secure critical facilities in Kabul, prisoner screening and holding areas, and Bagram Airfield. The headquarters of 

Early operations in Afghanistan were dominated by special operations forces. 

These were soon heavily reinforced by conventional units.
Kevlar Legions

222

the 10th Mountain Division moved to Bagram Airfield and assumed control 

over conventional U.S. ground forces in the country. Beyond securing a few 

key facilities, the Americans focused on pursuing al-Qaeda and the diehard 

Taliban who might still be with them. The victorious Afghan warlords were 

generally agreeable to this modest presence and purpose. The Americans were 

operating along the sparsely populated Pakistani border distant from Afghan 

population centers, and the al-Qaeda were, after all, foreigners. In February 

2002 allied intelligence identified an enemy concentration estimated at two 

hundred fighters concentrating in the Shahi Kowt Valley. Major General 

Franklin “Buster” Hagenbeck, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, 

resolved to take the battle to the enemy in Operation Anaconda. Teams of 

special operators and battalions from the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne 

Divisions infiltrated or helicoptered in to surround Shahi Kowt and isolate 

the battlefield with concentric rings of blocking positions. A largely Afghan 

main attack was to push in from the west, flushing the enemy into the kill 

zones of the blocking positions. Intelligence had been flawed. The enemy 

numbered closer to a thousand, were well dug in and heavily armed, and 

intended to fight. Overcoming initial surprise and confusion, the allies piled 

on, eventually bringing 1,200 American soldiers, 2,000 friendly Afghans, and 

200 Australian, Canadian, Danish, German, and Norwegian special operators into the fight. They battered their adversaries in fierce fighting, killing 

about half of them. The other half seems to have escaped into other mountain hideouts or into Pakistan. Combat in Afghanistan became a continuing 

round of patrolling and raids as the allies sought to grind down the remnant 

al-Qaeda and Taliban.24

Al-Qaeda, although based in Afghanistan, had worldwide connections. 

The 9-11 attackers had moved fluidly through communities of the Muslim 

diaspora in Europe and the Americas. The immediate fear was that there were 

other cells, coordinating with or inspired by al-Qaeda, with further plans. Such 

fears soon came to fruition in spectacular attacks against Western tourists in 

Bali, Indonesia, and against housing complexes catering to foreign corporate 

employees in Saudi Arabia. Intelligence agencies, police forces, and security 

organizations scrambled to get ahead of this tide. Traditional allies and friends 

of the United States hastened to assist in an emerging campaign that featured 

diplomatic, financial, legal, public relations, law enforcement, intelligence 

sharing, and humanitarian aspects. Muslim nations wary of fundamentalist zealotry assisted as well. Even the Russians and Chinese, perhaps gratified that the United States now seemed less critical concerning their actions 

against extremists in Chechnya and Central Asia, were cooperative. Much of 

this worldwide activity was outside of the Army’s sphere, but not all of it. 

Even as fighting in Afghanistan got under way 2,000 additional soldiers from 

the 1st Cavalry Division reinforced Kuwait, and an upgraded Exercise Bright 

Star was executed in Egypt with contingents from twelve countries. Security 

at facilities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman was quietly reinforced, as were 

embassy contingents throughout the twenty-five-nation Central Command. 

Documents and prisoners captured in Afghanistan produced intelligence 

that enabled preemptive measures elsewhere. Police in Malaysia forestalled a 
223

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

planned attack based on information from Afghanistan, and such information similarly facilitated arrests in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The 

United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), also played a role in Afghanistan, 

facilitating the deployment of allied soldiers to expanding NATO and United 

Nations contingents based in Kabul. Given its resources and geographical 

proximity, it carried much of the weight for the collateral humanitarian relief 

effort in Afghanistan. The Deployment Processing Center in Kaiserslautern 

palletized and shipped more than 2.4 million humanitarian rations, 2.3 million pounds of wheat, and 70,000 blankets in the early days of the campaign. 

USAREUR also tightened its security in Bosnia and Kosovo. In both cases 

the Muslim populations generally regarded the Americans as liberators, but 

extremist elements had accumulated in both communities during the course of 

the Balkan fighting. By this time the American presence in Bosnia was down 

to 2,000 soldiers and in Kosovo down to 4,000. A more robust NATO and 

allied presence remained, and the steadily improving communal police forces 

proved sufficient to head off whatever attacks might have occurred. On the 

other side of the world, in the Pacific, Joint Task Force 510 in the Philippines 

provided logistical, intelligence, and training support to the Philippine Army 

in its ongoing battle against the Islamic extremists of Abu Sayyaf. This conflict had waxed and waned for at least a century, but Abu Sayyaf had established demonstrable links to international terrorists recently and were funding 

operations through piracy, theft, and kidnapping for ransom. Elsewhere in 

the Pacific commanders implemented expanded force protection plans. Latin 

America seemed distant from the threat of Islamic terrorism, but even here 

attacks occurred, and intelligence sources surmised revenue streams connected 

to drug traffic coursing through the region. Cells associated with or were 

inspired by al-Qaeda, and the veneer between narco-trafficking and narcoterrorism was thin. The Global War on Terrorism was in fact worldwide, and 

the Army’s involvement with it was worldwide as well.25

Lessons drawn or ostensibly drawn from operations in Afghanistan and 

elsewhere in the Global War on Terrorism would affect Army Transformation. 

Understandable euphoria pervaded the Department of Defense in the aftermath 

of the Taliban’s speedy overthrow. Some characterized the victory as a new paradigm, witness to the success of small, highly nimble ground forces supported 

by technologically dominant air forces. Others cautioned that the Taliban militia had been matched by Northern Alliance militia and that American forces 

had delivered a margin that guaranteed victory rather than by achieving victory themselves. Somewhat less noticed than the tiny American presence on the 

ground when the Taliban was overthrown was the dramatic growth of American 

ground forces through the year following. Taliban hostility had threatened to 

be replaced by warlord anarchy. Geographical fiefdoms emerged: Ismail Khan 

around Herat, Abdul Rashid Dostum near Mazar-e Sharif, Fahim Khan and 

Bismullah Khan in the northeast, and so on. To secure vital facilities and maintain pressure on al-Qaeda and remnant Taliban—not of great interest to the 

warlords once they had regained control of their traditional haunts—U.S. and 

coalition ground forces in country climbed to 27,000 during 2002. These “boots 

on the ground” collaterally provided some diplomatic leverage as negotiators 
Kevlar Legions

224

nudged the Afghan warlords toward accepting a unity interim government and 

participating in national elections. Afghanistan provided practical experience 

with emerging joint doctrine concerning speedily erecting combined and joint 

headquarters. In theory the Third Army was intrinsically capable of operating 

as a coalition and joint task force or as a coalition and joint land component 

command headquarters. In November 2001 Central Command (CENTCOM) 

designated it the coalition forces and joint land component command headquarters governing Afghanistan. Third Army set up in Camp Doha, Kuwait, and 

deployed the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) headquarters to Karshi 

Khanabad, Uzbekistan, and then to Bagram Airfield to serve as its forward 

headquarters. To its credit, the 10th Mountain Division pulled together a motley 

assortment of brigades and battalions from other divisions, marines, special 

operating forces, allied contingents, Afghans, representatives of other services, 

and others in its planning for Anaconda and subsequent operations. Execution 

was successful, albeit flawed, most notably in the case of Anaconda. The digital communications revolution proved both a blessing and a curse. On the one 

hand, headquarters as disparate as Bagram (10th Mountain), Doha (Third 

Army), Miami (CENTCOM), Oman (Special Operating Forces Forward), and 

elsewhere (e.g., the service contingents other than ground) contributed to the 

planning and buildup with real-time responsiveness. On the other hand, these 

same headquarters generated overwhelming volumes of information and guidance—some of it conflicting—when things got hot. Everyone could talk with 

everyone else, and it seemed they did. Not everyone actually needed to know 

everything, however. There were too many cooks and too much information. 

Unforeseen debates concerning priorities and rules of engagement reflected 

service differences and interrupted operations. The most dramatic event of the 

battle, fierce fighting for Takur Ghar, particularly exemplified both courage 

under fire and botched communications. Hagenbeck’s 10th Mountain Division 

headquarters maintained its grip and brought the battle to a successful conclusion, but his baffled staff wondered if it had not experienced a downside to the 

digital revolution. In the aftermath of the battle there were also recriminations 

concerning the adequacy of air support, concerning which, more later. Pundits 

could not help but notice that despite virtually every national intelligence asset 

having focused for days on the Shahi Kowt Valley, the resultant intelligence 

proved wrong. More than five times as many enemy as expected were in the 

battle area. They were dug in along ridgelines and in caves rather than huddled 

in the villages. They had evaded detection by hugging trees, hiding under dirtcolored blankets, or setting up in the shadows afforded by rugged relief. Their 

mortars and artillery would be more potent than that of the coalition in the 

opening phases of the battle. Most notably, their intentions had been misread. 

They did not flee; they fought. Success ultimately resulted from intelligence 

Hagenbeck’s command fought for rather than downloaded. Shortcomings in 

the performance of high-tech “unblinking eyes” over the battlefield would give 

Army—and Defense—Transformers something more to ponder.26

Army and Defense Transformers had been pondering the limits of technology well before Shahi Kowt, of course. Contention on that subject, manifested 

in the Quadrennial Defense Review that reported out in 1997 (QDR1997), 
225

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

remained robust and lively during the Quadrennial Defense Review that 

reported out in 2001 (QDR2001). The services in general, and the Army in 

particular, followed up on QDR1997 with postmortems concerning staff and 

analytic performances and preparations for yet another round. The Army 

Staff, as we have seen, had ample reason to be proud of the QDR1997 results. 

The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) had gone into QDR1997 with 

significant factions arguing that the Army should come down by two divisions 

to free up funds for modernization, yet the Army itself was to receive less than 

10 percent of the modernization funds overall. In a fierce uphill battle the 

Army persuasively made a case that preserved its force structure, but advocates 

of shifting funds from personnel to modernization and from ground to air 

and naval forces remained influential in OSD and the sister services. No one 

understood these dynamics better than Shinseki, who had served as Deputy 

Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans (DCSOPS) during QDR1997, and 

thus been responsible for two-thirds of the functional areas surveyed—including force structure and force modernization. His after-action comments developed proposals in anticipation of QDR2001, advancing the notion that QDR 

preparations—especially relevant data collection—should be a never-ending 

process executed by customary staffs rather than quadrennial paroxysms by 

ad hoc organizations. When asked what the Army’s major accomplishments in 

QDR1997 had been, Shinseki led with the observation that the Army retained 

the ability to control its destiny. Staff work, analysis, simulations game play, 

the artful exploitation of contractors, interactions with other services, and educational efforts in Congress and elsewhere had maintained the authoritativeness of the Army’s voice within its purview. This in turn allowed the Army to 

pursue transformation along the lines it thought best. When Shinseki was Vice 

Chief of Staff he implemented his ideas concerning QDR preparations and 

this continued when he was Chief. Through the summer of 2000, QDR2001 

looked like it was going to be an even better version of QDR1997. Strategic 

vision translated itself into an impressive mix of joint simulations conducted 

across the breadth of the combat spectrum, and Army participants persuasively established the importance of the Army each time. Comprehensive studies canvassed historians, defense theorists, conference attendees, and others 

to develop much the same point. An anticipatory “elevator speech” armed 

itinerant generals encountering targets of opportunity with materials to succinctly press home the Army’s case: the essence of war has not changed, Army 

units are adaptable across the full spectrum of likely missions, boots on the 

ground are decisive, one soldier early is worth five soldiers late. Much of this 

represented repolishing materials worked during QDR1997. Indeed, wags at 

the Army’s Center of Military History commented that it was easy to look like 

a genius when one kept being asked the same questions.27

This happy glide path toward QDR2001 was interrupted by the change 

of administrations and the arrival of the new Secretary of Defense, Donald 

H. Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld envisioned a revolution in military affairs that would 

diminish the role of manpower-intensive ground combat power, particularly 

that of the Army’s heavy forces. His professional and business experiences were 

strongest with respect to airpower and missile defense. Rumsfeld arrived with 
Kevlar Legions

226

a mandate from President George W. Bush to challenge the status quo inside 

the Pentagon, a mandate he readily embraced. He resolved to review and perhaps rework all that had gone before with respect to QDR2001, empowering 

OSD’s Office of Net Assessment and its director, Andrew W. Marshall, to take 

a leading role in this review. Marshall had long championed the notion of a 

revolution in military affairs. His concepts with respect to networked systems, 

information dominance, remote sensors, and precision-guided munitions were 

congenial to Army Transformers and had figured in their designs thus far. The 

suggestions that the Army was overbuilt and that funds to support modernization could be harvested by reducing force structure were unwelcome to the 

Army, of course. This ground had been covered during QDR1997 and again in 

QDR2001 thus far, with the Army successfully arguing that the nation needed 

sufficient force structure to address a mixture of contingencies at all levels of the 

combat spectrum, that there would be no “timeouts” from the press of ongoing strategic responsibilities, and that no foreseeable technology offered “silver 

bullets” reliable enough to justify doing away with balanced combinations of 

arms. To many, Rumsfeld seemed dismissive of these previous analyses and perhaps of the opinions of the uniformed services as well. His personal deliberations proceeded within a narrow circle with considerable secrecy and minimal 

service participation. Services, particularly the Army, considered themselves in 

the process of transforming already and became anxious that they might lose 

control of their destinies. When Rumsfeld and Marshall briefed their findings 

to the service chiefs and others, they were coolly received even by those who 

would benefit the most, or suffer the least, from the results. Transformation as 

they described it seemed less of a program than an ideology: speed, flexibility, 

precision, “leap ahead” technology, and space-based assets. Ideologies are not 

necessarily right or wrong, but they are believed rather than proven. Rumsfeld’s 

vision and the services’ visions overlapped considerably, but the services had 

come to their opinions through painstakingly detailed staff collaborative processes and were suspicious of opinions less rigorously derived. Protocols governed service reactions, of course, but debate soon leaked outside the confines 

of the Pentagon. The Association of the United States Army and individual 

members of it, for example, openly criticized suggestions that the Army downsize. Someone inspired the majority of the House Armed Services Committee 

and dozens of other lawmakers to send Rumsfeld a letter decrying proposed 

reductions in Army force structure. Members of the Army “family” considered 

it undervalued, misunderstood, unheard, and aggrieved. Then 9-11 happened. 

Tens of thousands of soldiers were hastily dispatched to security responsibilities throughout the United States. Tens of thousands more were soon drawn 

into active operations overseas. Hundreds of thousands went to high states of 

alert, and President Bush declared the United States committed to a global war 

of unknown duration. Suddenly Army admonitions concerning unpredictable 

contingencies and full-spectrum requirements seemed prescient. High-tech solutions now seemed insufficient to secure all that was important. In the words of 

one commentator, the Army was “saved by reality.” The immediate contention 

between the Army and OSD concerning QDR findings fizzled, and the work on 

it that had preceded the change of administrations was resurrected. QDR2001 
227

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

results were reported to Congress with little fanfare, modest recommendations 

for change, and no further manpower cuts envisioned for the Army.28

The Army did enjoy one major triumph in advancing the ball from QDR1997 

through QDR2001. Throughout QDR1997 the Army had made the case that 

“support to the nation” (military support to civil authorities) was so critical, 

recurrent, and consumptive of resources that it should be acknowledged as a 

component of the national military strategy. At the time the national “strategy” 

boiled down to maintaining forces sufficient to fight two major regional conflicts—broadly, against Iraq and North Korea—with enough left over for a few 

minor missions as well. This was not so much a strategy as a force-sizing mechanism, a role no longer being filled by the former Soviet threat. In the aftermath 

of QDR1997 the prestigious National Defense Panel criticized the two-war 

strategy as simplistic and as insufficiently mindful of unconventional challenges. 

The simulations and deliberations of QDR2001 reinforced a more nuanced strategic paradigm, abbreviated as “1-4-2-1.” The first “1” was Homeland Defense, 

securing the United States of America. This was all that the Army had earlier 

described as support to the nation and more, with a major emphasis on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Prior to 9-11 the priority accorded Homeland 

Defense was debatable; after 9-11 it was unquestionable. The “4” in the new 

strategic paradigm was to deter forward in four regions critical to the United 

States: Europe, Northeast Asia, the East Asian littoral, and the Middle East/

Southwest Asia. Here American forward-deployed forces and forces appearing on a rotating basis would reassure allies and deter adversaries. The “2” in 

the new strategic paradigm was the capacity to swiftly defeat aggression in two 

overlapping major conflicts. It broadly carried forward the two major regional 

conflicts of QDR1997, with further comments and caveats. Of these caveats, the 

second “1” was the notion that rather than merely turning back both invaders, 

in one major regional conflict at a time the United States would be capable of 

inflicting a defeat so decisive it could result in regime change and occupation. 

In addition, the United States would maintain a rotational base capable of supporting a long-term mix of smaller contingencies, ensuring that specialized units 

appropriate to them were sufficiently numerous that none were overwhelmed 

by repetitive deployments. The formula 1-4-2-1 acknowledged complexity and 

reflected historical experience. The emphasis on Homeland Defense prioritized a 

wide range of Army programs, those of the National Guard and Army Reserve 

in particular. The “4” gave due recognition to Army responsibilities in Europe 

and such engagement programs as Partnership for Peace and to their equivalents 

in other regions. The concern for repetitive deployments particularly reflected a 

renewed appreciation of joint wartime executive agency responsibility (WEAR). 

The Army, for example, was executive agent for the surface movement of all 

supplies within a theater of operations—whether the supplies were going to air 

bases, Navy and Marine facilities, special operators, or the Army itself. This 

gigantic task ran up the probable deployment of Army transportation assets, 

regardless of the force mix on the ground. The Army was joint executive agent 

for a fistful of manpower-intensive functions. Reimer’s initiative to track deployment personnel tempo (PERSTEMPO), followed up on by Shinseki, made the 

actual demands on “below the line units” (i.e., units not immediately visible in 
Kevlar Legions

228

the stipulated order of battle) apparent. Even before 9-11 such specialties as 

military police, civil affairs, water purification engineers, and special operators 

were well above proposed criteria for days deployed in a fiscal year. Pundits who 

had anticipated Army manpower reductions now hypothesized the Army would 

increase in size. QDR2001, like QDR1997, marked success for the platoons of 

staff officers and analysts who had made the Army’s case.29

The Army may have deflected bureaucratic forays against its manpower, 

but it had less luck protecting its firepower. For some time the Army had 

worked toward replacing the aging M109 Paladin howitzer. During Desert 

Storm the Paladin struggled to keep the nimbler M1 Abrams tanks and M2 

Bradley fighting vehicles in range as they swept across the desert, a problem 

compounded by dependence upon even more antiquated wheeled transportation to bring ammunition resupplies forward. Beyond the set-piece battle 

along the international boundaries, tube artillery had little effect on the rest 

of the fighting. Pundits argued that the eclipse of tube artillery was not a 

problem, since aircraft armed with precision-guided munitions readily filled 

its role—not mentioning that Desert Storm ground commanders generally 

kept air strikes well clear of their battle space out of a concern for fratricide. Operation Anaconda rekindled Army anxieties concerning a lack of 

organic fire support. Manpower caps and the precedent of earlier operations 

against the Taliban led Hagenbeck’s command to deploy with but a few light 

mortars initially. Airpower proved incapable of redressing this shortcoming, 

provoking angry recriminations in the heat of the moment: air-to-ground 

coordination took too long, air coverage was episodic, air strikes were ineffectual, the Air Tasking Order (ATO) was too hard to modify, debates over 

rules of engagement second-guessed the ground commanders, AC–130 

gunships fled the battlefield with daylight, and so on. Embarrassingly, alQaeda’s indirect fires seemed more effective than those of the Coalition on 

the first day, breaking up the (Afghan) main attack and delaying Coalition 

movements elsewhere. American forces were pinned down by a combination of direct and indirect fire. Five Apache helicopters fought bravely to 

redress the fire support imbalance, themselves being shot up so badly as to 

be grounded the second day. Initiative, tenacity, and reinforcements eventually turned the battle the Coalition’s way. Upon analysis, ground commanders had little for which to blame the Air Force. The ATO was designed for 

a battle considerably different than the one that was fought. Air Force and 

Navy planes reconfigured as quickly as time and distance would allow and 

surged to average sixty combat sorties per day delivering over 2,500 bombs 

with impressive accuracy. A problem was that to be effective precision-guided 

munitions require precisely defined targets, a rare phenomenon on the convoluted and intermittently weathered-out Anaconda battlefield. Al-Qaeda 

demonstrated the continuing value of “dumb” munitions for suppressive 

effects. Precision-guided munitions, even JDAMs, are too expensive for suppressing an imprecisely located enemy. Tube artillery and mortar rounds are 

cheap, ideal for deterring or distracting an unseen enemy one is maneuvering 

against. In Vietnam, another war fought with an elusive enemy, perhaps twothirds of American indirect fires had been suppressive.30
229

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

The Army’s twenty-first-century answer to the continuing need for suppressive fires was to be the 155-mm. Crusader self-propelled howitzer. The Crusader 

could pump up to ten aimed rounds a minute over forty kilometers. This was over 

twice the rate of fire and range of the venerable Paladin. Amazingly, the Crusader 

could compute and apply separate firing arcs for each of eight rounds in such a 

manner that all arrived at the same time. A battery of six Crusaders could put 

fifteen tons of dumb munitions within a modest circular error probable within five 

minutes, an incredible potential for suppressive effects. The Crusader presented 

a thoughtful alternative to the “smart bomb” and featured a digital fire-control 

system so advanced it precisely delivered cheap dumb munitions at unprecedented 

rates. The “brains” were in the gun and survived, rather than in the munitions and 

destroyed. At greater expense one could fire a smart munition from the Crusader 

and take advantage of such technologies as laser guidance or GPS termination—

should a target be precisely enough identified to make this worthwhile. Admittedly 

the Crusader was a better fit for the shortcomings of Desert Storm than of 

Anaconda. It and a companion armored resupply vehicle were designed to race 

along at forty miles an hour in support of the advancing M1A2s and M2/3s of the 

Legacy Force. Since the Legacy Force was programmed to fight the nation’s wars 

for a generation, this seemed a sensible upgrade. Unfortunately, to Rumsfeld and 

others the Crusader had become a metaphor for an overweight Army trapped in a 

Cold War mentality. Emboldened by Afghanistan and miffed with the QDR2001 

results, they were determined that the Crusader had to go. Secretary of the Army 

Thomas E. White, General Shinseki, and their staffs were equally convinced 

that the Crusader, along with the Comanche helicopter and the Stryker combat 

vehicle, was critical to advancing Army Transformation during the time it would 

actually take to develop and field the FCS and the Objective Force. The Crusader 

carried forward evolving technologies that, when proven, would be critical to the 

Objective Force. By design, rather than appliqué, it was digitally linked to the 

Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) and to other battlefield networks. Its three-man crew, down from eight in the case of the Paladin, 

operated under armor from a computerized cockpit. The advanced metallurgy 

of the gun tube was integral mid-wall cooled to permit high rates of fire. Frantic 

to save the contract, designers slimmed the Crusader from sixty to forty tons, 

rendering it readily deployable by C–17s—and thus making such austere theaters 

as Afghanistan accessible. Detractors said Crusaders could never have gotten to 

Takur Ghar. Defenders said it would not have had to; being within forty kilometers would have been enough. Since our Afghan allies had reached the battlefield 

in gypsy caravans of assorted cars, trucks, and buses, this seemed doable enough. 

The Army Staff lobbied OSD with the mix of charts, graphs, mathematical models, 

simulations results, and the like that had worked well in the QDR, demonstrating 

how Crusader ramped up the capabilities of the Legacy Force, foreshadowed the 

Objective Force, and could participate in the Objective Force until its own technologies were built into an FCS-mounted non-line-of-sight (NLOS) cannon. The 

Army’s Center of Military History, for example, developed a graph depicting the 

effects expected of artillery through time. In the Renaissance, when accuracy and 

rates of fire were low, the destruction of fixed targets—like castle walls—was the 

dominant effect. Through the nineteenth century, as accuracy and rates of fire 
Kevlar Legions

230

improved but troops remained in mass formations, lethality was the dominant 

effect. In the twentieth century troops dispersed and dug in, and the suppressive 

effects of artillery were required to maneuver against them. Conventional wisdom 

in World War II held that it took two tons of artillery to kill a single soldier. This 

is why masters of the military art like General George S. Patton believed in fire 

and maneuver, keeping the enemies’ heads down with artillery until troops were 

close enough to kill them with direct-fire weapons. Fortuitously, the Center of 

Military History’s five-hundred-year excursus fed neatly into an argument that 

the Army needed the Crusader for suppressive fires. Unfortunately for the Army, 

however, the debate was now ideological more so than empirical. OSD advocates 

of a revolution in military affairs were willing to “skip a generation” of technical 

evolution to free up funds for “leap-ahead” technologies. Horrified Army planners 

wondered how they would explain the consequent blood lost in the meantime. The 

denouement proved ugly. Rumsfeld’s announcement of program termination was 

abrupt and nonparticipative, although the Army Staff could have seen it coming. 

The Army Staff circulated “talking points” to Congress favoring the Crusader 

at about the same time. Congressional supporters of the Crusader assailed OSD 

with phone calls and missives and demanded an “Army Indirect Fires Report” of 

Shinseki assessing the consequences. Shinseki, ever one to prioritize integrity over 

prudence, submitted a report opining that it would ultimately cost between $18 

billion and $24 billion to replace the capabilities given up with Crusader. White 

backed Shinseki. Rumsfeld was reported to have been furious. Rumsfeld saw 

Shinseki and White as resisting a revolution in military affairs with sauropodian 

obtuseness. Shinseki and White saw Rumsfeld as dismissive of ground power and 

as making policy as if the revolution in military affairs had already occurred.31

Back to Iraq

On 20 March 2003, an American-led coalition once again invaded Iraq. The 

immediate cause was Saddam Hussein’s refusal to cooperate with the United 

Nations inspection regime empowered since the Persian Gulf War of 1991 to 

keep weapons of mass destruction out of his hands. American leaders believed 

Saddam was stockpiling chemical munitions and pushing ahead with the development of biological and nuclear weapons. They also believed he had established 

liaisons with international terrorists possibly including al-Qaeda and might 

selectively arm them with such weapons as well. President Bush had committed 

himself to preempting attacks on the United States with force if necessary, and 

circumstances in Iraq were deemed appropriate to enforce this doctrine. Saddam 

had been fencing with the United States for a dozen years, provoking retaliatory strikes when he fired on aircraft enforcing no-fly zones over northern and 

southern Iraq. The retaliatory strikes had been conducted in such a manner that 

over time they dismantled his air defense system, degraded his communications, 

and crushed what was left of his air force. Army heavy brigades rotated through 

training exercises in Kuwait on a nearly continuous basis, and pre-positioned 

equipment and supplies had accumulated in Kuwait, Qatar, and Diego Garcia 

sufficient to outfit a heavy division. As the crisis built these were tapped to equip 

the 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized), which rapidly assembled in Kuwait. 
231

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

The 3d Infantry Division was joined by the 1st Marine Division, which also 

drew heavily upon pre-positioned equipment, and in due course by the 101st 

Airborne Division, the United Kingdom’s 1st Armoured Division, two brigades 

of the 82d Airborne Division, the 11th Aviation Brigade, and others. The 4th 

Infantry Division (Mechanized) was programmed to enter the theater through 

Turkey, and the 1st Cavalry Division was in the queue to reinforce where needed. 

Commanders in the Gulf had anticipated another round with Saddam Hussein 

for some time. A state-of-the-art command and control facility suitable for theater requirements had been built in Qatar, for example, and fuel lines extended 

through Kuwait to establish fuel farms along the Iraqi border. The CENTCOM 

commander, General Tommy R. Franks, designated the Third Army commanded by Lieutenant General David D. McKiernan as Combined Forces 

Land Component Command commander, and the Army V Corps and I Marine 

Expeditionary Force were to be operational headquarters serving underneath 

him. McKiernan, with General Shinseki’s support, handpicked general officers 

he had confidence in to upgrade the experience of his principal staff sections, to 

that point headed by colonels. The new team drilled itself through CENTCOM’s 

customary Joint Exercise Internal Look and other major simulations to perfect war plans—making changes as they went along. These exercises triggered a 

pyramid of further simulations as each headquarters in turn drilled its part of 

the plans, generally assisted by BCTP personnel provided by TRADOC. Thus 

did the expansive digital training regime envisioned by Generals Sullivan and 

Franks see its first comprehensive wartime application. Meanwhile units of battalion size and below arriving in Kuwait took to the field and trained toward 

their responsibilities on their actual equipment and “in the dirt.”32

Preparations for the operation that would acquire the label Iraqi 

Freedom progressed with admirable teamwork throughout the Department 

of Defense, but the transformation-related philosophical gap between OSD 

and the Army nevertheless resurfaced. Buoyed by Afghanistan, Rumsfeld and 

others resolved Iraqi Freedom would be another striking example of the fastmoving, high-technology warfare of the future. The Air Force and Navy were 

game enough for blows struck from a distance, but Army and Marine planners 

became anxious about the numbers on two counts. First, even if a knockout 

blow toppled Saddam’s regime with minimal forces committed, what would 

be the follow-on requirements in an occupied country while the search for 

weapons of mass destruction went on—and beyond? Second, although the 

“above the line” forces that would fight the decisive battle had been identified, 

were the “below the line” forces required to support them going to be on hand? 

The Joint Staff sought to moderate the emerging debate. The Army’s Center 

of Military History, for example, was tasked to study military occupations of 

the past to gain an appreciation of what might be required in Iraq. Its canvassing of twenty twentieth-century Army and Marine Corps occupations found 

wide variations in circumstances, troop strengths, and results but suggested 

one reliable soldier per hundred occupied people might be a reasonable rule of 

the thumb. Mathematical modelers employed by the Army Staff did troop-totask studies and came to broadly similar conclusions. When asked during congressional testimony how many soldiers it would take to secure Iraq, Shinseki 
Kevlar Legions

232

forthrightly replied several hundred thousand. He had considerable credibility 

beyond Army Staff studies, given his personal experiences in Vietnam and 

the Balkans. A number of Army retirees shared his views and said so. White 

affirmed Shinseki. With respect to “below the line” forces required to support 

those in combat, the Army thought it already had the answer in the laboriously constructed time-phased force and deployment list (TPFDL). By this 

time the TPFDL was a fully automated program that matched combat service 

support unit requirements to those for combat and combat support, designated specific units, and married them all together into packages that made the 

best use of available transportation. Thus as combat and combat support units 

arrived, appropriate mixes of combat service support units would arrive with 

them. To Rumsfeld and others the numbers for combat service support seemed 

preposterously large, and the TPFDL seemed far too formulaic and ponderous for the Information Age. The TPFDL was swept aside, and a regime of 

OSD-vetted Request for Forces (RFF) documents was substituted in its place. 

Rather than automatically dispatching packages of combat service and support 

units in accordance with doctrine and experience, a sufficient case would have 

to be made for each unit. This took time, of course, and distracted key leaders already busy with other things. Many National Guard and Army Reserve 

units had already been mobilized in accordance with the TPFDL, and these 

experienced chaos as they waited for the RFF process to catch up—or did not 

deploy at all. To add to the confusion, the headquarters most involved with 

force design musings of this type—through the Quadrennial Defense Review 

and other endeavors—was the Army Staff and their colleagues in TRADOC, 

yet both were minimally and indirectly involved in the planning for Operation 

Iraqi Freedom. The Theater Commander, General Franks, reported directly 

to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary Rumsfeld and consciously limited the leverage of the service staffs within his own CENTCOM 

staff deliberations. This elevated the most salient issues involved to General 

Shinseki, who once again bumped heads with Secretary Rumsfeld and the 

OSD staff. The TPFDL issue was too arcane and too delayed in its effects to 

evoke much immediate commentary. Its significance would become apparent 

later, as we shall see. These debates further soured relationships between the 

Army Staff and OSD. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, declared 

Shinseki wildly off the mark with respect to troop requirements and fumed.33

When the ground war started, it moved quickly (Map 4). The 3d Infantry 

Division (Mechanized) raced up the west bank of the Euphrates, sweeping two 

hundred miles to An Najaf within twenty-four hours. The Marines overran and 

secured the vital Rumaylah oil fields, then pushed on toward Baghdad over the 

land between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. The British quickly seized Um 

Qasr and then laid siege to Al Basrah. The Turks had precluded the 4th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized) from opening a second front through Turkey, so it missed 

the offensive and had to redeploy through Kuwait. Instead the 173d Airborne 

Brigade jumped into Kurdistan, linked up with allied Kurdish Peshmerga, airlanded reinforcements that included an M1A1 tank company, and opened up a 

northern front on a shoestring. Special Forces infiltrated into western Iraq, called 

in air strikes on selected targets, and precluded the area from being a launch site 
233

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

for planes and missiles to strike the advancing Coalition forces or Israel. As the 

converging columns neared Baghdad, a powerful dust storm struck and the elite 

Iraqi Republican Guard attempted to counterattack under its cover. They were 

found out and virtually destroyed by aerial bombardment before American ground 

forces closed with them to finish the job. Although Iraqi conventional forces 

were destroyed or dispersed with relative ease and few losses, irregular Fedayeen 

and special Republican Guards posed more problems. These dressed in civilian 

clothes, fought from among civilians, attacked from ambush, and routinely operated out of mosques, schools, and hospitals. They were fanatic and often attacked 

with suicidal intensity. When they attacked combat units they were blown away 

X X

101

X X

3

X X

1 Br

X X

1

USMC

X

2 82

I I I 5

JSOTF-W

SF

X

173

X X X

1

USMC

MEF

X X X

V

I I I

10

JSOTF-N

SF

XXX

I MEF

V

BASHUR

21 Mar–7 Apr

26 Mar

21 Mar–9 Apr

22 Mar–6 Apr

28 Mar

28 Mar

CAMP DOHA

H ̧ adīthah Dam

BAGHDAD

Ar Rama ̄d ̄ı

Al Fallu ̄ jah

Karbala ̄ '

Al Ku ̄ t Al H ̧illah

An Najaf

Al Bas ̧ rah

Dahu ̄ k

Mosul

Sulayma ̄n ̄yah ı

Kirku ̄ k

Tikr ̄tı

Sa ̄ marra ̄ '

As Sama ̄wah

Al Ku ̄fah

Al 'Ama ̄rah

'Ar 'ar

Ar Rut ̧bah

Ra ̄wah

Hı ̄t

Arbı ̄l 

SAUDI ARABIA

IRAN

TURKEY

SYRIA

KUWAIT

J O R D A N

0

0

100 Miles

100 Kilometers

21 March–9 April 2003

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

INVASION OF IRAQ

Main Axis of Advance, Date

Supporting Axis of Advance, Date

Securing Line of Communications, Date

Map 4
Kevlar Legions

234

by American firepower and gunnery skills. They had more success against the 

exposed American supply lines, ambushing a disoriented convoy with devastating 

effects and then forcing an extended battle through the sprawl of An Nasiriyah, 

for examples. The 101st and 82d Airborne Divisions became committed to reararea security while their brethren in the heavy divisions forged ahead. Elements of 

the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment overflew a massive air defense ambush of 

machine guns and shoulder-fired rockets coordinated by cellular phone, yet all but 

one of the redoubtable AH–64 helicopters made it out under their own power. An 

immediate videoconference described the Iraqi defenses and techniques to other 

pilots, who then flew their own missions with far less damage. By 4 April the 3d 

Infantry Division (Mechanized) seized Saddam Hussein International Airport, 

and by 7 April fought its way into central Baghdad. Jubilant Iraqis took to the 

streets to tear down posters and statues of Saddam Hussein, and a sense of victory 

was in the air. To this point the campaign had cost 83 Americans killed and 284 

wounded, plus 19 killed and 36 wounded for the British.34

The striking victory was not without its warts. Logistical difficulties 

plagued the final stages of the advance and could have gotten much worse 

had significant fighting dragged on. TPFDL shortages became visible. For 

example, of 700 heavy trucks required for line haul only 150 were on hand. 

Repair parts became increasingly unavailable, prompting units to cannibalize 

and abandon some vehicles to keep the rest running. Food, fuel, and water 

were in short supply in places at times. M2/M3 Bradley track became excessively worn, as these vehicles greatly exceeded mileage caps to escort exposed 

convoys over extended distances. Shortages of manpower precluded securing 

The first weeks of Iraqi Freedom required high-intensity combat.
235

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

much that was valuable. An orgy of looting and other crimes shook the country as law and order broke down. Perhaps more ominously, tons of ammunition and hundreds of weapons disappeared from dumps and armories where 

it had been stored. Iraqi units melted away rather than having been defeated 

or forced to surrender. Attacks on Americans, although minor at first, continued. Plans for a postcombat phase, such as they were, assumed the Iraqi 

Army and police would be purged of their criminal elements over time but 

put back on the streets under new management to assist with law and order. 

Retired Lieutenant General James “Jay” Garner, the man who had supervised 

Kurdistan during Provide Comfort, assumed the role of civil administrator 

of Iraq with this approach in mind. He was in position less than a month 

when the Bush administration decided to upscale the reconstruction effort in 

Iraq and appointed well-connected Ambassador L. Paul Bremer to supersede 

Garner as civil administrator. Bremer was committed to a more dramatic 

reconfiguration of Iraq and elected to totally disband the Iraqi Army and ban 

a far larger percentage of erstwhile Ba’athists from government employment 

than Garner had considered wise. Whatever the long-term merits of such a 

drastic approach, the short-term effect was to render tens of thousands of 

capable people unemployed, alienated, and hostile. This in turn fed a nascent 

but growing insurgency the thinly spread Americans were not well positioned 

to contain.35

Operation Iraqi Freedom provided the first battlefield proofing of many 

of the constituents of Army Transformation. We will discuss this at some length 

in Chapter 9. When General Shinseki retired in June 2003, appliqué hardware 

and software associated with Force XXI—by then the Legacy Force—had 

seen considerable use. Unfortunately the organization that was most consistently Force XXI–configured, the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), was 

delayed by the Turkish parliamentary decision to block passage, and it began 

operations in Iraq after Baghdad had fallen. With some haste the Army complemented equipment already in the field with add-ons and surrogates to bring 

the deployed units into the digital Army Battle Command System. In practice 

the initiative worked better at the division level and above than at brigade and 

below, but some of the appliqué systems received strong reviews at all levels. 

Blue force tracking, for example, radically improved answers to the questions 

“where am I” and “where are my buddies,” and proved popular and useful at 

all levels. Reach-back capabilities providing access to maps and graphics with 

variable scale and resolution were also effective and widely used. One battalion commander, for example, reported using traditional paper maps when he 

started the campaign but being altogether won over to digital mapping before 

he concluded it. The ability to integrate precision-guided munitions into a 

scheme of maneuver was better than ever. Concerning all of this, more later. 

The first Stryker Brigade of the Interim Force was, as we have seen, declared 

deployable in May and designated for deployment to Iraq in July. Its combat 

debut would follow Shinseki’s departure. The Objective Force was by and large 

still on the drawing boards. Digital technologies evolving with Force XXI were 

to be brought into the Objective Force of course, built in rather than appliqué. 

Some of the unmanned aerial vehicles and robotics near fielding were most 
Kevlar Legions

236

properly Objective Force technologies. These too would see service in Iraq 

after General Shinseki’s departure.36

The extended contention between Army Transformers and their OSD critics, and more personally between Shinseki and White as compared to Rumsfeld 

and Wolfowitz, did not end on a high note. The Army was committed to an 

evolutionary—perhaps accelerated, but nevertheless evolutionary—definition 

of Transformation. At any given time it intended to be ready to fight at any 

level of intensity. Technologies would be proven before they were relied upon. 

This explained the elaborate and extended handoffs over time among the 

Legacy, Interim, and Objective Forces. The service also believed that technical 

advance alone was insufficient. Doctrine, training, organization, leadership, 

and personal skills had to advance with it. What was more, many functions 

might never be particularly amenable to technological solutions, requiring the 

steadiness and collective individual efforts of “boots on the ground.” It was 

no accident that Shinseki’s most unique contribution to Army transformation, 

the Stryker Brigade, was also the most manpower-intensive. Rumsfeld and his 

colleagues pursued a more dramatic revolution in military affairs and were 

willing to “skip a generation” in development to free up funding for “leapahead” technologies. Indeed, they were willing to take risks and force their 

vision on contemporary battlefields, believing technology was already far 

enough along to do away with much of the mass the Army considered prudent. 

Ground forces seemed destined to be bit players in their futuristic vision. Some 

of the missions most consumptive of boots on the ground were dismissed as 

“washing windows,” best contracted out to lesser allies. This overlooked the 

historical phenomenon that allies are seldom willing to risk the blood of their 

soldiers if the United States is not willing to do so as well. The differences 

in approach and philosophy led to recurrent debates: over the Quadrennial 

Defense Review results, over the Stryker and the Stryker Brigades, over the 

Crusader artillery system, over the Comanche helicopter, over the time-phased 

force and deployment list, and over the forces necessary to secure Iraq. Debate 

inevitably spilled out of the Pentagon and into public forums. Congress took 

interest. Shinseki and White understood discipline and deference to civilian 

authority but also were honor bound to forthrightly answer congressional 

inquiries when asked. They also considered failure to make their opinions 

known to their superiors a dereliction of duty. Tension built. When Baghdad 

fell Rumsfeld and his colleagues considered themselves vindicated. Despite a 

few misgivings about residual messiness, most commentators saw the campaign 

as a brilliant victory and perhaps, like Afghanistan, yet another harbinger of 

the new way of war. Within a few weeks President Bush would pilot a fighter 

onto an aircraft carrier grandly bearing the banner “Mission Accomplished.” 

Rumsfeld chose not to continue his contention with the Army leadership. He 

fired White, a political appointee, on 1 May. Shinseki was to retire a little over 

a month later; Rumsfeld did not attend his 12 June departure ceremony. In 

his retirement speech Shinseki was complimentary, inclusive, and civil, but 

he did warn of an Army given too many missions with too few resources. 

Rumsfeld attempted to replace White with then Secretary of the Air Force 

James G. Roche and intended to replace Shinseki with a man independent of 
237

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

Shinseki’s mentorship. Shinseki’s replacement had not yet been identified, a 

dramatic departure from having the outgoing and incoming Chiefs of Staff 

share the podium together. With respect to Roche, Congress—whose members 

had highly regarded White—balked at so transparent an attempt to put an airpower advocate in charge of the Department of the Army. The Senate declined 

to move confirmation along and White’s former Under Secretary of the Army, 

Les Brownlee, took over as acting secretary. Shinseki had aspired to design 

a Transformation program so thoughtful, comprehensive, appropriate, and 

readily explained that it would acquire “irreversible momentum.” Now that 

design and intent were to be tested by both war and bureaucratic opposition.37

Conclusions

General Shinseki consolidated the transformational initiatives of Vuono, 

Sullivan, and Reimer and integrated them into a comprehensive framework 

of which he was the architect. The appliqué digital technologies of Force XXI 

matured during his tenure and achieved their first demonstrable successes in 

combat. Force XXI morphed into the Legacy Force, and an even more advanced 

Interim Force went from concept to first units deployable within the mere four 

years of his tenure. The Interim Force’s Stryker Brigade Combat Team was a new 

organization with new equipment, doctrine, training, and leadership and was 

poised to advance Shinseki’s vision of Army Transformation on the battlefield. 

The Army of the more distant future, the former Army After Next and now the 

Objective Force, had been pulled far enough forward to have definitive programs 

and funding associated with it. Much of its technology remained under development, but its essence already seemed foreshadowed in the emerging Interim 

Force. The Army had once again made a persuasive case for ground power in a 

Quadrennial Defense Review and based much of its argument on its flexibility 

as a full-spectrum force. This proved prescient in the aftermath of 9-11, when a 

broad array of operational missions nudged the focus of Army Transformation 

down the combat spectrum. Homeland Defense, unconventional warfare in 

Afghanistan, a mix of requirements in pursuit of the Global War on Terrorism, 

and a war in Iraq that started as a conventional war but ended up as something 

else reinforced the wisdom of nurturing adaptable organizations and leadership. 

The glide path Shinseki had established for Army Transformation at the outset 

of his tenure did come under attack in his last year. Under the tenure of Secretary 

of Defense Donald Rumsfeld the Department of Defense embraced a philosophy of transformation that threatened the breadth of capabilities Shinseki 

thought appropriate for the Army, and to which he had aspired. The contention 

became ugly enough that principal subordinates Shinseki had mentored seemed 

unlikely to succeed him. He had undertaken a comprehensive educational campaign to render the wisdom of Army Transformation as he envisioned it to be 

self-evident and to impart it with an irreversible momentum. In the absence of 

a clean handoff to a successor, this particular aspect of his approach would 

become critical to Army Transformation’s future success.
Notes

1

 “Eric K. Shinseki,” in William G. Bell, Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff, 

1775–2005: Portraits and Biographical Sketches of the Army’s Senior Officers 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2005), 164; Richard Halloran, My Name 

Is Shinseki . . . and I Am a Soldier (Honolulu: Hawaii Army Museum Society, 2004); 

General Eric K. Shinseki, “Beginning the Next 100 Years,” Army 1999–2000 Green 

Book, October 1999, 21–28; Author’s personal experience as General Shinseki’s immediate subordinate through six years in three assignments.

2

 Ltr, General Eric K. Shinseki to Brigadier General John S. Brown, 26 April 1999, 

Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, “CSA-D Guidance,” Historians Files, CMH; 

Briefing, “Leading the Army into the Future,” Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, 

“CSA-D Special Study Group Assessment Team Report, 20 May 99,” Historians Files, 

CMH.

3

 Ibid.; MFR, 17 June 1999, sub: CSA Special Study Group After Action Report, 

Historians Files, CMH; Assessment Analysis, Historians Files, CMH; America’s Army 

Ready Today, Tomorrow, and into the Next Millennium: CSA Thoughts on the Line 

of Departure, Historians Files, CMH; Intent of the Chief of Staff, Army, 23 June 

1999, Historians Files, CMH; Halloran; Shinseki, “Beginning the Next 100 Years,” 

41–43.

4

 Author’s personal experiences as an attendee at and staff contributor to this and a 

number of other Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Eisenhower 

Luncheons. The discussion concerning when the next millennium actually began provoked subsequent good-natured banter between the Center of Military History and 

the Chief of Staff, Army (CSA), Study Group when no less of an authority than the 

Prince Valiant comic strip came down on the side of the historians. 

5

 General Eric K. Shinseki, Address to the Eisenhower Luncheon, Association of 

the United States Army, 12 October 1999 (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of 

Staff, United States Army, 1999); Shinseki, “Beginning the Next 100 Years,” 21–28. 

6 Army Vision, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington DC, 12 

October 1999, Historians Files, CMH; United States Army Transformation Campaign 

Plan (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 10 April 2001); White Paper, United 

States Army, Concepts for the Objective Force, Washington DC, 2001, Historians 

Files, CMH; General Eric K. Shinseki, “The Army Vision: A Status Report,” Army 

2001–2002 Green Book, October 2001, 23–33; Dennis Steele, “The Army Magazine 

Hooah Guide to Army Transformation: A 30-Minute Course on the Army’s 30-Year 

Overhaul,” Army (February 2001): 21–42.

7 E-mail series, culminating in e-mail, Major General Robert H. Scales Jr. to 

Lieutenant General Larry R. Ellis, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans 

(DCSOPS), and Brigadier General John S. Brown (CMH), 5 October 1999, sub: 

Tasker, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Dr. James Blackwell, “Transforming the 

Army: Learning from the Past,” Strategic Assessment Center, Science Applications 

International Corporation (SAIC), Washington DC, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, 

Dr. Ralph A. Hallenbeck, “Army QDR CoC: Alternative Strategies—Implications for 

the Army,” Strategy and Policy Analysis Division, SAIC, 15 June 2000; Army 

Transformation Wargame 2002 (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: U.S. Army War 

College, 2002); Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 (Washington DC: Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, 30 September 2001). 

8 The Army Strategic Planning Guidance (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 9 October 2002), Historians Files, CMH; Headquarters, Department of the 
239

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

Army (HQDA), DCSOPS, Development Instructions: Transformation Campaign 

Plan, 22 December, 1999; Army Transformation Campaign Plan; Memo, Department 

of the Army G–3, 8 October 2002, sub: Transformation Campaign Plan Revision 

(TCP)—Final Draft, Historians Files, CMH. 

9

 Mark J. Reardon and Jeffery A. Charlston, From Transformation to Combat: The 

First Stryker Brigade at War (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 

1–19; Memo, Chief of Staff, Army, November 1999, sub: Planning Directive 1, in 

Historians Files, CMH; Memo, Chief of Staff, Army, December 1999, sub: Planning 

Directive 2, in Historians Files, CMH; United States Army Transformation Campaign 

Plan; Briefing Slide, Army Transformation Office, “The Interim Force—Bridging the 

Gap,” n.d., Historians Files, CMH.

10 Reardon and Charlston, 1–19; Memo, Department of the Army G–3, 8 October 

2008, sub: Transformation Campaign Plan (TCP)—Final Draft, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army Strategic Planning Guidance 2005–2020 (Washington DC: Department of 

the Army, 2002); Kevin J. Dwyer, “4th ID Puts Readiness for Digital War to the Test,” 

Killeen Daily Herald, 9 October 2001; Michael Rauhut, “Put Me In, Coach! From 

Experimental Force to Deployable Unit: The Transition of the 4th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized),” Army (June 2002): 65–70; Briefing Slide, Army Transformation Office, 

“Resourcing the Interim Force,” n.d., Historians Files, CMH.

11 Candidate platforms included the Dragoon and Pandur from General Dynamics 

(United States); the Light Armored Vehicle III (LAV III) from General Motors of 

Canada Ltd.; the Fuchs armored personnel carrier from Henschel (Germany); the 

LAV III MOWAG from MOWAG (Switzerland); the Bionix infantry fighting vehicle 

from Singapore Technologies Automotive Ltd.; the VAB armored personnel carrier 

from Giat Industries (France); the Cobra reconnaissance vehicle from AM General 

Corporation (United States); the XM1117 reconnaissance vehicle, LAV 300 MK II 

infantry fighting vehicle, and LAV 600 armored gun system from Cadillac Gage 

Textron (United States); the FNSS from Turkey; and the armored gun system, medium 

tactical vehicle light, XM1108 universal carrier, M1064A3 command and control vehicle, M1064A3 mortar carrier, and M113A3 armored personnel carrier from United 

Defense LP (United States). 

12 Reardon and Charlston, 1–19; Thomas K. Adams, The Army After Next: The 

First Postindustrial Army (Stanford, California: Stanford Security Studies, 2008), 

82–86, 123–24, 127–31, 169–72; Briefing Slides, Army Transformation Office, “The 

Selected IAV Family—Best Value for the Soldier” and “Interim Brigade Combat Team 

(IBCT) Structure,” n.d., Historians Files, CMH; Dennis Steele, “The Army Stages a 

Kentucky Demo to Define ‘the Art of the Possible,’” Army (March 2000): 20–26; Scott 

R. Gourley, “Milestones in Army Transformation,” Army (March 2000): 27–32; 

Author’s personal experience as Chief of Military History, December 1998–July 2005. 

13 Reardon and Charlston, 1–19; Briefing, Colonel William T. Grisoli, “US Army 

Transformation Media Roundtable,” 20 May 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing 

Slides, Army Transformation Office, “The Selected IAV Family—Best Value for the 

Soldier” and “Interim Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) Structure”; Key Issues Relevant 

to the U.S. Army’s Transformation to the Objective Force (Arlington, Virginia: 

Association of the United States Army, 2002); Key Issues Relevant to the U.S. Army’s 

Strategic Imperatives (Arlington, Virginia: Association of the United States Army, 

2002). 

14 Reardon and Charlston, 1–19; Adams, 82–86, 123–24, 127–31, 169–72; Briefing, 

Colonel William T. Grisoli, “US Army Transformation Media Roundtable,” 20 May 

2003; Press Release, Department of the Army, Army Officially Begins Transformation 

to Brigade Combat Teams, 13 April 2000, Washington DC; “Bin Laden Target of 
Kevlar Legions

240

Urban Warfare Training in Fort Lewis,” Seattle Post Intelligencer, 10 October 2003; 

Nick Johnson, “First Stryker Brigade to Achieve IOC This Month, Army Says,” 

Aerospace Daily, 21 May 2003; Scott R. Gourley, “IBCT Marks a Digital Milestone,” 

Army (December 2001): 55–57; General John N. Abrams, “Training and Doctrine 

Command: Focusing on the Human Dimension of Army Transformation,” Army 

2002–2003 Green Book, October 2002, 91–98. 

15 Reardon and Charlston, 1–19; Memo, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 

through Director of Strategy, Plans, and Policy, Office of the G–3/5, for Vice Chief of 

Staff of the Army, 12 February 2002, sub: IBCT at Arnhem, Historians Files, CMH; 

Erin Q. Winograd, “Gingrich Tells Top DOD Officials Army’s Stryker Shouldn’t Be 

Fielded,” Inside the Army, 30 September 2002; Neil Baumgardner, “Shinseki Rails 

Against Stryker Critics,” Defense Daily, 23 October 2002; Dennis Steele, The Army 

Magazine Hooah Guide to Army Transformation: A 30-Minute Course on the Army’s 

30-Year Overhaul (Arlington, Virginia: Association of the United States Army, 2001).

16 Mary Beth Norton et al., A People and a Nation: A History of the United States 

(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 917–19; Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, 

The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Random House, 2002); Bob Woodward, Bush at 

War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002). 

17 Briefing, Joint Staff, “Paradigm Shift: The Devolution of Terrorism, The Coming 

Challenge for US National Security Forces and the Current Known Threat,” n.d., 

Historians Files, CMH; E-mail, Mr. Avon N. Williams (Office of the General Counsel) 

to Brigadier General John S. Brown (Chief of Military History), 30 October 2001, sub: 

Moderate Islam? Historians Files, CMH; George W. Gawrych, Jihad, War and 

Terrorism (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and General Staff 

College, 2002); John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2002); Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret 

World of Osama bin Laden (New York: Free Press, 2001); National Military Strategy

(Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1992); National Military Strategy of the 

United States of America (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 2004). 

18 Richard W. Stewart, ed., American Military History, vol. 2, The United States 

Army in a Global Era, 1917–2003 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2005), 

460–64; Lieutenant General Roger C. Schultz, “Army National Guard: CitizenSoldiers Protecting and Defending the U.S.A.,” Army 2002–2003 Green Book, October 

2002, 103–10; Dennis Steele, “Recognition of Heroic Deeds at the Pentagon on 

September 11: Valor, Pain and Tears,” Army (December 2001): 50–54.

19 Schultz, “Army National Guard: Citizen-Soldiers Protecting and Defending the 

U.S.A.,” 103–10; Lieutenant General James R. Helmly, “The U.S. Army Reserve: 

Transforming While at War—Instilling a Culture of Change,” Army 2002–2003 Green 

Book, October 2002, 111–20; Major General Hans A. Van Winkle, “Civil Works: This 

Is the Army Too,” Army (March 2000): 42–48; Dennis Steele, “Operation Noble 

Eagle: The Nation’s Sentinels,” Army (August 2002): 15–19; General Larry Ellis, “U.S. 

Army Forces Command, 1973–2003: Three Decades of Readiness in Peace and War,” 

Army (June 2003): 49–54.

20 “What is TSA?” from http://www.tsa.gov, accessed 16 January 2009; “Department 

Celebrates Five Years,” from http://www.dhs.gov, accessed 16 January 2009; Ellis, 

49–54; John Mintz, “Ridges Rise from Adviser to ‘Mr. Secretary,’” Washington Post, 24 

March 2002; Michelle Tan, “The Readiness Shuffle,” AUSA Special Report, Army 

Times, 20 February 2006; Michelle Tan, “Guard Aims for 6-Year Cycle, Half Free for 

U.S. Emergencies,” AUSA Special Report, Army Times, 20 February 2006.

21 Lieutenant General Joseph M. Cosumano Jr., “Space, Missile Defense and 

Information Operations Support the Transforming Army,” Army 2002–2003 Green 
241

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

Book, October 2002, 187–94; Major General Stanley E. Green, “Fighting Air and 

Missile Defense in the Future,” Army (December 2001): 39–42; Shelba Profitt, 

“Getting Missile Defense Capabilities into the Hands of the Warfighter,” Army

(December 2001): 47–49; Memo, James L. Yarrison, Center of Military History 

Pentagon Research Team, for Chief of the Histories Division, 27 October 1999, sub: 

Meeting with Ms. Browning, ODISC4 Y2K Director, Historians Files, CMH; Dennis 

Steele, “A Legacy of Being on the Leading Edge,” Army (August 2002): 17; Brigadier 

General Richard V. Geraci, “The Critical Battlespace: Computer Network 

Operations,” Army (December 2001): 43–46. 

22 Dennis Steele, “National Security Commission Recommends a New Strategic 

Outlook,” Army (March 2001): 37–38; U.S. Commission on National Security/21st 

Century Web site, govinf.library.unt.edu/nssg/Reports/reports.htm-2k, accessed 20 

January 2009; Dennis Steele, “Reinforcing Homeland Defense in the Wake of 

September 11,” Army (December 2001): 33; U.S. Northern Command Web site, http://

www.northcom.mil, accessed 20 January 2009. 

23 Richard W. Stewart, The United States Army in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring 

Freedom, October 2001–March 2002 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2004); Roger Howard, “Entertaining Osama: Testing the Limits of Taliban 

Hospitality,” Jane’s Intelligence Review (November 1998): 14–16; Anthony Davis, 

“Taliban Continue the Killing but Fail to Finish the Crusade,” Jane’s Intelligence 

Review (November 1998): 17–22; Peter Marsden, The Taliban: War, Religion and the 

New Order in Afghanistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998); Amin Saikal, 

“Afghanistan’s Ethnic Conflict,” Survival (Summer 1998); Briefing Slide, Office of the 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ODCSINT), “Mujahidiin/Taliban,” n.d., 

Historians Files, CMH. 

24 Stewart, The United States Army in Afghanistan; Marsden; Saikal; Dennis Steele, 

“The U.S. Army in Afghanistan,” Army (April 2002): 19–52; Dennis Steele, “A U.S. 

Army Line Battalion in the War on Terrorism,” Army (June 2002): 22–52; E-mail, 

Brigadier General Mark E. O’Neill to Major General Franklin Hagenbeck, 6 January 

2003, sub: Anaconda Lessons Learned—NDU Paper, with notes, Historians Files, 

CMH.

25 Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st 

Century (New York: Free Press, 2003); Rohan Gunratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global 

Network of Terror (New York: Berkeley Books, 2003); Dennis Steele, “The Rough Ride 

to Reaper Estates,” Army (January 2002): 12–20; Lieutenant General Paul T. 

Mikolashek, “’Patton’s Own’ Third U.S. Army: ‘Always First’: Versatile, Ready 

Warfighting Command,” Army 2002–2003 Green Book, October 2002, 201–08; General 

Montgomery C. Meigs, “U.S. Army Europe: Ready for Deployment on a Moment’s 

Notice,” Army 2002–2003 Green Book, October 2002, 75–82; Master Sergeant Sue 

Harper and Staff Sergeant Gregory Jones, “Supporting Afghanistan from Europe: 

U.S. Army Europe’s 21st Theater Support Command,” Army (August 2002): 41–43; 

Dennis Steele, “The U.S. Army in the Balkans,” Army (September 2002): 22–41; 

Lieutenant James L. Campbell, “U.S. Army Pacific: Providing Indispensable 

Capabilities to the Army and Pacific Command,” Army 2002–2003 Green Book, 

October 2002; Major General Alfred A. Valenzuela, “U.S. Army South: The 

Component of Choice in U.S. Southern Command’s AOR,” Army 2002–2003 Green 

Book, October 2002, 209–14. 

26 Stewart, The United States Army in Afghanistan; Sean Naylor, “The Lessons of 

Anaconda,” New York Times, 2 March 2003; CTNSP/NDU, Anaconda’s Five Lessons 

for Joint Operations (Washington DC: National Defense University, 2003), Historians 

Files, CMH; Handwritten notes entitled “Anaconda” left by Major General Franklin 
Kevlar Legions

242

L. Hagenbeck with the Chief of Military History in the aftermath of a conversation, 

Historians Files, CMH. 

27 Fax, Office of the Commanding General, U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR) 

(General Eric K. Shinseki), to the Chief of Programs and Requirements, Supreme 

Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Colonel [P] John S. Brown), 30 June 1998, sub: 

CMH QDR Questions/Answers, Historians Files, CMH; E-mail and associated correspondence, between the Chief of Programs and Requirements, Supreme Headquarters 

Allied Powers Europe (Colonel [P] John S. Brown), and the Executive Officer (Colonel 

John Gingrich) to the Commanding General, USAREUR (General Eric K. Shinseki), 

3 Jul 1998, sub: CMH QDR Questions/Answers, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, 

“The Army Quadrennial Defense Review: 11 July 2000 Senior Leader Update,” 

Historians Files, CMH. 

28 Ibid.; Speech, George W. Bush, “A Period of Consequences,” 23 September 1999, 

delivered at The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina; Press Release, Department of 

Defense, Linda D. Kozaryn and Jim Garamone, “Bush, Rumsfeld Pledge Support to 

Military,” American Forces Press Service, 26 January 2001; Woodward; Timothy 

Noah, “The Rumsfeld Death Watch,” Slate, 7 August 2001; John M. Donnelly, 

“Rumsfeld Makes War,” Chicago Tribune, 22 August 2001, 1; Bernard Weintraub and 

Thom Shanker, “Rumsfeld’s Design for War Criticized on the Battlefield,” New York 

Times, 1 April 2003, 1; Adams, 80–132; Quadrennial Defense Review 2001; Elaine M 

Grossman, “Key Review Offers Scant Guidance,” Inside the Pentagon, 4 October 2001, 

1; David A. Fulghum, “QDR Became Pablum as Decisions Slid,” Aviation Week and 

Space Technology, 8 October 2001, 21–22. 

29 Fax, Office of the Commanding General, USAREUR (General Eric K. 

Shinseki), 30 June 1998, to the Chief of Programs and Requirements, Supreme 

Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Colonel [P] John S. Brown), sub: CMH QDR 

Questions/Answers; E-mail and associated correspondence, between the Chief of 

Programs and Requirements, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Colonel 

(P) John S. Brown) and the Executive Officer (Colonel John Gingrich) to the 

Commanding General, USAREUR (General Eric K. Shinseki), 3 Jul 1998, sub: CMH 

QDR Questions/Answers; Quadrennial Defense Review 2001; Loren B. Thompson, 

“Saved by Reality: The Army Finds a Future,” Defense Week, 9 October 2001, 1.

30 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington DC: 

Department of Defense, April 1992), 226–96; Stewart, The United States Army in 

Afghanistan, 30–45; E-mail, Brigadier General Mark E. O’Neill to Major General 

Franklin Hagenbeck, 6 January 2003, sub: Anaconda Lessons Learned—NDU Paper, 

with notes; CTNSP/NDU, Anaconda’s Five Lessons for Joint Operations; Handwritten 

notes entitled “Anaconda” left by Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck with the 

Chief of Military History in the aftermath of a conversation; Briefing, Center of 

Military History, with notes, “The Historical Utility of (Relatively) Dumb Artillery 

Munitions,” Historians Files, CMH.

31 Crusader 155mm Self Propelled Howitzer, USA, accessed 30 January 2009, 

http://www.army-technology.com; Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White, 

“Toward a 21st-Century Army,” Army 2001–2002 Green Book, October 2001, 17–20; 

General Eric K. Shinseki, “The Army Vision: A Status Report,” Army 2001–2002 

Green Book, October 2001, 23–33; Vernon Loeb, “Army’s New Mobile Artillery 

System Leads Rumsfeld, Congress to Battle,” Washington Post, 3 May 2002; “U.S. 

Needs Crusader Artillery System,” Boston Globe, 3 June 2002; Speech, George W. 

Bush, “A Period of Consequences,” 23 September 1999, delivered at The Citadel, 

Charleston, South Carolina; Eric Schmitt, “$11 Billion Artillery System is Dead, 

Officials Say,” New York Times, 7 May 2002; Ivan Eland, “Vanquish the Crusader,” 
243

The Shinseki Years, 1999–2003

United Press International, 17 May 2002; Briefing, Center of Military History, with 

notes, “The Historical Utility of (Relatively) Dumb Artillery Munitions.”

32 Colonel Gregory Fontenot, Lieutenant Colonel E. J. Degan and Lieutenant 

Colonel David Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Iraqi Freedom (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004), 1–85; Operation Iraqi 

Freedom—“It Was a Prepositioned War” (Fort Belvoir, Virginia: U.S. Army Material 

Command, 2003); “Iraq by the Numbers,” Army Times, 22 March 2004, 28–29; “The 

Continuing Surprises of Operation Iraqi Freedom” (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: 

Combat Studies Institute Press, 2003). 

33 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 1–85; Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of the 

Iraq War: Summary Briefing (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International 

Studies, 15 July, 2003); Ltr, Mr. Jay A. Thomson, President and Chief Executive 

Officer of RAND, to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, 7 February 2005, 

Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Center of Military History, with notes, “Numerical 

Considerations in Military Occupations Past,” Historians Files, CMH; Kim Burger, 

“Iraq Campaign Raises New Logistics Concerns,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, 10 

September 2003; “The Continuing Surprises of Operation Iraqi Freedom” (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2003); Operation Iraqi 

Freedom—“It Was a Prepositioned War.”

34 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 85–382; Memo, Department of the Army, Office of 

the Chief of Staff, for Principal Officials of Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1 

May 2003, sub: Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group (OIFSG), Historians Files, 

CMH; Department of the Army, Executive Summary, Attack on the 507th 

Maintenance Company, 23 March 2003, An Nasiriyah, Iraq, Historians Files, CMH; 

C. Mark Brinkley, “The Longest Day—of the Iraq War,” Army Times, 22 March 2004; 

Leonard Wong, Thomas A. Kolditz, Raymond A. Millen, and Terrence M. Potter, 

Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: 

Strategic Studies Institute, 2003).

35 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 427–35; Dr. Donald P. Wright and Colonel Timothy 

R. Reese, On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign, The United States Army in 

Operation Iraqi Freedom May 2003–January 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 

Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008), 25–33, 87–138; Memo, Department of the 

Army, Office of the Vice Chief of Staff, for Army Staff, 9 July 2003, sub: Acting CSA 

Visit to Kuwait and Iraq, 4–6 July 2003, Historians Files, CMH; CSI Roundtable 

Presentation, On the Ground in Iraq, 16 September 2004, Historians Files, CMH; 

“Army Refits Force,” AUSA News, October 2003, 2; Gordon Trowbridge, “Too Many 

Troops?” Army Times, 1 May 2006; Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of the Iraq 

War: Summary Briefing (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International 

Studies, 15 July 2003); Kim Burger, “Iraq Campaign Raises New Logistics Concerns,” 

Jane’s Defense Weekly, 10 September 2003; William H. McMichael, “Unsatisfactory 

Planning: Swift March to Baghdad Left Ammo Depots Unguarded, GAO Finds,” 

Army Times, 2 April 2007, 16; “Iraq: Translating Lessons into Future DoD Policies,” 

RAND, February 2005, Historians Files, CMH. 

36 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 427–35; Wright and Reese; Cordesman; “Iraq: 

Translating Lessons Into Future DoD Policies,” RAND, February 2005.

37 Shinseki, Address to the Eisenhower Luncheon, Association of the United States 

Army, 12 October 1999; Shinseki, “Beginning the Next 100 Years,” 21–28; United 

States Army Transformation Campaign Plan; United States Army White Paper, 

Concepts for the Objective Force; Adams, 123–65; Thomas E. Ricks, “Air Force’s 

Roche Picked to Head Army,” Washington Post, 2 May 2003, 1.

Chapter 6

General Peter J. Schoomaker

Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

General Peter J. Schoomaker became Chief of Staff of the Army on 1 

August 2003, more than a month after General Eric K. Shinseki’s departure. 

During this period the choice for Secretary of the Army was in contention as 

well. These under-laps may not have been altogether accidental. Secretary of 

Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had battled the Department of the Army over 

transformational issues for some time, and circumstances provided an opportunity to break Army leadership continuity that had stabilized its azimuth for 

change. As we have seen, Sullivan was Vice Chief of Staff to Vuono, Reimer 

to Sullivan, and Shinseki to Reimer, and a mix of other assignments had furthered the mentorship relationships among the pairs of men. To one looking 

for an outsider, Schoomaker seemed a good choice. Although he had served as 

a platoon leader, company and troop commander, battalion operations officer, 

squadron executive officer, and, most notably, assistant division commander 

in conventional units, his professional pedigree was dominated by Special 

Operations. He had served nine years in Special Operations units whose identity remains classified as this is written. He served as Special Operations Officer, 

J–3, for the Joint Special Operations Command for three years. He served a year 

in the Pentagon as the Army’s Deputy Director for Operations, Readiness and 

Mobilization, a job with considerable exposure to Special Operations issues, 

before in succession commanding the Joint Special Operations Command, 

the Army Special Operations Command, and the United States Special 

Operations Command. His considerable combat experience—Desert One in 

Iran, Urgent Fury in Grenada, Just Cause in Panama, Desert Shield and 

Desert Storm in Southwest Asia, and Uphold Democracy in Haiti—had 

been Special Operations in nature. After his retirement in 2000 the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense continued to seek his counsel and brokered meetings including him and General Tommy Franks that substantially affected 

planning for Afghanistan and Iraq—particularly with respect to Special 

Operations. Secretary Rumsfeld called Schoomaker back from retirement to 

serve as Chief of Staff of the Army. If Secretary Rumsfeld and his colleagues 

thought Schoomaker would bring a fresh pair of eyes to thoroughly reexamine Army Transformation and its premises, they would not be disappointed. 

If they thought he would embrace a philosophy of war that diminished the 
Kevlar Legions

246

size of the Army, shouldered aside 

conventional ground forces in favor 

of Special Operators, or prioritized 

high-tech solutions, they would be 

less pleased. During Schoomaker’s 

tenure the Army expanded, conventional ground forces reconfigured 

to play central roles in Afghanistan 

and Iraq, and the Army became 

more rather than less measured in 

its commitment to technical solutions. Army Transformation was in 

fact redefined during the first two 

years of Schoomaker’s tenure, but 

not because of Secretarial dictates 

or philosophical differences with 

his predecessors. The Army that 

had been between wars was at war. 

War imposed challenging demands, 

and these demands were to be recurrent for years to come. The balance 

between what could be done for the 

future and what had to be done for the present necessarily shifted.1

Transformation Redefined

Rumsfeld’s abrupt dismissal of Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White 

and selections of Secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche to be Secretary of 

the Army and General Peter J. Schoomaker to be Chief of Staff caused consternation on the Army Staff and within the Army generally. Department of 

the Army frictions with Rumsfeld and the Office of the Secretary of Defense 

(OSD) had been no secret. Indeed, more than a year prior to Shinseki’s retirement OSD had leaked the name of General Jack Keane, then the Vice Chief of 

Staff, as Shinseki’s likely replacement. The two men downplayed this affront 

to work together effectively through the rest of Shinseki’s tenure, and Keane 

ultimately declined Rumsfeld’s offer for family reasons. Shinseki and Keane 

foresaw the upcoming transition would be abnormally challenging and committed the Director of the Army Staff (DAS) to form a “prenomination” transition team to facilitate the arrival and confirmation hearings of whoever was 

chosen. For decades, as we have seen, the incoming Chief of Staff had been 

an insider familiar what was going on who selected his own transition team 

to gather information and polish approaches to areas he particularly wanted 

to emphasize. The choice of an insider seemed unlikely this time. Beginning 

1 March 2003, a generic transition team pulled together briefing materials, 

laid out tentative timelines and plans, and set aside office space. They did not 

initially know of Secretary White’s imminent departure, which came abruptly 

on 1 May. Secretaries had invariably transitioned at a time different than that 

General Schoomaker 
247

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

of Chiefs, in part because they were political appointees and the tenures of the 

Chiefs tended to straddle administrations. When Shinseki departed, Roche’s 

nomination was in trouble with Congress and Schoomaker had not yet been 

nominated. This decapitation was unprecedented. There had not been an 

occasion when the Department of the Army was simultaneously without a 

Secretary and a Chief of Staff in its history, dating back to its establishment 

during the Truman administration. Secretaries routinely under-lapped, but 

Chiefs almost never did. Indeed, since the office of Chief of Staff was first 

established in 1903 there had only been three under-laps. Two Vice Chiefs 

encountered procedural delays of about a month en route through confirmation to be Chiefs, and Vice Chief of Staff General Bruce Palmer Jr. served as 

acting Chief for three months in 1972 while General Creighton W. Abrams Jr. 

closed out his responsibilities in Vietnam. The DAS’ surrogate transition team 

scrambled, now tasked to prepare two senior leaders for Senate confirmation 

and subsequent service rather than one. The mission came in four phases: 

“prenomination” until names were known, “preconfirmation” to help the 

nominees appear before the Senate with sufficient auctoritas to be confirmed, 

“transition” to assist the confirmed candidates in assuming office, and “posttransition” insofar as the new leaders wanted or needed further assistance from 

the team before it divested itself. Once nominated, Schoomaker pulled officers 

of his choice into the process, sharpening focus and assisting direction. In time 

the “presumption of confirmation” for Roche, an assumption of the transition 

planning, faded. Schoomaker became the subject of intense lobbying. Army 

Staff principals, major commands, and agencies earnestly sought his time for 

at least three reasons: to assist in his preparations for confirmation, to inform 

him with respect to what they were doing, and to convince him that what they 

were doing was worthy. To most he was an unknown quantity, removed by 

provenance and time in retirement from the constellation of generals previously considered front-runners for Chief of Staff. The DAS, disciplining the 

cacophony seeking Schoomaker’s attention, issued specific guidance to protect 

his new-to-the-Pentagon charge: Keep it simple. Put only three points on a 

briefing slide. If you have more than three points, use another slide. Do not 

assume he knows the context of what you are briefing. Put things into context. 

Explain the reasons for what you are doing, and tell him what it means. This 

sensible effort to downsize complicated briefings and accelerate familiarization 

provided too great an opportunity for wags to resist. Soon parodies ranging 

from Grandmother’s recipes through Tolstoy’s War and Peace began circulating on tersely worded three-point slides.2

General Schoomaker conducted an introductory session with the Army 

General Staff Council on 14 August 2003. By this time many Staff principals 

had been with him one-on-one, but this was his first exposure to the entire 

assemblage in the same room at the same time. Schoomaker began by making 

the salient point “this is not about me,” encouragement to focus on the problems facing the Army rather than upon who he was and where he came from. 

He disarmingly noted that he might not have been the first choice for Chief 

of Staff of anybody in the room and was not Rumsfeld’s first choice either, 

for that matter. He recognized he had much to learn, but having been put in 
Kevlar Legions

248

charge he would take charge. He then laid out a way ahead for the Army Staff 

that was succinct, albeit embellished with homey Wyoming analogies of which 

he was fond. There would be no introductory grand vision or white paper, nor 

would there be immediate departures with respect to programs already under 

way. The Army Staff was programmed for comprehensive feedback on The 

Army Plan (TAP) by 24 September, for example, and he looked forward to 

reviewing their feedback at that time. Schoomaker handed out and discussed 

three simple black-and-white PowerPoint slides. The first slide featured two 

bullets: “Train and Equip Soldiers and Grow Leaders” and “Provide Relevant 

and Ready Land Power Capability to the Combatant Commander and the 

Joint Team.” Schoomaker explained why he had chosen these particular words 

to describe the core competencies of the Department of the Army. When 

doing so he directed all to embrace the current missions, noting, “We can’t 

tell them [OSD and the administration] we don’t wash this kind of window.” 

Schoomaker’s second slide listed fifteen “focus areas” he particularly wanted 

to emphasize over the next several months: gathering opinions, promoting debate, assigning responsibilities, and identifying necessary or desirable 

changes quickly enough to have an impact in the near term. The DAS was 

to establish a regimen wherein each focus area was drilled by staff principals and relevant agencies, with seminars and briefings to senior leaders en 

route. Staff principals were offered an “open door” and encouraged to use 

it. Schoomaker’s initial focus areas were: “The Soldier,” developing flexible, 

adaptive, and competent soldiers with a “warrior ethos”; “The Bench,” preparing future generations of senior leaders; “The Network,” leveraging and 

enabling network-centric warfare; “Modularity,” creating capabilities-based 

unit designs; “Joint and Expeditionary Mind-Set”; “AC/RC Balance,” optimizing the active-component (AC) and reserve-component (RC) mix; “Unit 

Manning” (later Force Stabilization), providing unit stability, continuity, and 

predictability to soldiers and their families; “Combat Training Centers/Battle 

Command Training Program,” focused on the current security and joint and 

expeditionary context; “Leader Development and Education,” training and 

educating Army members of joint teams; “Army Aviation,” a holistic review of 

aviation’s role on the joint battlefield; “Installations as Flagships,” enhancing 

the ability to project power and support families; “Current to Future Force,” 

accelerating the fielding of selected capabilities and transforming as constant change; “Resource Processes,” redesigned to be flexible, responsive, and 

timely; “Strategic Communications,” telling the Army story; and “Authorities, 

Responsibilities, and Accountability.” Somewhat later “Actionable Intelligence” 

would be added to this list. Schoomaker’s third slide was his most dramatic. It 

collapsed Shinseki’s Trident into a single arrow, the tip of which was labeled 

“Future Force” and the base “Current Force.” Several terms were to disappear 

from the lexicon. Since the M1A1 Abrams tank was now programmed through 

2032 it seemed premature to call it “legacy,” and the characterization of a 

broader “Legacy Force” would go for about the same reasons. Since Stryker 

Brigades were now in combat and embedded in the Current Force, there was 

no longer a reason to characterize them as an “Interim Force.” Since transformation would be a continuous process, accelerated by urgent wartime needs 
249

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

to deploy proven technologies as soon as possible, there would never really be 

a singular “Objective Force.” The Current Force would evolve into the Future 

Force in a never-ending process of thoughtfully managed change. Interestingly 

enough, the change in slides was far more dramatic than changes in funding or 

programs. The former Legacy Force was to continue receiving appliqué Force 

XXI technologies as planned, albeit hopefully faster. The Stryker Brigades 

were to be funded, organized, and fielded as planned, although they were 

no longer to be characterized as an Interim Force. The characteristics of the 

former Objective Force remained a long-term goal, albeit with more fluidity 

from future to present and without as highly structured a timeline as before. 

Schoomaker espoused a philosophy of transformation more likely to be congenial to OSD staffers while nevertheless preserving his options to follow 

through on any or all of Shinseki’s design. Army Staffers departing the 14 

August meeting were heartened for several reasons. Schoomaker was not the 

Special Operations ideologue some had feared, and he had described an open 

process involving the Army Staff whereby he would move ahead. Existing programs had not summarily received the axe but would be subject to fair scrutiny 

before decisions were made. Finally, Schoomaker’s approach seemed likely to 

mute the quarrels with OSD without prematurely surrendering Army equities.3

Mention should be made of the Army’s senior leadership between the 

departure of White and the advent of Schoomaker. When White departed, 

Under Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee assumed responsibilities as Acting 

Secretary of the Army. Key senators balked at confirming Rumsfeld’s proposed 

move of Roche from Secretary of the Air Force to Secretary of the Army. White 

and Shinseki were respected in Congress, and their educational efforts on the 

behalf of Army Transformation had taken root. Proposals to reverse what they 

had done, or to diminish the Army in favor of high-technology platforms, were 

met with suspicion. Brownlee was well connected with and highly regarded by 

Congress. He had retired from active duty as an infantry colonel after more than 

twenty years of service, including two tours in Vietnam. He had published a 

thoughtful oral history of General William E. Depuy, a transformational figure 

associated with the Army’s post-Vietnam renaissance. He had served on the staff 

of the Senate Armed Services Committee for over a decade, most recently as 

staff director for its chairman, Senator John Warner. Brownlee understood how 

the “Hill” worked and inspired confidence on it. He proved able to smoothly 

champion Army interests and equities there while softening the confrontation 

with OSD. Transformation continued as a process but without its previous publicity or visibility. For example, in their annual state-of-the-Army messages in the 

Association of the United States Army’s (AUSA’s) 2003–2004 Green Book, published in October 2003, neither Brownlee nor Schoomaker used the word “transformation.” This contrasted with the previous edition, wherein their predecessors used the word or its derivatives a total of thirty-nine times. Transformation’s 

reduced silhouette was not merely a maneuver to avoid confrontation with OSD. 

It was also recognition of dramatically altered demands on the Army. As Vice 

Chief and then Acting Chief of Staff of the Army, General Jack Keane coped 

with the deteriorating situation in Iraq while running the uniformed Army and 

facilitating Schoomaker’s arrival. By 27 May it was clear the Coalition faced a 
Kevlar Legions

250

rising tide of violence in Iraq and that American soldiers would be committed 

for a longer period in greater numbers than anticipated. At the General Staff 

Council (GSC) meeting on that date the Army operations and training officer 

(G–3) spoke to rapidly expanding requirements to reset and rotate units and to 

escalating demands for up-armored high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) and body armor. A week later conversation in the GSC turned 

to the scope and coordination of attacks on Coalition forces and to whether 

the situation in Iraq should be characterized as an insurgency. Less than a year 

before, the war in Afghanistan and operations elsewhere were supported by 

14,000 soldiers committed to the Central Command (CENTCOM). This was 

considerably fewer than deployed to Bosnia in 1995–1996, and only somewhat 

more than deployed to Somalia in 1993. Although fighting in Afghanistan had 

been more severe and sustained than in these earlier operations, mobilization 

and deployment requirements were comparable. Now the Army was building 

rapidly toward 160,000 deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait and 360,000 

deployed or forward stationed overall. Recognition of this huge paradigm 

shift—from sustaining forces one-twentieth the size of the active component to 

sustaining forces a third its size in long-term combat operations overseas—sank 

in during May and June. Keane and Brownlee prepared the Army for its implications. Keane stayed on as Vice Chief long enough to see Schoomaker settled. 

Brownlee served as Acting Secretary of the Army for eighteen months, longer 

than any previous Acting Secretary of the Army or Secretary of War ad interim 

and through more challenging circumstances.4

Iraq changed everything. It became the prism through which transformation and all other Army initiatives would be refracted. Schoomaker used 

the analogy of a rheostat to describe contemporary operations. Earlier wars 

had been on/off switches, wherein the nation was at peace or at war—and 

knew it. The Global War on Terrorism was going to last a generation and the 

“light” would always be on, albeit at varying levels of intensity. This was not 

altogether new. For a dozen years, as we have seen, the Army had sustained 

almost a division’s worth of active operations overseas almost continuously, 

with one operation overlapping another in such a manner as to approximate 

Schoomaker’s rheostat. Iraq turned the rheostat up by a factor of ten, and it 

seemed it would stay there. At the Army General Staff Council meeting on 14 

July 2003, General Keane opined that six divisions and four separate brigades 

would be committed to active operations through March and that with few 

exceptions their tours would be for twelve months. During Desert Shield/

Desert Storm brigades that deployed as late as January were out of theater 

by May, and troops had become accustomed to six-month tours in the interval 

since. Such coming and going had been feasible when the scale was modest, but 

now planners faced the prospect of moving over half of the deployable Army 

at the same time to effect a rotation. The somewhat controversial “stop loss” 

policy immediately emerged as an issue, as did the prospect of committing 

the reserve component en masse to twelve-month tours overseas—thus requiring further months before and after to mobilize, train, and demobilize them. 

Deployed Reservists anticipated this requirement. A wag among them returning from Baghdad prominently posted a sign on his truck exclaiming “One 
251

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

Weekend a Month, My Ass!!!” garnering affirmative honks from others he 

encountered en route. The looming rotation from Operation Iraqi Freedom 1 

(OIF1) to Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 (OIF2) would be the largest unit rotation in American history. During the world wars units deployed for the duration rather than rotating, and Korea and Vietnam were fought with individual 

replacements rather than unit rotations. More than 244,000 soldiers moved in 

and out of CENTCOM between March and June 2004 (Map 5). Even as this 

massive rotation was going on, it became clear this was no one-time event. 

On 26 April 2004, General Schoomaker directed the Army Staff to anticipate 

that OIF3 and OIF4 would be as large as OIF2 and saw no particular reason 

MND-N

MND-NW

Jun 2003–Jan 2004

Feb 2004–May 2004

MND-N

MND-NC

MND-NC

MNF-W

CJTF–7

MND-Baghdad

MND-CS

MND-SE

BAGHDAD

SAUDI ARABIA

IRAN

TURKEY

SYRIA

KUWAIT

J O R D A N

Military Boundary

June 2003–May 2004

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

0

0

100 Miles

100 Kilometers

Military boundaries are approximate

Map 5
Kevlar Legions

252

to expect a diminishment soon thereafter. “Focus Area Updates” conducted 

about the same time reflected the extent to which supporting and improving 

on operations in Iraq permeated Army thinking. With respect to soldiers, what 

had to be done to recruit and retain them in sufficient numbers and quality 

for operations of this complexity on this scale? The United States had never 

sustained a war of this size with a volunteer army; could it do so now? With 

respect to the network, how could the Army accelerate blue force tracking and 

other immediately successful web applications? With respect to jointness, who 

should control the evermore ubiquitous UAVs and the air space they operated 

in? With respect to AC/RC balance, what should be done with an apparent 

surfeit of artillery, air defense, and engineer units for present requirements 

and, conversely, how could shortages of military policemen, transporters, and 

civil affairs be made good? With respect to resource processes, how quickly 

could the Army go from the 500 up-armored HMMWVs it had to the 39,000 

it needed in Iraq alone? There also were shortages with respect to dozens of 

other relatively mundane items, including body armor and M2/M3 Bradley 

spare parts. With respect to bringing the Future Force into the Current Force, 

what technology could be mobilized to stem losses to improvised explosive 

devices (IEDs)? Schoomaker’s rheostat had gotten stuck on “high” in wars 

conducted at the low end of the combat spectrum. This inevitably affected the 

Army’s approach to transforming itself.5

From Sullivan through Shinseki Army transformation had evolved with 

the full combat spectrum in mind, but with a bias toward its upper levels. 

Scenarios and preparations had trended toward worst (conventional) cases, 

while collaterally developing technologies and expeditionary capabilities useful 

Posting security in urban Iraq
253

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

for asymmetric circumstances as well. Shinseki’s tripartite Transformation 

paradigm of Legacy, Interim, and Objective Forces neatly summarized broad 

aspirations for the immediate, interim, and distant futures. The Army had 

been between wars. Now the Army was at war, and the broad became the specific. The mission of winning the wars it was in trumped other considerations 

in defining transformation. Schoomaker laid the groundwork for redefinition 

with the focus areas he identified upon arrival. In the following months staff 

deliberations and evolving senior leader guidance reinforced a trend toward 

redefinition. By 2005 redefinition was complete and formally sanctioned 

in Field Manual 1, The Army (FM–1), republished in June of that year. A 

section titled “Transformation Today” contained the pithy sentence, “Army 

transformation is not an end in itself; it contributes to accomplishing today’s 

mission as well.” The first constituent paragraph within this section was titled 

“Resetting the Force,” and it spoke to all it took to sustain quality while 

cycling units in and out of combat. A second paragraph titled “Restructuring 

the Force” committed to a brigade-based structure that was strategically flexible and better able to generate forces for predictable rotations. “Rebalancing 

the Force” announced a move away from a focus on combat capabilities per se

to develop the more diverse capabilities required by contemporary operations. 

“Stabilizing the Force” described transition to a unit replacement system that 

would allow soldiers to train, deploy, fight, and redeploy together. Further 

paragraphs within this section spoke to “Integrating Component Technology 

of Future Combat Systems,” “Developing Networked Information Systems,” 

and “Modernizing Institutional Army Processes.” All these had a contemporary more so than a futuristic ring to them. The 2005 edition of FM–1 

established eight campaign objectives associated with Army transformation, 

the first of which was to “support global operations.” The other seven were 

“adapt and improve total Army capabilities,” “optimize Reserve Component 

capabilities,” “sustain the right all-volunteer force,” “adjust the global footprint,” “build the future force,” “adapt the institutional Army,” and “develop a 

joint, interdependent logistic structure.” Of these, only “build the future force” 

was oriented on the far horizon. Transformation had been redefined. The new 

paradigm acknowledged full-spectrum capabilities and the distant future, but 

focus had understandably shifted to reinforcing capabilities most relevant to 

success in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Global War on Terrorism as it evolved.6

Recycling Ulysses

Beginning in the summer of 2003 the issue dominating all others for the 

Department of the Army was the sheer effort of maintaining over a hundred 

thousand soldiers deployed in Iraq, and over twice that number deployed 

overall, from an active-duty end strength of 486,000. By September 2003, 

144,000 National Guardsmen and Army Reservists were on active duty. 

When it became clear that tours in Iraq would average twelve months, and 

that OIF 2 would almost undoubtedly be followed by a similarly sized OIF 

3 and OIF 4, a model for sustaining such a force in the field was necessary. 

Since the early twentieth-century fighting in the Philippines, the model for sus-
Kevlar Legions

254

taining American units in combat overseas had been individual replacement. 

Transoceanic distances made unit rotations impractical, as did heavy losses 

to combat and disease. Effectiveness proved best maintained when individual 

replacements fell in upon units and equipment in theater. Generally there were 

enough “old hands” around to teach newcomers what they needed to know, 

and generally combat at the unit level was episodic enough to do so. During 

World War II this system sufficiently outperformed other alternatives so that 

it was retained in Korea and Vietnam. As Vietnam dragged on, however, the 

downside of individual replacement became increasingly visible. Unit cohesion eroded as soldiers came and went like so many passengers on a bus. 

Morale eroded with cohesion as draftees cycled in from a society increasingly 

opposed to the war, and leadership cracked from the strain of repeated tours. 

Noncommissioned officers were the hardest hit, and a rule of thumb emerged 

that the prospect of a third tour highly correlated with separation from the 

service. In the more benign but nevertheless busy deployment environment of 

the 1990s, participating in one or two deployments increased retention rates, 

but a third deployment within six years was more than most soldiers were 

willing to bear. By the 1990s the Army consisted solely of volunteers, and over 

half of them had families. Iraq increased deployment burdens by an order of 

magnitude, and these would be borne by the same volunteers. Schoomaker 

committed to unit rotations and unit manning upon his arrival. In his view, 

cohesion, morale, and effectiveness could only be maintained over the long 

haul by team players confident in each other. He envisioned a force generation 

cycle wherein units deployed, fought, redeployed, stood down, reorganized, 

and prepared to deploy again. This would have dramatic implications for organization, command structure, the reserve component, installations, and the 

very nature of service as a soldier.7

Army Staff principals tapped the Army Center of Military History and 

others for historical and analytic insights relevant to Schoomaker’s unit manning proposal. Unit rotation and unit manning had been attempted before. 

Gyroscope, Overseas Unit Replacement System (OVUREP), Long Thrust, 

Rotational Plan (ROTAPLAN), Brigade 75, and Cohesion Operational 

Readiness and Training (COHORT) had all attempted such an approach with 

varying degrees of un-success. Indeed, the last time something approximating 

unit manning had been successful for Americans was in the Indian fighting 

Army of the late nineteenth century. Soldiers in that Army were generally in 

their regiments for the duration of their service. Units, almost always smaller 

than the regiments, deployed and redeployed from one outpost, foray, or 

campaign to another. Service was arduous, but combat was episodic and 

casualties were relatively few. Soldiers could reasonably anticipate ending a 

year alongside most of the comrades they had started it with. In this milieu 

of extended mutual service under tough conditions now legendary cavalry 

and “foot cavalry” regimental lineages were born. Promotions and schooling 

were less of an issue then than now, since both happened rarely. Few of the 

junior enlisted were married. Despite the failures of twentieth-century unit 

manning initiatives, there were now reasons to believe the Army could return 

to these nineteenth-century roots. First, post–Cold War combat operations 
255

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

had been arduous and demanding, but casualties had been few. Huge qualitative overmatches, sensible tactics, and superb medical support kept losses 

to combat and disease down. The worst days in Iraq saw losses on orders of 

magnitude less than like-sized forces would have considered routine in World 

War II, Korea, or Vietnam. Effectiveness in combat did not depend on large 

recurrent infusions of individual replacements. Second, the Army had gotten 

into the habit of flying units overseas to marry up with equipment in the 

field, with minimal turnover times and maximal efficiency. The 3d Infantry 

Division (Mechanized) had ridden into Baghdad on equipment drawn from 

Pre-positioning of Materiel Configured to Unit Sets (POMCUS) stocks in 

Kuwait, and stocks in theater had multiplied since. Indeed, half of the Black 

Hawk helicopters in the Army were in CENTCOM when Schoomaker committed to unit rotations, and percentages for equipment of other types were 

high as well. For fifteen years Army units had routinely rehearsed the procedures that rotations into or out of Iraq would require. This included passing 

along sectors of responsibility in such places as Somalia or the Balkans. 

The term “right seat” became a verb describing an incoming leader accompanying his predecessor long enough to understand the mission he was 

undertaking. Third, a dozen years of investment in stateside installations as 

power projection platforms and the collateral evolution of split-based logistics offered improved sustainment to units operating overseas and to their 

families remaining at home. Concerning this, more later. Finally, distances 

that were daunting in 1907 were unimpressive now. Cellular phones, e-mail, 

and other communications marvels allowed units and individuals to remain 

connected with their home station and families in an unprecedented manner. 

An emergency leave to deal with a family crisis or a death in the family did 

not imply a long-term loss. Global travel by air was routine. The wounded 

would probably convalesce at a hospital proximate to their families. A soldier fighting in Afghanistan was less removed from his home station than his 

nineteenth-century predecessor would have been had he been but a two-day 

ride from Fort Apache. The paradigm of contemporary operations was more 

Unit manning envisioned companies remaining together for an entire tour, to be 

replaced by a like-type unit.
Kevlar Legions

256

akin to those of the Indian-fighting Army than to the bloodbaths of World 

War I, World War II, Korea, or Vietnam.8

If unit manning and unit rotation were to work, there would have to 

be sufficient units to rotate. The proposed force generation cycle wherein 

units deployed, fought, redeployed, stood down, reorganized, and prepared 

to deploy again implied that there would be units at each phase of this cycle 

at any given point in time. Initial deployments to Operation Iraqi Freedom

had been on a division basis, as had been the case for major operations since 

World War I. Reimer’s Strike Force and Shinseki’s interim brigade combat 

team had both embodied the concept that brigade combat teams of about 

thirty-five hundred soldiers would be nimbler as deployment options than 

divisions of perhaps twenty thousand soldiers. This was even more true 

because no two divisions seemed to be the same. Schoomaker followed up 

on this notion, with rotation more so than deployment per se in mind. The 

term used to describe these smaller contingents was modular. Modularity 

would create standardized expansible units capable of being tailored for any 

contingency. Tailoring forces by virtue of attachment and cross attachment 

was a venerable tradition within the Army, but theretofore the vast majority 

of combat support (e.g., artillery and engineer) and combat service support 

(e.g., maintenance and medical) assets had been held at the division level or 

higher and parceled out to combat brigades or battalions on a case-by-case 

basis. Combat battalions of armor and infantry were organized “pure” and 

cross-attached at the company and platoon levels to form combined-arms 

teams (of company size) and task forces (of battalion size). Modular brigades would anticipate customary cross attachments by building them in 

as organic units. The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) model 

for a modular heavy brigade combat team, for example, featured two combined-arms maneuver battalions each of which had two tank companies, 

two mechanized infantry companies, and an engineer company. The brigade 

had its own organic armed reconnaissance squadron, fires battalion, support battalion, signal company, and military intelligence company as well. 

Conceptually, it was a miniature division—as divisions to this point had been 

the lowest level at which all branches were robustly represented. TRADOC 

designed similarly modular and interchangeable infantry brigade combat 

teams and aviation, fires, sustainment, maneuver enhancement and reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition brigades. These presented the 

option of deploying and rotating units of far smaller size than had been the 

case when the division was the operational “chip on the board.”9

Schoomaker not only intended to drive operational independence to the 

brigade level, he also intended to increase the number of brigade combat teams 

overall. When he arrived the Army had thirty-three maneuver brigades in the 

active component and fifteen deployable “enhanced brigades” in the National 

Guard. Of these, almost three-quarters of the active-component brigades and 

a third of the National Guard brigades were committed at the time. Clearly 

such proportions were unsustainable. Army planners had long argued that a 

ratio of one out of five available units deployed was sustainable over the long 

haul without qualitative erosion. Under duress, one out of three could work 
257

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

for shorter periods: one deployed, one preparing to deploy, and one recovering from deployment. Higher proportions of units deployed would at some 

point render a rotational model infeasible and force units to remain overseas, 

sustained by individual replacements. Perhaps conscription would be required 

as well. Schoomaker aspired to increase the number of maneuver brigades to 

as many as eighty-two, a 70 percent increase over the forty-eight then available. Such expansion could be achieved by reducing the maneuver battalions 

in each brigade to two from the customary three (albeit with the addition of 

a reconnaissance squadron), by bringing all National Guard brigades up to 

the mobilization expectations of the enhanced brigades, and by transferring 

personnel from low-demand to high-demand military occupational specialties. By January 2004 restructuring proposals envisioned a redistribution of 

100,000 billets, with field artillery, air defense, and engineer specialties losing 

most heavily. The Department of Defense allowed a temporary increase in 

manpower of up to 30,000 to allow overhead to facilitate the redistribution. 

Active-component maneuver brigade combat teams were to increase in number 

from thirty-three to forty-eight, and National Guard enhanced brigades from 

fifteen to thirty-four. Once deployed, brigade combat teams were to increase 

their effectiveness by employing selected units in secondary roles. Artillery, 

engineers, and tankers, for example, routinely served as infantry in Iraq. In due 

course many such units fell in on two sets of equipment in Iraq, HMMWVs 

for routine use and their original table of organization and equipment (TOE) 

heavy items when tactical circumstances required it. Schoomaker pushed subordinates to achieve modularity quickly, timing reconfigurations into brigade 

combat teams with rotational returns to Iraq. The 3d Infantry Division seized 

Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom and rotated home in August 2003. 

Its brigade combat teams were scheduled to return to Iraq in January 2005. That 

became the milestone to reorganize the division into the new brigade modular 

format. Short-circuiting traditional force planning procedures, Schoomaker 

directed the 3d Infantry Division’s new commander, Major General William 

G. Webster, to reorganize his brigade combat teams from three to five while 

drawing only on manpower and equipment the division already possessed. 

As subsequent units became due to return overseas, their deployments too 

became milestones for reorganization. TRADOC caught up with the process, 

and modular units of TRADOC’s design superseded modular units of local 

design before the 3d Infantry Division actually deployed. The inventory of 

brigade combat teams steadily expanded, although the notion of creating five 

from a three-brigade division ultimately was abandoned in favor of creating 

four. Ambitions for the inventory of brigade combat teams decreased to fortytwo in the active component and twenty-eight in the National Guard—still 

a 46 percent increase. Numbers remained precarious. Through 2005—indeed 

through 2009, as this author writes—the Army did not achieve the target of 

only deploying one brigade in three, much less one in five. Brigades routinely 

rotated back to Iraq with little over a year at the home station, but the principal of unit rotation was nevertheless preserved.10

The shift to a brigade-based Army required reexamination of echelons 

above the brigade. Combat support and combat service support assets formerly 
Kevlar Legions

258

held at division and corps levels were harvested to fill out the modular brigade 

design, providing the brigade unprecedented autonomy and self-sufficiency. 

This radically diminished the role of division and corps with respect to managing and distributing such assets. A possibility existed that the layers of hierarchy distinguishing division, corps, army, and the army component of a theater 

might be reduced. At least as early as General Reimer’s Army After Next, wargamed simulations experimented with thinning out an echelon of command. In 

theory, advances with respect to digitization, communications, and situational 

awareness would allow the Army to “flatten” its hierarchy, as had many civilian 

corporations. During General Shinseki’s tenure this line of thought continued, 

and analysts coined abstract “unit of purpose” designations to encourage thinking outside of the current organizational framework. The “unit of action” (UA) 

would be a fixed organization with prescribed tactical missions. The “unit of 

employment x” (UEx) would coordinate UAs and fight the battle at the higher 

tactical level. The “unit of employment y” (UEy) would coordinate UEx’s and 

fight the battle at the operational level. Either the UEx or the UEy could serve 

as a Joint Forces Land Component Commander (JFLCC), depending on the 

scale of the operations and the theater. Schoomaker continued these deliberations. The UEx emerged as a nimble command with three deployable command 

posts, a mobile command group, and a special troops battalion providing security, signal, and life support. It could command and control a mix of combat, 

combat support, and combat service support UAs. The UEy was less nimble and 

more complex, a regionally focused headquarters with dedicated intelligence, 

sustainment, civil affairs, and “network” commands with the capacity to command and control some mix of UEx’s and combat support and combat service 

support UEy’s. The terms UA, UEx, and UEy facilitated brainstorming but 

were not intended as actual unit nomenclature. Converting these concepts to 

field-worthy unit designations brought to the surface practical considerations 

that altered the neatness of deleting an echelon of command. The Army’s Center 

of Military History had staff responsibility for unit designations. It staffed and 

briefed alternatives that variously eliminated the terms brigade, division, corps,

or army from the lexicon. The alternatives encountered understandable pushback from individuals with emotional attachments to a particular brigade, division, corps, or army, of course. They also encouraged further precision, since 

names matter. Most involved in the deliberations had personal memories of 

unique and complementary roles played by brigades, divisions, corps, and Third 

Army in Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Continuing operations in Iraq, 

Afghanistan, and elsewhere in CENTCOM were too challenging, complex, and 

diverse for Third Army or anyone else to directly control all of the headquarters operating at the tactical level. A single commander could usefully grasp the 

essentials—that is to say, know enough to be helpful—of but a handful of subordinate operations and battles no matter how much information he or she was 

provided. Politics often required the presence of a three-star general, but not so 

many as to justify designating all UEx’s as three-star headquarters. Schoomaker 

sought the counsel of General Sullivan and selected AUSA-connected “grey 

beards” to review the unit designation alternatives. The supported movement in 

the direction of nimbler headquarters but counseled that a massive rash of unit 
259

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

redesignations beyond those already made necessary by reorganization might 

be disruptive and demoralizing. In the midst of war and recurrent rotations, 

soldiers valued stability. This was, after all, the logic of unit manning. In the end 

pragmatism trumped neatness. Schoomaker decided the Army needed both twostar and three-star UEx’s, to add an echelon or emphasis when necessary. The 

UA became a brigade combat team, the two-star UEx a division, the three-star 

UEx a corps, and the UEy a regional headquarters with an army designation. 

Divisions and corps were now smaller, nimbler, and more flexible as headquarters. They could be constructed into hierarchies and rotated with each other as 

circumstances required. In due course the entropy of rotations progressed to the 

point that brigade combat teams routinely served under headquarters wearing 

patches other than their own.11

The implications to the reserve component of post-2003 rotations and 

reorganization to a brigade-based modular Army were huge. The sheer magnitude of requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan guaranteed they would participate in rotations on an unprecedented scale. Half of the maneuver brigades 

in the Army were in the National Guard. Of twelve fire brigades envisioned, 

six would be in the National Guard. Of sixteen maneuver enhancement brigades envisioned, ten would be in the National Guard and three in the Army 

Reserve. Of five battlefield surveillance brigades envisioned, two would be in 

the Army Reserve. Of thirty-three sustainment brigades envisioned, eleven 

would be in the National Guard and eight in the Army Reserve. Of nineteen 

combat aviation brigades envisioned, eight would be in the National Guard. 

With these proportions, any sensible rotational scheme would inevitably 

take reserve-component assets into account. Within two years over 168,000 

Guardsmen and 140,000 Reservists were veterans of mobilization and overseas deployment—well over half the total in both cases. Eight National Guard 

brigade combat teams would be in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. The 

National Guard’s 42d Infantry Division would deploy under the new modular design with two active-component and two reserve-component brigade 

combat teams. The 3d Infantry Division would command and control two 

brigade combat teams wearing its own patch and also the National Guard’s 

256th Infantry and 278th Cavalry. The fifteen National Guard enhanced brigades that had been first up for deployment were expanding to twenty-eight 

modular maneuver brigade combat teams and eight division headquarters of 

UEx design. Commitment to twelve months on the ground overseas pushed 

mobilization expectations for deploying reserve-component units to at least 

fifteen months, to allow time for processing and training. Although reservecomponent deployments overseas had risen steadily through the post–Cold 

War era, with Iraqi Freedom they experienced a further dramatic leap. For 

individuals deployments had been largely collaborative, with enough slack in 

the system that they were in effect voluntary. Now the very act of joining the 

reserve component implied deployment. Recognizing that their citizen-soldiers 

had multiple careers and that employers demanded a modicum of predictably, 

the director of the National Guard designed a six-year force generation cycle 

and the chief of the Army Reserve a five-year cycle. These were analogous to 

the deploy-reset-retrain-prepare-deploy cycles of the active component, albeit 
Kevlar Legions

260

on longer timelines. Individual Guardsmen and Reservists had to be physically 

and psychologically prepared for the near inevitability of overseas deployment. 

Headquarters scrubbed their rosters to identify individuals who had not yet 

deployed. The new rigor was not pleasing to all, and both the National Guard 

and the Army Reserve experienced perturbations with respect to enlistment 

and retention. These proved modest in effect, however, and numbers stabilized 

and improved as the new battle rhythm and revised expectations took hold.12

Recurrent rotations altered the rhythm of stateside installations and furthered their transformation into power projection platforms. We have already 

commented that an institutional bias against “homesteading” eroded in the 

aftermath of the Cold War. Dramatic reductions in overseas permanent 

changes of station, quests for family stability amid increasing deployments, 

and spousal employment combined to diminish personnel managers’ expectations that soldiers would progress through diverse posts at home and overseas 

during the course of their careers. Unit manning specifically embraced the 

notion that soldiers would have a home station to which they returned between 

deployments. Given consolidation, and the ever-increasing job options at such 

mega-posts as Fort Bragg or Fort Hood, it was now possible that most soldiers 

could spend their entire careers—other than when deployed—at the same post. 

Their children could grow up in a single school system and their spouses could 

have geographically stable careers of their own. This approximated the longstanding Navy model that had retained families amid recurrent deployments 

and marked further evolution from a forward stationed to an expeditionary 

Army. Divisions in the United States had generally been consolidated at a 

single post. This tradition continued, and the additional maneuver brigade 

wearing the division patch that stood up with modularity generally went to 

the same post as well. By the time of the OIF3 and OIF4 rotations (Map 6) 

to Iraq the manning, equipping, and training demands on installations were 

so great that brigades had to be offset in their cycles. One or two could be 

deployed, one in the intense final preparations for deployment and one or two 

in recovery from deployment. This phenomenon had been foreseen and was 

built in to the newly designed Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) model. 

Each post was its own little hurricane carrying brigades through the cycle in 

turn, evening out demands on the installation over time because there was 

such a cycle. The division headquarters rotated overseas as well, but because 

of the cycle did so with only one or two maneuver brigades wearing its own 

patch. Combat support and combat service support brigades accompanying 

it were likely to wear its patch, but even with regard to them the entropy of 

rotation diminished connections between divisions and brigades. It was not 

uncommon for a deployed division headquarters to preside over brigades 

with a half dozen different patches. This practical application of modularity 

furthered the autonomy of brigades and brigade commanders, perhaps even 

more than theory and policy would have. If the brigade’s connection with the 

division was diminished, its connection with the installation was reinforced. 

The ARFORGEN cycle demanded direct liaison between deployable unit and 

installation, particularly given the recurrent absences of division headquarters. 

When a brigade deployed, this connection continued. Replacements, convales-
261

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

cents, unique major end items, and significant inventories of repair parts processed through the installation to and from theater. In accordance with concepts of split-basing, the theater provided consumables and common supply 

items. As the theater matured, an increasing proportion of the unit equipment 

required remained in theater for units to fall in upon. This was particularly 

true when theater usages departed from TOE, such as tankers and artillerymen 

falling in on up-armored HMMWVs, for example. Equipment that units left 

behind when deployed was serviced, secured, and stored on the installation. 

When units returned, the equipment they brought back with them had accumulated enormous maintenance debts. Hard use and a hostile environment 

MNF-W

MND-CS

MND-NC

MND-NE

MNC-I

MND-SE

MNF-NW

MND-Baghdad

BAGHDAD

SAUDI ARABIA

IRA N

TURKEY

SYRIA

KUWAIT

J O R D A N

Military Boundary

June 2004–May 2005

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

0

0

100 Miles

100 Kilometers

Military boundaries are approximate

Map 6
Kevlar Legions

262

wore heavily on it; usage and degradation were up to ten times prewar levels. 

“Reset” for returning units implied depot overhauls well beyond customary 

budgets and expenses that dwarfed the so-called “budgets” brigades had previously handled. Congressional supplementals requested for shop work to repair 

war-related damage climbed from $1.2 billion in 2004 through $2.9 billion in 

2005 to $3.2 billion in 2006. Installation logisticians and depots coordinated 

most of this work through the Army Materiel Command with brigades and 

below as customers—and with divisions not particularly involved. Units redeployed to the home station, turned in dilapidated equipment, went on block 

leave, undertook the largely personnel-oriented activities of early recovery, 

and then drew new or rebuilt equipment before it was time to train again in 

earnest. The vision of installations as power projection platforms advanced by 

Generals Sullivan and Franks with the 1993 edition of Field Manual 100–5 

had truly arrived.13

The rotation of units through Afghanistan and Iraq was complex and 

demanding, yet the greatest challenges were faced by the individual soldiers 

within the units—asked to recycle into combat time and again. As we have 

seen, sustained expeditionary combat on this scale was unprecedented for a 

volunteer Army. Before 9-11 about one-third of the Army’s new accessions 

did not complete their first tour for one reason or another. Those who were 

going to wash out disproportionately did so during initial entry training, but 

a trickle of attrition continued month after month through the lifespan of 

each cohort. Counterintuitively to most outsiders, deployed units had lower 

attrition and higher reenlistment rates than the Army at large, a phenomenon 

explained by those within the Army as the psychological result of doing something important. Enthusiasm did not persist through recurrent deployments, 

however, with third tours statistically problematic with respect to retention. 

Schoomaker believed unit manning with attendant home stationing, family 

stability, and spousal employment options would improve performance in this 

regard. If casualties were low, first-term attrition stable (and thus predictable), 

and career soldiers supported by the camaraderie of a “band of brothers” and 

the indulgence of comfortably established families, perhaps a career of recurrent deployment would be accepted as routine. This depended, of course, on 

the stress of combat. A mysterious “Gulf War Syndrome” plagued veterans 

of Desert Storm. Insofar as symptoms were physical in origin, they seemed 

linked to varying “cocktails” of pyridostigmine bromide (PB) anti-nerve agent 

pills, pesticides, chemical agents released from destroyed munitions, toxic 

fumes from oil well fires, and depleted uranium residue to which troops had 

been exposed. These potential poisons could be avoided, but posttraumatic 

stress disorder (PTSD), first defined in 1980 to address diagnoses in Vietnam 

War veterans, was at play as well. PTSD results from traumatic life-threatening personal experiences that reasonably evoke fear or horror. Symptoms 

include nightmares, flashbacks, withdrawal, irritability, insomnia, aggression, 

and poor concentration. Most soldiers involved in significant ground combat 

are exposed to trauma of the type associated with PTSD. Whether or not they 

develop the condition depends on a number of factors, perhaps most significantly on a process labeled “recontextualization.” During recontextualization 
263

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

an individual comes to grips with the experience, identifies its uniqueness and 

his or her reaction to it, puts it into the larger context of life experiences and 

hardships, and eventually “puts it behind him.” This process can be enormously advanced by sympathetic and understanding confidants. After World 

Wars I and II soldiers redeployed from combat, mustered at ports of reembarkation, and steamed home on troopships in the company of others who had 

shared their experiences. The process took months, and most went through 

“decompression” wherein they and their comrades mutually worked their 

way through their experiences before confronting the world outside the Army. 

Vietnam veterans too often had the surreal experience of desperate combat 

followed by quick airplane trips into social settings wherein those around them 

had no idea what they had been through. This lack of decompression was too 

often repeated after Desert Storm, with predictable results. Going into Iraqi 

Freedom the Army Medical Command determined not to repeat such mistakes. Decompression after combat was to be a feature of medical discipline 

as ubiquitous as vaccination, malaria prophylaxis, and tuberculosis testing. 

Medical personnel were trained to facilitate this task, and primary groups were 

to collectively discuss potentially traumatic experiences in their presence and 

outside it. Sharp-eyed unit leaders, medical personnel, and chaplains would 

observe their flocks carefully, referring those demonstrating signs of PTSD for 

further evaluation. Execution proved imperfect, with application sporadic in 

theater and generally too brief upon redeployment. Leaders and key personnel too often excused themselves from participation, arguing other priorities. 

Career soldiers experiencing symptoms of PTSD too often avoided assistance, 

embarrassed to demonstrate “weakness.” Demobilizing Guardsmen and 

Reservists were difficult to corral into sessions or to follow up on. Nevertheless 

the command, medical, and chaplaincy efforts to more directly address PTSD 

seem to have been of use. A 1990 National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment 

Survey estimated 31 percent of Vietnam veterans suffered PTSD, of whom 

subsequent analysts characterized 11 percent as suffering clinically significant 

impairment. A recent study of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq suggests 

about 4 percent developed diagnosis-level symptoms of PTSD. Such figures 

are subject to interpretation and are inexact, with much that remains to be 

learned. For the Army, keeping the damages inflicted by PTSD to an absolute 

minimum was essential if it was to succeed in rotating combat-effective units 

back and forth from Afghanistan and Iraq.14

Stress on soldiers is hugely affected by the care they see given the 

wounded and the dead. Command comments that 99 percent of soldiers 

returned “without a scratch on them” may have been true for many or even 

most units, but it is human nature to contemplate being among that unlucky 

1 percent. Medical and medical evacuation assets pushed well forward, 

minutes away from virtually anywhere troops deployed in Afghanistan or 

Iraq. Intense training in advanced skills for combat medics, the proliferation of lay “combat lifesavers,” aggressive use of forward surgical teams, 

and skillful use of evacuation assets drove the proportion of soldiers 

who died of their wounds to less than 10 percent—half of even Desert 

Storm’s superlative performance. Disease rates were pushed to historical 
Kevlar Legions

264

lows as well. Ubiquitous and effective Kevlar body armor dramatically 

reduced mortality rates. Astonished television viewers watched footage of 

soldiers shot in the chest getting back on their feet and continuing their 

missions. Ironically, this very success presented a dilemma of another 

sort. Horrifically wounded soldiers who would have died in earlier wars 

survived. Body armor protected the core but left limbs exposed, leaving 

important fractions of the wounded to be amputees or multiple amputees. 

Blasts from improvised explosive devices caused concussions and traumatic 

head injuries. The Army family now included thousands of soldiers needing long-term medical care. In an earlier era soldiers permanently disabled 

by wounds passed to the responsibility of the Veterans Administration and 

became generally invisible to the Army. This “expeditious, compassionate 

disposition of the unfit soldier” now proved less satisfactory for several reasons. The “band of brothers” mentality that unit manning was intended to 

induce encouraged soldiers—both the wounded and their comrades—to be 

less willing to let go. Families were neighbors, worldwide communications 

were instantaneous, evacuation pyramided backwards through a discrete 

number of major hospitals, and hospitals at the mega-posts were capable 

enough that most convalescence could continue there. Soldiers still in the 

field telephoned family and friends in the United States to check up on 

hospitalized comrades. Highly visible examples such as Generals Franks, 

McCaffrey, and Shinseki inspired severely wounded soldiers to believe 

they could continue military careers, as did huge advances with respect to 

Wounded soldiers remained in the Army, and their recovery became a cooperative 

effort involving units, medical facilities, families, and volunteers.
265

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

prosthetics. Amputees badgered bewildered doctors to return them expeditiously to their units. Brain and other blast-related injuries could be subtle 

and often required extended observation before a prognosis could be made. 

Soldiers accumulated in medical hold or medical holdover for prolonged 

periods of diagnosis or recovery. Fairly or unfairly, many soldiers were 

suspicious of the treatment they would receive from the Veterans Affairs 

(VA) department. Mindful of real or imagined problems in the transition 

from the care of the Army to that of the VA, General Keane directed the 

Army Medical Command to devise programs of “mentorship.” Each soldier considered for medical release or medical retirement was to have a 

knowledgeable adviser guide him through the process, elaborating options 

at every turn. The Army Staff and others routinely visited the wounded 

at nearby Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a pattern mirrored at posts 

throughout the country. These senior officers in turn became advocates for 

soldiers they encountered, often soldiers with whom they had served before. 

Casualties were few enough, the Army small enough, and relationships 

intimate enough that paradigms governing the severely wounded changed. 

In due course this expanded sense of responsibility led to the establishment 

of Warrior Transition Units. The general public became involved. Interest 

resulted from media attention to such high-profile cases as Jessica Lynch, 

but also from the patriotic sympathies of public leaders and average citizens. National Guard and Army Reserve casualties brought the issue home 

to communities all over America. Civic initiatives such as the “Wounded 

Warrior” program spontaneously emerged. Attention similarly fixed on the 

fallen and their families. The service vice chiefs collectively drilled death 

benefits and gratuities and lobbied to bump automatically available life 

insurance up to $250,000 for deaths out of theater and $400,000 for in 

theater. The death gratuity was to be $100,000 for all. Survival Assistance 

Officers were appointed immediately on notification of a fatality, and they 

established personal relationships with the families of the fallen. A general officer was to be present at each funeral, and uniformed attendance 

was robust both at funerals stateside and at memorial services overseas. 

Funerals and memorial services for National Guardsmen and Army 

Reservists turned out entire communities throughout America. Combat 

deaths were few enough that these remained unique and memorable events. 

This attentiveness to the wounded and the dead was visible to serving soldiers. An ironic aspect of war making is that such deference enhances the 

morale of those still capable of bearing arms. Recurrent rotation into a war 

with no visible end required soldiers who believed their every need would 

be met if they were wounded and their family’s every need would be met if 

they were killed.15

Adapting to Afghanistan and Iraq

In Chapter 9 we will discuss the performance of Army units in Afghanistan 

and Iraq, with an emphasis on how Army transformation efforts during the 

period 1989–2005 played out in that performance. Here we will discuss how 
Kevlar Legions

266

events in Afghanistan and Iraq affected technical aspects of Army transformation. The two approaches are related, with one the inverse of the other. We 

have already described the Army’s redefinition of transformation, given the 

demands of the Global War on Terrorism. We have also described institutional changes to accommodate recurrent rotations. Technologies associated 

with transformation, and the pace at which they were to be applied, altered 

as well. Digitization and precision-guided munitions proved valuable, and the 

deployed Army scrambled to improve on both. Some technologies from the 

former Objective Force were relevant enough that Army transformers sought 

to accelerate them, whereas others were deferred or deleted. Research and 

development morphed in emphasis, and field insights and improvisation fed 

back into procurement efforts. Several items of erstwhile “legacy” equipment 

now seemed less obsolescent. The Army still envisioned itself as a transforming force, but the nature and paraphernalia of that transformation changed.

In early 2003 digitization was still nascent for the Army as a whole, although 

most units had had some exposure to it. Only the 4th Infantry Division, delayed 

in arriving for Operation Iraqi Freedom by the intransigence of the Turks, was 

truly digitized. The Army scrambled to bolt 1,200 digitizing add-on kits onto 

vehicles of the 3d Infantry Division and the Marine Expeditionary Force before 

they attacked into Iraq. The system bore the formidable title “Force XXI Battle 

Command, Brigade and Below—Blue Force Tracking” (FBCB2-BFT), mercifully shortened to “blue force tracking” (BFT) in the vernacular. BFT featured 

a rugged, 12-inch laptop-looking computer, a global positioning system (GPS), 

a satellite terminal and antenna, command and control software, and mapping 

software. Vehicles thus equipped automatically updated their locations, represented by an icon on the computer screen, throughout the system and thus contributed to a shared picture of the battlefield. BFT also allowed the exchange of 

electronic text messages and downloaded maps at varying levels of resolution. 

Although only deployed on key leader vehicles at first, BFT proved immensely 

popular. Results during Iraqi Freedom corroborated the findings of Advanced 

Warfighter Experiments and other digital exercises over the past ten years. BFT 

enhanced command and control, reduced fratricide, and facilitated land navigation. British units attacking alongside the Americans were fitted out with fortyseven BFT sets and shared the common operating picture. In April 2003 the 4th 

Infantry Division arrived in Iraq, multiplying digital capabilities in the theater 

overnight. Further reinforcing units were equipped with BFT, and the add-on 

kits were applied more broadly to units already in theater as well. Soon most 

convoys rolled with BFT in their front and rear vehicles. Dispersed operations 

day and night—patrolling, security outposts, sweeps for contraband, seizing 

suspected terrorists, training Iraqi counterparts, and other initiatives—scattered Americans throughout Iraq, increasing the demand for BFT and similar 

systems. Within five years 55,000 sets had been purchased and applied, and a 

total of 160,000 were programmed. This is not to mention the new or rebuilt 

equipment wherein digital capabilities were intrinsic, or the ubiquitous presence of GPS independent of BFT. Digitization was not confined to the tip of 

the spear. Logisticians used radio identification tags and scanners to inventory 

arriving containers and equipment into databases and then digitally managed 
267

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

that information as they sped the hardware on its way. Unlike Desert Storm

logisticians they did not build up mountains of supplies but instead smoothed 

deliveries into something closer to “just-in-time” logistics. During the height 

of the buildup the 143d Transportation Command downloaded more than a 

hundred ships through the port of Shuaiba without ever having more than a 

few hundred containers on the ground at one time. Movement control teams 

similarly scanned the identification cards of arriving troops into databases to 

facilitate, among other things, the delivery of up to 600,000 pounds of mail 

per day. Troops in the field exploited Web connections to share information, 

reach back into archives for relevant techniques or doctrine, or post inquiries 

to which specialized agencies responded. Conversations in the Army General 

Staff Council meeting turned to the particulars of BFT fielding and to competition for satellite bandwidth as an ever more significant Army priority. Digital 

equipment did need to be improved upon. BFT at the time updated vehicle locations every five minutes. This was helpful, but too slow for fast-moving operations. Digital equipment was too often rendered inoperable by hard use, horrific 

weather conditions, or inexperienced operators. Operations in Afghanistan and 

Iraq nevertheless reinforced the Army’s determination to digitize itself and further embedded digitization in its definition of transformation. Insofar as there 

was debate, it was about whether the Army could acquire digital capabilities 

more quickly and how it could improve them.16

It should be noted that eagerness for improved digitization did not particularly translate into interest in accelerating the manned vehicles of future 

combat systems (FCSs) and much of the other paraphernalia of the Objective 

Force as a whole. Objective Force technologies perceived as potentially useful in 

Afghanistan and Iraq were, as we shall see, cherry-picked for greater attention. 

The 1,200 BFT sets of the pre–Iraqi Freedom surge went onto legacy vehicles 

the 3d Infantry Division and Marines already had on hand. Most of these 

were venerable M1A1 tanks and M2/3 Bradleys supplied from pre-positioned 

stocks rather than shipped from a home station. British vehicles were not only 

venerable, they were foreign in several senses of the term. Hasty digitization 

created odd combinations. The Army’s standard command and administrative 

vehicle, the HMMWV, was pressed into service patrolling. Given thousands 

of patrols dispatched each day, it was impractical to mount or support each 

patrol with tanks or Bradleys. In the face of small-arms fire and IEDs, troops 

in conventional HMMWVs were horribly exposed. The immediate response in 

theater was to weld scrap metal onto the exposed sides and undercarriages of the 

HMMWVs, adding weight but gaining crew protection. The ungainly looking 

results seemed anything but futuristic, digital capabilities jammed into legacy 

vehicles resurfaced with debris scavenged from junk yards. Convoy protection 

generated further throwbacks. Between 800 and 1,300 Coalition supply trucks 

were on the road at any given time. Logisticians in theater e-mailed Army historians out of theater to get specifications for the fabled gun trucks of Vietnam. 

Soon up-armored HMMWVs were joined by five-ton trucks fitted with ring 

mounts, heavy weapons, and slats of improvised armor. HMMWVs and fivetons rolled amid diverse serials of military and commercial vehicles. The miniature fortresses facilitated command and control with appliqué digital equipment 
Kevlar Legions

268

while providing security with old guns and even older protective architecture. 

Wags likened the potpourri of vehicles in a convoy to scenes from the apocalyptic Mad Max movies. The Army Materiel Command raced to get ahead of this 

in-theater improvisation. Within less than a year it designed and developed standardized add-on armor kits and dispatched 7,000 to Iraq. The Army went from 

500 up-armored HMMWVs worldwide in the summer of 2003 to 5,000 in Iraq 

in the fall of 2004. Plans would expand this number to 8,000 in Iraq and 13,000 

overall. Thinking beyond up-armored HMMWVs and five-ton trucks, the Army 

and Marine Corps experimented with hull-shaped (and thus blast-resistant) 

mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles. These were available in several designs through domestic and foreign vendors. Although awkward and topheavy, a design called the Cougar attracted attention when it weathered three 

hundred IED attacks without a fatality. More immediately available were the 

Stryker vehicles of the Stryker brigades, first deployed to Iraq in the summer of 

2003. They too required improvised add-on armor—bar armor to prematurely 

detonate shaped munitions—but proved ideal for convoy escort and extended 

operations. Rolling along on durable tires at impressive speeds, they provided 

far more heavily armored firepower than HMMWVs and trucks at a fraction 

of the operating costs of tanks and Bradleys. They were intrinsically digitized 

and carried ample contingents of heavily armored infantrymen. They soon were 

recognized as the most singularly capable force for the low- to mid-intensity 

combat environments they found themselves in. Like other workhorses in Iraq, 

the Strykers were not particularly futuristic. They represented digitization 

Up-armored HMMWVs with specialized equipment became ever more a

requirement in restive Iraq.
269

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

applied to vehicles of long-existing 

design. They were Force XXI more 

so than Objective Force.17

Some items in the Objective 

Force paraphernalia seemed relevant enough to operations in 

Afghanistan and Iraq that Army 

transformers sought to accelerate 

their development and further integrate them into ongoing operations. 

Cases in point included unmanned 

aerial vehicles (UAVs), robots, and 

precision-guided munitions. During 

the advance on Baghdad V Corps got 

some useful intelligence from UAVs, 

but so many manned platforms were 

deployed on the ground and aloft 

during the intense operations of that 

phase that information from UAVs 

represented a minor fraction of the 

whole. Information from satellites 

trumped information from UAVs for 

deep targets. As operations in Iraq 

dragged on, however, the daring and 

persistence with which UAVs could 

be used provided an attractive alternative to sustaining pilots aloft and at risk. 

This was particularly true when trolling supply routes or observing isolated 

compounds during prolonged periods when the probability of a valuable 

“catch” was low. During the first year in Iraq “Hunter” UAVs logged about 

4,000 hours and “Shadow” UAVs 5,000. This dramatically increased the continuity of overhead surveillance. At times payoffs were dramatic. Suspected 

“safe havens” were observed for suspicious vehicle traffic, and this was intercepted or engaged by alerted ground forces or aviators when identified. UAVs 

detected infiltrators attempting to implant IEDs, and these were similarly 

neutralized by aviators or troops on the ground. Through 2005 the Army did 

not employ UAVs as lethal platforms from which to launch strikes, although 

it did note Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) experimentation in that regard. 

Robotics offered another means to avoid exposing humans. Mounted on miniature tracks or rollers and equipped with cameras and other sensors, these 

were used to explore caves, tunnels, buildings, and other potential hideouts for 

explosives, ammunition, and hideaways. They rolled under vehicles to check 

for signs of munitions or tampering. Although their practical effect was at the 

time limited, their possibilities seemed promising. What, for example, if they 

became sophisticated enough to disarm IEDs as well as detect them? What if 

some fraction of the 800 to 1,300 supply trucks on the road at any one time 

were driven by robots rather than humans? If UAVs and robots were emerging technologies, precision-guided munitions (PGMs) were proven technology 

Unmanned aerial vehicles, varying 

greatly in size and capabilities,

assumed increasing responsibilities 

for battlefield surveillance. 
Kevlar Legions

270

begging for better integration. Such integration required networked sensors, 

pervasive GPS, and communications that multiplied the number of observers 

on the ground that could bring Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) and 

other cheap, generally available precision-guided munitions to bear. As operations in Iraq miniaturized and dispersed, Army transformers struggled to push 

the advantages of PGMs forward to each detached little contingent.18

Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq not only sharpened the focus of 

transformation initiatives already under way, they also deflected research and 

development into areas theretofore not particularly associated with transformation. The most striking case in point was that of improvised explosive 

devices. It did not take long for insurgents in Iraq to recognize they were at a 

huge disadvantage engaging American forces directly. A contingent as small as 

a Bradley platoon brought awesome firepower to bear that generally dwarfed 

what the insurgents could field. Elaborate communications brought speedy 

relief and massive firepower to Americans under attack. Insurgents had at 

most a few minutes to inflict what damage they could before the odds turned 

against them. This phenomenon is a timeless feature of guerrilla warfare. The 

Viet Cong, for example, were heavily outgunned by American forces. They 

increasingly relied upon mines, grenades, and booby traps to inflict casualties, 

and these ultimately accounted for over a quarter of the American dead. In 

Iraq circumstances were even more asymmetric, and Iraqi insurgents fell back 

upon explosive devices even more quickly. Within a year over half of American 

casualties resulted from IED attacks. Explosives and munitions were readily 

available in Iraq, and menus for triggering mechanisms were fairly common 

knowledge. In October 2003 the Army G–3, Lieutenant General Richard 

Cody, stood up an IED Task Force to coordinate efforts. Proposed solutions 

addressed intelligence, training, and technology. Intelligence could help one 

“get left of boom,” a metaphor originating in the fact that times prior to an 

event appear to the left of it on a chronological chart. Early detection could 

catch insurgents in the act of planting IEDs or at least allow one to neutralize 

the IEDs before troops were in danger. Training would improve on such tactics 

and on other techniques and procedures to mitigate effects. Technology was 

at play as well. We have already mentioned robots. Electronic remote activation proved useful as well. Insurgents often relied on cellular phones, walkietalkies, garage door openers, and even remotely controlled toys to detonate 

munitions. These rely on relatively predictable civilian bandwidths. If these are 

jammed with sufficient energy, IEDs to be triggered by them can be detonated 

prematurely or prevented from detonating at all. Soon a number of electronic 

devices, most notably the “Warlock” but including local improvisations, were 

turned to this purpose. If denied remote detonation, insurgents would have to 

run wire, set up mechanical triggers, or bury devices relying on direct ground 

pressure to achieve detonation. These approaches increased exposure and risk 

to the insurgents when in relatively open terrain. The IED Task Force evolved 

into the Army-led Joint IED Defeat Integrated Process Team in 2004 and into 

the Joint IED Defeat Organization in 2006. In due course its annual budget 

averaged $4 billion, and it turned research attention to a wide array of promising technologies to detect and defeat IEDs. Within a year of the establishment 
271

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

of the IED Task Force losses per incident with respect to IEDs fell 30 percent 

and continued to drop thereafter, but a cat-and-mouse game developed as the 

adversaries adapted to each other’s methods. Other subjects for research and 

development considerably advanced by technological responses to Afghanistan 

and Iraq included mortar detection and interception, rocket detection and 

interception, and prostheses. Were all of the technologies under development 

to yield their full promise, soldiers of the intermediate future would bat down 

incoming rounds with speed-of-light lasers and replace lost limbs with equally 

responsive artificial ones. None of these technologies particularly figured in 

Army definitions of transformation prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, but 

now command focus and congressional funding carried them forward in a 

vision of transformation that altered with operational circumstances.19

Not everything the Army needed in Iraq and Afghanistan required technological development, of course. Traditional supply requirements dominated 

logistical planning without being particularly transformative. Track on tanks and 

Bradleys, for example, experienced what had been a year’s worth of mileage in a 

month or less. Tank track shoe production went from 15,000 a month to 50,000, 

and Bradley track shoe production from 28,000 to 70,000. Hard use bumped up 

the production of supplies of all types. Some hard use did lead to changes that 

ultimately proved transformative. This was particularly true in the case of equipment borne by individual soldiers. The rocky terrain of Afghanistan beat up the 

knees and elbows of soldiers frequently going to ground within it. An expedient 

Improved individual equipment incorporated advanced technologies and upgraded protection, particularly against improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Kevlar Legions

272

solution was to buy knee and elbow pads of essentially commercial design. Given 

that there were no front lines, soldiers throughout Afghanistan and Iraq needed 

body armor regardless of military occupational specialty (MOS) or assignment. 

Production soared from 1,200 sets a month to more than 25,000 sets a month. 

This Kevlar body armor consisted of a helmet and modular front and back 

plates initially, but exposure to IEDs led to the addition of side plates, shoulder 

guards, and experimentation with protection for the limbs themselves. Body 

armor compromised most pockets and limited what could be borne around the 

waist. Pockets migrated to sleeves and pants legs, and canteens transformed to 

camel-back tubular hydration systems. Operating in a mix of darkness, ambient 

light, and artificial illumination, troops took to the Army/Navy Portable Visual 

Search (AN/PVS) 14 and other monocular night-vision devices so that they were 

never caught in a single mode of vision if lighting quickly changed. This affected 

helmet design. Redesigned load-bearing equipment accommodated challenging 

environments and changing needs. Boots, gloves, socks, underwear, goggles, and 

myriad other items were adapted to the frigid mountains of Afghanistan, the 

blazing deserts of Iraq, and circumstances in between. Weight was an issue, particularly in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, with troop loads pushing past 130 

pounds for extended dismounted missions. Designers and procurement officers 

sought to shave weight with each new version of an item acquired. Much of this 

new equipment was of commercial design. Beginning in 2002 the Vice Chief of 

Staff initiated a Rapid Fielding Initiative under the Program Executive Office 

(PEO)-Soldier to rapidly coordinate, field, and modernize individual equipment, drawing upon off-the-shelf designs when feasible. In due course the Rapid 

Fielding Initiative directly affected every deploying soldier, and each deploying 

unit was “hosed down” in its turn with new equipment. Over time the net effect 

of sustained attention to individual equipment was to move Army transformation from a platform-centric phenomenon toward one considerably more soldiercentric. Along with Kevlar armor, terrain-adapted boots, high wick underwear, 

and other improvements in safety and comfort, GPS, cellular communications, 

headsets, microphones, digital displays, and other transformational technologies 

migrated off of vehicles and onto individual soldiers as well. This progression 

had long been contemplated, but war funding and unrelenting dependence on 

dismounts in Afghanistan and Iraq greatly hustled it along.20

Two signature programs associated with Army transformation lost traction in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom: the Comanche helicopter 

and future combat systems. The RAH–66 Comanche descended from the light 

helicopter experimental (LHX) program begun in 1982 and had long been 

touted as essential transformative technology. It featured composite materials, 

stealth technology, state-of-the-art navigation systems, advanced suites of sensors, and formidable firepower. It was to replace the venerable Kiowa Warrior 

as an armed scout and light attack helicopter. Although strongly encouraged 

by OSD, General Schoomaker came to his own conclusions in determining 

that $14 billion committed to the Comanche could be better spent elsewhere. 

In his view, two years of warfare and hard use had left Army aviation “busted.” 

Aviation was one of the focus areas Schoomaker identified upon arrival. 

Deliberations within that focus area soon established that a major fraction of 
273

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

the technologies envisioned for Comanche could be spun forward onto existing platforms. Furthermore, UAVs were becoming increasingly attractive in 

reconnaissance roles, particularly when missions required prolonged surveillance. The Comanche was designed to infiltrate or breach sophisticated air 

defenses, fight for information in the face of determined opposition, and pass 

along targets to massed artillery, attack aviation, and Air Force assets. It was 

an overmatch for existing requirements in Afghanistan and Iraq, and battles 

against opponents suitable for its capabilities in the near term seemed unlikely. 

The aviation actually fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, on the other hand, 

was stretched to the limit and could readily and quickly profit from qualitative 

upgrades. After a bit of haggling within the Army and with OSD, Comanche 

was terminated in February 2004. The $14 billion saved was diverted to the purchase of eight hundred new helicopters of existing design and to the upgrade 

of fourteen hundred more. Apache Longbow (AH–64D) modernization, for 

example, was to progress in blocks, incrementally advancing digital messaging, digital maps, situational awareness, avionics, and sensors. The modernized 

target acquisition and designation sight/pilot night-vision sensor (M-TADS/

PNVS) radically advanced AH–64D target acquisition and night vision and 

would itself be improved upon by the “Arrowhead” module field retrofit thereafter. The upgraded AH–64D, partnered with contemporary state-of-the-art 

UAVs and upgraded OH–58D Kiowa Warriors, offered capabilities somewhat 

shy of those envisioned for the Comanche—but with considerably less cost 

and considerably more expediency. Future combat systems experienced drift 

analogous to that experienced by the Comanche, albeit with less dramatic or 

decisive results. From the beginning FCS had been envisioned as a “system of 

systems” advancing multiple technologies at once. It had acquired the numerical description “18 +1+1.” There were eighteen systems under development 

to be linked together by one advanced digital network in the support of every 

single (one) soldier. The eighteen systems included eight manned ground 

vehicles, four classes of unmanned aerial vehicles, three classes of unmanned 

ground vehicles, unattended sensors, a non-line-of-sight launch system, and 

unattended intelligent munitions. The manned ground vehicles were to put 

infantry, armor, artillery, reconnaissance, and combat service support assets all 

on the same chassis with common automotives, communications, and computers. The vehicles were to weigh twenty-four tons but be even better protected 

and more lethal than contemporary vehicles through advanced technologies. 

For many the futuristic manned ground vehicles defined the term “FCS,” with 

the other systems under development being peripheral and in support. This 

frame of reference reversed itself as the Army scrambled to harvest technologies from the future force that could be deployed quickly enough to be helpful 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have already noted the accelerated interest in 

UAVs and robotics (unmanned ground vehicles). Sensors and the advanced 

digital network seemed feasible for accelerated deployment, albeit on existing 

platforms, as well. The Army reprogrammed $9 billion for 2005–2011 from 

FCS programs to technological upgrades for existing ground vehicles. FCS 

manned ground vehicles had not yet gone the way of the Comanche, but they 

were to be delayed in favor of incremental upgrades to vehicles and equipment 
Kevlar Legions

274

capable of fighting in the near term. Again fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan 

morphed the Army definition of transformation.21

Quadrennial Defense Review 2005

Iraq and Afghanistan dominated Army thinking by 2005 and were the most 

heavily contemplated subjects for the Department of Defense as well. They 

were not the only issues, however. The recurrent congressional requirement 

for a Quadrennial Defense Review proved to be a forcing function encouraging a broader and longer view. Remembering the hard-fought battles of 

Quadrennial Defense Review 1997 and Quadrennial Defense Review 2001, the 

Army Staff had maintained a standing Quadrennial Defense Review office to 

prepare for the next event. Much had changed since 2001. When Quadrennial 

Defense Review 2001 reported out, troop requirements in Afghanistan were 

modest and Homeland Defense a dominant concern. By 2005 troop requirements in Afghanistan and Iraq were huge, and manpower requirements routinely associated with Homeland Security were largely civilianized. The Army, 

active component and reserve component alike, focused on sustained warfare 

overseas. The Department of Defense adjusted its threat definition. Analysts 

derived a neat quadripartite chart from perpendicular axes, one running from 

low to high likelihood and the other from low to high (United States) vulnerability. It populated the low likelihood–low vulnerability quadrant with stateto-state confrontations employing conventional means. As long as the United 

States maintained its existing advantages, nations were unlikely to seek such 

a contest. Far more likely, albeit still but a modest risk to the United States 

if “effectively checked,” were irregular challenges such as those the United 

States already faced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terrorism. 

Unlikely, but posing a considerable risk if achieved, was a surprise technological breakthrough that might suddenly put the United States at an unexpected 

disadvantage. What, for example, if space assets were compromised by laser 

weapons, digital communications turned against the United States by cyberwarfare, nanotechnology turned into biological weaponry, and so forth? The 

United States had a wide range of venues wherein security depended on maintaining its technological edge. The high likelihood–high vulnerability quadrant 

featured weapons of mass destruction slipping into hostile and irresponsible 

hands. Pundits gave the Department of Defense threat analysis high marks 

for its insight and departure from tradition. The new threat model combined 

with ongoing operations to underscore the utility of soldiers and marines. The 

caveat that irregular warfare had to be effectively checked to remain a modest 

risk clearly defined a mission area for ground forces. The tens of thousands 

of troops already actively deployed for that purpose reinforced the point. The 

philosophical diminishment of traditional challenges, and the actual diminishment of air and maritime forces deployed by feasible traditional opponents, 

correspondingly diminished the logic of heavily investing in our own air and 

maritime forces. Research and development to protect against technological 

breakthroughs was broadly envisioned, not favoring any particular service. 

Similarly, the imperative of keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the 
275

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

wrong hands was not service specific. Examining current operations and 

future prospects, Quadrennial Defense Review–inspired reductions of ground 

forces were very unlikely. Indeed, the temporary increase of 30,000 to accommodate the shift to modularity now seemed likely to become permanent, 

and important congressional voices argued for even larger increases. Unlike 

Quadrennial Defense Review 1997 and Quadrennial Defense Review 2001, 

Army manpower and force structure were not on the block as potential bill 

payers. Pundits envisioned reduced procurement of the Air Force’s F–22 and 

other aircraft and the sacrifice of a few planned Navy submarines instead.22

In the end Quadrennial Defense Review 2005 did not particularly require 

bill payers. Reporting out in February 2006, it concluded that overall force 

structure was about right. The F–22 and some other high-cost Air Force and 

Navy programs were to be stretched out in time rather than actually reduced. 

The same was true of the Army’s future combat systems. The report did not 

particularly get into budgets, but subsequent interplay between the Pentagon 

and Congress did not much alter traditional apportionments among the services or commitments to major programs. Indeed, the Quadrennial Defense 

Review process now seemed largely detached from the actual allocation of 

The Quadrennial Defense Review 2005 quadripartite chart
Kevlar Legions

276

resources. Money was not that great an issue in this time of war, and significant cuts to major programs would require hard battles with congressmen 

whose constituents and supporters had been gored. Few saw the need or had 

the stomach for such a battle. Pundits balanced praise of the Quadrennial 

Defense Review’s threat analysis and strategic vision with criticism that significant changes in force structure and funding did not result. They did not 

have to. The rude fact was that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had largely 

escaped extant planning, programming, and budgeting processes, and funds 

committed to them could be readily enough adapted to broader purposes. 

Unlike earlier major wars, Afghanistan and Iraq were not initiated with anticipatory hand-wringing concerning how they were to be paid for. They were to 

be brief and Iraq, like Kuwait, was to pay for itself through its own intrinsic 

resources and the largesse of grateful allies. Until this worked out, funding 

shortfalls were to be handled by congressional supplemental appropriations, 

as had been the case with Somalia and the Balkans. The Defense budget was 

the product of long-standing processes, featured huge sunk costs and sweeping existing equities, and was not much given to quick changes. The Defense 

apportionment envisioned out as far as 2010 was 25 percent for the Army and 

about 30 percent each for the Navy and Air Force—about what it had been in 

1975. Rumsfeld’s emphasis on missile defense remained, although the Army 

Space and Missile Defense Command found itself divided between space services provided to troops on the ground overseas and technological efforts to 

develop and field advanced missile defense systems at home. Supplemental 

appropriations overlapped the base budget with respect to expenses addressed, 

but were separate. The Defense budget paid salaries and procured equipment; 

supplementals paid the further unprogrammed expenses that operations 

abroad required. Understandably, supplementals heavily favored the Army 

and Marine Corps. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 the Army “base” budget was 

almost $100 billion, and supplementals provided almost $60 billion more. 

In FY2006 the Army base would again be about $100 billion, and supplementals would provide $70 billion more. Army transformational initiatives 

inevitably drew upon both base and supplemental funding. As we have seen, 

modernizing technologies were increasingly deployed to fight contemporary 

Afghan and Iraqi insurgents rather than to prepare for future warfare in the 

abstract. General Schoomaker was conscious of the congruence between base 

and supplemental funding, and he determined to push forward with both the 

Global War on Terrorism and Army transformation relevant to it at the same 

time. The Department of Defense concurred. In a wartime period of relative 

congressional largesse, it was easier to modernize by employing supplementals 

for multiple purposes than to fight tough battles with entrenched interests to 

alter a funding paradigm that already existed.23

Initiatives the Quadrennial Defense Review envisioned for the Army fit 

readily within the hybrid funding discussed above. Technologies theretofore 

envisioned for future combat systems were to be spun forward into deploying 

forces as rapidly as possible. We have already discussed the proliferation of blue 

force tracking, other digital technologies, UAVs, robotics, and rapidly fielded 

equipment for the individual soldier in this regard. Procuring, maintaining, 
277

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

and replacing this equipment were arguably wartime expenses. Modular brigades and modularized headquarters at levels above brigade were endorsed by 

the Quadrennial Defense Review and to proceed as planned. Modularization 

of such units and headquarters was timed to coincide with their deployments 

overseas, and much of the expense involved could be characterized as “reset” 

costs. The reserve component was to continue its decade-plus progression from 

a force of last resort to an inventory of routinely deployed units, interchangeable with the active component—albeit with longer intervals between deployments. Reserve-component units were to deploy manned and equipped like 

their active-component counterparts, and additional costs involved achieving 

that status were wartime expenses. Doctrinal emphasis upon and training 

preparedness for operations other than war, insurgency, and low-intensity 

conflict were to increase and improve, complemented by practical experience 

gained from conducting such operations with a major fraction of the Army 

overseas at any given time. The intellectual investment associated with such 

emphasis was not particularly costly, and much of the training expense could 

again be construed as a reset cost. Special Operations Forces were to increase 

dramatically in numbers and capability, with Special Forces battalions up by 

a third and Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs personnel increased 

by 3,700—again up by a third. Clearly the associated expenses were driven 

by ongoing operations as well as long-term vision. The Quadrennial Defense 

Review acknowledged shortcomings with respect to cultural awareness and 

linguists. Addressing these issues would be hard but not particularly costly. 

TRADOC readily enough rewrote institutional and unit training regimes to 

further understanding and sensitivity. Predeployment field training increasingly included encounters with role-playing “natives.” Results with respect to 

cultural obtuseness are not yet determined. Linguists presented a dilemma with 

respect to recruiting more so than with respect to funding. Although recruiting 

bonuses would soar as high as $150,000 for some languages within three years, 

numbers of personnel were not large, and that cost was on par with those associated with a number of other high-demand specialties. By 2008, 14,000 Army 

linguists would include less than a thousand capable in Arabic, Kurdish, Dari, 

Pashtu, or Farsi. The Army addressed shortcomings through contracting. In a 

sense the Army competed against itself, since qualified linguists could choose 

between being a soldier and being a contractor. Whatever they chose, it was 

a wartime expense. The Army was to “stabilize” its end strength at 482,400 

active component and 533,000 reserve component by FY2011. The subtext 

was that it was not being asked to give back the 30,000 it had been allowed 

to accommodate in the modularity initiative and other plus-ups for six years. 

A lot could happen in six years. Access to the reserve component would be 

enhanced by extending presidential call-up from 270 to 365 days and granting the Department of Defense authority to have 15 percent of the reserve 

component on active duty at any one time. Doing the math, this would give 

the Army a routine active-duty strength of 562,000 in FY2011 and of close to 

600,000 until then.24

The Quadrennial Defense Review of 2005 was a mixed blessing for the 

Army. On the one hand, thoughts of reducing ground forces had melted away 
Kevlar Legions

278

like a snow cone on summertime Iraqi asphalt. Force structure was secure, 

as was Army transformation as General Schoomaker and his staff had redefined it. On the other hand, a change in strategic vision had not resulted in a 

change in budget paradigms. Service apportionments for the base budget went 

on as before, leaving the Army underfunded within it for ongoing operations, 

expanding, and transforming. This deficiency was made good by supplemental 

funding, always a temporary expedient. The danger existed that when supplemental funding one day disappeared, Army transformation would as well.

The Army in 2005

Sergeant Lee Ann Hester was the star of the Association of the United 

States Army’s Army 2005–2006 Green Book, published in October 2005. 

Fully armed and armored, her visage was the front cover. The diminutive 

“O+” inked on to her helmet band subtly communicated that the hazards 

she faced might require an immediate blood transfusion. Inside one reads 

of the incredible courage she and seven other soldiers of the Kentucky 

Army National Guard’s 617th Military Police Company demonstrated on 

20 March 2005. Racing to assist an ambushed convoy of tractor trailers, 

they took on an entrenched force five times their size. Hester, a team leader, 

outflanked the enemy, positioned her gunner to enfilade a trench line and 

dispatched a half-dozen insurgents herself with hand grenades and rifle fire. 

The convoy was saved, the insurgents suffered thirty-four casualties, and 

Hester was awarded the Silver Star. The recognition accorded her deeds was 

a considerable departure from earlier practice, wherein Army representatives 

took great pains to reassure congressional conservatives that the so-called 

“combat exclusion policy” was workable, and that women could be sensibly distributed throughout the force yet protected from danger. Episodes of 

females in actual combat had been played down or characterized as aberrations. Just in case one missed the point that times had changed, General 

Schoomaker’s personal article in this Army 2005–2006 Green Book issue 

featured a photograph of him pinning the newly created Combat Action 

Badge on Sergeant April Pashley, and corporate sponsor Lockheed Martin 

cooperated with a gritty female “Portrait of a Patriot” on the back cover. 

Iraqi Freedom morphed public attitudes concerning women in combat, in 

part because of fallout from experiences surrounding another iconic female 

soldier, Private First Class Jessica Lynch. Lynch had deployed with the 507th 

Maintenance Company, tasked to support a Patriot Missile battalion. On 23 

March 2003, much of the 507th was killed or captured in a string of ambushes 

around An Nasiriyah, Iraq. Subsequent dramatic rescues of the severely 

wounded Lynch and other captives, including Specialist Shoshana Johnson, 

made for gripping real-time television coverage, as did the poignant funeral 

of Lynch’s friend, Private First Class Lori Piestewa. The fate of the 507th 

remained a subject of concern to the Army, however. General Keane directed 

a fact-finding review under the direction of the Commanding General of 

the Training and Doctrine Command, General Kevin P. Byrnes. The review 

determined that every soldier “performed honorably and each did his or 
279

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

her duty.” There were, nevertheless, critical lapses with respect to 

battlefield awareness and an apparent unpreparededness for the 

combat that resulted. A troubling 

number of weapons malfunctioned, 

most notably the only crew-served 

weapon—a .50 caliber machine 

gun—with the convoy at the time. 

In due course the report on the 

507th Maintenance Battalion fed 

into a larger initiative propelled by 

General Schoomaker, the Warrior 

Ethos.25

The Warrior Ethos was not about 

women in combat. It was about 

preconceptions that some soldiers 

would fight and others would not. It 

was also about instilling a personal 

commitment “to win” in the heart of 

every soldier and rejecting notions 

that military service was just “a job.” 

In July 2003 the Army’s Strategic Studies Institute at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 

produced an interview-based study Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the 

Iraq War. Predictably, this study concluded American soldiers fought for each 

other, and unit cohesion was a primary combat motivation. It also discovered 

that moral and ideological motivators such as liberation, freedom, and democracy were prevalent as well—in a manner more pronounced than had been the 

case with draftee armies previously studied. This tracked well with notions 

of the Army as a values-centered profession. It also reinforced expectations 

concerning personal commitment. Focus on the individual soldier and Army 

values was not new. Reimer’s “Soldiers Are Our Credentials” and Shinseki’s 

“Soldiers on Point for the Nation” were cases in point. The doctrinal deliberations of these earlier administrations had favored near-peer opponents and 

conventional adversaries, however, trending toward conventional divisions 

of labor. The conventional battlefield could be echeloned and combat service 

support largely insulated from the consequences of combat. This was, after 

all, what had made the combat exclusion policy for women a workable idea—

and thus inversely made the participation of women in combat central to the 

concept of a universal Warrior Ethos. Schoomaker’s background was heavily 

influenced by Special Forces, wherein every soldier was a fighter first and then 

had alternate specialties as well. To many this relative lack of specialization 

was problematic, rendering Special Forces a logistical burden for someone else 

if too many gathered in the same place at the same time. Reducing distinctions between combat, combat support, and combat service support made 

sense in Afghanistan and Iraq, however. Artillerymen and engineers deployed, 

patrolled, and fought as infantry, and logistical convoys inevitably were a 

General Byrnes
Kevlar Legions

280

preferred target for insurgents. The Army adjusted. Initial entry training for 

soldiers in all specialties featured substantially more physical fitness, hand-tohand combat, and small-arms marksmanship. Mental and physical toughness 

were as ardently inculcated as technical competence. Soldiers in all specialties 

were prepared psychologically and physically to fight “up close and personal.” 

This emphasis continued when soldiers joined their units. A particularly high 

priority went to innovative live-fire convoy training. Range safety officers 

struggled with the complexities of dispatching a realistic mix of combat service 

support vehicles, surprising them with an ambush, and playing through 360 

degrees of engagement without unsafe acts or rounds out of the impact area. 

Multiple integrated laser engagement system (MILES) provided much of the 

solution, but Schoomaker insisted that each soldier live-fire his or her weapons 

in the face of realistic scenarios based on Afghan and Iraqi experiences. A 

training innovator’s heaven became a range safety officer’s hell. In due course 

the training, and the message, sank in—fueled by the daily realities of Iraq and 

Afghanistan. The 2005 version of Field Manual 1, The Army, came out on 

14 June—the Army birthday. Amid admonitions such as those for combined 

arms, network-centric warfare, and joint interdependence one would have 

expected in such a document, there was also considerable development of Army 

values and the Warrior Ethos. Historical vignettes with pictures illustrated 

important points. Those depicting combat included a gallant attack by the

The Warrior Ethos postulated that there were no rear areas in a combat 

theater. Soldiers had to be prepared to fight regardless of their occupational 

specialty or activity. 
281

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

369th Infantry Regiment in the Meuse-Argonne, the courageous defense posed 

by engineer Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith near the Baghdad airport in 

2003, the selfless rescue attempt mounted by Master Sergeant Gary Gordon 

and Sergeant First Class Randall Shughart in 1993 Mogadishu, the poignant 

loss of New York World Trade Center firefighter turned National Guardsman 

Sergeant Christian P. Engeldrum to an IED in Baghdad in 2004, and the 

exceptional performance of the 724th Transportation Company when caught 

in a grueling protracted ambush en route to Al Asad, Iraq, in 2004. This mix 

of examples reinforced the message of the text. Regardless of specialty, all 

soldiers must be prepared for personal combat.26

Returning to Sergeant Hester and the seven soldiers awarded for valor 

alongside her, the fact that they were National Guardsmen was perhaps as 

illustrative of the universality of the Warrior Ethos as the fact she was a 

female. By the end of 2005 the Army sustained 600,000 soldiers on active 

duty, of whom 72,000 were National Guard and 41,000 Army Reserve. 

Deployment was becoming an expectation for Guardsmen and Reservists, 

albeit with five- or six-year intervals as an interval rather than one or two. 

Once deployed, Guardsmen and Reservists were altogether as likely to see 

combat as their active-component comrades, generally alongside them. Stark 

expectations of deployment and combat presented recruiting challenges for 

the Army, as did the proposed growth of the active component by 30,000. As 

early as July 2003 the Army General Staff Council mused about a momentary 13 percent dip in recruiting and about the risks that sustained warfare 

in Iraq and Afghanistan posed to maintaining the Army as all volunteer. The 

service was already receiving adverse publicity concerning long-standing but 

now contentious stop-loss policies applied to deploying units. Conversely, 

other pundits discussed the merits of the draft. By September the recruitment picture brightened, and enlistments were characterized as “OK.” The 

active component exceeded an enlistment goal of 71,000 in 2003 and 77,500 

in 2004, but fell 6,400 short of its goal of 80,000 in 2005. Fortuitously, retention remained robust. The active component retained comfortably above 100 

percent of target in all categories from FY2003 through 2005, including 103 

percent of first-termers and mid-careerists and 129 percent of careerists in 

FY2005. Hearteningly, the first major unit back from Iraq, the 3d Infantry 

Division, reenlisted more than 3,700 soldiers by October 2004 and would 

return to Iraq with over 70 percent combat veterans. Commitment and the 

Warrior Ethos were certainly at play, as were the facts that the average reenlistment bonus more than doubled from under $5,000 to over $10,000, and 

the numbers of bonus recipients soared from 7,500 in 2003 through 18,000 

in 2004 to 44,500 in 2005. Spouses had much to do with incentives. Surveys 

suggested that spouses satisfied with family programs, installation support, 

employment stability, and bonuses enabled their soldiers to reenlist. The 

reserve component struggled with enlistments and retention through FY2005, 

generally retaining strength but often “under glide path” for recruitment. 

In later years the active and reserve components would inch downwards 

on their previously elevated standards to achieve recruiting goals—until a 

booming national economy went sour and rendered military service far more 
Kevlar Legions

282

attractive to prospects and their parents. Even with an effective bump up to 

an active-duty strength of 600,000, the Army remained perilously thin for 

the tasks at hand. The trend toward an ever-greater reliance on contractors 

that began in the 1990s continued. Estimates held that the United States 

employed 100,000 contractors in Iraq, representing a wide range of nationalities and specialties. This phenomenon of contracting effectively modifying force structure receives more attention in Chapter 7.27

Conclusions

By 2005 General Peter J. Schoomaker had sufficiently redefined Army 

transformation to mark a departure from its development since 1989. Generals 

Vuono, Sullivan, Reimer, and Shinseki had been between wars and endeavored 

to prepare the Army for slates of unknown adversaries at uncertain times and 

places. Ongoing operations overseas paralleled and somewhat competed with 

this effort, and Afghanistan proved to be yet another of these through 2003. 

The most dangerous future adversary was envisioned as near peer, and transformation had had a near-peer focus. It also had had considerable depth, with 

Army XXI, the Army After Next, and the Objective Force in turn investing in 

technologies that would be decades in paying off. Iraq changed the paradigm. 

The war eclipsed all else, and recurrent rotations of units to it dominated 

all other concerns for the Army. Initiatives with respect to modularity, unit 

manning, home stationing, infrastructure, and coping with the physical and 

psychological costs of war proceeded in this light. Transformational programs 

originating in the period 1989–2003 advanced considerably during 2003–2005 

but morphed to prioritize the techniques and technologies most likely to be 

immediately useful in Iraq and Afghanistan. Appliqué digitization, spacebased communications and navigation, unmanned aerial vehicles, robotics, 

and counter-IED capabilities were substantially funded and moved forward. 

New platforms proved of less interest. The Comanche was terminated and the 

manned vehicles associated with FCS slipped to the right. Upgraded legacy 

vehicles and aircraft, and newly purchased but not newly designed Strykers, 

filled the gap. Individual soldiers, conversely, carried ever newer and more 

modern equipment with them. They themselves became platforms for GPS, 

digital technologies, and ever-improving access to precision-guided munitions. 

Technology was not enough, however, and a newly reemphasized Warrior 

Ethos sought to reinforce a fighting spirit in the heart of every soldier regardless of specialty, component, or gender. General Schoomaker himself got high 

marks for recasting as much of Army transformation as he did into requirements for Afghanistan and Iraq and getting it paid for, albeit with supplemental rather than base budget funds. For fifteen years the Army had been 

preparing for its next war. Now it had found it.
Notes

1

 General Peter J. Schoomaker, “The Army: A Critical Member of the Joint Team 

Serving the Nation at War,” Army 2003–2004 Green Book, October 2003, 23–28; 

Thomas K. Adams, The Army After Next: The First Postindustrial Army (Stanford 

California: Stanford University Press, 2008), 95–175; Thomas E. Ricks, “Air Force’s 

Roche Picked to Head Army,” Washington Post, 2 May 2003, 1; Evan Thomas and 

Daniel Klaidman, “The Battle Within,” Newsweek, 15 September 2003, 17; Kim 

Burger, “New Direction for US Army,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, 27 August 2003, 23; 

Telephone Conversation notes, General (USA, Ret.) Peter J. Schoomaker with 

Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, 111330 May 2009, Historians Files, 

CMH.

2 Briefing Slides, Army Staff, “Leader Transition Session II: Former Transition 

Team Members,” 30 May 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 9 June 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 16 June 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing Slides, Army Staff, 

“Leader Transition Azimuth Check, 27 June 2003,” Historians Files, CMH; Robert 

Burns, “Army Shake-Up Has Rumsfeld in Power Position,” Associated Press, 26 April 

2003; John Barry, “The Army Cleans House,” Newsweek, 11 August 2003, 8; William 

G. Bell, Secretaries of War and Secretaries of the Army: Portraits and Biographical 

Sketches (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2003); William G. Bell, 

Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff, 1775–2005: Portraits and Biographical 

Sketches (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2003); E-mail, Director of the 

Army Staff to Army General Staff Council Attendees, 14 August 2003, sub: 

Observations After Day #1 with the New CSA, forwarded FYI to Army Staff at large, 

Historians Files, CMH. 

3 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Annotated Power Point Slides, briefed by General Peter J. Schoomaker to Army 

General Staff Council, 14 August 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Author’s personal 

experience as an attendee of the 14 August 2003 Army General Staff Council Meeting; 

The Way Ahead: Our Army at War . . . Relevant and Ready, Moving from the Current 

Force to the Future Force . . . Now (Washington DC: United States Army, n.d.), 

Historians Files, CMH; Telephone Conversation notes, General (USA, Ret.) Peter J. 

Schoomaker with Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, 111330 May 2009. 

4

 Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee, “A Brave and Determined Army Is 

Destroying Terrorism Worldwide,” Army 2003–2004 Green Book, October 2003, 13–19; 

Peter J. Schoomaker, “The Army: A Critical Member of the Joint Team Serving the 

Nation at War,” Army 2003–2004 Green Book, October 2003, 23–28; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 27 May 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 9 June 2003; Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White, 

“The Army Is Dedicated to Delivering Victory,” Army 2002–2003 Green Book, October 

2002, 15–22; General Eric K. Shinseki, “‘. . . a respectable Army . . . one . . . competent 

to every contingency,’” Army 2002–2003 Green Book, October 2002, 23–33; Bell, 

Secretaries of War and Secretaries of the Army. 5

 General Peter Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, Transcript of the Media 

Roundtable Conducted at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, 

26 October 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

16 June 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003, Historians 

Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 21 July 2003, Historians 

Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003, Historians 
Kevlar Legions

284

Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 8 September 2003, 

Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 

2004, Fort McNair, Washington DC,, Historians Files CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 23 February 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 26 April 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Chief of Staff Focus 

Area Update notes, 16 April 2004, Historians Files, CMH; “Interview: Gen. Peter 

Schoomaker, U.S. Army Chief of Staff,” Defense News, 3 October 2005, 118. 

6

 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003; Army General Staff 

Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Chief of Staff Focus Area Update notes, 16 

April 2004; Field Manual 1, The Army (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 

June 2005). 

7 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003; General Peter 

Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, Transcript of the Media Roundtable 

Conducted at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, 26 October 

2004; Office of the Chief of Military History, The Replacement System in the United 

States Army: An Analytical Study of World War II Experience (Washington DC: 

Department of the Army, 1950); CMH Information Paper, Robert S. Rush, The 

Individual Replacement System: Good, Bad or Indifferent? Army Replacement Policy, 

Cold War and Before (Washington DC: Center of Military History, n.d.); Briefing, 

Center of Military History to Major General Lawrence Adair, Deputy G1, “What 

CMH Can Do for You,” n.d., Historians Files, CMH.

8 Rush; Briefing, Center of Military History to Major General Lawrence Adair, 

Deputy G1, “What CMH Can Do for You,” n.d.; Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: 

The United States Army and the Indian, 1866–1890 (New York: Macmillan, 1973); The 

Replacement System in the United States Army: An Analytical Study of World War II 

Experience; Colonel Gregory Fontenot, Lieutenant Colonel E. J. Degen and 

Lieutenant Colonel David Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi 

Freedom (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Staff, 2004), 1–28; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003; Army Regulation 210–20, Master 

Planning for Army Installations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1992). 

9

 William M. Donnelly, Transforming an Army at War: Designing the Modular Force, 

1991–2005 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 3–74; John B. Wilson, 

Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998); John J. McGrath, The Brigade: A 

History, Its Organization and Employment in the US Army (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: 

Combat Studies Institute, 2004); Army Comprehensive Guide to Modularity (Fort 

Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 2004).

10 Donnelly, 3–74; Army Comprehensive Guide to Modularity; Army General Staff 

Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Briefing Slide, 3d Infantry Division, “COA 

5z UA Organization (Current CSA Approved Redesign Concept),” Fort Stewart, 

Georgia, 12 December 2003, Historians Files, CMH; “Brigade Combat Team 

Deployments,” Army Times, 13 October 2008, 15; Telephone Conversation notes, 

General (USA, Ret.) Peter J. Schoomaker with Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. 

Brown, 111330 May 2009. 

11 Donnelly, 5–26, 75–78; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–3–91, Objective Force Tactical 

Operational and Organizational Concept for Maneuver Units of Action (Fort Monroe, 

Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 6 November 2001); TRADOC 

Pamphlet 525–3–92, Objective Force: Unit of Employment Concept (Fort Monroe, 

Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 20 May 2003); Briefing, Center 

of Military History, “Unit Designations in the Army Modular Force,” n.d., Historians 

Files, CMH; Ltr, General Gordon R. Sullivan to General Peter J. Schoomaker, 25 
285

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

January 2005, Historians Files, CMH; Kelly Kennedy, “Progress Is Being Made: Iraqi 

Ranks Are Filling Out and 3-Year Cycle Is Almost There, Army Secretary Says,” Army 

Times, 20 February 2006, S4. 

12 Lieutenant General Clyde Vaughn, “Army National Guard—Always Ready, 

Always There,” Army Green Book 2005–2006, October 2005, 101–04; Lieutenant 

General James R. Helmly, “Changing to a 21st-Century Army Reserve,” Army Green 

Book 2005–2006, October 2005, 107–12; Briefing, Center of Military History, “Unit 

Designations in the Army Modular Force,” n.d.; General Peter Schoomaker and 

General Richard Cody, Transcript of the Media Roundtable Conducted at the 

Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, 26 October 2004; Michelle 

Tan, “The Readiness Reshuffle: Plan Would Reshuffle Reservists Every 5 Years,” Army 

Times, 20 February 2006, S13; Michelle Tan, “Guard Aims for 6-Year Cycle, Half Free 

for U.S. Emergencies,” Army Times, 20 February 2006; Michelle Tan, “DOD: Army 

Exceeds October Recruiting Goals,” Army Times, 24 November 2004, 12. 

13 General Peter Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, Transcript of the Media 

Roundtable Conducted at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, 

26 October 2004; “Brigade Combat Team Deployments,” Army Times, 13 October 

2008, 14–16; Gina Cavallaro, “Artillerymen Go Back to the Big Guns,” Army Times, 13 

October 2008, 15, 18; Greg Grant, “Army ‘Reset Bill’ Hits $9 Billion,” Army Times, 20 

February 2006, 16; “Army Refits Force,” AUSA News, October 2003, 2; “An Army of 

Change,” AUSA Special Report, 21 February 2005, S3; General Paul J. Kern, “U.S. 

Army Materiel Command: Getting Soldiers What They Need When and Where They 

Need It,” Army 2004–2005 Green Book, October 2004, 67–74; “Army Brigade, a 

Symbol of Force Readiness for Decades, Finds Itself Stretched Thin,” New York 

Times, 29 March 2007, A8; Matthew Cox, “Iraq War Takes Toll on Readiness,” Army 

Times, 27 March 2006; Jim Tice, “Population Explosion Could Stretch Fort Bliss,” 

AUSA Special Report, 21 February 2005, S11–S12; Field Manual 100–5, Operations 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1993); Army Regulation 210–20, Master 

Planning for Army Installations. 14 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 July 2001, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting Notes, 14 January 2002, Historians Files, CMH; 

Ian Urbina, “Troops Exposure to Nerve Gas Could Have Caused Brain Damage, 

Scientists Say,” New York Times, 17 May 2007, A18; “Bittersweet Victory,” AUSA 

News, January 2009, 13; Ben Shephard, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in 

the Twentieth Century (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2001); David Dobbs, “The 

Post-Traumatic Stress Trap,” Scientific American (April 2009): 64–69; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 20 October 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 27 May 2003; Todd S. Brown, Battleground Iraq: Journal 

of a Company Commander (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 59–73, 

220–29.

15 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 28 January 2002, Historians Files, 

CMH; Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, “Preserving Soldier’s Life and Health—

Anytime, Anywhere,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 121–24; Army 

Principals Staff Call notes, 31 May 2005, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 31 March 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 8 September 2003; “Changing the Concept of Warrior Care,” 

AUSA News, January 2009, 11; Chuck Vinch, “They Gave Their Lives,” Army Times, 

25 September 2006, 14–15; AUSA Institute of Land Warfare Defense Report 07–2, 

Army Medical Action Plan (Arlington, Virginia: Association of the United States 

Army, June 2007); “Focus on the Future: Program Helps Rehabilitating Soldiers 

Transition Back to Army or Civilian Life,” AUSA News, January 2009, 14; Lizette 
Kevlar Legions

286

Alvarez, “Obama Offers Plan to Improve Care for Veterans,” New York Times, 10 

April 2009, A12.

16 Lieutenant General Otto J. Guenther, “Blue Force Tracking,” Army (April 2004): 

13–15; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003; Army General 

Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Sergeant Frank N. Pellegrini, 

“Supporting Gulf War 2.0,” Army (September 2003): 20–26; Patricia Kime, “Instant 

Readiness: Lessons Learned in Iraq Available Online and in the Field the Next Day,” 

AUSA Special Report, 21 February 2005, S8; Brigadier General Michael A. Vane and 

Lieutenant Colonel Joseph M. Ozorski, “Transforming the Doctrinal Development 

Process,” Army (June 2003): 55–57; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 21 July 

2003; General Peter Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, Transcript of the Media 

Roundtable Conducted at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, 

26 October 2004.

17 Lieutenant General Otto J. Guenther, “Blue Force Tracking,” Army (April 2004): 

13–15; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 21 April 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Kern, “U.S. Army Materiel Command: Getting Soldiers What They Need When 

and Where They Need It,” 67–74; General Peter Schoomaker and General Richard 

Cody, Transcript of the Media Roundtable Conducted at the Association of the United 

States Army Annual Meeting, 26 October 2004; Dennis Steele, “Carrying the Load in 

Iraq,” Army (July 2004): 14–22; Pellegrini, 20–26; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 21 July 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 22 December 2003, 

Historians Files, CMH; “The Truck the Pentagon Wants and the Firm That Makes It,” 

USA Today, 8 January 2007; Mark J. Reardon and Jeffrey A. Charlston, From 

Transformation to Combat: The First Stryker Brigade at War (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2007), 1–19; Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House 

History 2006–2008 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 64–67.

18 General Crosbie E. Saint, Brigadier General E. J. Sinclair, and Major Jonathan O. 

Gass, “Army Aviation on the Move,” Army (July 2004): 33–37; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003; General Paul J. Kern, “Technology, 

Transformation and War—A Kaleidoscope of Force,” Army 2003–2004 Green Book, 

October 2003, 63–70; Kern, “U.S. Army Materiel Command: Getting Soldiers What 

They Need When and Where They Need It,” 67–74; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 23 February 2004; Brown, Battleground Iraq, 128–96.

19 Kern, “Technology, Transformation and War—A Kaleidoscope of Force,” 63–70; 

Richard W. Stewart, ed., American Military History, vol. 2, The United States in a 

Global Era, 1917–2003 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2005), 285–368; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 7 April 2003, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 April 2003, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 February 2003; Lieutenant General 

James J. Lovelace Jr. and Brigadier General Joseph L. Votel, “The Asymmetric 

Warfare Group: Closing the Capability Gap,” Army (March 2005): 29–34. 

20 Kern, “U.S. Army Materiel Command: Getting Soldiers What They Need When 

and Where They Need It,” 67–74; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 27 May 

2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 8 December 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Scott R. Gourley, “Equipping Today’s Warfighters,” Army (July 2003): 49–52; 

Tim Kennedy, “TRADOC Seeks Wartime Solutions from Rapid Equipping Force,” 

Army (August 2004): 39–42; Matthew Cox, “Lighter, More Mobile Gear: Army to 

Battle-Test New Kit,” Army Times, 23 March 2009, 14–16. 

21 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003; General Peter 

Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, Transcript of the Media Roundtable 

Conducted at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, 26 October 
287

Schoomaker: Redefining Transformation, 2003–2005

2004; Saint, Sinclair, and Gass, 33–37; General Frederick J. Kroesen, “From Cheyenne 

to Comanche,” Army (May 2005): 11–12; Megan Scully, “The Squeeze on 

Transformation,” AUSA Special Report, 21 February 2005, S6; Scott R. Gourley, 

“Apache Longbow Program Brings New Technology to Army Aviation,” Army

(January 2005): 37–39; Tim Puckett, “FCS Update: FCS Battle Command,” Army

(August 2005): 43–46; Colonel Christopher V. Cardine, “Future Combat Systems and 

Commonality,” Army (November 2005): 45–48; Jean-Pierre Lutz, “FCS Update: 

Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance,” 

Army (December 2005): 49–50. 

22 Adams, 202–03, 228–33; Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington DC: 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 6 February 2006); Army General Staff Council 

Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Army General Staff Focus Area Update notes, 10 

April 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Army Principals Staff Call notes, 26 April 2004, 

Historians Files, CMH; Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Quadrennial Defense Review: 

Transforming to Meet Tomorrow’s Security Challenges (Washington DC: National 

Defense University, 17 March 2007); Michele A. Flournoy, “Did the Pentagon Get the 

Quadrennial Defense Review Right?” Washington Quarterly (Spring 2006); Clark 

Murdock, An Assessment of the 2006 QDR (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, 4 February 2006).

23 Ibid.; General Peter J. Schoomaker, “Our Army: Continuity and Change,” Army 

2004–2005 Green Book, October 2004, 25–30; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 31 March 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 April 2003; 

Army Principals Staff Call notes, 26 April 2004; Robert D. Hormats, The Price of 

Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), 251–99; Honorable 

Francis J. Garvey and General Peter J. Schoomaker, A Statement on the Posture of the 

United States Army 2006 (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, 10 

February 2006).

24 Quadrennial Defense Review Report; Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 

30–31 January 2004; Army General Staff Focus Area Update notes, 10 April 2004; 

Lovelace and Votel, 29–34; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 

2003; Garvey and Schoomaker; 2006 and Beyond: What the Army Is Doing (Arlington, 

Virginia: Association of the United States Army, March 2006); Gordon Lubold, 

“QDR Provides Blueprint for Long War,” Army Times, 13 February 2006, 9; Elisabeth 

Bumiller, “Gates Takes His Case for Military Budget on the Road,” New York Times, 

17 April 2009, 9; William H. McMichael, “Gates: Army Budget Must Align with 

Current, Future Needs,” Army Times, 27 April 2009, 19.

25 Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 4, 23–30; Bernard Rostker, I Want 

You: The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force (Santa Monica, California: RAND, 

2006), 560–71, 674–75; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 April 2003; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 9 June 2003; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Department of the Army Rpt, Attack on the 507th 

Maintenance Company, 23 March 2003, An Nasiriyah, Iraq, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003. 

26 Leonard Wong, Thomas Kolditz, Raymond A. Millen, and Terrence M. Potter, 

Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq War (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Strategic 

Studies Institute, July 2003); Sean D. Naylor, “A Dual for the Enablers of War,” Army 

Times, 16 March 2009, 22; Sean D. Naylor, “Report: SF Groups Lack Robust Support 

Unit,” Army Times, 30 March 2009, 18; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 

August 2003; Field Manual 1, The Army. 27 Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 4, 23–30; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 27 May 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 16 June 2003; 
Kevlar Legions

288

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 21 July 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 

2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 22 September 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 8 December 2003; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 8 March 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Army Principals Staff Call notes, 31 May 

2005, Historians Files, CMH; General Peter Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, 

Transcript of the Media Roundtable Conducted at the Association of the United States 

Army Annual Meeting, 26 October 2004; Gordon Lubold, “Troop-level Forecast May 

Test Patience,” Army Times, 23 September 2006; Tan, “DoD: Army Exceeds October 

Recruiting Goals”; Erik Holmes et al., “Retention Pressures,” Army Times, 8 December 

2008, 15; “Recruiting the Best,” New York Times, 28 December 2008; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 19 April 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Renae Merle, “Census Counts 100,000 

Contractors in Iraq,” Washington Post, 5 December 2006.
Chapter 7

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

Army Chief of Staff General Carl E. Vuono (1987–1991) recognized that 

technological modernization alone would not be enough to transform the Army 

for the challenges it faced. Force mix numbered among five other imperatives 

he stressed, as did doctrine. His successors followed up on this insight, each 

making significant adjustments to force structure in his turn. External pundits 

and critics joined internal debate as the Army sought its way forward. Some 

of the issues seemed timeless. Centralization reduces overheads, increases 

efficiency, and simplifies training and maintenance, whereas decentralization 

increases agility, flexibility, and reaction time in the face of battlefield uncertainties. Mechanization increases firepower and tactical mobility, but it also 

increases weight and reduces strategic mobility. When at peace the Army has 

had lots of time but little money; when at war it has had lots of money but 

little time. Manpower is limited in peace or war. Some parameters under consideration reflected post–Cold War circumstances. Campaigns against peer 

opponents seemed unlikely in the near term. Likely threats ranged across the 

spectrum of combat and around the globe, as did actual operations. Operating 

environments were ever more joint and generally were combined and multidepartmental as well. New technologies introduced parameters of their own. 

Digital equipment, satellite communications, the Internet, precision-guided 

munitions, and a panoply of other innovations required due consideration. 

The Goldwater-Nichols Act rendered Army deliberations less insular than 

they had been before, so players from outside the Army were increasingly 

taken into account. Downsizing was the most immediate, and evolution to a 

“brigade-based” Army the most consequential, of the force structure developments during this period. These in turn forced the redesign of echelons at division level and above. The institutional Army morphed as well, and roles and 

missions on an unprecedented scale migrated into the purview of contractors, 

who became a shadow force structure in themselves. The Army of 2005 was a 

different organization than that which had existed in 1989.

The Critique

The tectonic shift of 1989 inspired thought and fermentation. Much of 

this was encouraged by Chief of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan’s modern 

Louisiana Maneuvers. More emerged as bright minds within the Army School 
Kevlar Legions

290

System, student and faculty alike, turned their attentions to the new circumstances in theses and studies. Articles relevant to revised force structure proliferated in professional journals, Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) 

and contracted “think tanks” cranked out polished analyses, and multislide 

briefings cycled in turn past the Army’s senior leadership. Committed to the 

relative specifics of Force XXI in the near term, Sullivan’s successor, General 

Dennis J. Reimer, valued further debate for the longer term. To facilitate 

this he directed that the Army Staff and selected others read Breaking the 

Phalanx: A New Design for Land Power in the 21st Century (1997), by Colonel 

Douglas A. Macgregor. Macgregor emerged as a persistent, prolific, and 

recurrently visible critic of Army force structure and doctrine—and of much 

else as well. Breaking the Phalanx advanced opinions on the major themes in 

contention at the time: flattening command hierarchies, reliance on brigadesize combat groups, modularity, unit rotation and replacement, jointness, and 

nimbler logistics. It was accessible, thought-provoking, and commercially 

available and brought a sizable body of wide-ranging criticism into a readable 

whole. Outside the Army the book came to the attention of Speaker of the 

House Newt Gingrich. He championed Macgregor’s ideas in various forums 

and encouraged their consideration in congressional deliberations. Reimer 

directed the Center for Army Analysis to war-game Macgregor’s operational 

and doctrinal concepts, and he directed the Army’s Center of Military History 

to provide historical commentary. The Center of Military History cheerfully 

identified a few historical anomalies, to include alleged misrepresentation of 

Macedonian tactics at the Battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BC), the source of 

the phalanx metaphor, before moving on to a broader discussion of general 

themes. The Army Staff proved not much interested in the battlefield mechanics of Cynoscephalae but was interested in the themes and the background to 

them. Command hierarchies, brigade-size maneuver units, modularity, unit 

rotation and replacement, jointness, and logistics would each prove the subject 

for debate and contention as the Army redesigned itself.1

Theorists have long pondered the merits of eliminating one or more rungs 

in military hierarchies that date back to the Napoleonic Wars, thus “flattening” chains of command. The Pentomic Division of the 1950s sought to reduce 

vulnerability to atomic weapons by compressing battalion and brigade into a 

more nimble battle group. Among other flaws, the Pentomic design depended 

on communications capabilities that did not reliably exist at the time. By the 

1990s space-based communications and digital technologies overcame this 

particular impediment. Widely dispersed forces could communicate without 

recourse to matrices of ground stations, and huge masses of information 

passed through cyberspace—and the ether—in high-volume burst transmissions. Innovative businesses gamely flattened organizational hierarchies, 

anticipating that timely information broadly spread and local initiative could 

economize on layers of management. Within the Army a number espoused 

such an idea, including Macgregor. In Breaking the Phalanx he proposed 

compressing army and corps into a joint task force, and division and brigade 

into a combat maneuver group. He further developed his ideas in subsequent 

writings, revisiting jointness and the Joint Forces Land Component Command 
291

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

(JFLCC). Counterarguments to such flattening cited concerns with respect to 

spans of control. Fighting a battle was different than stocking supermarket 

shelves, traditionalists argued. To be useful, a commander had to comprehend 

the battles his subordinates and his neighbors were fighting. This mental picture allowed him to coordinate subordinate combats and to distribute his own 

assets and those drawn from higher headquarters to best effect. Regardless 

of the pace and volume of information shared, many believed a single commander could still only command and control three to five subordinate maneuver battles, along with coordinating support and cooperating with neighbors. 

Beyond such a span of control subordinate commanders would end up essentially unsupervised, doing their “own thing” and inviting chaos. Historically, 

greater responsiveness and agility has been associated with narrowing spans of 

control rather than with expanding them. The early nineteenth-century regiment consisted of ten companies, for example, which generally advanced on 

line with little expectation of maneuver. A brigade when formed, on the other 

hand, generally consisted of two to five regiments, which the brigade commander was expected to maneuver separately as required. Inspired by theorists 

like Emory Upton and the World War I success of German Hutier tactics, the 

World War II United States Army narrowed spans of control at lower levels. 

A mid-twentieth-century regiment typically controlled about three battalions 

that controlled about three rifle or line companies that controlled about three 

platoons that controlled about three squads that generally fought as teams 

or sections of fewer than a half-dozen soldiers each. Downward infusions of 

leadership and narrower spans of control improved performance on ever more 

dispersed and dangerous battlefields. Few advocates of flattening military 

hierarchy advocated flattening it everywhere. Macgregor, for example, would 

have left battalions and below generally as they were. Joint Task Forces or 

Joint Force Land Component Commands might be required to control more 

groups, but companies would not be required to control more platoons. Debate 

raged about which levels to flatten. Some came to argue for leaving hierarchy intact but leveraging information technologies to reduce manpower and 

redundancies within headquarters at each level. Such a compromise would 

preserve traditional spans of control while nevertheless thinning bureaucracy.2

A number of Army commentators advocated diminishing the division in 

favor of the brigade. Increasing effective ranges, lethality, and sensor sophistication gave the brigade a considerably larger geographical footprint than it had 

had before. The theory that the brigade was but a headquarters to which units 

were temporarily assigned was trumped by customary associations in garrison 

and the field. Brigade combat team performance in Operation Desert Storm

demonstrated and reinforced this tendency. Important fragments of the Army 

were already “brigade-based”: armored cavalry regiments, separate brigades, 

divisions (forward), and the enhanced brigades of the Army National Guard. 

Post–Cold War downsizing led many of our allies to devolve upon the brigade as their capstone tactical unit. TRADOC’s 1989–1991 AirLand Battle 

Future Concept proposed thinner and more modular divisions, and in 1995 

TRADOC introduced a brigade-based alternative as one of three candidates 

for Force XXI division redesign. Thus Macgregor was in good company when 
Span of Control: Civil War

This and facing page, Center of Military History slides illustrating relationships between number of subordinate elements at 

an echelon and capacity for coordinated maneuver at that echelon
Span of Control: World War II

Note: Extracted from Robert S. Rush, “Passchendaele with Treebursts: An Analysis of Cohension, Morale, and Operational Effectiveness of the U.S. and German Organizations in the Hürtgen Forest, Fall 1944” (Master’s diss., Ohio State University, 2000).
Kevlar Legions

294

he argued that the tactical battle was overcentralized at the division level, 

and he recommended combined-arms combat maneuver groups instead. His 

variants included heavy combat, airborne–air assault, heavy recon-strike, 

and light recon-strike and would consist of 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers apiece. 

This design was beefy in comparison with traditional brigade combat teams 

and featured enough combat support to render the combat group relatively 

autonomous. Force structure invested to achieve this autonomy fueled the critics of Macgregor’s combat group and of a brigade-based Army. Issues were 

ability to mass and economies of scale. Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair 

famously slimmed down World War II divisions to assets they would almost 

inevitably use, pooling all else in separate battalions and groups assigned to 

echelons above division. This allowed the Army to mass such assets, attaching artillery, armor, engineers, and others where they were most needed rather 

than distributing them across the board. Pooling also encouraged economies 

of scale and simplified training, maintenance, and logistical support, since 

like-type units were concentrated organizationally. McNair’s approach had 

notable successes, such as the massing of artillery during the Battle of the 

Ardennes. As an example of brigade-based thinking, Macgregor’s proposed 

heavy maneuver combat group featured 1,800 soldiers in three combined-arms 

battalions of two tank companies, two mechanized companies, and a combat 

engineer company each; 800 soldiers in a reconnaissance squadron with three 

reconnaissance troops, a tank company, and an attack helicopter-equipped air 

reconnaissance troop; 750 soldiers in a howitzer and rocket-equipped indirect 

fires battalion; 550 soldiers in a command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence battalion; and 650 soldiers in a support battalion. With 

respect to combat and combat support, traditional divisional organization 

had concentrated infantrymen, tankers, artillerymen, engineers, and aviators 

in battalions of their own. Divisional artillerymen, engineers, and aviators 

were supervised in garrison by brigade-level commanders of their provenance. 

Further artillery, engineer, and aviation brigades and groups reported to the 

corps headquarters. This organization ensured that branch-qualified fieldgrade officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) of comparable experience supervised individual, crew, and small-unit training. It also ensured that 

substantial contingents from each branch could be amassed quickly. Armored 

cavalry squadrons had been exceptions to this general pattern, but they represented relatively small fragments of the overall force structure. Proposals 

distributing combat and combat support assets across brigades received immediate push back from those who preferred this earlier system.3

Advocates of a brigade-based Army proposed organizations that were 

intended to be modular, readily deployable assets that could be swapped 

out with like-type units or quickly “plug and play” into a Joint Task Force. 

Macgregor’s proposed combat variants, for example, included heavy combat, 

airborne–air assault, heavy recon-strike, and light recon-strike. For combat 

support there would be rocket artillery, aviation, and air defense groups, 

and combat service support would be provided by sustainment groups. 

Macgregor further proposed that a three-star Joint Forces Land Component 

Commander would have three two-star deputies, one to control close combat, 
295

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

one to control deep strike operations, and one to sustain the force. Each 

could routinely handle from six to nine groups. Much smaller than divisions, 

yet relatively autonomous and consisting of all arms, the groups would provide blocks with which to rapidly build up a force. Forces could be tailored 

by increments at the brigade level, avoiding a surfeit of assets not needed in 

the theater. Critics argued that modularity was not a new thing in the Army 

and that brigade-based design merely shifted the level at which it occurred. 

Committing aviation, artillery, engineer, and other units organically into 

brigades made these less available for distribution outside of them. The brigade or group might be the new building block, but its relative autonomy 

would make the former practice of swapping battalions around less practical. Autonomous aviation, artillery, air defense, and sustainment groups 

also would not have had customary relationships with the combat groups 

with whom they operated. In the division structure the full colonel division 

artillery (DIVARTY) commander, for example, was the conduit through 

which external artillery assets funneled. He and his staff were intimately 

familiar with and to the combat brigade commanders and their brigades, 

and trained alongside them. The same could be said of division aviation and 

engineer brigade commanders, the division support command (DISCOM) 

commander, and the air defense, military intelligence, and signal battalion 

commanders. Proposed redesign could render customary branch relationships within brigades or groups far more robust, but those across brigades 

and groups considerably less so. Many in the Army were not yet convinced 

that brigades, however potent, could succeed without the services that corps 

and divisions had customarily provided—in garrison or in the field.4

Rotational readiness and unit replacement had long appealed to critics of 

the individual replacement system practiced since the early twentieth century. 

The combat, combat support, and combat service support units envisioned 

by advocates of a brigade-based Army were of a size that would make such 

an approach feasible. Research and commentary concerning the flaws of the 

individual replacement system, and of Army personnel policies in general, was 

easy to find. Champions of unit rotation found much to admire in the recurrent generation of Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTF). This thinking was on line with such previous Army initiatives as Gyroscope, Overseas 

Unit Replacement System (OVUREP), Rotational Plan (ROTAPLAN), and 

Cohesion Operational Readiness and Training (COHORT). Proposed units 

would experience cycles of readiness wherein they stood up, absorbed personnel, trained rigorously, and stayed together through deployment, combat, and 

return. Unit stability would inculcate confidence, esprit, and mutually understood tactics, techniques, and procedures. Macgregor, for example, argued that 

Chief of Staff Carl E. Vuono suspended the “debilitating” Army personnel 

system prior to Desert Storm to knock the Army back into shape for the 

first Gulf War. Defenders of individual replacement countered that Vuono 

had actually exercised the system as designed. Rotational readiness would have 

perhaps a third of Army combat units available for deployment at a given time, 

as was the case with the Marines. The late Cold War Army’s readiness system 

envisioned sustaining all units in a “band of excellence” wherefrom they could 
Kevlar Legions

296

be brought to combat readiness within specified periods of time—days or 

weeks. The Marines rotated their units through operations in the Pacific at 

the time, whereas Army units were forward deployed or committed to war 

plans that required time-phased arrivals. As Desert Shield began Vuono 

initiated “stop loss” and hosed units down with replacements and resources. 

With rigorous last-minute training, units selected to deploy quickly bumped 

up from wherever they were in the “band of excellence” to true combat readiness. The individual replacement system had been justified by brutal demands 

to keep units up to strength in World Wars I and II. Collaterally, it facilitated 

schooling, reassignment for professional development, and the remediation 

of various forms of attrition in peacetime. Historically, unit manning had 

worked best when casualties were low and combat episodic, as had been the 

case on the nineteenth-century frontier. Unit rotation per se worked best when 

the situation was relatively static and there were ample units to rotate, as had 

been the case through much of World War I. When most or all units were 

committed, combat sustained, casualties high, and the situation fluid—as in 

the World War II Huertgen Forest—there had been no real alternative to individual replacement. Cold War planners who championed individual replacement had World War II in mind when they advocated a peacetime personnel 

system reflecting the wartime realities they envisioned. The system encountered some criticism in Korea and considerable criticism in Vietnam. In its 

favor, units remained up to strength. Drafted soldiers endured the rigors of 

combat for a single year, professional soldiers fought for a year at a time, and 

there were almost always enough seasoned veterans on hand in a unit to bring 

new arrivals quickly aboard. As Vietnam dragged on, adverse implications for 

unit cohesion became more apparent. Debates concerning rotational readiness 

and unit replacement pivoted on the future war envisioned. Would most or 

all units be simultaneously committed to bloody conflict, or would there be 

smaller but more recurrent episodes with relatively few casualties involved?5

“Jointness” was a desirable attribute the services had actively pursued at 

least since the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Emphasis on mutual understanding, cooperation, intervisibility, reduction of redundancy, and integration of combat and sustainment efforts was well placed. The devil was in the 

details, however, and jointness had important implications for Army force 

structure. At the grandest level, service representatives debated how much 

maritime and air supremacy was enough before resources should sensibly 

be shifted to far less advantaged—and numerically disadvantaged—ground 

forces. The collapse of the Soviet Union, evaporation of near-peer naval 

and air rivalry, and disproportionate operational requirements on existing 

ground forces were grist for Quadrennial Defense Reviews, as we have seen. 

Expanding Army capabilities for deep battle further complicated relationships with the Air Force and Navy. Breaking the Phalanx proposed that a 

three-star Joint Forces Land Component Commander would have a twostar deputy commanding a robust mix of rocket artillery, aviation, and air 

defense groups. As the range, precision, capability, and targeting information 

available to relevant Army forces inevitably increased, they equally inevitably 

provoked further discussion of roles and missions. “Big sky, little bullet” was 
297

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

ever less practical as a principle for de-conflicting air space. Proliferating 

cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles complicated the circumstances, 

as did more capable air defenses for bringing the aircraft and missiles of 

an enemy down. Some joint enthusiasts argued strike aircraft with precision-guided munitions rendered a robust forward presence of field artillery 

obsolete. Counterarguments were that precision-guided munitions required 

precisely defined targets, most artillery fires were used for suppression rather 

than destruction, and there were still plenty of uses for cheap “dumb” munitions. If seizing and controlling terrain remained important, ground combat 

remained ultimately decisive. Such an inference was more congenial to the 

Army and Marines than to the Navy and Air Force, of course. Although the 

redesign of Army force structure would be broadly supportive of jointness, 

interservice points of contention would frame and shape its progress.6

Logistics were not much developed in most of the writings advocating the 

dismantlement of divisions, corps, and theater support commands, to include 

Breaking the Phalanx. Some blandly assumed Information Age technologies 

would inevitably reduce tail-to-tooth ratios, without describing how or why this 

was to occur. Historically, manpower given over to logistics had increased in an 

upward parabolic arc from the low-technology (albeit not for the times) Roman 

legion through the high-technology Army of Excellence division. The Air Force 

was arguably the most Information Age savvy and highly technical service, and 

it featured the tiniest percentages of actual combatants. When robust networks 

of digital equipment were eventually fielded amid phalanxes of robots, swarms 

of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), fields of sensors, and fleets of future 

combat vehicles, how was the panoply to be maintained? Logistical force planners lamented that tactical theorists waxed eloquently on the roles and missions 

of combat and combat support units, and then dispatched logistics with a box 

or two on a wiring diagram. This was not a new complaint, nor one confined to 

American theorists. Logisticians surmised a failure to appreciate all that actually 

goes on in a support battalion and in the echelons supporting it, deficient understanding of “below the line” forces, and capricious neglect of executive agency. 

With respect to a brigade-support battalion, in a scenario wherein all of the brigades in a theater reported to a single headquarters, the theater communications 

zone would begin at the brigade rear boundary. Thus each of the many specialties within a field-grade headquarters would draw directly from counterparts 

at a four-star headquarters without assistance or intervention. If one has never 

served as a logistician above the brigade level this may seem easy enough, but 

for most who have the complications seem daunting. “Above-the-line” forces are 

the “chips” that appear on map boards and figure in schemes of maneuver: divisions, separate brigades, cavalry regiments, and the like. Below-the-line forces 

are the combat support and combat service support forces traditionally located 

at the corps echelon and above that enable the above-the-line forces to succeed. 

Going into Desert Storm the accepted manpower proportions between belowthe-line and above–the-line forces was 1.6 to 1 for an austere theater. In Desert 

Storm a proportion of 1.3 to 1 worked, largely because of host-nation offsets. 

Even if flattening, reorganization, technology, or offsets enabled substantial 

further reductions, below-the-line forces would still require an attention to 
Kevlar Legions

298

detail at least as great as that accorded above-the line-forces. Executive agency 

defines support the Army is required to provide all services within a theater. 

Examples include—but certainly are not limited to—Class I (rations) inland, 

ocean terminals, intermodal container management, transportation engineering, land transportation, military customs inspections, power generation, landbased water resources, overland petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL), military 

postal service, prisoner of war (POW) and detainee programs, veterinary support, battlefield medical evacuation, mortuary services, graves registration, and 

disposal of explosives and munitions. This partial list implies a great deal of 

additional work. Advocates of dramatic service redesign came to see traditional 

logisticians as willful “toads in the road” creating obstacles to every proposal 

they suggested. Logisticians came to perceive the theorists as fanciful dreamers, 

willing to commit the Army to a force structure it could not support. Creative 

tension between the two would substantially affect the theoretical and practical 

course of force redesign.7

The Chiefs of Staff, TRADOC, the Army Staff, and feedback from the field 

were, as we have seen in earlier chapters, principal drivers in transformation as it 

developed. Deliberations were enriched by voluble internal and external debate. 

A number of the authors of relevant articles, papers, studies, and briefings stemming from the post–Cold War intellectual ferment played Army “insider” roles 

as redesign progressed, as the names in our end notes suggest. Subordinates of 

Generals Reimer and Shinseki sought to position Macgregor in such an inside 

role as well, but these efforts did not work out. Some in the press depicted 

Macgregor as a brilliant innovator crushed by the dead weight of bureaucracy. 

This was caricature, not altogether untrue but certainly overdone. Macgregor’s 

superiors during several unhappy episodes were hardly Neanderthals, possessed 

advanced degrees themselves, and in some cases were published authors. The 

interpersonal skills required of a visionary are different than those required to 

make things happen amid the staff interplay of competing priorities and interests. The military decision-making process (MDMP), imbued in the Army at 

least since the era of General George C. Marshall, envisioned that all relevant 

factors would be considered, those empowered to do so would make decisions, 

and all would then “salute the flag” and move on. Staff work was anonymous, 

staff officers self-deprecating, and staff decisions revisited, if ever, discretely. 

Macgregor made his greatest contributions as a gadfly, operating outside of the 

actual decision-making process, energizing different and diverse audiences, forcing attention upon issues he considered important, and fostering ideas of which 

respectable proportions proved practical. Emphasis upon brigade-sized maneuver groups, modularity, rotational readiness, unit replacement, revamped command hierarchy, and jointness all did figure in the Army’s redesign. Logistics, 

thinly treated by Macgregor and others but robustly represented in TRADOC 

and on the Army Staff, figured as well.8

The Brigade, 1989–2005

The 1980s vintage Army of Excellence had fixed ideas concerning the role 

of brigades and how they fit into the larger framework established by divisions 
299

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

and corps. Brigades fought the close battle side by side along a “line of contact.” Their direct-fire weapons reliably ranged out to 3,000 meters, which did 

much to define their “battle space.” Maneuver training reinforced an appreciation of how this battle space should lay out. Maneuver umpires were taught 

such actuarial norms as three M1A1 rounds could be expected to kill a T72 

caught in the flank at 2,000 meters, whereas T72s would have to be at 1,000 

meters or less to expect comparable results against the M1A1. Happily, a T72 

could not expect to penetrate the frontal armor of an M1A1, whereas M1A1s 

could expect to destroy the T72 by the time they had fired a fourth round 

at the front slope within 1,500 meters or less. These and related expectations 

figured into the design of company sectors, “kill zones,” and graphical depictions of battlefield plans. Constituent battalions of combat brigades might 

occupy about ten kilometers of breadth and depth in the defense and about 

half of that in the attack, although this varied with mission, enemy, terrain, 

and troops available (METT). A combat brigade traditionally deployed with 

two battalions forward and one back, and ideally preserved ten kilometers or 

so of depth for its own brigade rear area. Army of Excellence combat brigades 

had habitually associated forward support battalions for combat service support. These technically were organic to the DISCOM, but in practice were 

ever-present with the brigade when it deployed. Brigade combat teams also 

had habitually associated artillery battalions, but the disposition of these was 

more variable. The brigade-equivalent division artillery commander deployed 

artillery to best facilitate the division commander’s battle. The same could 

be said of the battalion level engineer, signal, military intelligence, and air 

defense commanders within the division that usually detached contingents 

to the brigade combat teams. The division fought a battle larger than that 

of its brigades in a temporal as well as a geographic sense. “AirLand Battle” 

envisioned Soviet attacks arriving in echelons and sought to engage those 

echelons throughout the depth of the battlefield rather than allowing them 

to concentrate on the front line of troops (FLOT) unmolested. The brigade 

was expected to handle enemy first-echelon regiments within about fifteen 

kilometers of its front, which roughly translated into those likely to bring 

direct fires to bear within less than twelve hours. The division coordinated 

and reinforced the brigades, but with its aviation brigade, rocket artillery, 

and enhanced access to intelligence it focused on engaging second-echelon 

regiments and divisions extending to 120 kilometers deep, or forty-eight hours 

out. The corps operated at about the same depth but with more weight, since 

it had multiple aviation and artillery brigades and greater access to intelligence 

and air support. If the “sandbox” allotted to the brigade was small in comparison to that of the division and corps, it was diminutive from an Air Force 

frame of reference. War College students benefited from a “USAF Missions 

Area Relationships Sideview” graphic (Diagram). On this slide “CAS” (close 

air support) appeared as a small wart over the front line depicted in the middle 

of the chart. “BAI” (battlefield air interdiction), wherein divisions and corps 

might play, covered a bit more space, and Air Force purer “AI” (air interdiction) ran deeper still. “DCA” (defensive counter air) and “OCA” (offensive 

counter air) arched protectively over these smaller domains, and these in turn 
USAF MISSIONS AREA RELATIONSHIPS SIDEVIEW

REAR

GLOBAL

(SPACE)

STRATEGIC RECON

FRIENDLY ENEMY STRATEGIC DEFENSE STRATEGIC OFFENSE

REGIONAL

DCA

OCA

SEAD

TAC RECON TAC

AIRLIFT CAS BAI AI

STRATEGIC

AIRLIFT

CLOSE DEEP

FRONT

LINE

Diagram—USAF Missions Area Relationships Sideview
301

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

were dwarfed by “strategic defense” and “strategic offense” extending grandly 

from one side of the slide to another—and well into an area marked “space.” 

The wart under CAS “belonged” to the Army, defined where the “short sword 

fighting” of direct combat would occur, and was largely co-terminal with the 

brigade battle area.9

During General Gordon R. Sullivan’s tenure as Chief of Staff there was 

no great interest in departing from the basic Army of Excellence organization 

he had inherited. As we have seen in Chapter 3, the overwhelming priority was 

sustaining quality amid traumatic downsizing and geographical relocations. 

Sullivan believed an organization could only endure so much turmoil at one 

time without significant degradation, and he well knew how much turmoil the 

pursuit of the “peace dividend” was already inflicting. The brainstorming of 

his modern Louisiana Maneuvers ranged broadly through various organizational possibilities but generally came back to the notion with respect to the 

near term of applying Information Age technologies and other advances to 

existing force structure. The most dangerous threat was still visualized as a peer 

or near-peer, and most accepted the logic of TRADOC that “AirLand Battle 

worked well in the Persian Gulf” and thus pursued a paradigm that “builds 

upon the strengths of AirLand Battle and evolves it towards the future.”10

Immediate post–Cold War thinking did emphasize improved power projection 

through greater strategic mobility and advocated greater capabilities to operate across the full operational continuum. The first of these would be achieved 

in the near term through enhanced sealift, airlift, and pre-positioning. The 

second would require forces designed with a traditional “war-fighting orientation” to modify methods and organizations when in lesser circumstances. 

Operations other than war were inherently joint, interagency, and combined. 

Therefore some civilian agency such as the Department of State would ideally 

have the lead for the United States in operations short of war, and American 

forces would deploy to such contingencies in the support of local allies. The 

Army’s primary focus would remain war-fighting against peer or near-peer 

opponents, and it would organize accordingly. Sullivan and General Fred 

Franks of TRADOC directed force planners to focus on getting the division 

right as an echelon of battle command first and then to work up and down 

the command hierarchy from there. The process implied pruning rather than 

major surgery insofar as force structure was concerned.11

General Dennis J. Reimer shared Sullivan’s conviction that near-term 

upgrades necessarily would be technological appliqué upon existing organizations. Division XXI was by and large a trimmer version of its predecessors, 

advancing the evolutionary themes of Force XXI. Reimer did, however, preside over at least three steps in the direction of a brigade-based Army. First, 

looking beyond Force XXI to his Army After Next, TRADOC was open to 

the possibility of eliminating echelons. As we have seen, Reimer advanced 

Macgregor’s Breaking the Phalanx as a basis for discussion and as a model for 

war-gamed analyses. Several Army After Next war games experimented with 

abstractly named “echelons of maneuver” and “echelons of concentration” to 

avoid mind-sets committed to present structure. With time, war-gamed echelons of maneuver began to look a lot like brigade combat teams. Second, 
Kevlar Legions

302

the new Army National Guard enhanced brigades developed after Desert 

Storm evolved into a prototype emphasizing brigades and diminishing divisions. Enhanced brigades enjoyed priority with respect to resources, training, 

and mobilization expectations. The newly activated headquarters of the 24th 

Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas, and the 7th Infantry Division at Fort 

Carson, Colorado, assumed responsibility for the preparation and training 

of National Guard enhanced brigades but did not have the support elements 

theretofore expected of divisions. These instead remained embedded within 

the enhanced brigades. This independent separate brigade configuration was 

characteristic of enhanced brigades not committed to the 7th or 24th Divisions 

as well. Third, Reimer designated the 2d Armored Cavalry as an experimental “Strike Force” and set out to develop it into a strategically mobile force 

of medium weight capitalizing on the latest technologies. The Strike Force 

headquarters was to be a highly flexible receptacle into which a broad range 

of capabilities could plug in. Conceptually, it seemed somewhere between a 

robust brigade combat team and a division or corps headquarters capable of 

controlling diverse assets. It also departed from the notion that brigades would 

deploy on line, responding doctrinally to experiences in Somalia, the Balkans, 

and elsewhere.12

General Eric K. Shinseki continued Reimer’s azimuth with the Army 

National Guard enhanced brigades that became, as we have seen, ever more 

prone to deploy. He also continued the effort to envision ground warfare 

abstractly enough to eliminate an echelon of command if it proved desirable. 

TRADOC analysts developing his objective force took to war-gaming a “Units 

of Purpose Framework.” Fixed organizations designed to accomplish specific 

“mission essential” tasks were called units of action (UAs). Nimble headquarters that commanded mixes of UAs appropriate for an assigned mission, but 

which were themselves unencumbered by permanent organic structure beyond 

that necessary for command and control, were called units of employment 

(UEs). The battlefields played in most scenarios were nonlinear. Fluid attacks 

along multiple axes developed via Information Age “dominant knowledge” 

were keys to success. By 2001 it seemed clear that the best fit for a modernized 

UA was roughly equivalent to a brigade combat team, with fixed subordinate organizations equivalent to battalions, companies, and platoons. Even as 

these analyses progressed Shinseki organized, equipped, and trained Stryker 

Brigade Combat Teams as the battlefield presence of his Interim Force. Stryker 

Brigades were, as we have seen, robust combined-arms teams including infantry, armor, artillery, engineers, intelligence, and combat service support riding 

on a common wheeled chassis. It was modernized and digitized insofar as was 

possible with immediately available technologies or off-the-shelf hardware and 

software. The Stryker Brigade numbered about 3,500 soldiers and 300 vehicles 

overall, and the first was ready to deploy before General Shinseki departed as 

Chief of Staff.13

General Peter J. Schoomaker committed to the final steps to a brigadebased Army. The TRADOC design for combat UAs was well along, although 

support UAs were considerably less developed. The first Stryker Brigade, 

the 3d Brigade, 2d Infantry Division, had deployed to Iraq and was giving a 
303

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

good account of itself. Actual combat in Iraq was nonlinear after April 2003 

and had devolved to the brigade level and below. Schoomaker felt pressed 

for time for several reasons. First, emerging long-term rotational demands to 

Iraq and elsewhere threatened to exhaust the Army unless more and nimbler 

units for rotation could be quickly fielded. Second, evolving force generation 

processes—manning, equipping, training, deploying, and redeploying—were 

much more capably supported by installations and others if at the brigade 

level or below. Finally, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq generated massive 

supplemental funding from Congress that could be turned to Army redesign if 

it benefited these wars in particular. Army transformation ideally could occur 

before supplementals ceased. Schoomaker decided to tie unit reorganizations 

to upcoming rotations, starting with the 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized) 

slated to return to Iraq in 2005. To speed things along he directed the 3d Infantry 

Division commander to come up with his own redesign without consulting or 

waiting for TRADOC, multiplying from three line brigades to five modular 

brigade combat teams drawing entirely upon organic resources. Stung by the 

slight but inspired by the emphasis, TRADOC narrowed the participants in its 

own brigade redesign and sped its process along. The two initiatives crossed 

paths before the 3d Infantry Division actually deployed. Schoomaker accepted 

a design that extracted four brigade combat teams rather than five from contemporary divisions, a significant increase nevertheless. Under the new plan 

line brigade combat teams available for rotation—active and reserve—would 

increase from forty-eight to seventy. As force generation cycles left brigade 

combat teams wearing the same shoulder patch at different stages, deploying division headquarters became ever more likely to command and control 

patches other than their own. The division-based Army of the Cold War would 

evolve into the brigade-based Army of the wars that followed.14

Design guidance for Heavy Units of Action, to be drawn from contemporary heavy divisions, included being capable of all contemporary heavy 

brigade combat team missions and making use of equipment to be available 

not later than 2005. Schoomaker recognized that despite analyses, exercises, 

and war-gaming, combat would expose shortcomings and dictate revisions. 

Revisions would be applied to succeeding overseas rotations as the model 

was refined. TRADOC analysts tested five distinct proposals before narrowing down to three and then to one. Given the aspiration for seventy brigades 

overall, numbers made it virtually impossible to field three robust maneuver 

battalions in each of them. Schoomaker ultimately and grudgingly accepted 

a two-battalion design. Each of the two battalions was to be a combinedarms battalion with two tank companies, two mechanized infantry companies, 

and an engineer company. The brigade also featured an armed reconnaissance 

squadron with three ground troops assisted by a small fleet of UAVs (Charts 3 

and 4). This considerably improved the brigade’s ability to control ground and 

radically improved its ability to identify enemy locations and call in indirect 

fires. Such fires would generally come from a two-battery (eight self-propelled 

155-mm. guns each) artillery battalion organic to the UA, and the fires of other 

units coordinated through this battalion. Like the DIVARTY commander of 

earlier divisions, the commander of the UA’s artillery battalion would double 
AOE 3D BRIGADE, 2D ARMORED DIVISION

AS TASK ORGANIZED FOR OPERATION DESERT STORM, 1991.

X

3 2

I I

1–41

I I

2–66

I I

3–66

I I

498 SPT

I

HHC

I I

4–3

I

D/17

MODULAR 2D BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM,

 3D INFANTRY DIVISION (HEAVY BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM)

 IN OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM, 2005.

X

2 3

I I

3–15 (INF)

I I

1–64 (AR)

I I

3–7

I I

26 SPT

I I

BSTB

I I

1–9

Chart 3—AOE 3d Brigade, 2d Armored Division,

as Task Organized for Operation Desert Storm, 1991

Chart 4—Modular 2d Brigade Combat Team,

 3d Iinfantry Division (Heavy Brigade Combat Team),

 in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2005
305

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

as his commander’s senior artillery coordinator. He would have a state-of-theart target acquisition platoon to help identify targets and ready access to air 

assets as circumstances required. Combat service support for the UA would be 

provided by a brigade support battalion including a maintenance company, a 

distribution company, a medical company, and a forward support company 

each for the maneuver battalions, reconnaissance squadron, and fires battalion. Initially these forward support companies were envisioned as organic 

to the battalions they supported, but this ran afoul of the combat exclusion 

policy for female soldiers—a major fraction of such logistical troops. Instead 

the companies were assigned to the brigade support battalion, technically not 

a combat arms unit. A brigade special troops battalion, a somewhat confusing 

designation resurrected from previous Army experience, included the brigade 

headquarters company, a signal company, and a military intelligence company. 

Within the headquarters itself such specialties as psychological operations, 

civil-military relations, human intelligence, operational law, public affairs, and 

air defense were represented by assigned personnel. In sum the organization 

had many attributes of a miniature division, with all relevant branches organic 

to it and substantial operational autonomy.15

The Infantry Unit of Action was to be capable of all contemporary infantry brigade combat team missions and to make use of equipment to be available not later than 2005. Force planners were directed to standardize three 

theretofore distinct types of units: airborne, air assault, and light. These units 

had evolved uniquely and differently, primarily because of their divisional settings. Airborne battalions and brigades were constituent to or modeled after 

the 82d Airborne Division and designed for parachute entry. A separate airborne brigade each existed in Europe and the Pacific. Air assault battalions 

and brigades were constituent to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and 

executed forcible entry via helicopter lift generated from the division’s aviation 

assets. Light infantry brigades were constituent to light infantry divisions and 

had appreciable organic rolling stock, which made them more mobile on the 

ground than their airborne or air assault counterparts. They were, however, 

far better designed to defend difficult terrain than to execute forcible entry. 

From these differences divergent training, equipment, and ways of doing business had emerged. If Infantry Units of Action were to be modular, all would 

have to be identically trained and equipped, and capable of both forcible entry 

and sustained defense. The division as the singular context for training and 

operations was to drop out of the picture. Combat enablers not organic to the 

Unit of Action would be provided by separate combat support and combat 

service support brigades instead. As had been the case with the Heavy Unit 

of Action, Schoomaker reluctantly accepted a design featuring two maneuver 

(infantry) battalions and a reconnaissance squadron to achieve the desired 

number of brigade combat teams for the rotational base (Charts 5 and 6). The 

infantry battalions were to have three rifle companies and a weapons company 

apiece. The weapons company featured three assault platoons mounted in 

armored high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) carrying 

antitank missiles, grenade launchers, and heavy machine guns. It also had a 

sniper section, a mortar platoon, and a scout platoon. The reconnaissance 
AOE 2D BRIGADE, 7TH INFANTRY DIVISION

AS TASK ORGANIZED FOR OPERATION JUST CAUSE, 1989–1990.

I I

5–21

I I

2–27

(Detached)

I I

3–27

X

2 7

I

HHC

I I

6–8

I

B/13

I

A/2-62

I

B/707

I

B/7

2/B/127

I

B/7

MODULAR 173D AIRBORNE BRIGADE COMABT TEAM

(INFANTRY BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM (AIRBORNE)

IN OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM, 2007–2008.

I I

BSTB

X

173

I I

1–503

I I

2–503

I I

1–91

I I

4–319

I I

173 SPT

Chart 5—AOE 2d Brigade, 7th Infantry Division,

as Task Organized for Operation Just Cause, 1989–1990

Chart 6—Modular 173d Airborne Brigade Combat Team

(Infantry Brigade Combat Team [Airborne])

in Operation Enduring Freedom, 2007–2008
307

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

squadron had two motorized reconnaissance troops, a dismounted reconnaissance troop, and an unmanned aerial vehicle platoon. An organic fires battalion had two firing batteries with eight 105-mm. howitzers each and a target 

acquisition platoon. The brigade special troops battalion included an engineer 

company, a military intelligence company, and a signal company. The brigade 

support battalion included a distribution company, a maintenance company, 

a medical company, and a forward support company each for the infantry 

battalions, the reconnaissance squadron, and the fires battalion. Force planners again neatly sidestepped the combat exclusion policy for female soldiers 

by assigning forward support companies to the support battalion rather than 

to battalions that they would actually support. The model came down about 

halfway between the relative immobility of paratroopers once they had landed 

and the effective motorization of the light divisions. Each forward support 

company had a wheeled transportation platoon capable of lifting a company, 

and the support battalion could lift two companies more. Thus more than half 

the brigade could be on organic wheels at the same time. For further wheeled 

lift, or for any airborne or air assault lift, the Infantry Unit of Action would 

require outside assets. The overall design had more strategic mobility than 

light infantry brigades had enjoyed and considerably more staying power—in 

particular the organic capacity for ammunition resupply—than that of airborne or air assault battalions.16

The shift to a brigade-based army implied brigade-based combat support 

and combat service support beyond that organic to the maneuver brigade 

combat teams themselves. After considerable deliberation, force planners 

determined that five types of modular support units of action were required: 

aviation, fires, maneuver enhancement, battlefield surveillance, and sustainment. Of these, aviation, fires, and sustainment came closest to traditional 

models and ways of doing business. Maneuver enhancement and battlefield 

surveillance involved greater novelty and more conceptual difficulties. The 

Aviation Unit of Action was to provide attack and lift assets, as well as air 

mobile reconnaissance and security. Paired with an appropriately trained 

Infantry Unit of Action, it could replicate the air assault capabilities of the 

101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) on a brigade scale. It could also serve 

as a maneuver force in its own right, attaching ground assets as necessary, 

or untether itself from the ground battle and conduct deep strikes within the 

range of its aircraft. It would feature two attack helicopter battalions, a utility 

assault helicopter battalion, an aviation support battalion, an aviation general support battalion, and a signal company as organic units. In addition, 

it would generally have an unmanned aerial vehicle company assigned. The 

Fires Unit of Action would provide close support, counterfire, and precision 

fires on high-value targets. It would include an organic rocket battalion with 

a forward support company, unmanned aerial vehicles, a target acquisition 

battery, a brigade support battalion, and a signal company. It would generally 

have additional rocket battalions, field artillery battalions, and information 

operations units assigned as well. Like the DIVARTY of yore, it would be 

able to mass fires under the direction of a full colonel to reinforce the artillery 

assets already committed to Maneuver Units of Action. With the appreciable 
Kevlar Legions

308

reach of its unmanned aerial vehicles and rocket systems, it could also conduct 

deep battle missions theretofore customarily associated with Corps Artillery. 

The Sustainment Unit of Action, like the DISCOM it superseded, was to 

shepherd the combat service support necessary to support up to ten combat 

or combat service support counterparts. Unlike the DISCOM, forward support battalions (brigade support battalions) serving the maneuver or combat 

support units of action were not to be organic to it. The Sustainment Unit of 

Action would have an organic brigade special troops battalion with a signal 

company, support company, and medical detachment organic to it. Additional 

support battalions would generally be assigned, most of which featured a mix 

of ammunition, transportation, maintenance and supply, and services companies. The brigade special troops battalion would generally have finance and 

personnel detachments assigned, and the Sustainment Unit of Action might 

attach medical units of up to brigade size. The Sustainment Unit of Action 

resembled the earlier Corps Support Command (COSCOM) more so than 

the DISCOM. It would extend its oversight to the forward support battalions 

organic to the combat and combat support units of action within its purview, 

but its greater role was to coordinate a mixed array of logistical separate battalions providing services extending to the theater level.17

The Maneuver Enhancement Unit of Action and the Battlefield 

Surveillance Unit of Action both featured functions not readily compartmented at the tactical, or even operational, level. For a time the Maneuver 

Enhancement Unit of Action was called the Protection Unit of Action since 

it agglomerated units largely intended to mitigate the effects of hostile action 

or civil unrest: air defense, chemical, civil affairs, engineer, explosive ordnance 

disposal, and military police. Several of these functional areas were so critical 

at the operational and theater levels that brigades purely featuring them as 

well as units of action incorporating them would be required. Such potentially 

brigade-pure functions included air defense, civil affairs, engineers, and military police. An air defense brigade might be committed to defend a theater, for 

example, while air defense battalions assigned to a Maneuver Enhancement 

Brigade might cover clusters of units of action operating in lesser spaces within 

it. The Maneuver Enhancement Brigade would have a brigade support battalion and a signal company organic to it, and it would routinely have air defense, 

chemical, engineer, and military police battalions or companies assigned to it. 

It would also be likely to have civil affairs, explosive ordnance disposal, and 

maneuver units attached. The likely attachment of maneuver units recognized 

the lack of front lines in such places as Afghanistan or Iraq, where commanders at all levels had to be prepared to fight it out on the ground. Battlefield 

surveillance was another functional area wherein responsibilities quickly 

escalated from the tactical through the theater level. Major headings included 

reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, intelligence, and intelligence 

integration. War-gaming established that the reconnaissance squadrons in the 

Maneuver Units of Action, and the fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles there 

and in the Aviation and Fires Units of Action, had vastly increased the intelligence assets available at the tactical level. There was contention as to whether 

the Battlefield Surveillance Unit of Action also needed ground assets to fight 
309

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

for information, but ultimately it received a cavalry reconnaissance squadron 

with two ground reconnaissance troops and a long-range surveillance troop. 

The Battlefield Surveillance Unit of Action would police terrain incidentally 

or accidentally not covered by Maneuver or Fires Units of Action, but would 

focus on pulling together the larger intelligence picture and drawing national 

assets into the local battle. The Battlefield Surveillance Unit of Action would 

have an organic military intelligence battalion, the cavalry reconnaissance 

squadron, a signal company, and a support company. It would customarily 

have special operations forces, unmanned aerial vehicles, aviation battalions, 

and military intelligence assets under its operational control (OPCON) or 

attached.18

Force structure redesign inevitably trades off advantages and disadvantages, and the move to a brigade-based Army was no exception. On the plus 

side, the new brigade combat teams were far more modular, numerous, suitable for rotation, robust in their capabilities, and empowered to fight a 360-

degree battle without notice than their predecessors. They could operate well 

beyond the “wart” of the Cold War close battle. The reconfiguration proved 

timely and appropriate, given realities on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

On the debit side, the Army was less capable than it had been of slugging it 

out with near-peer adversaries, seemed more likely to “orphan” units, and was 

increasingly dependent on outside help to accomplish its missions. The greatest detriment to dealing with a near-peer was the lack of maneuver reserves 

within the brigade. Hallowed tradition featured “triangular” units deploying 

subordinate units “two up and one back.” The two forward bore the brunt 

of initial contact, and the one back defeated enemy penetrations or exploited 

tactical opportunities as they developed. Since this basic paradigm simultaneously applied at the platoon, company, battalion, brigade, and division levels, 

commanders had a resilient sponge-like depth when on the defense and waves 

of potential exploitation forces when on the offense. The new two-battalion 

brigade combat team could best generate a reserve by pulling companies from 

its battalions, thus reducing the battalions’ capability to generate a reserve, 

or deflecting its reconnaissance assets into a reserve role. Alternatively, some 

other brigade could serve as the reserve for a larger array, thus skipping an 

echelon with respect to reserves. War games revisited the two-battalion versus 

three-battalion model time and again and found the two-battalion model’s 

thinness of reserves at the brigade level troublesome against a near-peer in a 

pitched battle. A related issue was the ability to mass such assets as artillery 

and engineers at the operational level, given the numbers already committed 

to and organic to brigade combat teams. The disappearance of Corps Artillery 

and DIVARTY created “who’s your daddy?” situations for artillerymen, and 

these were even more pronounced in the cases of engineers, signal, and military intelligence. In the traditional division battery and company commanders from these branches reported to a field-grade commander who supervised 

their use and steered their professional development—and that of their subordinates. Now batteries and companies were organic to brigade combat teams, 

and relationships with superior organizations within their branches were ill 

defined. The potential for orphanage was also present in the large mix of units 
Kevlar Legions

310

customarily assigned, attached, or OPCON to Fires, Maneuver Enhancement, 

Battlefield Surveillance, and Sustainment Units of Action when on active 

operations, but presumably independent when not. Efficient branch use outside the brigade, branch competency within the brigade, and professional 

development of combat support and combat service support officers within 

and without emerged as potential issues. Bucking the trend, air defense artillery disappeared from the customary constitution of a brigade combat team 

rather than becoming organic within it. This assumed air supremacy, as did 

the choice of more air-mobile 105-mm. rather than of more capable 155-mm. 

artillery for the infantry unit of action. Fleets of UAVs were to fly unmolested 

under the protective cover of air supremacy as well. The UAVs and virtually 

every other piece of advanced technology would require contractors to maintain them, and a host of other contractors would backfill holes reorganization 

had exposed. Concerning such reliance on external support, more later. All the 

above having been said, the Army faced no near-peer in Iraq or Afghanistan, 

the unprecedented professional caliber of officers and senior NCOs mitigated 

orphanage issues, air supremacy was a fact, and ample numbers of capable 

contractors existed. The brigade-based redesign may not have been the best fit 

for all circumstances, but it seemed the best fit for the circumstances the Army 

was actually in.19

Headquarters Above Brigade, 1989–2005

The shift to a brigade-based Army implied a radical shift in the composition, roles, and missions of elements above brigade. The overwhelming majority of deployed or deploying soldiers were to be in maneuver units of action, 

support units of action, or separate functional brigades. Traditionally, divisions, corps, and armies had mustered the lion’s share of combat support and 

combat service support units to support maneuver brigades thinly provided 

with such assets organically. The Army of Excellence division ultimately had 

colonels (O-6) commanding an aviation brigade, a DIVARTY, an engineer brigade in the heavy division, and a DISCOM. Each commanded multiple battalions within their purview and advised the division commander on how best 

to use them. Lieutenant colonels (O-5) in command of division air defense, 

military intelligence, engineer in the light divisions, and signal battalions provided similar service. Customary formation of brigade combat teams drew off 

many of these assets, but the division commander retained a robust residue 

and had the authority and subordinate leadership sufficient to resume control. The “capable” corps similarly controlled a panoply of combat support 

and combat service support units through constituent corps artillery, corps 

support command, aviation, engineer, air defense, signal, chemical, military 

intelligence, civil affairs and military police brigades, and finance and personnel groups. A theater army (the two were the same at the time) commanded 

personnel; medical; transportation; engineer; air defense; military police; civil 

affairs; psychological operations; nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) and 

intelligence commands; special ammunition and missile brigades; and special 

forces and petroleum groups. Numbers were considerable. At wartime strength 
311

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

a theater army medical command numbered about 27,000, a corps engineer 

brigade about 14,000, and division artillery about 2,600, for examples. A 

mechanized division numbered about 9,000 soldiers in addition to the 9,000 

in its line brigades, a wartime corps about 94,000 in addition to those in its 

assigned divisions, and a wartime theater army about 196,000 in addition to 

those in its corps. A mechanized division “slice” theoretically deploying to 

Southwest Asia would number 47,400, of which 17,500 would be from the 

division itself, 7,800 would constitute a nondivisional combat increment, 

and 22,000 would constitute a nondivisional tactical support increment. This 

robustness of assets at every level was the support and logistical equivalent of 

guaranteeing “two up and one back” for combat units. Commanders enjoyed a 

depth of capabilities that readily enabled them to shape the battlefield, react to 

contingencies, and exploit opportunities. Redundancy seemed prudent if one 

was to slug it out with a peer adversary.20

General Sullivan sought to prune this doctrinal force structure rather than to 

totally redesign it. His priorities were sustaining quality while radically downsizing and gaining an expeditionary capability through improved pre-positioning, 

sealift, and airlift. His modern Louisiana Maneuvers looked deeper, but for the 

near term his Force XXI generally envisioned applying digital technologies to 

contemporary platforms and force structure. General Reimer followed up with 

Force XXI but also oversaw experimentation with abstract “echelons of maneuver” and “echelons of concentration” when war-gaming his Army After Next. 

During General Shinseki’s tenure these abstractions matured into the “units of 

purpose framework” featuring “units of action,” “units of employment,” and 

a rigorous effort to redesign the Cold War paradigm from top to bottom. Key 

questions were whether or not an echelon of command could be eliminated, 

whether or not headquarters above the unit of action could be rendered smaller 

and more nimble, and whether or not redundancy could be eliminated given the 

efficiencies of Information Age technology. With General Schoomaker’s shift 

to a brigade-based Army, the answer seemed to be “yes” to all three questions. 

The unit of employment would be organized at two levels, a UEx at the higher 

tactical level and a UEy at the operational level. Between the two of them the 

traditional functions of theater, army, corps, and division would be divided—

eliminating one or two echelons, depending on how one counted. The UEx and 

UEy would themselves be nimble headquarters, numbering perhaps a thousand 

soldiers or so each. Manpower that had been committed to them in the Army 

of Excellence would be siphoned off into support units of action and a discrete 

number of functional brigades. These modular units would be used to expand 

or contract the capabilities of UEx’s and UEy’s without permanently enlarging them. Modular units of action would reduce redundancy as well, since no 

headquarters would hoard an organic inventory of units “just in case.” Units 

of action would be extractable, removable, and deployable. UEx’s and UEy’s 

would provide minimally manned matrices of headquarters above the UA level, 

with the UA’s themselves representing the great mass of the Army’s deployable 

manpower and muscle.21

The terms “unit of action” and “unit of employment” were intended to 

facilitate doctrinal deliberations unencumbered by tradition but were not 
Kevlar Legions

312

intended to become permanent nomenclature. Indeed, they could inhibit discussion with those outside the design process, as flabbergasted noninitiates 

tried to picture what an “SUA” or a “UEy” actually meant. Names matter, and 

the Army’s Center of Military History assumed its institutional responsibility for determining appropriate unit designations once force structure designs 

were far enough along to justify the effort. Schoomaker directed the Center to 

choose names that reinforced the intent of his modular initiative, while doing 

what it could to preserve historical unit lineages and minimize turbulence as 

secondary priorities. Such terms as platoon, company, troop, battery, squadron, and battalion had been used unmolested in the traditional sense throughout the units of purpose deliberations, so there was no incentive to change 

nomenclatures applicable at the battalion level and below. The maneuver unit 

of action seemed to most closely approximate the regimental combat team 

or brigade combat team of yesteryear. MacGregor’s preference for the term 

“group,” in the opinion of the Center, did not seem to offer enough advantages 

to justify extinguishing beloved and hallowed lineages. Continuous regimental 

lineages existed from 1636 (in the Army National Guard), continuous divisional lineages from 1879 (also in the Army National Guard), continuous corps 

lineages from 1918, and continuous numbered army lineages from 1918 as 

well. Brigades had been reinvented and reintroduced when the Reorganization 

Objective Army Division (ROAD) replaced the Pentomic Division in the early 

1960s. Beginning in 1957 the Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS) perpetuated regimental lineages outside of standing regiments. This system later 

extended to include whole-branch regiments for selected combat support and 

combat service support branches. Keeping this tradition in mind, the Center 

of Military History designed three alternatives that best reconciled with the 

imperative of reinforcing the modular initiative. In the first the UA carried the 

lineage of a divisional brigade, the UEx that of a division, and the UEy that 

of a corps. In the second, the UA carried the lineage of a regiment, the UEx 

that of a division, and the UEy that of an army. In the third the UA carried the 

lineage of a division, the UEx that of a corps, and the UEy that of an army. 

In briefing these alternatives, the Center of Military History developed them 

sufficiently to identify units, patches, and flags that would disappear in each 

case. When briefed, General Schoomaker elected to seek the counsel of retired 

senior officers and asked General Sullivan to head up a “blue ribbon panel” 

for that purpose. The Chief of Military History carried these distinguished 

retirees through briefings concerning the Army redesign and the alternative 

unit nomenclatures and designations that could be associated with it. In the 

end Sullivan’s team commented that all courses of action were feasible, but recommended “Course of Action 1.” This alternative involved the least change in 

the patches soldiers would be wearing and the banners they would be serving 

under. Sullivan and his colleagues believed tradition enhanced performance. 

His written response to Schoomaker evoked the book Band of Brothers popular, and on the Chief of Staff’s Reading List, at the time. Sullivan followed up 

by noting that most serving soldiers had earned and proudly wore divisional 

combat patches on their shoulders. For this singular honor to continue to have 

meaning, divisions would have to continue to have meaning.22
313

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

The next step was to specifically identify which headquarters were to disappear. The devil was in the details. In accordance with Course of Action 1, the 

Center of Military History dutifully prepared slides wherein the United States 

Army, Europe, and Seventh Army and the Eighth United States Army in Korea 

disappeared, as did the Third Army serving the Central Command and the First 

and Fifth Armies—the latter two then critical to recruitment, the Army Reserve, 

and the Army National Guard. Somehow word of these predecisional materials leaked, provoking angry phone calls from the field to the Chief of Military 

History and concerned phone calls to the Chief of Staff. Sullivan’s team of 

retirees had rightly noted that the average soldier, its highest priority, identified more closely with brigade or division than with corps or army. However, to 

diminish—or to appear to diminish—four- or three-star headquarters embedded in powerful alliances or political configurations could have significant 

consequences. The thought that a joint headquarters could replace them was 

not entirely comforting, since the commander might well not be Army in circumstances that suggested a senior Army leader. A four-star corps was out of 

the question. An obvious tweak for Course of Action 1 was to swap army and 

corps, eliminating the corps from the hierarchy and the lexicon. This did not 

war-game well, since a multitude of two-star headquarters reporting directly to 

a four-star headquarters could quickly exceed its span of control—particularly 

if the senior headquarters was joint. Some assumed that if further hierarchy 

proved necessary, one two-star (division) headquarters could be placed in charge 

of others. Skeptics tried to imagine division commanders cheerfully submitting 

to the supervision of their peers. Leaders capable of effectively commanding 

others are generally more experienced than those they command. Accepting 

that one should train as one would fight, this proposed subordination would 

have to occur well prior to actual operations. Schoomaker grudgingly accepted 

that he was not going to unconditionally eliminate an echelon of command. The 

UEy would bear a geographical designation and the lineage of a former numbered army. Contingency planners would have two-star “tactical UEx’s” and 

three-star “operational UEx’s” to choose from when designing a deployment. 

Circumstances might suggest the use of one, the other, or both. If the contingency got big enough, the familiar hierarchy of two-star, three-star, and fourstar headquarters with sensible spans of control would undoubtedly reemerge. 

The neat theory of simply eliminating a level of command ran afoul of alliance 

politics, bureaucratic practicalities, senior leader development, and of spans of 

control. The headquarters themselves might be smaller than before, but there 

would not necessarily be fewer of them. Sullivan had anticipated this dilemma, 

and in his letter to Schoomaker made the comforting comment, “While some 

would argue that the Army must make dramatic changes [to nomenclature] so 

that its commitment to Transformation is clear, we do not believe that people 

who really understand what the Army is doing will be persuaded one way or the 

other by what the Army calls its units.” If the nomenclature for echelons was not 

to change, the case should be made that their organization and ways of doing 

business had.23

The redesigned division (two-star) and corps (three-star) UEx’s were to 

be very different than before, and the theater/army UEy somewhat less so 
Kevlar Legions

314

(Charts 7 and 8). Shorn of capabilities that had migrated to support units of 

action, as of April 2005 the proposed division UEx weighed in at 1,242 personnel. Of these, 292 would be assigned to two nearly identical tactical command posts, each highly mobile and capable of fully controlling the tactical 

battle from a forward location. Another 277 were to be assigned to the main 

command post, a somewhat less nimble facility staffed to continuously control support, service support, and administration as well as combat operations per se. Liaison teams adding up to 40 personnel characterized as “joint” 

and 19 characterized as “digital” enabled the cooperation of other services 

and also enabled the division to serve as a joint task force headquarters if 

given the mission. A special troops battalion numbering 592 included 212 

in a signal support company (network). The redesigned corps UEx looked 

much like the division, albeit somewhat beefier to accommodate potentially 

greater responsibilities—and the greater likelihood it would serve as a joint 

task force headquarters. With advanced communications and three major 

nodes apiece, divisions and corps could spread out across vast amounts of 

space and establish integrated matrices for command and control. Since 

all nodes were digitally networked, all would simultaneously share identical battlefield pictures. Under this umbrella, maneuver and support units 

of action would operate with little risk of losing communications with the 

headquarters assigned to control them. If one link was down, the network 

could readily replace it with another. Divisions and corps were no longer 

“chips on the board.” They were the superstructure of command within 

which the chips operated. The UEy, now a regionally focused and named 

command and control headquarters bearing a numbered army lineage, was 

a bit more traditional. Planners accepted the need for continuously available intelligence, sustainment, network, and civil-military operations capabilities. Specifics would vary from theater to theater, but each theater would 

have an assigned core of critical support and combat support assets. Some 

would be branch-specific traditional brigades such as air defense, engineer, 

military police, or medical. Whereas corps, divisions, brigades, and below 

would be deployable assets rotated or rushed into theaters and constructed 

Lego-like into larger wholes, theater/armies would be continuously committed. Theater/armies, corps, and divisions would all be capable of serving as 

joint task force headquarters or Joint Forces Land Component Command 

headquarters if required.24

The considerable change envisioned for headquarters brigade and above 

did not escape criticism, to include critics alleging that it was not actually 

change at all. Well in the vanguard was Colonel Macgregor, now retired and 

working with a Washington “think tank.” In April 2005 he was invited to 

make a presentation to members of the House Armed Services Committee. He 

helpfully entitled it “Transformation and the Illusion of Change: Where Is the 

Army Really Headed? What Is to Be Done?” thus ensuring that no one missed 

the point that he was a critic. Macgregor covered a great deal of ground with 

customary acid and admonition. He characterized the division and corps echelons as “no change.” His ideas on command and control had evolved, and he 

briefed a slide wherein service-pure headquarters above those commanded by 
Chart 7ó AOE HEAVY CORPS DESIGN, 1983

Source:   CACDA Chart 83ñ6505A, Alternative (AOE) Heavy Corps. Shaded Areas indicate Reserve

  Component Fill. No Total-Corps TOE was published for the AOE Heavy Corps.

XXX

COS

MP

MI

I

LRS

I

HHC

X

X

X

X

X

HHC

X X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

III

X

X

X

XXX XXX

III

Chart 8ó AOE HEAVY CORPS DESIGN, 1985

Source:   CACDA Chart 84ñ7262, Proposed XVIII Airborne Corps, Shaded Areas indicate Reserve

  Component Fill. No Total-Corps TOE was published for the AOE Light Corps.

XXX

MP COS

MI

I

LRS

I

HHC

X

X

HHC

X X

X X

X X

X

III

X

X

III X

III

III

I

RAOC

X X

XXX XXX

III

Chart 7—AOE Heavy Corps Design, 1983

Chart 8—AOE Light Corps Design, 1985
Kevlar Legions

316

a brigadier general (his combat maneuver group) had disappeared, as had any 

headquarters commanded by a major general. The brigadiers would report to 

the three-star “purple” commander of a standing joint task force, who in turn 

reported to a joint four-star combatant commander. If span of control became 

a problem, more three-star standing joint task forces would be deployed. 

Fortuitously, the Air Force rather than the Army got to be the “toad in the 

road” deflecting this particular concept. Since unhappy experiences in World 

War II North Africa, the Air Force had ferociously advocated consolidating 

the control of its assets at the theater level—rather than parceling them out 

to the corps or divisions of the time. The range and reach of aircraft argued 

against assigning them to geographically constrained headquarters and argued 

for the centralized economies of scale the theater Air Tasking Order (ATO) 

was supposed to represent. The Air Force was averse to reporting through 

multiple layers of non–Air Force commanders; one was enough. The Navy 

was somewhat less centralized in its thinking and had the precedent of the 

Marine Air Ground Task Force in its heritage, but it too was wary of subordination to geographically constrained headquarters. If a theater were divided 

up geographically among a fistful of three-star joint task forces, the units actually assigned to them would overwhelmingly be Army or Marine. This subject 

was not much debated before the utility of the Army’s headquarters redesign 

was illustrating itself on the ground in Iraq, however. A matrix of division 

and corps headquarters shorn of former organic assets was sprawled across 

the country, commanding and controlling diverse mixes of combat, combat 

support, and combat service support brigades that often did not wear their 

patches. Reserve-component headquarters and units plunged into the cycle, 

adding to an overall rotational inventory that allowed a tiny active or activated 

Army of about 600,000 to maintain about 200,000 deployed for years on end. 

The military and political requirements of the theaters soon demonstrated 

ample scope for two-, three-, and four-star headquarters. Schoomaker’s final 

version of redesign did not require him to deploy such a hierarchy, but it did 

give him the option to do so when necessary.25

External Complements to Force Structure

As the Army downsized during the early 1990s and then evolved toward a 

brigade-based force, some functions it previously accommodated with organic 

assets migrated outside the service—in all or in part. This reflected the imperative of preserving “core” functions, the downstream consequences of defense 

reorganizations, the composition of newly designed “units of action” and “units 

of employment,” and efficiencies that could be gained through technological 

advance. Commanders and staffs of 1989 were thoroughly familiar with a paradigm characterized as the “Battlefield Operating System” (BOS). Walking into 

a Tactical Operations Center (TOC) at any level, one almost invariably encountered a chart with the headings Intelligence, Maneuver, Fire Support, Mobility/

Survivability, Air Defense, Combat Support, and Command and Control 

across the top or along one side. Generally the other axis featured time frames, 

and the chart communicated what each element of the BOS was to contribute 
317

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

during each phase of the battle. Denizens of the TOC, artfully trained by their 

branch schools, deployed fistfuls of field manuals and training aids to ensure 

they would wring the most possible out of the BOS for which they were responsible. The more senior among them, hopefully graduates of the Command and 

General Staff College or its equivalent, deployed further harvestings from their 

military educations to facilitate bringing the elements of the BOS together, and 

they trained their subordinates to do so as well. Assets under consideration were 

almost always Army. A handy packet of school-inspired pocket-sized reference 

cards issued throughout a brigade based in Germany, for example, spread fortynine explanatory bullets or sub-bullets across the seven BOS. Of these, only one 

acknowledged the potential presence of another service. It read “Air Force Air, 

Plan Targets Early.” The second half of the bullet reminded the practitioner of 

contemporary conventional wisdom that it took a painfully long time to bring 

the Air Force into play against ground targets. Beneath the division level, commanders and staffs became mindful of assets external to the Army in unusual 

circumstances, and divisions and corps themselves fought on largely service-pure 

battlefields. The ever-popular fire support coordination line (FSCL) provided a 

convenient boundary beyond which to “dump” air strikes that were too hard 

to figure into existing maneuver schemes. By 2005 much of this insularity had 

melted away, and the melting was accompanied by a considerable divestiture of 

force structure. Venues in which this divestiture was most pronounced included 

air defense, fire support, engineering, and logistics. Conversely, growth occurred 

in capabilities appropriate to operations other than war. In all these venues, 

complementary assets to address shortfalls came from outside the service.26

Cold War planners intended to achieve air superiority and then air supremacy eventually, but neither could be had without a fight. Until air supremacy 

was achieved the highest priority for the Air Force would be knocking out 

Warsaw Pact air forces—offensive counter air. This would collaterally protect 

Army units from air attack by destroying aircraft likely to attack them, and 

defensive counter air missions would be mounted as well. However, through 

the first weeks or months of operations the Army’s failsafe would be an 

umbrella of protection mounted by its own air defense assets. Brigade combat 

teams customarily deployed with an air defense battery attached, and battalion combat teams with a platoon. The division had an organic air defense 

battalion, and its commander “double-hatted” as air defense staff executor for 

the division commander. The same was true of the air defense brigade commander assigned to the capable corps. TOCs at every level built air defenders, 

whether assigned, attached, or supporting, into their fire support matrices. 

Crucial considerations included status of weapons and positioning. Status of 

weapons reflected the permissiveness with which air defenders could fire, constrained by imperatives to properly identify enemy and not shoot down friendly 

aircraft. “Hold” was very restrictive, “tight” less so, and “free” permissive. The 

Air Force was understandably paranoid about the proliferation of air defense 

weapons, even if in friendly hands, and lobbied hard for rigorous controls. 

Air defenders sought terrain best able to observe aerial avenues of approach, 

and their favored positions might well conflict with the needs of the ground 

commander or be outside the envelope of security he could provide. Terrain 
Kevlar Legions

318

apportionment, fratricide, and security became issues when small contingents 

of air defenders scattered across the battlefield to position for their missions. 

Aircraft and ground-based air defense had played a technological cat-andmouse game since World War II. Ever more capable air defense weapons forced 

aircraft to ever higher altitudes for relative safety, but ever more precise guided 

munitions enabled them to remain effective even at these higher altitudes. The 

alternative of flying “on the deck” throughout a target run was adrenal but 

ineffective, and stealth technologies were vulnerable to parallel advances in 

sensors. This running stalemate between attack and defense was considerably 

compromised by the proliferation of intermediate-range ballistic missiles and 

the prospective proliferation of effective cruise missiles. In both cases everimproving Patriot missiles seemed a promising defense, but not without the 

advance warning only space-based or top-down, high-altitude sensors could 

give. These invariably would be in the hands of the Air Force, reinforcing arguments for turning the entire air defense mission over to the Air Force as well. 

While this was being debated in elevated forums at the Pentagon, facts on the 

ground in Afghanistan and Iraq diminished Army interest in air defense at 

the TOC level. In these actual operations the adversaries were incapable of 

air strikes. Several weeks into the Global War on Terrorism Army observers were bemused by an Air Force claim that their air strikes had achieved 

air supremacy over Afghanistan. Had they not had air supremacy before the 

war even started? Whatever the Soviets might have mustered, the enemies the 

United States was actually fighting had no air capability, and those it seemed 

likely to fight had relatively little. The Army’s core mission of ground combat 

was manpower-intensive in these unconventional settings, yet required negligible attention to air defense. By January 2004 a sizable fraction of the Army’s 

air defense force structure, with some of the oldest lineages in the Regular 

Army, was on the chopping block to allow manpower reapportionments elsewhere. Air defense disappeared from all units of action except the maneuver 

enhancement brigade and was only represented by staff in the much reduced 

division and corps. As operations overseas matured, perhaps a single maneuver enhancement brigade at a time was assigned to Iraq or Afghanistan. This 

represented a density of air defenders an order of magnitude less than that of 

the Cold War. Whatever the doctrine, tactical air defense had migrated to the 

Air Force as a practical matter. To the TOC denizens of 2005, it was virtually 

invisible.27

Field artillery also experienced material, doctrinal, and practical diminishment during the transition to a brigade-based Army, although less so than air 

defense. Of seventy-six combat or combat support battalions identified as bill 

payers in a proposed January 2004 restructuring, almost half were field artillery. We have already discussed the demise of division and corps artillery—and 

of their commander positions. Within a brigade combat team a field artillery 

battalion of two batteries (albeit with eight rather than six guns each) replaced 

the battalion of three batteries that had been customary before. Field artillery 

not organic to brigade combat teams migrated to the fires brigades. These 

were formidable mixes of rocket and tube artillery but less numerous than 

their separate field artillery predecessors. After 2005 the Army sustained about 
319

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

two fires brigades in Iraq when more than twenty maneuver brigades were 

in country, for example. This was perhaps a third of Cold War norms. Fires 

brigades did not deploy to Afghanistan. Deployed, field artillerymen often 

assumed missions other than fire support. Indeed, many “mothballed” their 

guns in secure motor pools and took to patrolling on foot or in HMMWVs 

fielded as alternate sets of equipment. The visibility of field artillery as artillery dissipated in tactical operations centers. Cold War commanders were used 

to top-down fire planning that generated elaborate matrices of targets, affectionately referred to as “measles sheets.” Each of the numerous targets on a 

fire support overlay was uniquely numbered, assigned as a priority to one of 

the artillery battalions or batteries, and figured into one or more schemes of 

maneuver. In actual operations guns would “register” on their assigned targets, firing on them to refine the precision of their lay. The objective was to 

rapidly generate huge volumes of fire when called. Most of this fire would 

be suppressive, meaning one did not exactly know where the enemy was but 

wanted to “keep his head down”—to degrade his performance. The advent 

of cheap global positioning system (GPS)-based precision-guided munitions 

such as Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) radically improved aviation’s 

During Iraqi Freedom, combat support and combat service support troops increasingly patrolled as if they were infantry.
Kevlar Legions

320

capability to provide fire support, as did technological leaps with respect to 

attack helicopters. Meanwhile rocket artillery advanced considerably with 

respect to accuracy and range. The Cold War logic for keeping masses of tube 

artillery well forward was that it would be ever present to reliably deliver high 

volumes of fire regardless of the weather. Against a formidable opponent in 

Europe or Korea this was more important than against lesser opponents in 

Iraq or Afghanistan. During Desert Storm tube artillery saw relatively little 

use after the initial breakthrough, and in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom

it saw little use at all. In conventional direct-fire battles in these theaters the 

enemy was hopelessly overmatched even without artillery, and unconventional 

engagements seldom lasted long enough to bring artillery to bear. With a 

few notable exceptions, to be discussed in Chapter 9, air strikes and attack 

helicopters were adequate for the modest fire support necessary. The increasing accuracy and range of rocket and even tube artillery further reduced the 

imperative of keeping artillery well forward, since a given battery could now 

support a larger number of units at greater ranges. The loss of the Crusader, 

previously discussed, furthered a sense of malaise among tube artillerymen. 

Their craft, more than that of most, was associated with the Army’s supposedly ubiquitous “Cold War mentality.”28

Like artillerymen and air defenders, engineers found their roles and force 

structure altered or diminished with the Army’s redesign. The maneuver battalions of the new heavy brigade combat teams did have an organic combat 

engineer company each, and the infantry brigade combat teams a company. 

This provided them proportions of engineers comparable to that envisioned 

by the Army of Excellence. However, divisional engineer battalions and corps 

engineer brigades and groups disappeared. Outside the maneuver brigades 

engineers appeared in the maneuver enhancement brigades that were, as we 

have seen, thinly deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Theaters could be, and in 

practice were, supported by separate engineer brigades. Combat engineers in 

Iraq and Afghanistan were perhaps half as thick on the ground as they had 

been in earlier wars and theaters. Combat engineers had a long tradition of 

fulfilling a secondary role as infantry, and that role came to be well exercised 

in Southwest Asia. There was not all that much obstacle clearance, demolition, or field fortification for the combat engineers to do, and the bulk of 

horizontal and vertical construction, demining, and infrastructure refurbishment migrated to civilian contractors. The Cold War pocket-sized reference 

discussed previously had six bullets under “Mobility/Survivability,” only one 

of which applied to Iraq: “Bulldozer—Who Is in Charge?” It was no longer 

a corps or division engineer, nor was it one of their subordinates. Notably, 

the official in Washington, DC, most in the know with respect to engineering 

issues in Iraq was the commander of the Corps of Engineers. He was responsible for tracking, coordinating, and reporting progress (or lack thereof) with 

respect to oil infrastructure, the power grid, the road net, irrigation canals, 

government facilities, base construction, and the disposal of mines and munitions. The Corps of Engineers is an essentially civilian organization led by a 

small cadre of uniformed officers that relies on contracting to accomplish the 

bulk of its missions. Through October 2004 perhaps 1,700 of its employees 
321

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

had deployed to Iraq as compared with 86,000 soldiers rotating through conventional engineer units, yet the lion’s share of the rebuilding of Iraq was in 

its hands. This tracked with the revolution in military contracting discussed 

in Chapter 4, and in particular tracked with the philosophy of the Logistics 

Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). Such companies as Kellogg, Brown 

and Root, DynCorps, and Halliburton were ubiquitous in Iraq, and functions 

filled by uniformed engineers in the Cold War Army of yesteryear migrated 

to them from its tauter uniformed successor. Mindful of troop ceilings in the 

theater, Army engineers innovated to make the most of small numbers. A case 

in point was the forward engineer support team (FEST). It could travel to 

a bridge or some other structure, transmit measurements and photographs 

to the Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 

and get advice via interactive tele-engineering concerning the soundness of 

the structure and remedial actions to take. The FEST served as a metaphor for 

the redesigned Army engineers: thinner on manpower, high-tech, and heavily 

integrated with civilian and contracted assets.29

In so far as combat service support was concerned, “above-the-line”—formerly division and below—units available to the brigade-based Army were 

roughly comparable to those of the Cold War Army. Each brigade, whether 

combat or combat support, had its own organic brigade support battalion 

tailored to its organization. Maneuver battalions drew a forward support company from this brigade support battalion. Deployed divisions (UEx) or corps 

(UEx) were additionally assigned or attached sustainment brigades to service 

their assigned or attached combat and combat support brigades in “tooth-totail” ratios roughly proportional to Cold War norms for above-the-line forces. 

This picture changed with respect to “below-the-line”—formerly corps and 

above—combat service support forces, however. The Cold War rule of thumb 

for deployed forces was a 1.6 to 1 ratio of below-the-line to above-the-line 

forces. Thus if a division of about 18,000 deployed to an austere theater, about 

29,000 additional soldiers would be required to support it. Of these additional 

troops, perhaps half would be in combat service support units. In practice 

these numbers could be trimmed by host-nation support. In Desert Storm, 

for example, the ratio was about 1.3:1 since substantial host-nation and coalition offsets were available in the theater. A major fraction of these offsets were 

provided by contractors ultimately employed by the Saudis, inspiring much 

of the momentum toward LOGCAP and related programs in the 1990s. By 

2001 operations in the Balkans had firmly established contractors as offsets 

for erstwhile uniformed force structure, and in Iraq the results proliferated 

like kudzu. Comparing numbers is tricky because considerable below-the-line 

combat support force structure migrated into the various UAs and took a slice 

of combat service support with it, and other below-the-line combat support 

structure with further slices of combat service support survived as independent 

brigades serving the theater. The direction of the change is nevertheless clear. 

Iraq matured as a theater with 100,000 individuals signed to contracts with 

the United States government serving alongside 160,000 troops also there. The 

value of such contracts expanded beyond $100 billion annually, as opposed 

to about $20 billion spent on such contracts annually prior to the invasion 
Kevlar Legions

322

of Iraq. This does not include contractors working for the Iraqi government 

directly or for other clients. It is true that some of the work under contract 

might not have been undertaken by uniformed soldiers in the Cold War Army, 

and that both numbers and costs were bumped up by pervasive contractor 

requirements to provide local security. It nevertheless seems reasonable to 

assert that the lion’s share of formerly below-the-line combat service support 

for combat units migrated to private contractors. The relative numbers and the 

nature of the units deployed to Iraq justify such a conclusion. This is not to 

mention contracted system-specific technicians already embedded in combat 

and combat support units to service complex or newly fielded equipment. 

This divestiture of force structure in favor of contractors was not necessarily 

a problem, as long as contracts were well written, contractors duly diligent, 

and security adequate. Some areas of contractor endeavor have provoked 

controversy beyond the scope of this discussion, such as the interrogation of 

prisoners, the representation of U.S. government policy, or the offensive use 

of deadly force.30

With respect to operations other than war, the Army had in effect already 

divested itself of its most relevant force structure when the United States 

Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) stood up in 1987. As discussed 

in Chapter 2, the Fiscal Year (FY) 1987 Defense Authorization Act (establishing USSOCOM) and denuclearization beginning with the Intermediate Range 

Nuclear Forces Treaty ratified in 1988 both narrowed the Army materially and 

psychologically toward a core focus on mid- and high-intensity conventional 

combat. Technically the Special Forces groups, ranger battalions, civil affairs 

battalions, psychological operations groups, special operations aviation regiment, and others that migrated to the United States Army Special Operations 

Command (USASOC, the Army component of USSOCOM) remained part 

of the Army, but the autonomy of the command in practice was considerable—as if it were another service. USSOCOM had its own budget and was 

a worldwide joint command independent of the regional commands within 

which its forces might train or operate. This is not to mention special relationships with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), other government agencies, 

and foreign governments. Coordination between special operators and conventional Army forces was problematic in Desert Storm, Somalia, Haiti, and 

the Balkans, and only somewhat improved in Afghanistan prior to 2003. High 

professional caliber on both sides of the divide and fluidity with respect to 

personnel assignments across it ameliorated things, but underlying differences 

were philosophical as well as organizational. Special operators too often considered themselves stepchildren in the conventionally focused Cold War Army 

and were gratified to see their expertise elevated to equivalent status. The 

residual Cold War Army, on the other hand, was happy enough to hand off 

the lead for operations other than war to USSOCOM. If local allies provided 

most of the manpower and the State Department took the lead for policy, 

the modest assets of USSOCOM should be adequate for the operations other 

than war that seemed likely at the time. The rest of the Army could focus on 

high-end combat and ratchet down to lesser contingencies only if it really had 

to. Unfortunately, it really had to. Operations other than war were the rule 
323

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

rather than the exception throughout the 1990s. Manpower demands dwarfed 

anything USSOCOM could sustain, and the State Department effectively surrendered the lead to the Department of Defense in the most troubling cases. 

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld heavily emphasized the role and use 

of Special Operations Forces. He also proved suspicious of the conventional 

Army’s dual-use unit philosophy, particularly with respect to heavy units. 

Borrowing in part from British precedent supporting operations in Northern 

Ireland, the Army had taken to deploying tankers, engineers, artillerymen, 

and other heavy warriors into light infantry roles. Conventional wisdom held 

that if organization, leadership, and troop quality were of a high standard, 

units could be readily retrained and equipped for other roles and missions. 

Balkan operations seemed to prove this. Rumsfeld viewed this approach as 

a defense of antiquated force structure and pushed for more actual restructuring. By January 2004 plans were in place to convert 100,000 billets from 

field artillery, engineer, air defense, armor, and ordnance to military police, 

civil affairs, psychological operations, intelligence, petroleum, water purification, and transportation units. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would be 

pursued by a mix of dual-use conventional units, units that were products 

of the restructuring of January 2004 and similar restructurings and Special 

Operations Command assets.31

Thinning of ground-based air defense and field artillery recognized circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq and also was a concession to jointness. The Air Force could certainly pick up the slack in current 

operations, and it seemed technologically feasible that it could offset force 

structure cuts for the longer term as well. If USSOCOM—itself a joint command—could in fact be viewed as a quasi-service, the Army’s relationship with 

it could be viewed as jointness of a different sort. Army communications and 

intelligence assets were increasingly dependent on joint linkages to be useful or 

effective. Substantial engineer and combat service support responsibilities had 

migrated to contractors. Of the erstwhile battlefield operating systems, only 

“maneuver” remained essentially undivested. There were critics, of course. 

Some were branch proponents instinctively resisting diminishment within 

their fields. Others were suspicious of overreliance on agencies and assets not 

directly under Army control and discipline. Still more were wary of designs 

that optimized support to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq at the expense 

of full-spectrum forces. This latter group was joined by the ubiquitous Colonel 

Doug Macgregor. He took the argument out of the Pentagon and into congressional hearings, where he pointedly noted that the planned two-battalion 

3,800-soldier unit of action was far less capable than the three-battalion 

5,500-soldier combat maneuver group he had proposed. He flagged up Korean 

War unpreparedness to illustrate the danger of being too thin on the ground. 

He particularly commented that “equating near-term need for a pool of units 

to rotate through Iraq and Afghanistan with transformation is the wrong 

answer.” This was a key philosophical point. Macgregor was still championing an all-encompassing transformation in the abstract. Schoomaker viewed 

transformation as it had progressed from 1989 through 2003 as a useful base 

from which to launch into the specific requirements of the Global War on 
Kevlar Legions

324

Terrorism. His first priority was to win the wars we were actually in. The rest 

of the spectrum could wait.32

The Institutional Army

Numbered armies, corps, divisions, brigades, and battalions constitute the 

operational Army that deploys to engage in the full spectrum of combat around 

the world. Supporting this is the institutional Army: major commands, bases, 

and field operating agencies that traditionally do not deploy, and the organizations, agencies, and infrastructure subordinate to them. Like the deployable 

Army, the institutional Army downsized radically during the early 1990s and 

restructured to face a changing strategic environment from 1989 through 2005. 

Downsizing was not, however, accompanied by a proportional reduction in 

the entries one might find in a phone book, and restructuring was uneven in 

depth and dimension. In 1989 sixteen headquarters could be characterized as 

major Army commands (MACOMs), and in 2005 fifteen. Bases in Europe 

radically decreased in number, as discussed in Chapter 3, but base reductions 

elsewhere were modest. In 1989 there were thirty-one field operating agencies 

(FOAs), and in 2005 twenty-nine. Of the fifteen MACOMs extant in 2005, ten 

had the same names and about the same missions as they had in 1989, and 

three more had different names but were recognizably successors to previously 

existing MACOMs. Of the thirty-one FOAs extant in 2005 ten were arguably 

new, and the rest either carryovers or recognizable successors to previously 

existing FOAs. Nevertheless, the Army did exploit new technologies, alter its 

geo-strategic footprint, improve joint efficiencies, and streamline functional 

alignments as it transformed its institutional sector.33

The most obvious institutional adjustments for advancing technologies were 

the standing up as a MACOM of the Space and Missile Defense Command 

(SMDC) in 1997 and the reconfiguration of the Army Signal Command into 

the Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) in 2002. SMDC 

assumed two missions of ever-increasing importance: securing space assets and 

their products for soldiers in the field, and providing effective missile defense 

to the nation and its deployed forces. Satellite-based GPS had proliferated with 

respect to numbers and functions and had became an approved solution for 

navigation, determining position, blue force tracking, and precision strikes 

with such weapons as JDAMs. Satellites were increasingly essential for communications and provided a vast array of intelligence products drawn from 

across the electromagnetic spectrum. Missile defense was heavily dependent on 

space-based assets and was itself an arena wherein huge technological strides 

took place. The exploitation of space assets and missile defense are inherently 

joint, so SMDC served as the Army Service Component Command (ASCC) 

for the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). Movement to 

emphasize, consolidate, and rationalize space and missile capabilities resulted 

in the institution of a career functional area and the absorption of predecessor agencies. The Army Space Command, Army Space Program Office, and 

Army Strategic Defense Command were FOAs in 1989, but no longer necessary when SMDC achieved MACOM status. NETCOM represented an arena 
325

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

wherein technological advances were perhaps even more radical than those of 

space and missile defense. In 1989, as we have seen, the Internet did not exist. 

The Information Systems Command of that year had oversight for six regionally based signal commands and an engineering command. It guaranteed the 

steady flow of contemporary communications, generally envisioned as point to 

point. As information technologies exploded in the 1990s, local commanders 

did what they could to stay abreast with local “off-the-shelf” purchases—uncoordinated with each other and independent of the backbone communications 

that tied them together. NETCOM assumed the mission of managing the 

“infostructure” as a comprehensive enterprise and developing a single portal, 

Army Knowledge Online, to bring all of the advantages of the Information 

Age to the Army as a whole. This network was to be seamlessly connected with 

that of other services, duly secured, uniformly equipped, and featuring classified and unclassified regimes. The era of singular messages trafficking through 

layers of headquarters had been trumped by the notion that information of all 

types—tactical, supervisory, or administrative—would be simultaneously available to all who sought it and were authorized access to it. The Army Materiel 

Command (AMC) and TRADOC, MACOMs with traditional responsibilities 

for technological development in 1989, remained with those responsibilities 

within their purviews in 2005. AMC’s major subordinate commands shrank 

from twelve to seven largely by consolidation, in particular by consolidation 

into such life cycle management commands (LCMCs) as the Aviation and 

Missile Life Cycle Management Command or the Communications-Electronics 

Life Cycle Management Command. LCMCs unified research, development, 

procurement, fielding, sustainment, and disposition into continuous centrally 

managed streams. AMC’s Security Assistance Command was a player in equipment disposition, and its Research, Development, and Engineering Command 

furthered pure and applied research, lessons learned, and the expedient transfer 

of technology from development to fielding. TRADOC continued to identify 

technological requirements via branch centers and schools, the Combined 

Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, and the newly established Army Futures 

Center at Fort Monroe. TRADOC did shed the user-testing responsibilities 

of the Test and Experimentation Command (TEXCOM). Instead, the Army 

Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC), Operational Test Command, and 

Developmental Test Command served as FOAs reporting to the Army Staff. In 

sum, Army institutional reorganization from 1989 through 2005 was dramatic 

with respect to space, missile defense, and information technologies, and incremental with respect to technologies of other types.34

As the Army’s global footprint changed, the structure of MACOMs altered 

as well. In 1989 geographical responsibilities in the Pacific were divided among 

the Western Command (WESTCOM), U.S. Army, Japan/IX Corps, and the 

Eighth United States Army (EUSA). In 2005 EUSA remained autonomous 

and in defense of South Korea, but the rest of the Pacific folded under the 

United States Army, Pacific (USARPAC). USARPAC was the Army component command for the Pacific Command (PACOM) and had tactical forces 

stationed in Hawaii, Alaska, and Fort Lewis, Washington, assigned to it. The 

diminishment of Japan reflected a broadening from the Cold War focus on 
Kevlar Legions

326

Northeast Asia, as did an expeditionary posture assumed by USARPAC and 

its subordinate commands. The United States Army, Europe (USAREUR), 

remained as a MACOM, but its assigned force structure was hugely reduced 

and it routinely participated in expeditions outside of its traditional area 

of responsibility. The United States Army, South (USARSO), had been a 

MACOM headquartered at Fort Clayton, Panama, but was subordinated to 

United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) when the United States 

returned the Canal Zone to Panama. FORSCOM similarly retained peacetime 

responsibility for United States Army Central Command (USARCENT), and 

acquired responsibilities for United States Army, North (USARNORTH), 

the service component command for operations in North America. This 

underscored FORSCOM’s role as an expeditionary force provider to theater 

commanders. USAREUR and USARPAC were already forward deployed. 

FORSCOM would ensure that USARCENT, USARSO, and USARNORTH 

were effectively deployed and supported as required within their regions and 

would provide the American tactical units (less those that might come from 

EUSA, USAREUR, or USARPAC) that would serve under them. The shift to 

an expeditionary posture was further reflected in the redesign of the Medical 

Command (MEDCOM) as a MACOM, and of the Installation Management 

Agency as a FOA. MEDCOM stood up in 1994 and consolidated the former 

Health Services Command with the Office of the Surgeon General and several 

smaller agencies. The major subordinate commands of the Health Services 

Command were largely medical centers (hospitals) presiding over lesser hospitals and clinics within their areas. The draftee Army had been comfortably 

stocked with medical personnel, and retirees routinely secured treatment at 

nearby military hospitals and clinics. The reserve component at the time was 

only visible to the Health Services Command during brief stints of active duty. 

Downsizing virtually eliminated the services most military hospitals could 

provide retirees and reduced their services to family members. Meanwhile 

recurrent lengthy mobilizations of National Guardsmen and Reservists radically increased Army medical responsibilities for them and their families, and 

uniformed medical personnel participated in cycles of deployment along with 

other soldiers. The Army became increasingly dependent upon Civilian Health 

and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS), and then 

TRICARE, programs that subsidized civilian health care providers to serve 

soldiers, family members, and retirees. Because it was outsourced, this care 

could be far more geographically dispersed. For example, the Madigan Army 

Medical Center at Fort Lewis, Washington, a major subordinate command, 

morphed into the Western Regional Medical Command and Madigan Army 

Medical Center. Such an approach incorporated civilian medical assets from 

a multistate area into the Army’s overall deployment support apparatus. The 

Installation Management Agency, established in 2002, also advanced the capability of the continental United States as a power projection platform. During 

the Cold War the senior tactical commander on a post was generally the installation commander as well—or the installation commander worked directly for 

him. In a modular Army at war this could disrupt and confuse, since the senior 

commander and his staff would routinely deploy. It made sense to subordinate 
327

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

installations to a chain of command independent of deployable tactical units, 

so that they could function uninterrupted regardless of which units deployed 

through them. The Installation Management Agency, a FOA, facilitated that 

purpose. In 2006 the Installation Management Command (IMCOM) would 

consolidate the Installation Management Agency and two other FOAs, the 

Army Community and Family Support Center and the Army Environmental 

Center, into an even more potent agency. The institutional Army was better 

postured for expeditionary combat in 2005 than it had been in 1989, and its 

geographic footprint was correspondingly altered.35

A pursuit of greater joint efficiency was manifest within virtually all 

MACOMs and FOAs during this period. In part this resulted from provisions of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, previously discussed. In part it 

resulted from funding strategies to stretch procurement dollars within 

functional purviews by throwing in with other services and from increasing 

interdependence as network and precision-guided munitions technologies 

advanced. In part it was the spirit of the times, as soldiers at all levels were 

encouraged to be friendly with and respectful to counterparts from other 

services. With respect to institutional structure, jointness was perhaps most 

visible in the reconfiguration of army service component commands. A 

portion of the Army Campaign Plan deliberated in 2005 and adopted in 

2006 identified AMC, FORSCOM, and TRADOC as Army Commands. 

USARCENT, USARNORTH, USARSOUTH, USAREUR, USARPAC, 

and EUSA were redefined as Army Service Component Commands. Most 

had served in this function before, but now it defined them. Force structure external to service as an ASCC was pruned out, and what remained 

was thinned down to discrete units and agencies in two subsets. One 

subset was regionally focused and consisted of assets uniquely committed 

to the theater. Another subset was a mix of brigades, groups, and battalions assigned to the theater but, if circumstances required, deployable 

elsewhere. Briefing slides depicted the first subset in a purple band, indicating that the regionally focused units and agencies had joint interfaces. 

USASOC, as previously discussed, was the ASCC for the joint and relatively autonomous USSOCOM, and SMDC was the ASCC for the United 

States Strategic Command. In 1989 the Military Traffic Management 

Command (MTMC) managed military traffic, land transportation, and 

common-user ocean terminals and served as the Army component of the 

United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). An increasing tempo of deployments and the changing nature of supply distribution 

altered its functions considerably. Cold War emphasis on mass mobilization 

and deployment in accordance with standing general defense plan (GDP) 

phased into nearly continuous rotations of soldiers and units to ongoing 

operations overseas. Meanwhile the “iron mountains” piled up to support 

the GDP melted away as digital tracking and “just in time” logistics sought 

to more flexibly and efficiently support smaller contingents of soldiers 

scattered more widely around the globe. In 2004 MTMC changed its name 

to the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) to better 

emphasize the nature of its priorities. The Army Intelligence and Security 
Kevlar Legions

328

Command (INSCOM), although not an ASCC, fulfilled functions that 

were inherently joint. It conducted intelligence, security, and information 

operations for “military commanders and national decision makers,” and 

a major fraction of its subordinate commands were brigades or groups in 

the “purple band” of regionally focused units assigned to the ASCCs. The 

Army Aeronautical Services Agency, a FOA, was similarly joint and interagency. In 2004 the Department of Defense (DoD) stood up the United 

States Military Observers Group in Washington with the Army as executive agent. It coordinated and approved assignments of DoD military or 

civilian personnel to serve with United Nations missions, due recognition 

of increasing incidence and complexity. It could be, and was, argued that 

the Army and DoD should have done more to evolve their institutional 

structures toward jointness. On the other hand, considerable and perhaps 

sufficient movement in that direction did occur from 1989 through 2005.36

Functional alignment provided another incentive for changing institutional structure. One function affected was transformation itself, particularly with respect to whether it should be exceptionally handled. 

General Sullivan perceived a need for radical rethinking, and stood up 

the modern Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM) Task Force to do this. It was 

relatively autonomous, particularly after it moved from Fort Monroe to 

Washington, DC, and reported to the Chief of Staff. General Reimer 

believed the LAM Task Force had fulfilled its mission and divested it in 

favor of evolving the particulars of Force XXI—inspired, envisioned, and 

set in motion by LAM—within the traditional Headquarters, Department 

of Army (HQDA), and MACOM agencies that advanced such work. 

General Shinseki was satisfied to further develop Force XXI (his Legacy 

Force) in such a manner but set up a three-star Objective Force Task Force 

reporting to him to jump-start the considerably more distant Objective 

Force (Reimer’s Army After Next). General Schoomaker perceived that 

the Objective Force Task Force had served its purpose and divested it 

in favor of a Futures Center serving under TRADOC. The institutional 

exceptionalism accorded transformation swung with perceptions of how 

revolutionary next steps needed to be. In addition to ultimately shepherding future think, TRADOC also took charge of the Recruiting Command 

(formerly a FOA), five regionally based recruiting brigades, and the 

Accessions Support Brigade. Coupled with traditional control of the Cadet 

Command, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) regions, and branch 

schools, this aligned TRADOC to identify and fulfill the institutional 

training needs of soldiers from accession through retirement. Radically 

increased reliance on the reserve component bumped up its institutional 

status. In 1989 the Chief, Army Reserve, was a two-star general serving in 

the Pentagon as adviser to the Chief of Staff. In 2005 he was a three-star 

commanding the United States Army Reserve Command (USARC) and 

sixty-one subordinate commands from a shiny new headquarters in Fort 

McPherson, Georgia—while also serving as adviser to the Chief of Staff. 

The Director of the Army National Guard experienced a similar upgrade in 

status and responsibility, although Guard units themselves remained under 
Quadrennial Defense Review briefing slide depicting joint digital networking
Kevlar Legions

330

state control most of the time. Of the 1989 MACOMs, the United States 

Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Criminal Investigation Command 

(CIDC), and Military District of Washington (MDW) retained their 

names unchanged and their functions relatively unchanged. With respect 

to FOAs, the Center of Military History, Civilian Personnel Evaluation 

Agency, Army Claims Service, Command and Control Support Agency, 

Judge Advocate General’s School, Legal Services Agency, United States 

Military Academy (USMA), Army Nuclear and Chemical Agency, Army 

Research Institute, and Army War College demonstrated similar stability. 

The Concepts Analysis Agency changed its name to the Center of Army 

Analysis, but since the same individual, Mr. E. B. Vandiver, was in charge 

in 2005 as he had been in 1989, continuity seems demonstrable. Indeed, Mr. 

Vandiver quipped that although his agency had changed its name it had 

not had to change its costly acronym-based signs, since before and after 

“CAA” still fit. Other FOA name changes represented greater adjustments 

in breadth and focus, albeit with nevertheless recognizable descent. Thus 

the Army Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Civil Rights Office 

inherited responsibilities from the former Army Civilian Appellate Review 

Agency and the former Army Physical Disability Agency, the Army Force 

Management Support Agency from the former Army Force Development 

Support Agency, the Army Logistics Transformation Agency from the 

former Army Logistics Evaluation Agency, the Army Finance Command 

from the former Army Finance and Accounting Center, the Army Readiness/

Safety Center from the former Army Safety Center, and the Army Human 

Resources Command from the former Total Army Personnel Command. 

The functions of several erstwhile FOAs were divided up among existing 

or successor agencies: the Development and Employment Agency and the 

Plans and Operations Information Support Agency between NETCOM 

and the Chief Information Officer G–6, the Manpower Requirements 

and Documentation Agency between the Assistant Secretary of the Army 

(Manpower and Reserve Affairs) and the Human Resources Command, 

the Army Intelligence Agency between INSCOM and the Deputy Chief 

of Staff G–2, and the Troop Support Agency among the Army Materiel 

Command, the Quartermaster Center and School, and the Defense 

Commissary Agency. The Army Audit Agency, Army Evaluation Center, 

and Chief Technology Office stood up as new FOAs, and the Office of the 

Provost Marshal General was reestablished as a FOA.37

In 2005 the Chief of Staff committed to an Army Campaign Plan that 

eventually redefined existing MACOMs as Army Commands, ASCCs, and 

Direct Reporting Units (DRUs). A few erstwhile FOAs would be bumped up 

to DRU status. The newly defined Army Commands and ASCCs are identified above. The DRUs included NETCOM, INSCOM, CIDC, USACE, 

and MDW from among the MACOMs, and the Acquisition Support Center, 

ATEC, Installation Management Agency, USARC, and USMA from among 

the FOAs or Major Subordinate Commands (MSCs). This redefinition, 

when applied, cleaned up lines of authority and pruned force structure, but 

it did not much alter the roles and missions of the headquarters involved. 
331

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

Downsizing led to manpower cuts across the institutional Army and a 

greatly increased reliance on contractors, as discussed in Chapter 4. Critics, 

especially proponents of thinning and flattening hierarchy, would see Army 

intransigence in retaining as much institutional overhead as it did. To some, 

changes that had occurred were merely “moving deck chairs around”—albeit 

with some of the deck chairs now being contractors. It may be fairer to say 

that changing strategic, technological, and socioeconomic circumstances did 

not require as massive a change to the institutional Army as it did to the 

deployable Army. A major fraction of the institutional overhead remained 

as germane in 2005 as it had been in 1989. Where change was necessary, the 

institutional Army did accommodate advances in technology, geostrategic 

repositioning, greater jointness, and functional alignment.38

Conclusions

From 1989 through 2005 Army transformation included dramatic changes 

to Army force structure. Through the early 1990s downsizing was the dominant 

theme and the preservation of Desert Storm–like capabilities while rendering 

units more capable of full-spectrum and expeditionary combat the priority. 

As downsizing ebbed, critics and commentators inside and outside the Army 

argued for further change. With respect to force structure issues, the flattening 

or thinning of command hierarchy, transition to a brigade-based force, modularity, unit rotation, jointness, logistical support, and institutional structure 

became the most topical. Hierarchy was not flattened, but it was thinned. The 

Army converted to a brigade-based force. Modularity and unit rotation were 

refined in doctrine and heavily exercised in practice. Jointness drove the thinning of air defense and artillery assets, while missions that other services could 

not do drove increases in force structure most appropriate to operations other 

than war. Logistics and engineering compensated for downsizing by relying 

far more heavily on contractors, as did the institutional Army. An underlying 

tension emerged between transformation in the abstract and transformation 

oriented on operations the United States was actually in. From 1989 through 

2003 the former dominated, with broad preparations and near-peer opponents as worst cases dominating deliberations. Iraq changed that. The rigors 

of combat, huge demands for unit rotation, and availability of supplemental funds to advance transformation reasonably connected to operations in 

Iraq and Afghanistan tilted transformation toward the particular, as did the 

instincts of Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker. The deployable Army 

emphasized those aspects of ongoing transformation that optimized for the 

wars it was in. Other options and potential adversaries received lower priority. The institutional Army adjusted to accommodate technological advance, 

geostrategic change, joint interdependence, and functional alignments. The 

overall results with respect to force structure were arguably not the best fit for 

all circumstances. They seemed, however, the best fit for the circumstances the 

United States was actually in. 
Notes

1

 James L. Yarrison, The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 1999); Douglas A. Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx: A New Design 

for Landpower in the 21st Century (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997); Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 30 November 1998, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 29 March 1999, Historians Files, CMH; 

Memo for Chief of Staff, Army, 16 April 1999, sub: Comparing Interwar German 

Army Innovation with That of the Post–Cold War U.S. Army–Information 

Memorandum, Historians Files, CMH; 1999 Division Commanders/TRADOC 

Commandants Conference notes, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 19–21 April 1999, 

Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Center of Military History, “The Macgregor 

Critique,” 2000, Historians Files, CMH. 

2

 Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx, 59–131; Jonathan M. House, Combined Arms 

Warfare in the Twentieth Century (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001), 206–

13; A. J. Bacevich, The Pentomic Era (Washington DC: National Defense University 

Press, 1986); Brian Nichiporuk and Carl H. Bilder, Information Technologies and the 

Future of Land Warfare (Santa Monica, California: RAND, 1995); Memo, Center of 

Military History for Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs, United States Army, June 

2001, sub: Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor’s Breaking the Phalanx and Beyond–

Information Memorandum, Historians Files, CMH; Douglas A. Macgregor, 

“Command and Control for Joint Strategic Actions,” Joint Forces Quarterly (Autumn/

Winter 1998–1999): 25–33; Douglas A. Macgregor, “Joint Operational Architecture: 

The Key to Transformation,” Strategic Review (Fall 2000): 27–36. 

3

 John R. Brinkerhoff, “The Brigade-Based New Army,” Parameters (August 1997): 

60–72; Michael McCormick, The Brigade Based Division: Saddling the Right Horse 

(Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1997); 

John J. McGrath, The Brigade: A History, Its Organization and Employment in the US 

Army (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004), 77–111; 

Atlantic Resolve: USAREUR CINC’s Exercise Book, 31 March 1995, Historians 

Files, CMH; General Wesley K. Clark, “Transforming NATO’s for the 21st Century,” 

SOA Newsletter Number 109, Historian’s Files, CMH; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–5, 

Force XXI Operations (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command, 1994); TRADOC Pamphlet 525–71, Force XXI Division Operations 

Concept (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1996); 

Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx, 59–93; Memo, Center of Military History for 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs, United States Army, June 2001, sub: Colonel 

Douglas A. Macgregor’s Breaking the Phalanx and Beyond–Information 

Memorandum.

4

 Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx, 31–93; Douglas A. Macgregor, Transforming 

Under Fire: Revolutionizing How America Fights (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 

2003); John B. Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and 

Separate Brigades (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998); John L. 

Romjue, The Army of Excellence: The Development of the 1980s Army (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 1997); TRADOC Pamphlet 525–5, Force XXI 

Operations, 1994; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–71, Force XXI Division Operations 

Concept, 1996; Memo, Center of Military History for Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Programs, United States Army, June 2001, sub: Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor’s 

Breaking the Phalanx and Beyond–Information Memorandum; E-mail, Lieutenant 

General Kevin P. Byrnes, Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs, United States Army, to 
333

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

Brigadier General John S. Brown, Chief of Military History, United States Army, 8 

May 2001, sub: Macgregor, Corps and Divisions, etc., Historians Files, CMH; Andrew 

Feickert, U.S. Army’s Modular Redesign: Issues for Congress (Washington DC: 

Congressional Research Service, 19 July 2004). 

5

 Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx, 141–223; Macgregor, “Command and Control 

for Joint Strategic Actions,” 25–33; Memo, Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor, Senior 

Military Research Fellow, National Defense University, for Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Programs, United States Army, n.d., sub: Response to Breaking the Phalanx and 

Beyond–Information Memorandum, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Center of 

Military History, “Evaluation of Army Readiness,” 2000, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army Regulation 220–1, Unit Readiness (Washington DC: Departments of the Army, 

16 December 1986); Robert S. Rush, Hell in Hurtgen Forest: The Ordeal and Triumph 

of an American Infantry Regiment (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 

2001); CMH Information Paper, Robert S. Rush, The Individual Replacement System: 

Good Bad or Indifferent? Army Replacement Policy, Cold War and Before, Historians 

Files, CMH. 

6

 Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (Public Law 99–143); James 

L. Lochner III, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the 

Pentagon (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University, 2002); Joint Publication 3.0 

(Washington DC: Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995); Joint 

Vision 2010 (Washington DC: Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

1995); William S. Cohen, Defense Reform Initiative Report (Washington DC: 

Department of Defense, 1997); Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx, 60–139; Erin Q. 

Winograd, “Keane: Jointness Must Be Taken Seriously or Services May Lose Control,” 

Inside the Army, 17 May 1999, 1–3; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 1 

November 1999, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

20 November 2000, Historians Files, CMH.

7 Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx; McCormick; Brinkerhoff; James A. Huston, 

The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953 (Washington DC: Center of Military 

History, 1966); Carter B. Magruder, Recurring Logistics Problems as I Have Observed 

Them (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1991); Colonel David A. 

Fastabend, “An Appraisal of the Brigade-Based New Army, Parameters (Autumn 

1997): 73–81; General Paul J. Kern, Got It? Some Thoughts on Future Logistics (Fort 

Belvoir, Virginia: Army Material Command, 2004); Briefing, Lieutenant General C. V. 

Christianson to Army Senior Commanders’ Conference, “Concept of Support for the 

Expeditionary Army,” 10 February 2004, Historians Files, AMC; Briefing, Army 

Logistics Transformation Task Force, August 2002, Historians Files, AMC; 1999 

Division Commanders/TRADOC Commandants Conference notes, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, 19–21 April 1999; Briefing, Center of Military History, “The 

Macgregor Critique,” 2000; Memo, Center of Military History for Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Programs, United States Army, June 2001, sub: Colonel Douglas A. 

Macgregor’s Breaking the Phalanx and Beyond–Information Memorandum.

8

 Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 30 

November 1998; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 29 March 1999; 1999 

Division Commanders/TRADOC Commandants Conference notes, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, 19–21 April 1999; Briefing, Center of Military History, The 

Macgregor Critique, 2000; E-mail, Lieutenant General Kevin P. Byrnes, Deputy Chief 

of Staff for Programs, United States Army, to Brigadier General John S. Brown, Chief 

of Military History, United States Army, 8 May 2001, sub: Macgregor, Corps and 

Divisions, etc.; E-mail, General (USA, Ret.) Dennis J. Reimer to Brigadier General 

(USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, 28 June 2009, sub: Book Project, Historians Files, CMH; 
Kevlar Legions

334

E-mail, General (USA, Ret.) William W. Hartzog to Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) 

John S. Brown, sub: Book Project, 26 June 2009, Historians Files, CMH; E-mail, 

James L. Mowery to Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, 24 June 2009, sub: 

Book Project, Historians Files, CMH; E-mail, General (USA, Ret.) Dennis J. Reimer 

to Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, 10 October 2009, sub: Follow-Up, 

Historians Files, CMH; Memo, Center of Military History for Deputy Chief of Staff 

for Programs, United States Army, June 2001, sub: Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor’s 

Breaking the Phalanx and Beyond–Information Memorandum; Frontline Interview: 

Douglas Macgregor, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline, posted 26 October 

2004, accessed 7 September 2009.

9

 McGrath, 77–102; John L. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The 

Development of Army Doctrine 1973–1982 (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training 

and Doctrine Command Historical Office, 1984); Romjue, The Army of Excellence; 

TRADOC Pamphlet 525–5, AirLand Battle and Corps Operations–1986 (Fort Monroe, 

Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1981); “Umpires Enforce,” card 

for Return of Forces to Germany (REFORGER) Exercise 1987, Historians Files, 

CMH; “USAF Missions Area Relationships Sideview,” graphical training aid, 

Historians Files, CMH. 

10 Ltr, TRADOC ATCG, forwarding TRADOC Pamphlet 525–5B, AirLand 

Operations: The Evolution of AirLand Battle for a Strategic Army, 13 June 1991, 

Historians Files, CMH.

11 McGrath, 103; McCormick; Ltr, General (USA, Ret.) Gordon R. Sullivan to 

General Peter J. Schoomaker, 25 January 2005, Historians Files, CMH; MFR, 091300 

May 2008, sub: Telephone Conversation with General Gordon R. Sullivan, Historians 

Files, CMH; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–5B, AirLand Operations, 1991; Force XXI Joint 

Venture Phase 1 Briefing (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Force Design Directorate, 

Training and Doctrine Command, 11 December 1995).

12 William M. Donnelly, Transforming an Army at War: Designing the Modular 

Force, 1991–2005 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 9–10; Brigadier 

General Huba Wass de Czega and Major Jacob Biever, “Optimizing Future Battle 

Command Technologies,” Military Review (March/April 1998): 15–21; McGrath, 103–

04; Michael D. Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History of the Army National Guard, 1636–

2000 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2001), 351–52; Annual Review 

(Washington DC: National Guard Bureau, 1996), 35; General Dennis J. Reimer, “The 

Strike Force Operational Paper,” January–February 2009, in Soldiers Are Our 

Credentials: The Collected Works and Selected Papers of the Thirty-third Chief of Staff, 

United States Army (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2000), 254–63.

13 Doubler, 368; Donnelly, 10–14; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–3–91, Objective Force 

Tactical Operational and Organizational Concept for Maneuver Units of Action (Fort 

Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 6 November 2001); 

Mark J. Reardon and Jeffery A. Charlston, From Transformation to Combat: The First 

Stryker Brigade at War (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007); Briefing 

Slides, Army Transformation Office, “The Selected IAV Family–Best Value for the 

Soldier” and “Interim Brigade Combat Team Structure,” n.d., Historians Files, CMH; 

Nick Johnson, “First Stryker Brigade to Achieve IOC This Month,” Aerospace Daily, 

21 May 2003. 

14 Donnelly, 14–46; McGrath, 131–39; MFR, 111300 June 2009, sub: Telephone 

Conversation between General (R) Peter J. Schoomaker and BG (R) John S. Brown, 

Historians Files, CMH; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–3–90 O&O, The United States Army 

Objective Force Operational and Organizational Plan Maneuver Unit of Action (Fort 

Knox, Kentucky: Unit of Action Maneuver Battle Lab, 2003); “Brigade Combat Team 
335

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

Deployments,” Army Times, 13 October 2008; Army Comprehensive Guide to 

Modularity (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 8 

October 2004); Colonel Jeffrey R. Witsken et al., Task Force Modularity: The Role of 

Analysis in the Creation of the Modular Force (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: TRADOC 

Analysis Center, July 2005).

15 Donnelly, 38–46; McGrath, 131–39; MFR, 111300 June 2009, sub: Telephone 

Conversation between General (R) Peter J. Schoomaker and BG (R) John S. Brown; 

TRADOC Pamphlet 525–3–90 O&O, The United States Army Objective Force 

Operational and Organizational Plan Maneuver Unit of Action; Slide, “COA 5z UA 

Organization (Current CSA Approved Redesign Concept),” 12 December 2003, 

Historians Files, CMH; Slide, “Heavy Brigade Combat Team Unit of Action Design,” 

Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003, 

Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 

2004, Historians Files, CMH.

16 Ibid.; Slide, “Infantry Brigade Combat Team Unit of Action Design,” Historians 

Files, CMH.

17 Donnelly, 50–63; McGrath, 132–38; Witsken et al.; Army Comprehensive Guide to 

Modularity; Slide, “Support Brigades,” Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting Notes, 21 July 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting Notes, 14 August 2003; Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 

30–31 January 2004.

18 Ibid.; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 25 August 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 22 December 2003; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 6 February 2004.

19 Donnelly, 3–81, 83–84; Witsken et al.; Army Comprehensive Guide to Modularity; 

Ltr, General (USA, Ret.) Gordon R. Sullivan to General Peter J. Schoomaker, 25 

January 2005; E-mail, General (USA, Ret.) Dennis J. Reimer to Brigadier General 

(USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, 12 January 2009, sub: Book Project, Historians Files, 

CMH; E-mail, General (USA, Ret.) Dennis J. Reimer to Brigadier General (USA, 

Ret.) John S. Brown, 28 June 2009, sub: Book Project; Army General Staff Council 

Focus Area Update notes, 17 April 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Feickert; MFR, 

111330 June 2009, sub: Telephone Conversation with General Peter J. Schoomaker, 

Historians Files, CMH. 

20 Romjue, The Army of Excellence; TOE 87000L300, Armored Division, 1 October 

1986; Field Manual 71–5, Division Operations (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 1990); Field Manual 100–15, Corps Operations (Washington DC: Department 

of the Army, 1989); Field Manual 100–16, Support Operations–Echelons Above Corps 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1985).

21 Donnelly, 63–74; MFR, 091300 May 2008, sub: Telephone Conversation with 

General Gordon R. Sullivan; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–5B, AirLand Operations, 1991; 

Force XXI Joint Venture Phase 1 Briefing (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Force Design 

Directorate, Training and Doctrine Command, 11 December 1995); De Czega and 

Biever, 15–21; Reimer, “The Strike Force Operational Paper,” January–February 2009, 

in Soldiers Are Our Credentials, 254–63; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–3–91, Objective 

Force Tactical Operational and Organizational Concept for Maneuver Units of Action, 6 

November 2001; MFR, 111300 June 2009, sub: Telephone Conversation between 

General (R) Peter J. Schoomaker and BG (R) John S. Brown; Army Comprehensive 

Guide to Modularity; Witsken et al.

22 Donnelly, 63–74; Janice E. McKenney, Reflagging in the Army (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 1997), 3–16; Briefing, Center of Military History, “Unit 
Kevlar Legions

336

Designations in the Army Modular Force”; Ltr, General (USA, Ret.) Gordon R. 

Sullivan to General Peter J. Schoomaker, 25 January 2005; Memo, DAMH-FPO for 

Director, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 17 February 2005, sub: CMH 

Responsibilities while Implementing COA1, Historians Files, CMH; CMH 

Information Paper, New Army Unit Designations in the Modular Army: Talking 

Points and Answers to Key Questions, Historians Files, CMH. 

23 Donnelly, 63–74; Briefing, Center of Military History, “Unit Designations in the 

Army Modular Force”; Ltr, General (USA, Ret.) Gordon R. Sullivan to General Peter 

J. Schoomaker, 25 January 2005; Memo, DAMH-FPO for Director, U.S. Army Center 

of Military History, 17 February 2005, sub: CMH Responsibilities while Implementing 

COA1; CMH Information Paper, “New Army Unit Designations in the Modular 

Army: Talking Points and Answers to Key Questions”; Author’s personal experience as 

chief of military history, 1999–2005.

24 Donnelly, 63–74; Army Comprehensive Guide to Modularity; Witsken et al.; 

Briefing, TRADOC, “UE Briefing to the CSA,” 27 September 2004, Historians Files, 

CMH; Briefing Slide, “Unit of Employment X (Division) Headquarters,” Historians 

Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 8 September 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004.

25 Presentation, Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor to Members of the House Armed 

Services Committee, “Transformation and the Illusion of Change: Where Is the Army 

Really Headed? What Is to Be Done?” 21 April 2005, Historians Files, CMH; Memo, 

Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor for Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs, U.S. Army, 

sub: Response to Breaking the Phalanx and Beyond–Information Memorandum, 

Historians Files, CMH; Colonel John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for 

Combat (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 1988); Army General 

Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 15 March 2004, Historians Files, CMH. 

26 Field Manual 71–100, Division Operations (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 1990); Field Manual 100–15, Corps Operations, 1989; TRADOC Pamphlet 525–

5, AirLand Operations: A Concept for the Evolution of Airland Battle for the Strategic 

Army of the 1990s and Beyond (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command, 1991); Field Manual 34–8, Intelligence Battlefield Operating 

System (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1992); SC 25C, Describe the 

Synchronization of the Battlefield Operating Systems (Fort Gordon, Georgia: U.S. 

Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, 1992); 2AD(F), Combat Readiness Check, 

Historians Files, CMH; Donnelly, 27–74, 83–86.

27 Field Manual 44–8, Combined Arms for Air Defense (Washington DC: 

Department of the Army, 1999); Field Manual 44–18–1, Stinger Team Operations 

(Washington DC:, Department of the Army, 1984); Field Manual 44–44, Avenger 

Platoon, Section and Squad Operations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 

1995); Field Manual 44–85, Patriot Battalion and Battery Operations (Washington DC: 

Department of the Army, 1997); Warden; Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 

30–31 January 2004; “The Army as of August 6,” Army Times, 17 August 2009, 37; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 15 March 2004; Army Senior Leader 

Update, “Precision Strike: A Unique American Military Advantage . . . but with 

Limitations,” 14 August 2001, Historians Files, CMH. 

28 Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 15 March 2004; Army Senior Leader Update, “Precision 

Strike: A Unique American Military Advantage . . . but with Limitations,” 14 August 

2001; Donnelly, 27–74, 83–86; “The Army as of August 6,” 37; Field Manual 71–100,
337

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

Division Operations, 1990; Field Manual 100–15, Corps Operations, 1989; Briefing for 

the Honorable Paul D. Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “Army Indirect Fires 

Program Review,” 19 August 2002, Historians Files, CMH.

29 Donnelly, 27–74, 83–86; Romjue, The Army of Excellence, 134–202; Vince 

Demma, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1989 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 1998), 3–13, 63–71, 109–10, 137–59; Jeffery A. 

Charlston, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1999 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 2006), 3–13, 25–34, 61–80; Vincent Demma, 

Contractors on the Battlefield: An Historical Survey from the Civil War to Bosnia, 

Historians Files, CMH; Supplementary Report on Army Contracting, Historians 

Files, CMH; “The Army as of August 6,” 37; Lieutenant General Robert B. Flowers, 

“Army Engineers: Supporting the Warfighters and Reconstruction Efforts,” Army 

2004–2005 Green Book, October 2004, 185–90.

30 Donnelly, 27–74, 83–86; “The Army as of August 6,” 37; Fastabend, 73–81; 

Romjue, The Army of Excellence, 204–05; James J. Carafano, Private Sector, Public 

Wars: Contractors in Combat–Afghanistan, Iraq and Future Conflicts (Westport, 

Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2008), 1–13; Michelle Tan, “Fraud Gone 

Wild: CIA Races to Catch Up with Unfit, Greedy Contractors,” Army Times, 23 

February 2003, 10; Dr. Donald P. Wright and Colonel Timothy R. Reese, On Point II: 

Transition to the New Campaign, The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom,

May 2003–January 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 

2008), 386–89, 492–97, 506–09; Joseph A. Christoff, GAO Testimony to the Senate 

Committee on Foreign Relations, “Rebuilding Iraq: Enhancing Security, Measuring 

Program Results, and Maintaining Infrastructure Are Necessary to Make Significant 

and Sustainable Progress,” 18 October, 2005; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 21 July 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 25 August 2003; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 20 October 2003, Historians Files, CMH. 

31 S2453, A Bill to Enhance the Capability of the United States to Combat Terrorism 

and Other Forms of Unconventional Warfare; H.R. 5109, A Bill to Establish a National 

Special Operations Agency Within the Department of Defense to Have Unified 

Responsibility for All Special Operations Forces Activities Within the Department; 

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987; Charles H. Briscoe, Richard 

L. Kiper, James A. Schroder, and Kalev I. Sepp, Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special 

Operations Forces in Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute 

Press, 2003), 38–47; Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress 

(Washington DC: Department of Defense, 1992); United States Forces Somalia After 

Action Report and Historical Overview: The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2003); Walter E. Kretchick, Robert F. 

Bauman, and John T. Fishel, Invasion, Intervention, “Intervasion”: A Concise History 

of the United States Army in Operation Uphold Democracy (Fort Leavenworth, 

Kansas: U.S. Command and General Staff College Press, 1998); Richard W. Stewart, 

The United States Army in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001–

March 2002 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004); E-mail, Brigadier 

General Mark E. O’Neil to Major General Franklin Hagenbeck, 6 January 2003, sub: 

Anaconda Lessons Learned–NDU Paper, with notes, Historians Files, CMH; Charles 

E. Kirkpatrick, “Ruck It Up!”: The Post–Cold War Transformation of V Corps, 1990–

2001 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2006), 89–124, 275–320; TRADOC 

Pamphlet 525–5B, AirLand Operations, 1991; Army General Staff Council Offsite 

notes, 30–31 January 2004.

32 Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 January 2004; Presentation, 

Colonel Douglas A. Macgregor to Members of the House Armed Services Committee, 
Kevlar Legions

338

“Transformation and the Illusion of Change: Where Is the Army Really Headed? 

What Is to Be Done?” 21 April 2005. 

33 Briefing, Army Staff, “Adapting the MACOM Structure, Army Campaign Plan 

Decision Point #58,” n.d., Historians Files, CMH; “Command and Staff,” Army 1988–

1989 Green Book, October 1988, 226–40; “U.S. Army Posts and Installations,” Army 

1988–1989 Green Book, October 1988, 252–66; “Command and Staff,” Army 2005–

2006 Green Book, October 2005, 237–62; “U.S. Army Posts and Installations,” Army 

2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 271–77; CMH Information Paper, James L. 

Yarrison, The Responsibilities and Missions of Army Major Commands (MACOMs) 

and Corps Since World War II, 25 April 2000; “Adapting the Major Army Command 

(MACOM) Structure,” Stand-To! 14 March 2006; Army General Staff Council Offsite 

notes, 30–31 January 2004. 

34 Space Warriors: The Army Space Support Team (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2004); James Walker, Lewis Bernstein, and Sharon Lang, Seize the 

High Ground: The Army in Space and Missile Defense (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2004); Lieutenant General Larry J. Dodgen, “Space and Integrated 

Missile Defense: Vital Capabilities for the Nation’s Warfighters,” Army 2005–2006 

Green Book, October 2005, 133–36; Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge, 

Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1999); Gordon Van Vleet, “NETCOM: The Army’s 

Technological Command,” CHIPS, Fall 2004; General Benjamin S. Griffin, “AMC–

Serving Alongside the Warfighter,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 73–79; 

Lieutenant General Anthony R. Jones, “TRADOC, The Army’s Foundation: 

Adapting and Delivering,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 95–99.

35 Briefing, Army Staff, “Adapting the MACOM Structure, Army Campaign Plan 

Decision Point #58”; “Command and Staff,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book, October 

1988, 226–40; “Command and Staff,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 

237–62; Yarrison, “The Responsibilities and Missions of Army Major Commands 

(MACOMs) and Corps Since World War II”; Lieutenant General John M. Brown III, 

“USARPAC: The Army’s Expeditionary Force in the Pacific,” Army 2005–2006 Green 

Book, October 2005, 115–18; General B. B. Bell, “U.S. Army Europe and Seventh 

Army: Leading the Army’s Fight for Change,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 

2005, 81–87; Kirkpatrick, 535–49; General Dan K. McNeill, “Army Force Generation: 

U.S. Army Forces Command Future,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 

63–70; Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, “Preserving Soldiers’ Lives and Health–

Anytime, Anywhere,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 121–24; TRICARE 

Prime Handbook: Your Guide to Program Benefits (Phoenix, Arizona: TriWest 

Healthcare Alliance, 2006); Lieutenant General David W. Barno, “Army Installations–

the Hometowns of Combat Power,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 195–

200; About IMCOM, History, http://www.imcom.army.mil, accessed 4 September 

2009; 1999 Division Commanders/TRADOC Commandants Conference notes, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, 19–21 April 1999.

36 “Adapting the Major Army Command (MACOM) Structure,” Stand-To! 14 

March 2006; Briefing, Army Staff, “Adapting the MACOM Structure, Army 

Campaign Plan Decision Point #58”; Army General Staff Council Offsite notes, 30–31 

January 2004; About SDDC, History, http://www.sddc.army.mil, accessed 5 September 

2009; Lieutenant General Claude V. Christianson, “Enhancing Logistical Readiness,” 

Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 171–76; Major Subordinate Commands, 

http://www.inscom.army.mil, accessed 5 September 2009; Lieutenant General Keith B. 

Alexander, Enhancing Army Intelligence in Support of Warfighters,” Army 2005–2006 

Green Book, October 2005, 155–60; “Mission,” http://www.usaasa.belvoir.army.mil, 
339

Army Force Structure, 1989–2005

accessed 5 September 2009; Department of Defense Directive 2065.1E, 7 December 

2004, sub: Assignment of Personnel to United Nations Missions. 

37 Yarrison, The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers, v–viii, 57–71; Lieutenant General 

John M. Riggs, “Transforming the Army Into the Objective Force,” Army 2001–2002 

Green Book, October 2001, 93–96; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 

August 2003; “Command and Staff,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book, October 1988, 

226–40; “Command and Staff,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 237–62; 

Major General William F. Ward Jr., “Buildup Over; Reserve’s Focus Is on FineTuning,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book, October 1988, 113–21; Lieutenant General 

James R. Helmly, “Changing to a 21st-Century Army Reserve,” Army 2005–2006 

Green Book, October 2005, 107–12; Major General Major General Donald Burdick, 

“The Guard: America’s Army On Call,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book, October 1988, 

125–32; Lieutenant General Clyde Vaughn, “Army National Guard–Always Ready, 

Always There,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 101–04; Robert 

Grundborg, Analysis of ADEA’s (Army Development and Employment Agency) 

Automated Data Processing (ADP) Survey (Fort Lewis, Washington: Army 

Development and Employment Agency Operations Research Office, 1987); Army 

Regulation 690–600, Equal Opportunity Discrimination Complaints (Washington DC: 

Department of the Army, 2004); Army Regulation 10–57, United States Army Civilian 

Appellate Review Agency (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1979); Army 

Regulation 10–89, United States Army Civilian Personnel Evaluation Agency 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1989); “Force Structure and Unit History 

Branch, Using History for a Better Force Structure,” accessed 6 September 2009, 

http://www.history.army.mil/html/forcestructure; Army Regulation 10–25, United 

States Army Logistics Integration Agency (USALIA) (Washington DC: Department 

of the Army, 2000); Headquarters, Department of the Army, General Orders 21, 

Establishment of the United States Army Information Management Support Center 

(IMCEN), 30 September 1994; Briefing Slide, Army Staff, “Chief Information Office/

CIO/G–6,” 31 August 2009, Historians Files, CMH; Welcome to the United States 

Army Evaluation Center, accessed 7 September 2009, http://www.atec.army.mil/aec; 

USACR/Safety Center History, accessed 7 September 2009, https://safety.army.mil; 

Headquarters, Department of the Army, General Orders 12, United States Army 

Troop Support Agency, 30 March 1992; United States Army Human Resources 

Command, accessed 7 September 2009, http://www.hrc.army.mil; Mission and 

Functions, accessed 7 September 2009, http://www.asmra.army.mil; Ronald Craig, 

“Evolution of the Provost Marshall General,” Military Police, April 2004. 

38 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003; “Adapting the Major 

Army Command (MACOM) Structure,” Stand-To! 14 March 2006; Briefing, Army 

Staff, “Adapting the MACOM Structure, Army Campaign Plan Decision Point #58.”

Chapter 8

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

The success of a volunteer army depends heavily on the relative attractiveness of military service. In modern America the well-being of the family, 

broadly defined, is among the most relevant factors affecting motivations to 

enlist or reenlist. The equation of Army readiness with family well-being is 

now so generally accepted as to be a truism. This was not always the case. 

Family support was ad hoc and local through the 1800s, and until World War 

II Army regulations generally forbade the enlistment of married men or the 

reenlistment of junior servicemen with wives and children. The larger standing 

Army of the Cold War improved upon family support, but most draftees who 

served were young and unmarried. The all-volunteer Army radically changed 

service demographics, and unhappy experiences during the Vietnam War 

made the service mindful of its flaws with respect to families. In 1982 the Army 

Family Liaison Office stood up to solicit feedback and improve information 

flow, and in 1983 Chief of Staff General John A. Wickham Jr. published his 

landmark white paper, The Army Family. The Army Family acknowledged that 

most soldiers were now married, initiated cycles of research and analysis, and 

launched such powerful programs as the Army Family Action Plan, the Army 

Community and Family Support Center, and Family Support Groups. As the 

Cold War ended the Army was making significant advances with respect to 

family support and accelerating cycles of deployment through the following 

years, which made even more attention necessary. Cold War programs tended 

to focus on families with children living at home, and this priority continued. 

However, more attention was also drawn to spousal issues independent of children, to parents, and to retirees. Families of the reserve component had been 

largely invisible to the Department of the Army during the Cold War, and 

soon no longer were. Transition to an expeditionary posture affected the Army 

family as profoundly as it affected the Army as a whole.1

Families with Children

In 1989 the active Army counted 991,035 dependents. Over half of its 

soldiers were married, and about two-thirds had dependent children. Perhaps 

one in five of these dependents lived with their sponsor in Europe. To a large 

extent the fraction of the dependents living in Europe and elsewhere overseas 
Kevlar Legions

342

shaped definitions for family support as a whole. Their circumstances, scattered in “penny packets” across foreign lands, were the most challenging, and 

notions of “command sponsorship” for them drove the Army to define “what 

right looked like” for dependents everywhere. Since achieving such standards 

was considerably harder overseas than at home, support to families overseas 

established the minimum expectations. The underlying premise of command 

sponsorship was that dependents would be discouraged from arriving unless 

or until they could be reasonably provided for. In practical terms this generally meant the sponsor arrived unaccompanied, searched for and secured 

acceptable housing, became familiar with local agencies and facilities supporting families, arranged for transportation, and secured command approval to 

bring his or her dependents into a benign environment. Government housing 

in Europe was never sufficient for the numbers involved, particularly after the 

advent of the volunteer Army, so most dependents lived a year or two “off 

post” before they could reasonably expect to move “on.” Off post their personal finances were whiplashed by fluctuations in the value of the dollar versus 

the Deutschmark and other currencies. A cost-of-living allowance (COLA) was 

intended to offset imbalances, but it often lagged in implementation and proved 

too little overall. Posts were generally of brigade size or in brigade-sized clusters, and each endeavored to provide a full suite of services and support to the 

families in its area. A housing office manned by knowledgeable local nationals 

helped sponsors find and rent suitable housing off post. A diminutive commissary allowed the purchase of food at stateside prices, and a post exchange 

was a surrogate department store for other commonly purchased items. One 

could cash a check, within dollar limits, at the post exchange, and a miniature 

bank allowed for deposits, withdrawals, and conversion into Deutschmarks or 

some other local currency. Families in financial difficulties could go through 

Army Community Service (ACS) to secure a loan from Army Emergency 

Relief (AER). ACS also loaned furniture, kitchenware, and other items to 

families in transition. Most brigade clusters featured a child care center and 

an elementary school, thus accommodating children ages 1 through 12—the 

vast majority of those resident given military demography—for the majority 

of the workday. Youth services and after-school programs were hit and miss. 

High school–age dependents often traveled long distances to attend school, 

and spectacular distances to attend sporting events. The medical establishment 

serving the soldiers served dependents as well. On post they were screened 

for minor ailments and preventative care by the same physicians and dentists, 

and a medical hierarchy pyramided them back through such major facilities as 

those in Frankfurt, Furth, or Landstuhl. Within units Family Support Groups, 

generally led by commanders’ wives but often led by the wives of other senior 

personnel, provided standing networks for mutual assistance and communication, which proved particularly useful during prolonged training absences. The 

most trying periods for families tended to be arrival and departure during 

permanent change of station (PCS), so formal and informal family support 

agencies tended to focus on the challenges of this period: acquiring housing, 

moving and awaiting household goods, resolving PCS expenses, delivering or 

buying a car, procuring locally usable driver’s licenses, figuring out gasoline 
343

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

and other rationing, settling in as a family, entering the children in school, and 

so forth. The demands of life in Europe, underscored by notions of command 

sponsorship, came to define the Army’s overall obligations toward its families: housing, commissary, post exchange, relief agencies, child care, schools, 

health care, informal support networks, and PCS assistance. As hard as the 

Army might try, it was hard to get all this right. United States Army, Europe 

(USAREUR), Commander General Crosbie E. Saint conspicuously quoted 

a Time magazine comment that his soldiers and their families “live and work 

in conditions that would cause riots in U.S. prisons.” When issues emerged, 

they could be and were elevated for consideration through the Army Family 

Action Plan (AFAP). Established in 1984, the AFAP featured hierarchical 

annual conferences of spouses and support agencies sequentially representing 

installations, major Army commands, and the Army as a whole. Concerning 

AFAP, more later.2

The framework for family support that serviced isolated outposts in 

Europe and elsewhere overseas applied within the United States as well, albeit 

more efficiently and with less effort or perceived need. The mega-posts upon 

which most soldiers served “stateside” enjoyed economies of scale that dwarfed 

those of Europe. Local economies took up much of the slack, particularly 

with respect to housing, high school, and medical care. By the mid-1990s the 

European archipelago of Army posts, camps, and stations had largely disappeared, and many units that had not simply been inactivated collapsed into 

the expanding mega-posts of the United States. PCS remained a priority 

requiring due consideration, but it fell behind the rigors of increasingly recurrent deployments as a focus for family-oriented efforts. The transition from a 

forward-deployed to an expeditionary Army included changes in attitude as 

well as physical disposition. The word “dependent” disappeared from the official lexicon, replaced by the less patronizing “family member.” Family Support 

Groups became Family Readiness Groups, for reasons that will be discussed. 

During the Cold War the family issue that had received the most focused, 

detailed, and continuous attention in Europe was that of noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO). Families assembled and continuously updated “NEO 

Packages,” which were routinely inspected. Upon appropriate alert, telephone 

trees would notify families of an impending crisis. Sponsors would speed to 

motor pools and roll to their general defense plan (GDP) positions, while their 

dependents streamed in the opposite direction through rendezvous points and 

holding areas to fly out of Paris or some other as yet relatively unaffected city. 

In a pinch, they might depart on planes that had flown in units to man Prepositioning of Materiel Configured to Unit Sets (POMCUS) equipment. The 

NEO Package included maps, instructions, points of contact, food and water 

for several days of travel, a transistor radio, sturdy clothing, and, thoughtfully, a flashlight. Sponsors were admonished never to let their car have less 

than half a tank of gas. Dependents who could not drive would be picked up, 

and a preexisting but temporarily assigned chain of command beginning with 

the company NEO noncommissioned officer (NCO) would direct the process. 

With any luck, tens of thousands of dependents would be safely back in the 

United States before serious fighting began. Dependents were precious cargo 
Kevlar Legions

344

to be whisked out of harm’s way so that their sponsors could focus on GDP 

responsibilities. With an expeditionary Army dependents were already out 

of harm’s way, and the Army’s tone changed from directive to collaborative. 

A constellation of studies beginning in the 1980s had established the critical 

role of family and spousal satisfaction upon retention—and indirectly upon 

recruitment as well. Families were to be courted, to be convinced that Army 

life was their most attractive long-term option. Rather than an impediment 

to be cleared from the battlefield, families were now partners to be positively 

engaged with an eye toward sustaining the force.3

Families need a place to live. For generations the Army’s answer to this 

requirement was to build family housing on its posts, camps, and stations. 

The number of family units was never actually sufficient, and the proportion 

of families adequately housed on post plummeted with the heavily married 

all-volunteer Army. Some new construction occurred during the late Cold 

War, but the “peace dividend” of the early 1990s reduced funds considerably. 

Infrastructure diminished dramatically in Europe and sporadically in the 

United States, but not as rapidly as funding did. By 1994 the housing to be 

maintained had declined by 17 percent and the funds available to do so by 30 

percent. The average family housing unit was sixty-one years old. The combination of limited funds and aging housing created a maintenance backlog on 

the order of $20 billion, and as many as a third of the funds available annually 

went to basic maintenance rather than to the revitalization of old quarters or 

the construction of new ones. Housing ticked up as a source of AFAP issues 

and general complaints. The Military Housing Privatization Initiative, passed 

by Congress in 1996, represented a calculated effort to attract private-sector 

capital to build, manage, and maintain on-post housing. Neighborhoods would 

be built or refurbished on federal property but privately owned and maintained by investors and developers. Soldiers would use their Basic Allowance 

for Housing (BAH) to rent such housing and would have exclusive access to 

it. Troop density and Army policy would ensure high rates of fill. Within a 

dozen years this Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) would boast more 

than 83,000 privatized homes spread through thirty-eight locations. Defense 

spending increased somewhat in the late 1990s and substantially after 9-11. 

Some portion of this increase went into new construction. Family housing 

enjoyed a priority behind that of barracks renovation and replacement, however. The Army was shifting from the 1980s vintage standard of two soldiers 

to a barracks room to one soldier per room, and this imposed huge demands 

on the only moderately increased funding. Fortuitously, home ownership by 

soldiers took an increasing proportion of the weight off of military-provided 

housing. As we have seen, inhibitions against “homesteading” disappeared 

as overseas stationing diminished. Homesteading became semiofficial policy 

with Schoomaker’s Modular Army. Most enlisted men and many officers 

through field grade could anticipate recurrent assignments to the same megapost if they so desired. Families could settle in, and home ownership became 

more practical. BAH and the Variable Housing Allowance (VHA) could be 

used for mortgage payments rather than rent, building up a soldier’s equity 

rather than disappearing monthly. This rosy prospect was somewhat limited 
Cold War “stairwell” family housing, and, below, housing generated by the 

Residential Communities Initiative program.
Kevlar Legions

346

by the Army’s vision of what BAH and VHA were supposed to pay for, and by 

local variations in the cost of living. In 1989 BAH (then Basic Allowance for 

Quarters, BAQ) and VHA taken together were supposed to cover average rents 

at 80 percent of the cost of living at a standard deemed appropriate for the 

rank. Junior enlisted with dependents were considered appropriately housed 

in two-bedroom apartments, sergeants and lieutenants in duplexes, and E-9s 

and captains and above in single-family homes. By 2005 the BAH inched up 

to fully cover the average cost of rent and utilities, although the scale of housing deemed appropriate by rank remained. VHA remained problematic and 

generally delayed with respect to addressing countrywide differences. Soldiers 

dipped into their base pay or into their spouse’s income to live in the housing 

they preferred rather than in what the Army considered appropriate for their 

rank. Their money went the furthest around such posts as Fort Polk, Fort 

Riley, Fort Sill, Fort Campbell, Fort Bliss, and Fort Stewart. Soldiers were 

comfortably better off than local counterparts around Fort Hood, Fort Knox, 

Fort Benning, Fort Drum, and Fort Bragg. Fort Carson and Fort Lee teetered 

around a break-even point, and Fort Lewis, Hawaii, and the National Capital 

Region were breathtakingly expensive. Given relative assignment stability and 

the likelihood of family ties in one region or another, it made sense to an 

increasing number of soldiers to buy their own homes. This change took pressure off the inventory of on-post housing. Oddly, shortfalls in government 

housing may have reinforced spousal tolerance of the newly expeditionary 

Army. One survey established that 55 percent of Army spouses in on-post 

government quarters were satisfied, whereas 92 percent of those who owned 

their own homes off post were. Each group comprised about a third of the 

Army’s spouses, with most of the remainder renting off post. Motivations to 

reenlist are complex, but they can include a comfortable lifestyle and a rightsized mortgage.4

Family life, in particular raising children, can be expensive. Most families endeavor to keep costs down. For generations Army families have relied 

upon commissaries (essentially grocery stores) and post exchanges (similar 

to department stores but with an ancillary responsibility to support morale, 

welfare, and recreation activities) to assist in this regard. Both originated in 

the Frontier Army and had a tradition of bringing the products of civilization to isolated outposts. This tradition continued in the Cold War, with 

commissaries and post exchanges bringing American goods and services to 

families stationed overseas at prices independent of fluctuations with respect 

to the value of local currencies. In the United States most major troop 

concentrations were relatively isolated when the Cold War began. Local 

municipal development, in part funded by troop and Army family spending, 

changed this over time. The end of the Cold War was initially traumatic for 

both the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) and the Army and Air Force 

Exchange Service (AAFES). Downsizing radically reduced their customer 

base, the constellation of small commissaries and post exchanges scattered 

across Europe was badly out of position, and flagship major facilities overseas served a fraction of their former customers. AAFES had invested heavily in morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) activities to support Desert 
347

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

Storm, only to have the ax fall as these bills came due. DeCA depended 

largely and AAFES almost exclusively on nonappropriated funds (NAF) 

that they themselves generated. Whereas dilemmas posed by downsizing 

and relocation would be addressed with appropriated funds for most of the 

Army, this would not be true for DeCA or AAFES. Since towns surrounding 

most major stateside posts had full suites of grocery stores, supermarkets, 

department stores, and outlets, some thought was given to letting stateside 

commissaries and post exchanges go the way of the dinosaur. This sentiment 

encountered immediate pushback. The 1993 AFAP flagged up the retention 

of commissaries as its highest priority quality-of-life issue. Surveys repeatedly identified the equivalent pay compensation of shopping at commissaries 

and post exchanges among the incentives for reenlistment. Broadly averaged, 

families could save about 30 percent by shopping at commissaries and 20 

percent by shopping at post exchanges. Retirees also shopped in commissaries and post exchanges and realized the same savings. Retirees vote locally, 

and in 1993 they outnumbered serving soldiers for the first time. Whatever 

local political resistance there might have been to DeCA or AAFES expansion did not appear. Few appropriated funds came their way, but free use 

of federal land, rent-free status, tax-free status, business models that deemphasized profits, and thoughtful support from the Department of Defense 

facilitated recovery. DeCA sells at net cost with a 5 percent surcharge. The 

surcharge is used to maintain and improve existing facilities and to build 

new ones. After the initial turbulence of closing overseas commissaries and 

laying off or moving workforces, the DeCA began to plow this money back 

into stateside posts. In many places they teamed up with AAFES to produce colocated “destination” complexes featuring expansive buildings, food 

courts with a mix of franchises, and local vendors in addition to the commissary and post exchange per se. For several years a major fraction of spouses 

surveyed complained of inadequate commissary facilities and services, but 

this muted as new investment took root in theretofore neglected stateside 

posts. AAFES operates like a not-for-profit and guarantees a lowest price 

except with respect to gasoline, alcohol, and cigarettes. It earns enough 

to pay for maintenance and expansion and to plow from one-half to twothirds of its earnings back into MWR activities. During the mid-1990s the 

revenue from AAFES going into MWR suffered. From 1993 to 1994, for 

example, AAFES sales declined by 14.5 percent and funds passed along to 

MWR declined from $123.37 million to $110.73 million. Overseas closures 

and sharp personnel cuts enabled further savings. In concert with DeCA, 

AAFES invested in and improved upon mall-like shopping facilities. Perhaps 

as important, AAFES went digital and added online sales to sales in stores 

or through catalogues. By 1999 DeCA and AAFES had regained traction. 

New facilities on most major posts brought traditional clients back, along 

with an ever-increasing number of retirees. Accelerating deployments dramatically increased the numbers from the reserve component on active duty, 

who could shop with their families. In remote locations, AAFES was often 

the only option. In 1999 AAFES earned $7.1 billion and was the eighth largest American retailer. Far from going the way of the dinosaur, commissaries 
Kevlar Legions

348

and post exchanges were once again central to Army family life, enabling 

savings of 20 to 30 percent as families stretched their budgets.5

Families with children need some form of child care when the parents are 

not available. When both parents are working outside the home this requirement is more acute, and in the case of sole parents it is particularly demanding. 

Deployments in effect made temporary single parents of tens of thousands 

of spouses. In 1990, more than 174,000 Army children required child care 

services. The Army had not done well initially with the expanded child care 

requirements of an all-volunteer Army. In the early 1980s over 70 percent of 

Army child care centers did not meet fire and safety codes, and many were 

inappropriately reconfigured stables or barracks. Staffs were poorly trained 

and paid, with annual turnover rates that exceeded 100 percent in some places. 

Thousands of children were on waiting lists for what some characterized as the 

“ghettos of child care.” Egregious sexual abuse scandals perpetrated by inadequately screened and supervised staff members rocked the system. Improving 

child care became a recurrent theme of the AFAP and attracted congressional 

notice. The Military Child Care Act of 1989 stipulated minimums for funding and staffing, higher wages, better training and screening, unannounced 

inspections, and programs for accreditation. Embarrassed, the Army rushed 

to clean up its act. Professional cadres were recruited and salaries went up 

as much as $2 an hour. Training programs, many offering college credit, 

addressed not only child care centers but also sanctioned caregivers working 

in their own homes. Turnover plunged. By 2003, 132 child care centers were 

built or renovated at a cost of $325,470,000. Within two years of the Military 

Child Care Act, forty Army child development centers had achieved National 

Academy of Early Childhood Programs accreditation. Within a decade that 

statistic approached 100 percent. In 1992 the Army Community and Family 

Support Center implemented a fee schedule based on total family income. 

This in effect subsidized junior enlisted personnel with several children. The 

Army also subsidized caregivers in an effort to expand options and employed 

Web sites to communicate availability. Over time a robust menu evolved on all 

major posts. Parents could drop their children off for a few hours, for regularly 

scheduled part days, or for full days. The term “Child Development Center” 

entered the lexicon to describe activities at revamped or rebuilt former child 

care centers. Planned curricula promoted learning activities to develop cognitive, motor, social, and emotional skills. “Exploration” occurred as individuals, in small groups, and in large groups organized by age. Child Development 

Centers accommodated children from six weeks through kindergarten. Family 

Child Care Homes accommodated children from four weeks to twelve years 

in smaller numbers in private quarters. These providers were also trained 

and certified and worked for the Army as private contractors. Family Child 

Care Homes had the convenience of domestic settings in local neighborhoods, accommodated broader age groups, allowed for nonstandard hours, 

and permitted siblings to stay together. They featured progressive curricula of 

activities and were subject to unannounced inspections. Child Development 

Centers and Family Child Care Homes could surge to provide “24/7” coverage in exceptional circumstances. Here, however, the Army had to be careful 
349

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

not to outdo itself. The system was designed to assist resident parents, not to 

cover prolonged absences or deployments. All parents were encouraged, and 

sole parents or dual military parents required, to have notarized family care 

plans specifying the disposition of their children should they deploy. Elaborate 

official work sheets smoked out details and were subject to considerable attention during preparations for overseas movement. Generally the children of 

deploying sole parents or dual military parents stayed with grandparents or 

extended family members, sometimes with friends or other acquaintances. 

Concerning this, more later. After an embarrassing start, child care within the 

Army achieved and exceeded standards appropriate to the demands upon it. 

Indeed, some knowledgeable commentators flagged up military child care as a 

model for the nation as a whole.6

By 1989 Army deficiencies with respect to preschool child care were 

well on their way to resolution. The same could not be said of school-age 

children. Relative inattention stemmed from several sources. In 2001 in a 

survey of Army families with children, 88 percent had children five years 

and younger, 68 percent had children six to ten, and 40 percent children 

sixteen to eighteen. Thus the Army family trended toward younger children. 

This made sense, given the average ages of soldiers serving and their spouses. 

Because of funding constraints, program improvements with respect to preschoolers in the early 1990s were often at the expense of their older siblings. 

MWR programs fall into three categories for funding. Category A is characterized as “Mission Essential” and includes fitness programs, libraries, and 

recreation centers—with troop use in mind. Category B is characterized as 

“Community Support” and includes child and youth services, arts and crafts, 

swimming pools, and outdoor recreation. Category C is characterized as 

“Business Activities” and includes golf courses, bowling alleys, service clubs, 

snack bars, and retail activities. MWR programs are funded with a combination of appropriated and nonappropriated funds, using perhaps a third of the 

former and two-thirds of the latter in an average year. Category A receives 

the lion’s share of appropriated funds, often to the point of full coverage. 

Category C is expected to generate enough funds to cover its own costs, and 

then some. Category B is the least able to generate its own revenue, and the 

most vulnerable to budget shortfalls because of its low priority for appropriated funds. With the “peace dividend” of the early 1990s appropriated funds 

plummeted. At the same time AAFES and other retailers were crippled in 

their ability to generate nonappropriated funds, as we have seen. Preschool 

child care was the most visible and in the highest demand of the Category B 

MWR issues. It had been propelled toward reform by scandal and garnered 

the most attention, congressional and otherwise. It tended to sop up the 

Category B funds that were available. Requirements for school-age children 

were diverse and diffused by the greater likelihood of off-post venues. Most 

Army children were not in Department of Defense (DoD) schools, a fact 

that became more true as redeployment from Europe progressed. In 2003, 

106,000 children from all services were in DoD schools, about two-thirds of 

them overseas. There were 224 of these schools in seven states and fourteen 

countries. More than five times as many service children were in public or 
Kevlar Legions

350

private schools in the United States. Quality varied state by state, and education could be disrupted by changes of station. Students generally got out of 

school before their parents got off work, creating an after-school dilemma 

for children not yet old enough to be on their own. Children old enough to 

be on their own nevertheless benefited from programs supervised by adults, 

further incentive for a healthy mix of after-school activities. Recognizing that 

school-age children were underserved, in 1997 the Army combined the theretofore autonomous Child Development Services and Youth Services into a 

single Child and Youth Services (CYS). From this point the two age groups 

no longer competed institutionally, but rather became a single continuum for 

which CYS was responsible. As Family Child Care Homes came on line they 

helped with a fragment of the after-school dilemma, since they accommodated children up to age twelve. A child going to school in the neighborhood 

or catching the right bus—not necessarily a small thing—could report in 

to a caregiver rather than a parent. As AAFES and other nonappropriated 

moneymakers regained traction, more money was available in the system. 

Where the Department of Defense operated or could influence local schools 

(primarily through cost sharing and Department of Education subsidies 

based on attendance by service family members), after-school programs 

could be reinforced. Army School Age Services, serving ages six to twelve, 

expanded this idea to include weekend activities and summer camps and 

included recreation, sports, arts, life skills, and citizenship in the curriculum. 

Older children up to age eighteen came under the umbrella of Army Youth 

Services. Here needs were particularly complex, since the lives of Army teenagers almost inevitably revolved around off-post schools and their activities. 

The Army Family Action Plan convened teen panels in its annual meetings 

to come to grips with requirements as teenagers saw them. Army teenagers 

reported moving from school to school, something they did three times as 

often as their civilian counterparts, as particularly challenging. American 

education was intensely local. Transferring credits, reconciling grades, reestablishing schedules, and meeting graduation requirements were all problematic. Beginning in 1996 the Chief of Staff, his wife, and a newly empowered 

Quality of Life Team began drilling these issues. Their interest fed into a 

broader initiative that established the Military Child Education Coalition. In 

1999 a Secondary Education Transition Study identified the consequences of 

teenage dependent mobility and recommended remedial measures. Results 

included memoranda of agreement related to transfers and credits signed 

with an ever-expanding number of schools, a senior year stabilization option 

available to sponsors, trained and designated school liaison officers, and 

guidebooks separately designed for students, parents, and school faculty. 

The older children were the more practical it was for them to take advantage 

of such installation facilities as fitness centers, swimming pools, libraries, 

bowling alleys, arts and craft centers, and so on. Youth Services understood 

these possibilities and scheduled activities exploiting them. This did increase 

the likelihood of family member teenagers interacting with soldiers. It seems 

a time-honored tradition for old soldiers to try to keep their daughters away 

from young soldiers with admonitions along the lines of “He’s too old for 
351

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

you!” That tradition continued. By 2005 the Army had invested considerable 

time and energy in its school-age children. As home stationing became commonplace and sponsors more likely to deploy than to re-station, family life 

became more stable for school-age children along with everyone else.7

Not all family members require the same services, and services required 

by some family members are exceptional. The Department of Defense took 

note of this at least as early as 1975, when Congress passed the Education 

for All Handicapped Children Act. This legislation stipulated that to receive 

federal funds states had to ensure a free and appropriate public education 

for all children with disabilities. Most Army children were in state schools 

and benefited directly. DoD schools were federally funded, of course, and 

picked up on this guidance as well. Emphasis was on individualized educational programs that “mainstreamed” students as much as possible. The 

emphasis on the family surrounding General Wickham’s publication of The 

Army Family in 1983 gave due attention to exceptional family members. This 

included refined tracking and governance of special education and related 

health issues, training for parents and relevant staff, and publication of a 

handbook focusing on parents and a handbook focusing on those assisting 

parents. The purpose was to ensure services, medical and otherwise, were 

available to accommodate the unique needs of the child. In 1986 the Army 

initiated mandatory screening to ensure that it was aware of the family 

member disabilities with which it might have to deal. In 1990 attention to 

exceptional family members was considerably advanced by the passage of 

the Americans with Disabilities Act. Mandates broadened and numbers 

under consideration increased. By June 2003, 59,127 were enrolled in the 

Exceptional Family Member Program, a number that represented 8.3 percent of active-duty Army family members. Army policy evolved several distinct features. Although medical personnel were always heavily involved, the 

Exceptional Family Member Program was not a medical lead. Initially it fell 

under the auspices of the Adjutant General, and later under the Assistant 

Chief of Staff for Installation Management (ACSIM). At first the top priority was assignment policy, ensuring that disabled family members did not 

accompany their sponsors into environments that could not support them. 

This imperative remained important but faded from top priority as overseas assignments diminished in number and stateside mega-posts expanded 

in capability. Priorities broadened. The Americans with Disabilities Act 

imposed impressive demands on facilities and programs. ACSIM, with its 

governance over construction, housing, MWR activities, and such programs 

as Army Community Service and Child and Youth Services, emerged as 

a logical lead. Garrison commanders assumed overall responsibility and 

worked through installation committees wherein a full range of medical, 

child care, educational, and community agencies were involved. The acronym SNAP (Special Needs Accommodation Process) described recurrent 

forums where specific issues and cases were addressed. Respite care, providing temporary relief to family caregivers, numbered among the services 

envisioned. The program was not voluntary. Soldiers on active duty and 

civilian employees assigned overseas submitted standard forms declaring the 
Kevlar Legions

352

status of their family members during PCS. Military medical personnel and 

educators identified known disabilities, and garrison commanders losing an 

exceptional family member to PCS notified their counterparts soon to be in 

receipt. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 broadened 

definitions to include developmental delays as well as disability per se. Some 

Army families balked at the emerging extent of disclosure. Privacy could 

be an issue, as could the prospect of limiting career-enhancing assignments 

for the sponsor or stigmatizing a family member to his or her disadvantage. 

Army Regulation 608–75 as it emerged in 2006 leaned toward full disclosure, 

sanctions for noncompliance, and ensuring there were few surprises when 

attempting to accommodate exceptional family members. The regulation 

did call upon the Army Community and Family Support Center to monitor 

the effects of the program on retention. Retaining families was, after all, a 

critical institutional imperative to which the Exceptional Family Member 

Program was intended to contribute.8

Families need health care. The traditional model for providing it in the Army 

had been for family members to show up at the hospitals and clinics that supported their sponsors. Retirees and their families went to these too. Escalating 

numbers of retirees and radically increased marriage rates in the volunteer Army 

overwhelmed this system. Beginning in 1966 the Civilian Health and Medical 

Program of the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS) contracted with civilian physicians and institutions to support military families stationed distant from military facilities or where particular medical services were not available. Over time 

this model migrated from the periphery to the center. In 1989 a Government 

Accountability Office (GAO) study established that 85 percent of the retirees 

and family members employing CHAMPUS lived within forty miles of military 

treatment facilities too overloaded to accommodate them. Recruiting uniformed 

doctors and nurses was consistently problematic, and a focus on treating uniformed service members rendered shortages particularly acute with respect to 

family medicine, pediatrics, gynecology, and obstetrics. These were, of course, 

the very specialties young families needed most. Downsizing in the early 1990s 

rendered these shortages even more acute, while redeployments from Europe 

brought an ever-larger percentage of Army families within range of American 

civilian physicians and hospitals. The Army experimented with two approaches to 

address its family health care dilemma. Catchment area management envisioned 

major military treatment facilities as regional gateways to care and brought 

contracted civilian physicians into military facilities. These could be existing 

facilities or newly established Primary Care to Uniformed Services (PRIMUS) 

outpatient clinics. Negotiations generally shaved 30 percent or more off a physician’s standing fees, in addition to costs avoided by keeping family members 

out of civilian facilities. An alternative approach deemphasized flagship military medical facilities and instead constructed networks of civilian health care 

providers with whom services and fees could be negotiated. Beneficiaries would 

enroll, and a health maintenance organization would manage options. This 

approach appeared in 1991 as the experimental Tidewater Tri-Service Managed 

Care Project. As the name implies it was a joint program and addressed 400,000 

potential beneficiaries in the Tidewater area of Virginia. The business principles 
353

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

of the project aligned with emerging roles of insurers and health maintenance 

organizations in contemporary civilian health care, and it multiplied choices 

available to beneficiaries. The experiment succeeded in providing services and 

controlling costs and resulted in the nationwide establishment of TRICARE 

between 1994 and 1998. For a time the idea of working through regional flagship military medical facilities retained traction, and TRICARE was organized 

into a dozen districts loosely based upon them. In 2004 the number of districts 

was reduced to three, and the network as a whole dramatically eclipsed its particular nodes in importance. Active-duty service members enrolled in TRICARE 

Prime. Family members, retirees, and retiree family members chose from options 

that varied enrollment fees, deductibles, copayments, and limitations. Military 

treatment facilities and clinics with staffs augmented by contracted civilians 

remained in the network as important sources of Army health care, particularly 

for soldiers and family members residing on post. Uniformed medical personnel 

were increasingly drawn into deployment cycles affecting the rest of the Army, 

however, diminishing the services they could provide. Retirees and family members residing off post were increasingly drawn to civilian TRICARE providers. 

For them the gateway to specialized medical care was less likely to be the winnowing process of a military treatment facility and more likely to be decisions 

made by a civilian primary care manager (PCM) accepting TRICARE. The 

PCM referred his patients as necessary to specialists also accepting TRICARE. 

The system evolved to be dispersed, diffuse, and reasonably effective. TRICARE 

understandably experienced growing pains and was a major source of complaints 

and recriminations early on. These muted over time. Of eighty-five AFAP issues 

open in 2003, only eight had to do with TRICARE. These generally reflected 

TRICARE provided families flexible off-post alternatives for medical care.
Kevlar Legions

354

a sentiment to expand access to TRICARE—in effect an endorsement—rather 

than attempts to redress perceived grievances.9

Through most of the Cold War the most dramatic and traumatic event 

Army families recurrently faced was permanent change of station. A family 

packed up its furniture, moved out of one home, traveled hundreds or thousands 

of miles, and moved into another—often on short notice. Army Community 

Service was established in 1965, and installation agencies provided broad menus 

of family support but particularly homed in on this difficult period. Quarters 

had to be signed for, rented, or bought. Household goods had to be delivered 

and claims for damages to them processed. Traditional disparities between 

household goods’ weight allowances for officers, who had been expected to 

have families and property, and junior enlisted, who had not, became contentious in the volunteer Army. Allowances for E-1 to E-3 ranks increased from 

2,000 to 2,500 pounds in 2002 and doubled to 5,000 after 2005—up to about 

half that authorized a lieutenant. Children moved from one school system to 

another, too often in the middle of an academic year. ACS “lending closets” 

helped families during the absence of their household goods, and counselors 

guided them through the many issues and agencies involved in a move. The 

good news about the shift to an expeditionary Army was that home stationing 

reduced the incidence and impact of such moves, and far fewer family moves 

were to overseas stations. The bad news was that recurrent deployment totally 

eclipsed PCS as the greatest challenge facing Army families. We will discuss 

effects on spouses and parents shortly. Children, although resilient, suffered 

too, and their needs were not well understood. Reactions varied by age group 

and level of development. About two-thirds of the children of deployed soldiers demonstrated increased levels of fear and anxiety, half had behavior 

problems or “acted out,” and a third experienced increased school and academic difficulty. Younger children were more prone than they otherwise might 

have been to bed-wetting or separation anxiety, and older children were more 

prone to hostility, sullenness, withdrawal, or eating disorders. Conversely, 

about half of these children became closer to family members other than their 

parents—often grandparents or others with whom they resided—and adolescents generally took on more responsibility than they otherwise might have. 

Schools, child care centers, and youth services varied wildly in their ability to 

cope. Schools with large numbers of military family members were more prone 

to initiate directed programs. Child care centers and youth services on major 

posts were better endowed and accumulated more relevant experience than 

smaller posts with intermittent deployments. Periods following deployments 

presented problems for children too. Children were even more prone than parents to imagine all would be rosy after a loved one’s return. “Reintegration” 

has high points and low points, steps forward and steps back, and children 

could be readily disappointed if they nurtured overly elevated expectations of 

post-deployment happiness. Most soldiers deployed after 2001 were exposed 

to circumstances conducive to posttraumatic stress disorder, and many worked 

through its actual symptoms after they returned. Recurrent deployments, especially if at brief intervals, exacerbated the problem. Sponsor depression, irritability, anxiety, hypervigilance, flashbacks, or nightmares profoundly affected 
355

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

parent-child relationships, of course. At least one victim could get along only 

with his dog.10

Deployments more than tripled during the 1990s, then increased again 

by an order of magnitude after 2003. As difficult as the anxiety and pace 

were for most Army children, they were even harder in the cases of sole 

or dual-military parents. Sole parents cannot enlist on active duty but can 

remain if they become sole parents after enlisting. The reserve component 

is not so restricted. As operations peaked in Iraq, about 12 percent of the 

women and 4 percent of the men serving on active duty were single parents. 

Almost 11 percent of Army families were those of dual-military couples. 

This translated to 6 percent of the uniformed husbands and 42 percent of the 

uniformed wives. About half of the female soldiers who deployed after 2001 

were mothers, and, of these, perhaps a third were sole parents. Assignment 

officers endeavored not to deploy two uniformed parents at the same time, 

but even when they succeeded the prospect of one parent being gone and 

the other likely to leave soon was daunting to children. Sole parents, dualmilitary parents, and single pregnant soldiers were required to establish a 

family care plan approved by their commanding officer. Organized around 

Department of the Army Form 5305, it pulled together proof of counseling, powers of attorney, certifications of acceptance as guardian, provisions 

for allotments and identification cards, contingency travel arrangements, 

and other documents and details into a comprehensive package. Soldiers 

specifically committed to arrange for child care, food, housing, transportation, and emergency needs during their absence and acknowledged fourteen 

different circumstances that could render them absent—of which the eleventh was deployment. Failure to maintain adequate arrangements could be 

grounds for disciplinary action or separation. Families in which one spouse 

was not a service member had to think through the same issues, of course, 

but the Army assumed the nondeploying spouse—unless an exceptional 

family member—would handle them. On balance the highly structured and 

somewhat draconian program did a creditable job of tending to physical 

needs. Tens of thousands of Army children lived temporarily with grandparents, friends, or extended family members, all the while benefiting from 

allotments, TRICARE, and identification cards. Popular mythology (not 

necessarily true or false, but believed rather than provable) holds that “Army 

brats” are stronger, more adaptable, and more resilient by virtue of facing 

such challenges. This mythology emerged in an era of traditional nuclear 

families and PCS as the greatest recurrent hardship. Upticks previously cited 

with respect to anxiety, behavioral problems, and academic difficulty gave 

installation commanders responsible for child and youth services, and school 

faculties, pause. Historians mulled over similar concerns during World War II 

and Vietnam, substantiating a need for preventative measures. Mental health 

services through TRICARE and in military facilities were rendered more 

accessible to adolescents. Relevant training was given to child care providers, 

military family life consultants augmented mental health care professionals, and school counselors became more mindful of children whose parents 

were deployed. The subject of children coping with recurrent deployments, 
Kevlar Legions

356

“Living in the New Normal” (also the name selected for a program of the 

Military Child Education Coalition featuring professional development 

courses and resources), became a focus for further study and initiatives. The 

Army Family Action Plan recommended peer support groups, camps, innovations in child care, counseling, and other services to assist in addressing 

this issue. By 2006, indeed by the time of this writing, the Army’s efforts in 

this regard had not matured and further adjustment seemed necessary. It 

remains unclear how big of a problem recurrent parental deployments are 

for otherwise well-cared-for children, or what remedial actions are the most 

appropriate. It is clear that soldiers are concerned for the welfare of their 

children and that visible attention to the challenges children face numbers 

among the prerequisites for retaining families.11

Spouses

As the Cold War ended about half of the Army on active duty were married, and of these about 60 percent had children. This meant, of course, that 

about 40 percent did not—or did not yet—have children. The needs of families 

without children overlap with but are different than those of families with 

children, and spouses can and do have concerns that are independent of their 

children. A longitudinal study of Army officers’ wives found expectations of 

how time away from children was to be spent varied by generation. Wives 

serving in the Army of the 1930s and 1940s got “out of the house” largely 

for social purposes. Coffees, teas, bridge clubs, and the like built camaraderie 

while providing a break from the serious work of maintaining a household. 

Army wives of the 1950s and 1960s, like their civilian counterparts, had fewer 

children and more labor-saving appliances and were heavily inclined toward 

community-building volunteer work as an outlet for talent and energy. Those 

of the 1970s and 1980s were likely to work outside the home for pay. These 

threads intermingled. By 1990 about half of all Army wives worked outside 

the home for pay, more than two-thirds volunteered in one capacity or another, 

and virtually all sought social contact outside the immediate family. Such statistics underlay the Army issues of 1989–2005 that might best be characterized as spousal: employment, financial security, emotional security, support 

groups, and volunteer activities. Evolution within each of these progressed in 

the context of the shift to an expeditionary Army and an accelerating pace of 

deployment.12

The most contentious spousal issue during this period was employment. 

Traditionally the Army had not taken much interest in spousal employment, 

assuming a nuclear family where the husband worked outside of the home 

and the wife worked within it. This model was changing for Americans at 

large by the 1970s, and the dramatic infusion of married soldiers into the 

all-volunteer Army brought change with it. By 1989 five out of ten Army 

spouses were working, and an additional one was seeking a job. The Army 

itself employed about 22,000. The AAFES employed many, both directly and 

indirectly, through the MWR activities it subsidized. These generally could be 

reemployed within AAFES when their sponsors were reassigned, both because 
357

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

AAFES was ubiquitous and because military spouses employed by AAFES 

where they were moving to were likely to be reassigned as well. Conventional 

wisdom held that Army spouses who sought work outside the home should 

undertake “portable” careers, like nurse or schoolteacher, for examples. Given 

state and local restrictions and requirements these were not always as portable 

as hoped for, but the underlying premise remained popular. Military intervention could help. A 1988 Army Research Institute (ARI) study established that 

an active employment assistance program on post increased spousal employment by 10 percent. With digitization such employment assistance became 

worldwide. The Military Spouse Career Center now boasts Web-based career 

assessment tools offering tips on education, training, and employment choices 

most likely to be compatible with a mobile lifestyle. Spouses are similarly 

assisted in creating and posting resumés, searching listings, and assessing 

relative prospects by geographical location. The general advent of home stationing at stateside mega-posts had a large impact on spousal employment. 

Given geographical stability, spouses enjoyed greater prospects for employment stability. Options broadened from portable careers to realistically include 

more location-dependent enterprises, such as opening a business or being a 

realtor. The sponsor could deploy and redeploy as the Army directed; the 

spouse could continue to work uninterrupted. Permanent changes of station 

that did occur were overwhelmingly likely to be from one stateside post to 

another. Accompanied overseas assignments were far less likely than before, 

unless sought. This offered another spousal employment option. Borrowing 

on its happy experience with AAFES, in 2003 the Army negotiated the Army 

Spouse Employment Partnership with ubiquitous employers such as Home 

Depot, Lowe’s, Toys R Us, and Walmart. These employers facilitated the entry 

of military spouses into their workforce. Once there, they could be reemployed 

within the system if they moved. Everybody won, and the partnership generated over 42,000 jobs in a half-dozen years. After 9-11 a number of states 

made military spouses eligible for unemployment compensation if they had to 

quit their jobs because of a sponsor’s permanent change of station. By 2009 

two dozen states supported this approach, easing transitions for spouses who 

remained in pursuit of employment.13

Spouses sought employment for a variety of reasons. Surveys established, 

among other motives, that women wanted to share in achieving family financial security. Army spouses who worked outside the home for pay typically 

brought in about a third of the family income. This could prove critical in 

sustaining mortgages and coping with other expenses to which family life was 

prone. Understandably, spouses wanted to secure their investments and quality 

of living against the hazards of military life and the uncertainties of their own 

employment. Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI) had long been the 

approved solution protecting the family in the case of the untimely death of its 

sponsor. Soldiers were immediately insured for the full amount upon their first 

day of active duty. Opting out required a conscious act of reduction or cancellation. Grizzled first sergeants saw to it that soldiers understood reduction or cancellation was foolish, tantamount to family abuse, and tempting fate. Virtually 

all heeded this sensible advice. Small monthly allotments were withdrawn from a 
Kevlar Legions

358

soldier’s pay to cover this heavily subsidized term life insurance. Soldiers identified their beneficiaries on the first day and updated this information annually or 

prior to each deployment. For much of this period the full amount for SGLI was 

$200,000. In 2003 the service vice chiefs addressed massive and prospectively 

recurrent deployments to Iraq, and long-term inflation, by lobbying for and 

securing an elevation of SGLI to $400,000 at a cost of $26 a month. This was 

a good deal and provided considerable peace of mind to sponsors and spouses 

alike. Risks were also compensated for with imminent danger pay, commonly 

called “combat pay,” and a family separation allowance (FSA) for soldiers separated from their dependents for more than thirty days. The former has risen to 

$225 a month and the latter to $250 a month at the time of writing. Pay was 

excluded for enlisted personnel and partially excluded for officers from taxable 

income for every month wherein a soldier served a day in a combat zone. This 

also applied to special pay such as flight pay and to bonuses such as reenlistment 

bonuses. The Army experienced an uptick in soldiers reenlisting while deployed. 

Whatever one’s motives for reenlisting, it made financial sense to do so under 

circumstances that rendered the bonus tax-exempt. Family finances could go 

awry due to fires and floods, family emergencies, and other unexpected circumstances. AER, a private nonprofit organization with semiofficial status, led in 

redressing such crises. AER was directed by retired senior officers and NCOs, 

replenished its coffers with annual fundraising drives, and in partnership with 

ACS benefited somewhat from on-post office space and other amenities. From 

August 1990 through January 1991 (the period of Desert Shield), for example, 

AER provided $17 million in grants and interest-free loans to 31,000 soldiers. 

AER’s philanthropic business model overwhelmingly favored interest-free loans 

over grants, at a ratio of about nine to one. This reflected the philosophy that 

soldiers had steady incomes, financial setbacks could be temporary, and it was 

better to assist in developing responsibility than to create dependency. It also 

enabled relief funds to go a lot further, since most ultimately recycled. In the 

aftermath of 9-11 the greater turbulence of wartime Army life and a national 

mood supportive of soldiers—and mindful of the scale of financial relief offered 

the families of World Trade Center victims—abridged this traditional model 

somewhat. AER continued its emphasis on loans and sponsored financial management training courses, but new nonprofits such as USA Cares and Operation 

Homefront rose that heavily emphasized grants. Happily, the two genres did not 

much conflict. Indeed, the agencies referred clients to each other depending on 

circumstances. USA Cares and Operation Homefront passed money out about 

as fast as they took it in, whereas AER also poured money out but sustained 

ample reserves via recycling. Most recognized that some Army families would 

always be in or near financial crisis, particularly if large numbers were dependent on a single sponsor. From time to time during the Cold War the Army and 

the nation had been embarrassed by the incidence of service families qualifying for food stamps. This reinforced steady and relatively successful campaigns 

to raise base pay, but these never got altogether ahead of unusual fertility. In 

2001 about 14,000 military families were receiving food stamps. An E-1 with 

four or more family members solely dependent on him or her would be eligible, 

for example, as would an E-5 with seven or more. Congress created the Family 
359

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

Supplemental Assistance Allowance of up to $500 a month to keep at-risk Army 

families off of food stamps. Spousal employment affected income in general 

and food stamp (later Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) eligibility in 

particular. As we have seen, after 9-11 an increasing number of states considered 

military spouses eligible for unemployment compensation. Instruments facilitating financial security for Army families advanced considerably during the period 

1989–2005. This, most thought, would assist in retaining Army families.14

As important as spousal employment and financial security are, most 

couples probably rate their relationships with each other as more central to 

their happiness. Facilitating romance has never been an Army forte. Senior 

wives did have a long tradition of attempting to match Army daughters with 

promising young soldiers, and that continued within the limits of the supply. 

During the Cold War Officers Clubs and NCO Clubs offered places for singles 

to meet and mingle on isolated outposts, but these were readily trumped by 

civilian alternatives in stateside settings. Indeed, by 1996 club systems had 

walked away from “fine dining” as a moneymaker and focused instead on more 

casual, quick, and family-friendly alternatives. Primo’s Italian Restaurant 

opened in Fort Hood, Texas, as a representative of this trend, which is not 

to mention the countless grills and fast food franchises already operating at 

the time. The Army’s Hale Koa Hotel on Waikiki Beach did add the opulent 

396-room Maile Tower in 1995, at a cost of 99 million nonappropriated dollars. This offered an exciting romantic getaway that exceeded local occupancy 

rates, but its traffic nevertheless paled in comparison to more accessible and 

family-friendly facilities proximate to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. 

MWR programs as a whole trended toward families with children. If couples 

found romance, the Army probably had little to do with it. Indeed, it may well 

have retarded the process with incessant demands on the soldier’s time and 

energy. As weak as the Army was as an aphrodisiac, it did do a reasonable 

job of assisting relationships once they had formed. Surveys established that 

Army chaplains ranked third behind family members and close friends as the 

person one would most likely talk to about a confidential matter. The Army 

formally embraced Family Life Ministry as the all-volunteer Army was being 

established in the late 1970s. Selected chaplains attended more than a year of 

graduate-level instruction on family counseling and then returned to train their 

peers and chaplain assistants. By 1997 the chaplaincy advanced to a preventative posture. It coordinated Building Strong and Ready Families (BSRF), a 

brigade-level program targeting first-term married and newly married soldiers. 

This program cycled contingents of young couples through workshops and 

overnight retreats focused on communication, conflict management, financial 

responsibility, Army life, and strategies to strengthen bonds. Most of these 

couples were not problematic, but chaplains could identify those in need of 

further assistance. Interestingly enough, post-retreat behavioral surveys noted 

not only enhanced marital communications, but also increased seatbelt use 

and decreased tobacco use—a possible indication of what was on the minds 

of spouses at the time. Independent of BSRF, chaplains conducted workshops 

and retreats for couples in their congregations. The Army Family Advocacy 

Program (FAP) was on much the same azimuth as BSRF, albeit with a sterner 
Kevlar Legions

360

tone. FAP, coordinated by installation commanders, included general educational and preventative programs, but it also focused on intervention in 

cases of spouse and child abuse. Remedial measures ranged from counseling 

through incarceration. In extreme cases family members received up to thirtysix months of transitional compensatory payments to help them start over in 

the absence of an erstwhile sponsor. FAP was understandably distant to most 

Army families, but it could be reassuring to know a program existed to assist 

a friend or neighbor in trouble. It should perhaps be noted that the programs 

described above were for heterosexual couples. Although attitudes toward 

homosexuality were softening inside the Army as they were outside it, in 2005 

official policy remained that active homosexuality or homosexual marriage 

was grounds for dismissal.15

Army life is challenging. Spouses draw support not only from their sponsors but also from family and friends. Friends become particularly important 

if the sponsor is deployed and the extended biological family geographically 

separated. In such circumstances installations, rear detachments, and the variety of agencies headed up by Army Community Service can provide creditable 

practical assistance but are generally thin on emotional support. One survey, for 

example, found that 93 percent of spouses experiencing a deployment thought 

they were doing well caring for their children’s health, 89 percent thought they 

were doing well providing for the other needs of their children at home, 85 

percent had access to necessary transportation, and 83 percent of those working were doing well at their jobs. Only 50 percent, on the other hand, thought 

they were handling personal loneliness well. Anxiety concerning the deployed 

spouse weighed heavily, leaving the spouse left behind ravenous for timely 

and accurate information. Rumors of hardship or disaster overseas could be 

hugely demoralizing. Indeed, in one survey 80 percent of spouses identified 

“rumor control” as the highest single priority for sustaining spousal morale 

during a deployment. These phenomena were not new. During the 1980s 

Family Support Groups stood up in many deployable units to facilitate communications and mutual assistance. These made important contributions to 

morale and well-being during Desert Storm but drew important lessons from 

that conflict as well. Relationships in the group that existed well prior to the 

deployment, although often just for social purposes, did understandably better 

than those conjured up on the spot as the deployment progressed. Success was 

heavily dependent on command and rear-detachment support, particularly 

with respect to providing timely and accurate information. Spouses selected 

for leadership because of their sponsor’s position did not necessarily make the 

most effective leaders; true volunteers proved critical. Spouses with children 

in school tended to stay put, whereas those with toddlers or no children were 

likely to return to their family for the duration. This exacerbated communications gaps. No Family Support Group member was specifically trained for the 

role they filled; whether they had acquired appropriate skills through life experiences was a matter of happenstance. On the plus side, over three quarters of 

the wives surveyed considered their Family Support Group a valuable source 

of reliable information, and even more found it emotionally comforting. In 

the aftermath of Desert Storm sentiment developed for professionalizing 
361

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

at least the top tiers of family support. Borrowing from what they thought 

they knew about Navy ombudsmen, the British regimental system, and other 

examples, advocates argued for hiring full-time personnel—and derided the 

Family Support Groups that did exist as wives’ “coffee klatches.” The counterargument was that the spontaneity and lack of hierarchy in coffee klatches 

contributed to success rather than failure. Spouses were not looking for more 

bureaucracy or yet another personal representative of the commander, nor 

were the greatest concerns of most how to get a ride to the commissary or 

fill out official forms. They wanted timely information about their husbands, 

and the emotional support of others going through the same experience. The 

singular attribute of virtually all Family Support Groups was a “telephone 

tree,” a communications network whereby each spouse made but a few calls, 

yet all within the network ended up receiving a call. Calls could last but a few 

minutes to impart specific information, but most lasted longer as participants 

shared personal news, thoughts, and feelings. Most meetings started with an 

agenda, but it was seldom rigorously adhered to and often accounted for but 

a fraction of the time spent. Sharing and communications were keys to success. Family Support Groups were realms, not kingdoms. Customary rules of 

military organization did not necessarily apply and indeed were resisted.16

Debate concerning the extent to which Family Support Groups should be 

professionalized related heavily to spousal attitudes toward volunteer work. 

Conventional wisdom holds that as spousal employment increased, volunteering decreased. Within the Army, the two phenomena have not been directly—

or inversely—correlated. The generation of wives who accessed prior to 1945 

was unlikely to work outside the home and very unlikely to do so if they had 

young children. Virtually all of these wives did volunteer work within their 

communities, although nine out of ten averaged but a couple of hours a week. 

The generation accessing between 1945 and 1975 doubled their rates of paid 

employment but more than quadrupled the numbers putting in ten or more 

hours of volunteer work a week. After 1975 employment skyrocketed, but four 

out of five wives nevertheless still volunteered in some way. This was about 

three times the national average. Few in the younger generation believed their 

volunteer work would advance the careers of their husbands, but instincts to 

contribute and to “remain part of things” remained robust. Motivations to 

volunteer were complex. Certainly such venerable publications as the Army 

Woman’s Handbook and the Army Lady Today encouraged such behavior. 

Life on frontier or overseas outposts required volunteer work to sustain 

“normalcy.” Career soldiers self-select toward a psychology of team commitment, and it may well be that their spouses do as well. With the advent of the 

all-volunteer Army and Wickham’s The Army Family, installation and ACS 

agencies that had been manned by volunteers began to take on part-time or 

full-time employed cadres. Volunteer work could be an avenue to employment, 

perhaps even to a portable government service status. The mix of volunteer 

work done was at least as complicated as the motives for doing it. Volunteers at 

Walter Reed Army Medical Center after Iraqi Freedom casualties arrived in 

large numbers provide an example. Over 1,500 volunteers assisted the medical 

staff, provided comfort and company to sick or wounded soldiers, ran MWR 
Kevlar Legions

362

programs in the hospital, helped 

visiting family members get around, 

ran information booths, and so 

on. A number put in over forty 

hours a week, but the average was 

about four. This means, of course, 

that many were averaging one or 

two. The nature of the tasks was 

such that even a little participation 

was helpful—and welcome. This 

allowed spouses to both hold down 

a job and volunteer. Family Support 

Groups were similarly flexible. 

Participation ranged from making 

a few phone calls a week through 

coordinating elaborate programs 

at the battalion and brigade levels. 

After Desert Storm Army Family 

Team Building (AFTB) emerged to 

train volunteers. Early development 

and implementation had been in the 

hands of senior leader spouses and 

volunteers. Modular training, eventually available online, progressed 

through levels of sophistication and 

comprehensiveness at a pace that 

catered to the individual student. 

All participants came away exposed 

to practices that strengthened 

self-reliance, enhanced readiness, and promoted retention. Those advancing 

through the third level could train others. Skills developed fed directly back 

into Family Support Groups, now called Family Readiness Groups for reasons to be discussed. The overall capabilities of the Family Readiness Groups 

sharpened and improved, yet volunteers remained in charge. “Key” volunteers 

received signed appointment orders from their unit commanders, identifying 

the Family Readiness Group as a command-sponsored organization rather 

than a private organization or a nonappropriated fund instrumentality. 

Commanders were to be held accountable. The Army Commander’s Guide to 

Family Readiness Group Operations defined the Family Readiness Group as a 

“command-sponsored organization of family members, volunteers, Soldiers 

and civilian employees belonging to a unit that together provide an avenue of 

mutual support and assistance, and a network of communication. . . .” Insofar 

as there was a professional element, it was provided by employed or contracted 

Family Readiness Group Deployment/Support Assistants at the brigade and 

division levels and Family Readiness Liaisons at the installation level. These 

assisted the volunteers with navigation as the Army increasingly churned up 

or interpreted policies with respect to Family Readiness Group (FRG) use 

Family Readiness Groups supported 

deployed units and their families.
363

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

of facilities, telephones, computers, copiers, official transportation, fund-raising, reimbursable expenditures, and so on. They were employed as technical 

experts, not to “impinge on the role and responsibilities of the volunteer FRG 

leader.” Generally they were invited to join the coffee klatch, and often did so. 

The volunteer tradition remained strong, and its social setting familiar.17

Army Family Team Building emerged after Desert Storm amid the 

increasingly recurrent deployments of the 1990s. At the time saying goodbye, 

handling family finances in the absence of the sponsor, and getting timely and 

reliable information back to families seemed to be the greatest challenges for 

spouses. In 1994 the Army Community and Family Support Center (CFSC) 

launched Operation Ready (Resources for Educating About Deployment 

and You). Operation Ready exploited a video format and deployed training 

modules, handbooks, videotapes, and other resources to assist installations, 

commanders, families, and soldiers preparing for deployment. Spousal training was characterized as a “force multiplier.” Saying goodbye was facilitated 

by elaborate and inclusive predeployment meetings that were in part comprehensive briefings and in part town hall meetings. These were mandatory 

for service members, and their spouses were strongly encouraged to attend. 

Preparation for overseas movement included several stations that ensured 

spouses had appropriate powers of attorney and financial access in their 

sponsor’s absence. English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction, long a 

requirement for language-challenged soldiers, was extended to wives as well, 

and Army Community Service focused on particularly challenging cases. 

Family Support Groups, as we have discussed, were built around telephone 

trees, peer-to-peer relationships, and the imperative of reliable spousal communications. The term Family Support Group morphed to become Family 

Readiness Group, in part to emphasize the importance of prior preparations. 

The name change also marked a shift in philosophy. Post–Desert Storm

reflection suggested that some Family Support Groups exceeded their grasp 

and their authority. Well-intentioned volunteers sought to be everything to 

everybody, opening the door for a tiny fraction of spouses who were excessively dependent, overly demanding, or singularly maneuvering for the return 

of their sponsors. Such spouses took up an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of the group leaders’ time, and they often had practical and 

psychological problems that exceeded the amateur Family Support Group 

leader’s expertise. Family Readiness Groups expected all boats—that is to 

say, families—to rise together with respect to preparedness for deployment. 

Trained volunteers advised and assisted those encountering normal degrees 

of difficulty and knew who within the command or installation to refer 

the hard cases to. Selection of rear detachment commanders became more 

methodical, evolving away from whoever had a physical profile at the time. 

Within a few years Operation Ready added homecoming and reintegration 

to its areas of focus. Beginning in 2002, Spouse Orientation and Leader 

Development (SOLD) consciously educated spouses for multiple levels of 

responsibility: self-reliant participant, direct-level leader, community leader, 

and strategic leader. Desert Storm had progressed quickly, decisively, and 

with few casualties, leaving a modest incidence of posttraumatic stress (other 
Kevlar Legions

364

than for Iraqis) in its wake. Insofar as “Gulf War Syndrome” could be diagnosed, its causes seemed to be more chemical than psychological. Recurrent 

deployments and returns after 1991 introduced long months of anxiety, 

sometimes jarring returns, and recognition that the cycle could soon repeat 

itself. With Iraqi Freedom this source of stress increased by an order of 

magnitude, and frequent rotations into a combat zone became common. As 

casualties mounted spouses became mindful not only of the dead, but also 

of the larger numbers of wounded requiring long-term care or recuperation. 

The term advance medical directive became the subject of serious discussion, 

as did wills and beneficiaries. Most deployed soldiers experienced conditions 

associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and perhaps one in 

five exhibited symptoms. Spouses were, unfortunately, likely targets if sponsors “acted out” on their depression, irritability, or acute anxiety. Around 

Fort Hood, Texas, for example, reports of domestic abuse doubled in a 

few years’ time, and violent crimes rose 22 percent. Suicides rose as well. 

Fortuitously the Family Advocacy Program, previously discussed, had been 

available since the mid-1990s, and the medical community was newly attentive to PTSD. These were, of course, steps toward resolution rather than 

resolution itself. At the time of writing PTSD, domestic abuse, and suicide 

remain high priorities for the Army and its soldiers.18

Parents

The parents of soldiers were not traditionally party to programs targeted 

on Army families. They mattered to soldiers, of course, but were generally 

invisible to the Army except in narrow circumstances. Parents were formally 

or informally invited to ceremonies and graduations involving their offspring, 

but they tended to be restricted by time and geography from attending. An 

exception was graduation from basic or one station unit training. These programs were often proximate to a soldier’s point of entry and a reasonable day 

trip for families to make. Basic and one station unit training graduations took 

on the attributes of rites of passage, with families surrendering up their young 

soldiers to the Army for worldwide deployment. Once in units soldiers might 

be encouraged by chaplains or thoughtful NCOs to correspond with their parents, but this was not an institutional priority. In the case of unmarried soldiers 

parents were generally next of kin and beneficiaries with respect to SGLI, 

wills, and the disposition of personal effects. An iconic and unhappy image 

of the Army experience is that of a uniformed party knocking on the door 

of an unfortunate family to notify them that they have lost a son or daughter. 

Between the departure of a soldier for military service and his ultimate return 

one way or another, his or her parents and the Army were not much involved 

with each other—unless the parents were in the Army themselves. Beginning in 

the 1980s several developments brought parents out of the shadows. Anxious 

to sustain its numbers, the Army recruited parents in the process of recruiting 

their children. In an age of digitization, these overtures introduced reciprocity 

of access. Family Support Groups and Family Readiness Groups, themselves 

digitized, increasingly brought parents into their orbits, particularly by the 
365

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

means of “virtual” readiness groups. Recurrent deployments, especially when 

both spouses were working, expanded the soldiers’ parents’ roles with respect 

to their grandchildren. In the case of a sole parent in uniform, grandparents 

often became guardians or in loco parentis. As the Army undertook to retain 

its wounded soldiers longer, parents were frequently helpmates and, not 

uncommonly, principal caregivers. All of this progressed in a national social 

context wherein communications were radically improved, travel appreciably 

easier, lives longer, and grandparents more involved with their grandchildren 

than they had been for some time.19

With the advent of the all-volunteer Army, recruiters soon recognized the 

utility of courting parents. After initial floundering, recruiting took off with 

the slogan “Be All You Can Be” in the early 1980s. This message of personal 

self-development, the mantra of Army recruiting for twenty years, could be 

as appealing to parents as it was to their near-adult children. Army leaders 

opined that the contemporary generation of potential recruits, raised in relative affluence, was inclined to “try life” for a year or so before getting down 

to the serious business of higher education or employment. Few parents were 

thrilled with the idea of their offspring meditating, hitchhiking, or lounging around for extended periods before undertaking to support themselves. 

The Army and parents could be natural allies if young people “found themselves” while purposefully employed, reasonably paid, and acquiring substantial educational and other benefits to help them later on. The Army sought 

high school graduates, since overall completion of term attrition for them 

was about a third, whereas it was more than half for high school dropouts. 

The timing seemed perfect: graduate from high school, spend several years 

Parents could play a role in enlistment or reenlistment.
Kevlar Legions

366

in the Army maturing and learning useful skills, and set off for college or 

elsewhere with many of the bills already paid. Young people were always the 

primary target of Army recruiting, but their parents came in as a respectable second. Advertisements frequently flashed to proud parents beaming 

over their uniformed offspring’s newly acquired capabilities and confidence. 

Messages addressed such practical parental interests as marketable job skills, 

tuition assistance, “free” medical care, reliable employment, and insurance. 

Action and adventure were there too, of course, but considerably less so than 

if the young and testosterone-saturated were the only targets. Through 2003 

this formula worked fairly well, allowing for the ebb and flow of the national 

economy. Virtually every Army Staff meeting in the Pentagon, and most Army 

staff meetings at lower levels, closely monitored recruitment and reenlistment 

statistics. Participants proposed new methods when numbers were down and 

applauded existing methods when they were up. In boom times large civilian 

enterprises borrowed Army messages and incentives when competing for the 

young high school graduate labor force. After 2003 recruiting parents proved 

harder. Most parents want their children to mature and develop; few want 

them to do so in a war zone. By this time the Army was well into digitization and Web sophistication and applied these strengths in its approach to 

parents. Army Web sites posted forums encouraging parents to share insights 

and experiences and to ask questions. Information was ever more accessible, 

thoughtfully tiered, and attractively packaged. The underlying message of personal self-development remained; the delivery was more interactive. “Be All 

You Can Be” was replaced by an “Army of One” in 2001 and “Army Strong” 

in 2006. For parents the message remained consistent. Their children would 

be better people and get a better start in life by the virtue of military service.20

Recruiters were not alone on the Internet, of course. As Internet use 

exploded during the 1990s and personal computers became commonplace, 

Family Readiness Groups relied on the Web as well. The personal touch of 

individual telephone calls remained critically important, but newsletters, 

announcements, flyers, and the like could easily go out over the Internet. 

Parents of deployed soldiers were eager for news and soon discovered the 

Family Readiness Groups. Family Readiness Group newsletters overlapped 

heavily with unit newsletters, and both provided the type of information 

parents wanted to obtain. Family Readiness Groups and units were generally happy to pass this information along to parents. It was unclassified, had 

been cleared for distribution, and seemed likely to dispel rumors. It required 

but a few additional keystrokes to add new addressees to an electronic 

message. As parents absorbed information and expressed gratitude for it, 

the Army’s leadership addressed their needs in a more consistent manner. 

Inclusion of parents within the electronic umbrella of Family Readiness 

Groups became accepted policy, as did the inclusion of significant others 

who did not have, or did not yet have, spousal status. Local community 

leaders and benefactors were often included as well. Vicki Cody, wife of 

the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, consolidated information and advice 

for parents in Your Soldier, Your Army: A Parent’s Guide, published in 2005 

by the Association of the United States Army. Her two sons were soldiers 
367

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

embedded in cycles of recurrent deployment, as had been her husband. 

Your Soldier, Your Army mixed encouragement and empathy with practical 

details and specific advice. It was the first official or semiofficial publication of its type to target parents of soldiers and was on the Association of 

the United States Army Web site as well as in hard copy. Advice covered 

such topics as powers of attorney, documents, files, budgets, key points 

of contact, emergency notification, and child care plans. It also addressed 

rumor mongering and scam artists, no small threats in an Internet age.21

The publication and sponsorship of Your Soldier, Your Army reflected a 

much-expanded scope of parental involvement with respect to deployment. 

The foot soldiers of the volunteer Army were not recently drafted teenagers 

with little money and no property. They were older than Cold War counterparts, and even the unmarried had considerable property to manage. Most 

owned a car, often an expensive one. Many owned motorcycles. Virtually all 

owned a fistful of electronic appliances, and many lived off post in rentals 

they might not want to retain through a prolonged deployment. If they did 

want to retain the rental, rent was due monthly. If not, their property could 

move into storage that also involved a monthly rental. A major fraction of 

this property, particularly expensive cars and motorcycles, went home to Mom 

and Dad’s garage rather than being entrusted to a fenced parking lot on post. 

Once deployed communications could be intermittent, or in times of crisis 

cut off, rendering monthly payments problematic. The complexities of property and finance powerfully suggested entrusting someone remaining stateside 

with specified powers of attorney. This was most often a parent in the case 

of single soldiers. Financial miscarriages during the deployments of the early 

1990s alerted installations to the consequences of inadequate planning, and 

preparations for overseas movement became increasingly attentive to financial 

issues. Lawyers at the processing sites, long used to updating wills and SGLI, 

added powers of attorney to their tasks. Parents found themselves handling 

rent and other monthly payments, managing bank accounts, and even submitting income taxes. More than a few inherited a beloved pet for the duration. 

In cases when their soldier offspring was married, these tasks generally fell to 

the spouse, but he or she generally sought and welcomed assistance. Spouses 

without children or with toddlers often spent much or all of the deployment 

with parents, connected to the Family Readiness Group electronically. Those 

with paid employment or with older children generally stayed put but then 

were one deep in the case of illness, injury, or some other complication. This 

again brought forward parental support. Dual military parents and sole parents were required, as we have seen, to produce an official family care plan 

identifying a guardian for their children in the case of deployment or absence 

for some other reason. More often than not this was a grandparent. From 

2003 on the execution of a family care plan became very likely for soldiers who 

had one. If their parents were on it, they would probably serve.22

Most parents were happy to help out when their children deployed. They 

were also eager for information. In wars past communications between parents and their deployed children had been largely by letter, supplemented by 

the rare phone call from mid-century on. In Afghanistan and Iraq soldiers had 
Kevlar Legions

368

considerably greater access to telephones and frequently access to unclassified 

e-mail as well. Improvements with respect to communications and information available were not an unmixed blessing. Around-the-clock news coverage 

introduced stresses of its own. Parents could become fixated. Each report of 

casualties sent them into mental calculations concerning where their son or 

daughter was, and whether he or she could have been involved. If the odds 

were high that they were, they of course wanted to know more right away, preferably with a comforting message from their offspring that they were all right. 

Unfortunately, these were the very circumstances wherein commanders were 

likely to cut off personal communications, both because of operational security and to ensure that the next of kin of the dead were properly notified first. 

Waiting for a call was in itself stressful. When phone calls did come through, 

they were rarely at an anticipated time and often awkward. Soldiers did not 

want to worry their parents and discussed the innocuous more so than the 

gut-wrenching. Parents did not want to let their worries become their soldier’s 

worries and feigned good cheer as well. Both tiptoed around the grave anxieties they momentarily masked. Soldiers seldom had more than a few minutes 

to talk, after which both parties agonized over what they should have said or 

cycled regrets through their minds. Mothers who broke down and cried on the 

phone, spoiling what was supposed to be an uplifting moment, were prone to 

feeling guilty—although perhaps less so than those awakened in the middle of 

the night who yawned into the phone. E-mail allowed more of an opportunity 

to be expansive, to reflect on comments prior to making them, and to avoid 

the implications of time zones. Oddly enough, however, letters—often accompanied by “care packages” of treats and consumables from home—remained 

in many ways the most satisfactory means of communication. Letters were 

tangible, could be read and re-read, and allowed considered coverage of topics 

and emotions. They could take weeks to deliver, however, breaking the timely 

flow of communications. Parents adopted rules of thumb to cope: ration daily 

exposure to the news cycle; maintain a running list of topics to be discussed 

and anecdotes to be shared by the phone; don’t count on e-mail; have a weekly 

routine for writing letters and sending care packages—so something is always 

“in the mail.” Of the news being shared, the most eagerly awaited was news 

of return. Parents counted the days and greeted the return to American soil 

with joy and relief. There could be debate concerning traveling to be present 

as the soldier “got off the plane.” With unmarried soldiers there seemed to 

be little problem with adding familiar faces to throngs of well-wishers, but 

some spouses observed that parents should be elsewhere for about the same 

reasons they had not attended their offspring’s senior prom. Homecoming was 

celebratory but had its stresses and having in-laws around the house could add 

further stresses still. Units increasingly took to formal sessions of reintegration counseling to bring soldiers back into their communities and to handle 

whatever dispositions there might be toward PTSD. Given all that soldiers had 

been through, it might be best not to overwhelm them with too much family 

too soon. Let them reconstruct relationships with spouses and children first 

and then feed in the rest of the loved ones. Traditionally, when transportation 

was more problematic, parents stayed put and returning soldiers moved along 
369

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

to visit them when ready. Behavioralists had no pat answer as to whether it was 

better for a returning soldier to cope with all his loved ones en masse, or to do 

so in a more measured manner. Each family found its own way in this regard.23

Not all homecomings were happy. Parents were primary next of kin. If 

their soldier was killed or missing in action, they were personally notified by 

a uniformed party. Army provisions to assist them in recovering the body if 

there was one, arranging burials and memorial services, settling estates, and 

disposing of personal effects predated the end of the Cold War. If, as was 

more likely, their soldier was seriously wounded, they received a phone call. 

Army and parental practices evolved with respect to wounded soldiers following the Cold War. Travel was easier and medical evacuation out of austere 

combat zones likely. It was practical for parents to fly to their offspring’s side 

in the major hospitals of Germany and the United States. Here they were often 

greatly assisted by “Fisher Houses” located close to the hospital. Beginning in 

1990 the privately financed Fisher House Foundation built and maintained 

houses featuring multiple suites where the families of wounded soldiers could 

stay for free, or at very modest expense. By 2003 there were thirty-two such 

facilities, covering virtually every major hospital to which a soldier wounded 

overseas was likely to be evacuated. Many of these were proximate to Veterans 

Affairs hospitals as well, contributing to a continuity of care should the soldier 

be released from the Army. In addition to the altruism of Arnold, Zachary, 

and Elizabeth Fisher and their friends, colleagues, and kin, Fisher Houses 

reflected evolving medical practice. Body armor, speedy evacuation, and medical advances made the casualties of Afghanistan and Iraq even more likely 

than their predecessors to survive serious injury. Soldiers requiring long-term 

treatment and rehabilitation who would have died in theater in earlier wars 

faced prolonged struggles to recover. Many of the maimed would eventually 

approach full functionality through advanced prosthetics, but the physical and 

occupational therapy involved was long and hard. A higher proportion of survivors had traumatic brain injuries than before, and these often took months to 

fully diagnose, much less treat. In Chapter 6 we addressed the Army’s growing 

tendency to retain its wounded soldiers, the interface between the Army and 

Veterans Affairs, and such programs as Warrior Transition Units and Wounded 

Warrior programs. Parents, spouses, and other family members, many of them 

temporarily residing in Fisher Houses, became important players in the recovery. Physical and occupational therapists could give the wounded soldier perhaps an hour a day, and doctors and nurses could be intermittently attentive. 

Family in residence had much more time to give and did so: accompanying 

the wounded on walks, assisting with exercises, running errands, monitoring 

medications, and providing companionship. Wounded soldiers are particularly prone to PTSD, and family members were best positioned to detect its 

symptoms. Depression, irritability, anxiety, and mood swings are most visible 

to those who know you best. Having family members around to talk to was 

therapy in itself, and symptoms detected by the family could be readily shared 

with doctors in a medical setting. This interplay between uniformed medical 

personnel and wounded soldier family members was unprecedented. More 

than 120,000 families stayed at Fisher Houses during their first two decades of 
Kevlar Legions

370

operation. This probably represented less than half of the overall family members involved in hospital-based recovery. Soldiers reasonably well along had a 

voice with respect to where they were evacuated, and the distribution of hospitals around the country made day trips possible for many families. Assuming 

the role of principal caregiver when a seriously wounded soldier was finally 

released could be an enormous psychological, physical, and financial drain. In 

some cases families did not know their options or got lost in the transfer from 

the Department of the Army to Veterans Affairs. Both agencies endeavored to 

improve their communications, and both were increasingly aware of the role 

parents might play.24

Retirees

Retirees are also members of the extended Army family. They are here 

defined as soldiers who have served twenty years or more and thus receive 

a government pension representing some fraction of their most recent base 

pay. Retirees are a subset of veterans, with whom they share many interests, 

although their longer military tenures, professional status, and lifelong pensions set them apart. Army culture is inclined to respect them as elders, and the 

major fraction of their lives served in the military inclines many toward further 

involvement and contribution. They are private citizens, but not without organization. Cases in point include The Retired Officers Association (TROA; after 

2003 the Military Officers Association of America, MOAA) and the dominance of retirees in such influential organizations as the Association of the 

United States Army (AUSA) or the United Services Automobile Association 

(USAA). In 1956 the Cold War Army began publishing the Retired Army 

Personnel Bulletin (later Army Echoes), recognition of the value attached to 

sustaining a relationship. Among other considerations, serving senior leaders 

anticipated that they too would become retirees, so it made sense to take care 

of a demographic they soon enough would join. Retiree councils were invited 

to identify concerns and undertake advisory roles at installations around the 

country. In 1971 an Army Chief of Staff’s Retiree Council representing this 

emerging nationwide network began meeting semiannually with the Chief 

of Staff, Sergeant Major of the Army, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, 

Surgeon General, and other key members of the Army Staff. These meetings 

addressed retiree concerns and issues as well as potential contributions retirees could continue to make. As the Cold War wound down, the relationship 

between the Army and its retirees evolved in important ways. The traditional 

“grey beard” status became even more useful for counsel and communication. 

Hugely increased reliance on contracting leaned heavily on retiree experience 

and abilities. Retirees proved instrumental in bringing TRICARE in particular 

and Army medicine in general on line with new circumstances. Retirees played 

prominently, directly or indirectly, on the roller coaster of ever-challenging 

recruiting efforts. Finally, retirees were themselves mindful of end-of-career 

and end-of-life transitions and helped the Army find its way through a large 

bulge as the Cold War Army retired and a huge bulge as the World War II 

Army passed away.25
371

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

General of the Army Omar Bradley once commented that when generals retired from the Army they should cut out their tongues. By and large 

senior officers have avoided critiques of their immediate successors, but this 

has not precluded lively interest in and commentary on professional issues of 

a broader nature. Some of this became iconic. For example, Major General 

Aubrey S. Newman, the hero of Leyte famous for his exhortation to “Follow 

Me,” authored “The Forward Edge” in Army magazine for over twenty years. 

“The Forward Edge” offered a rich blend of news, analysis, commemoration, anecdote, insight, historical analogy, and professional advice of the 

kind respected elders have and should offer to those who come behind them. 

Retirees took the time to contribute thousands of pieces a year to scores of 

magazines, journals, newspapers, newsletters, and so on. Some wrote books. 

Many resisted change, and not all of their contributions were immediately 

welcome to the Army’s senior leadership. Each incremental advance in integrating women, for example, inspired a rant from somebody. By 1989 the 

“Old Grads” were pretty much over women at West Point, but they still had 

women piloting attack helicopters, female tactical leadership in combat, and 

the general erosion of the combat exclusion policy to look forward to. Retiree 

garrulousness nevertheless proved a positive force in at least one regard. As 

the implications of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 played out, the Joint 

Staff exerted ever more discipline over the activities and public testimony of 

the services. On balance this was a good thing, reducing rivalry, redundancy, 

and contention. It also stifled debate. Service “attack dogs” went at each other 

from time to time during budgetary and Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 

deliberations, but their exchanges were behind closed doors—and a reputation 

as a service attack dog could limit career options. To the media and the public, 

uniformed senior leaders were expected to exhibit a mellow “purple” visage 

and untroubled agreement with administration policy. Some debate nevertheless seemed worth having. How much air and naval overmatch was enough 

without being too expensive? Who was to cope with the low end of the combat 

spectrum, and how? What were the limits of precision-guided munitions in 

particular and technology in general? Should a fifty-year-old funding paradigm favoring the Navy and Air Force be revised when the strategic imperative 

was “boots on the ground”? Retirees filled in where they sensed their juniors 

still in uniform had been muzzled. Much of the debate took the traditional 

forms of articles, letters to the editor, and speeches to self-selected audiences, 

but under the auspices of AUSA and its embedded Institute of Land Warfare 

(ILW) it acquired more structure. The largely social AUSA Annual Meeting 

morphed into a constellation of meetings and seminars revolving around a 

few grand events. The AUSA Winter Symposium emerged as a second major 

annual event with a more focused agenda. Separate annual AUSA symposia 

emerged for Army Aviation, Logistics, Installation Management, Medical, and 

Space and Missile Defense. Family issues such as education, housing, medical 

care, and well-being received recurrent attention and were further addressed 

in AUSA’s Army magazine and Torchbearer circulars. AUSA events mixed 

retirees and serving soldiers with representatives from more than five hundred 

“sustaining members”—corporate sponsors who provided goods and services 
Kevlar Legions

372

to the Army. An AUSA-hosted discussion of “Armored Fighting Vehicles” 

could reasonably attract more than forty sustaining members, for example, 

and “Ammunition and Fuzes” more than twenty. Even “Bearings, Seals, and 

Couplings” had a following. Collectively considered, sustaining members 

were broadly informed, robustly funded, and well connected. Their “take” on 

equipment and force structure debates was consequential, and their interest 

ensured that arguments would be more widely heard. An Army point of view 

manifested itself publicly in another way as major news networks increasingly 

relied on retired Army officers for commentary and analysis. These “talking 

heads” were not participants in force structure debates while on the air, but 

their mindfulness of the role and importance of ground forces and their ability 

to communicate to broad audiences further advanced an Army message.26

Army retirees numbered prominently among the sustaining members 

visiting AUSA symposia. This made sense to the corporations employing them, both from the point of view of business development and from 

the point of view of having employees who knew their subject matter. In 

Chapter 4 we discussed the revolution in military contracting that followed 

the downsizing of the early 1990s and touched upon the role of retirees in 

that revolution. Recognition that retirees possessed valuable experience, 

skills, and talents was no new thing. During the Cold War the Army Retiree 

Recall Program envisioned calling up tens of thousands upon mobilization. 

In 1987, for example, 232,000 were considered fully qualified, and 122,000 

of these had preexisting orders. With post–Cold War downsizing a major 

fraction of the Army’s support structure was swept away. Many units and 

Association of the United States Army (AUSA) events such as the annual 

Eisenhower Luncheon brought together senior military and industrial leaders, 

active-duty soldiers, retirees, and interested citizens.
373

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

agencies that were to be heavily reinforced by retirees no longer existed. 

They were replaced by such major contractors as Brown and Root and 

Halliburton, who in turn hired retirees and veterans to provide critical skills. 

As valuable as contingents of retirees proved in shoring up depleted logistics, they proved even more essential to International Military Education 

and Training (IMET). Between 1994 and 2002 the Department of Defense 

quadrupled its budget for such training, pursuing stability in the Balkans, 

Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere. Much of this went to such contractors as Military Professional Resources International (MPRI) and Science 

Applications International Corporation (SAIC), who in turn relied heavily 

upon retirees as senior supervisors, administrators, and instructors. This 

pedagogical role was mirrored within the United States as the Training 

and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) downsized its uniformed cadre and 

increasingly relied on contractors to author doctrine and lesson plans and to 

teach in the classroom. Understandably, the only people particularly qualified for such work were veterans and retirees. Inside “the Beltway” the Army 

Staff and other agencies, also downsizing, increasingly relied on contracted 

“think tanks” to support their deliberations. The numbers thus employed 

burgeoned, and AUSA sustaining membership grew to include firms specializing in consulting, education, recruitment, and training as readily as 

those specializing in tanks, trucks, and helicopters. This is not to mention 

sustaining members specializing in such enterprises as banking, insurance, 

or personal finance who did relatively little government contracting but 

catered to a military clientele. These too benefited from employing retirees 

and veterans. In 1990, faced with imminent downsizing, the Chief of Staff 

launched the Army Career and Alumni Program (ACAP) to prepare departing soldiers for career transitions. Increasingly elaborate transition programs 

followed, each designed to better match the departee against the market. 

For retirees the experience could be particularly elaborate, since many had 

accumulated formidable portfolios but few had interviewed for a job as civilians do or “sold themselves” to an employer. The value of “networking” was 

bluntly stressed, and this advice often paid off. Seasoned retirees pulled new 

retirees into corporations behind them, refreshing the organization with sustained currency in military affairs. Demographics shifted. The older industrial model of retiree employment had featured a few senior officers in key 

positions, largely for business development, and on corporate boards. The 

new emphasis on training, education, and services considerably broadened 

the positions to be filled and afforded opportunities to younger men retiring 

at less senior ranks. “Second careers” could be and often were numbered in 

decades rather than years.27

As the Army of the 1990s dramatically downsized, the greatest single 

concern for retirees was the quality of their medical care. Traditionally the 

Army medical structure had been robust enough and retirees few enough 

that their medical needs had been accommodated alongside those of serving soldiers. When the Army slashed its medical force structure along with 

the rest of its force structure and began deploying its uniformed medical 

personnel overseas in large numbers, this was no longer possible. Like the 
Kevlar Legions

374

numbers of active-duty family members, the numbers of retirees had grown 

dramatically with time. At the beginning of World War II there were but 

15,000 Army retirees and in 1955 only 99,000, but in 1993 their numbers 

surpassed those of active-duty soldiers and by 2005 720,000 retirees considerably outnumbered the 501,000 soldiers on active duty. Clearly a medical 

establishment designed to accommodate active-duty soldiers alone could not 

collaterally handle such numbers, and passing them along to Veterans Affairs 

would not work without significant additional resources either. Given that 

“cradle to grave” medical care had always numbered among the advertised 

incentives promoting an Army career, many began to refer to the erosion 

of medical care as a “broken promise.” As we have seen, active-duty family 

members also cited access to medical care as a principal concern during this 

period, and the ultimate solution was the geographically dispersed and civilian-based TRICARE network. TRICARE in theory should have been even 

more attractive to retirees than to active-duty family members, since they 

were more dispersed geographically and more complicated in their medical needs. TRICARE in practice proved problematic initially, needing considerable legislative support and policy tinkering to work effectively. Issues 

included negotiating reimbursement fees high enough to attract physicians 

into the network, reducing copayments and catastrophic caps low enough 

to out-compete alternatives, accommodating pharmaceutical needs, and 

maturing the bureaucracy to tolerable levels of impedance. Here the numbers and organization of the retirees proved helpful, both to themselves and 

to active-duty family members and the Army as a whole. As the Cold War 

wound down, representatives of the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and 

Air Force equivalents to the Chief of Staff, Army (CSA), Retiree Council 

began attending its meetings, and vice versa. Whatever their differences with 

respect to equipment and force structure, they shared a common vision of 

how service members and their families should be treated—both before and 

after retirement. Together they represented over two million retirees and with 

spouses were perhaps double that number. They overlapped heavily with 

veterans’ organizations and were, as we have seen, connected to the influential in other ways. Private organizations took up issues retiree councils 

raised. The Resolutions Committee of the Association of the United States 

Army, for example, took information briefings from the Retiree Council and 

the Army Staff before its own interventions with congressional leaders and 

committees. Appropriately informed yet private, AUSA and similar organizations from sister services could push for reforms beyond boundaries the 

administration might have preferred. Old people vote; political leaders know 

it. Systematic and focused attention, year after year, yielded results. Each 

session of Congress reported some incremental improvement to TRICARE, 

most notably with the National Defense Act of Fiscal Year 2001. TRICARE 

for Life and the TRICARE Senior Pharmacy emerged as viable programs 

attracting favorable customer comment. A workable retiree dental program 

emerged as well. Physicians accepted TRICARE in increasing numbers, identifying it as reliable and accommodating, albeit parsimonious. Copayments 

remained modest, and catastrophic caps were more than halved from an ini-
375

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

tial $7,500 a year. Pharmaceuticals offered a number of inexpensive options, 

including drugs by mail. TRICARE as a bureaucracy matured, gaining in 

efficiency while reducing overhead and relying heavily on the Internet and 

other digital technologies. Within a decade of its experimental origins in 

Tidewater Virginia, TRICARE evolved into a viable medical system for an 

expeditionary Army. It would not have progressed as quickly as it did without 

the sustained attention of Army retirees and their peers from sister services.28

Army retirees protected and improved upon their lot through organization and sustained focus. In doing so they sought not only fairness to themselves, but also to make military service more attractive to 

potential recruits. This was on the mind of the Army’s senior leaders as 

well. Retirement benefits always numbered among incentives to enlist or 

reenlist, and sustaining high-quality manpower always numbered among 

arguments for protecting retirement benefits. Beyond providing examples 

of comfortable retirement, retirees were encouraged to participate more 

directly in recruitment. During a dip in accessions, Chief of Staff General 

Eric K. Shinseki bluntly stated that recruiting was the mission and that 

everyone was a recruiter. Sustaining communications with retirees became 

a priority, to lend them currency when helping out. Web sites and digital 

communications helped immensely, in particular when Army Knowledge 

Online (AKO) matured as a cyber-universe available to retirees. Exchanges 

were not always rosy. A few retirees commented to Shinseki that the shift 

from “Be All You Can Be” to “An Army of One” as a recruiting slogan 

did not appeal to them. Shinseki retorted that he was not trying to recruit 

sixty-year-olds, and that “An Army of One” tested well with the youth 

demographic. His key imperative was to provide enough of a teaser to 

get interested “youngsters” onto an Army Web site, where well-packaged 

information capably presented could interest them further. Getting the 

interested onto a Web site was something retirees could and did do, sometimes having more success with parents than with the prospects themselves. 

Attributes retirees embodied, such as job security, secure pensions, and 

reliable health care, tended to impress those with life experience more so 

than the young. Supportive—or at least nonoppositional—parents could 

be helpful. Retirees were directly credited with hundreds of accessions and 

undoubtedly contributed to thousands more. They became eligible for the 

Recruiting Referral Bonus, although this probably represented their formal 

acceptance into the recruiting program more so than any particular interest they had in the cash flow. Incremental legislative and policy advances 

with respect to subjects of retiree interest further strengthened the hands 

of recruiters. Cases in point included pay raises tied to those of serving 

soldiers, the working mechanics of the survivor benefits program (SBP), 

concurrent receipt of retirement and disability pay, combat-related special 

compensation, transition assistance, and the staffing and training of retirement services offices. Even in death retirees and veterans continued to serve. 

A military funeral is an impressive event, and military participation in a 

funeral can lend a sense of purpose and dignity to a life well lived. Army 

retiree deaths averaged ten thousand a year, and the deaths of veterans 
Kevlar Legions

376

were at least an order of magnitude higher. The Army Staff went to great 

lengths to cover these funerals and related special requests, leaning heavily 

on the reserve component as it did so. More than a few wakes and memorial services featured memorabilia from long-ago campaigns. Men who had 

lived a lifetime doing something else wanted to also be remembered for the 

valor and service of their youth. Campaign histories and maps provided by 

the Center of Military History found a place amid family photographs and 

personal effects. The final departure from a lifetime of service can be both 

poignant and inspiring.29

Families of the Reserve Component

As the Army adapted to post–Cold War circumstances, families of the 

reserve component shared the concerns of their active-component counterparts, albeit with differences of nuance. Having lived most of their lives outside of an Army framework, they by and large resolved issues with respect to 

housing and spousal employment independently of anything the Army could 

or would do for them. Issues with respect to financial security, health care, 

and child care, on the other hand, tended to morph with mobilization and 

presented concerns the Army was called upon to address. Information and 

emotional support proved no less important to families of the reserve compoMilitary funerals honor the dead and inspire the living.
377

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

nent than to those of the active component and demanded initiatives as well. 

Families of the reserve component faced unique challenges while addressing 

such issues. Most obviously, they were geographically dispersed. In 1988, for 

example, the soldiers of an average National Guard battalion lived scattered 

across a 150-mile radius. Fewer than 150 reported to the average armory, and 

4,600 facilities in 2,858 locations sprawled across the country. The situation 

was much the same for Army Reserve units, and the Individual Ready Reserve, 

independent of units as an organizing principal, was even more widely scattered. Guardsmen were subject to state as well as federal mobilization and 

could be called up to deal with a crisis while their families were at risk from 

the same crisis. Natural disasters could be personal disasters as well as military missions. Years of tiering in the anticipation of national mobilization 

had relegated the reserve component to something of a “second string” status. 

Reserve-component families were not much visible to the senior leaders of the 

Army during the course of the Cold War. Indeed, during that period they were 

not much visible to the senior leaders of the reserve component either. The 

shift that transformed the reserve component from strategic reserves in depth 

to routinely deployed operational forces profoundly affected family life. Let 

us examine component unique aspects with respect to how the Army handled 

the financial security, health and child care, information dissemination, and 

emotional support concerns of reserve-component families in the face of these 

challenges.30

The pursuit of financial security presented complexities. Guardsmen and 

Reservists with families by and large had civilian careers. For those who were 

employed, sustaining a relationship with their employer was critical. The 

deploying spouse wanted to know he or she could again pick up job and career 

upon returning, and the nondeploying spouse needed that confidence as well. 

When the issue was two weeks of summer training and reserve-component 

units were unlikely to deploy short of the “Big One,” this was rarely a problem. 

Desert Storm and accelerating deployments in its wake raised sufficient resistance from employers for Congress to pass the United Services Employment 

and Reemployment Act of 1994. In theory this guaranteed a return to previous employment, but ways could be found to evade it if the employer truly lost 

confidence in the reliability of the employee. The Department of the Army 

courted major employers nationwide, and the National Guard focused on local 

employers within states. VIP tours, employer days, symposia, letters, and other 

outreach efforts proliferated as the service emphasized patriotism, community 

spirit, government contracting, and the value added to an employee by virtue of 

military service. Employers were mindful of the law and generally inclined to be 

supportive but chafed at unpredictability. By the mid-1990s unforeseen deployments often took out employees for nine months, and after 9-11 this number rose 

to eighteen—twelve months actually deployed and six preparing or returning. 

With increasing diligence and some success the reserve component committed to 

programmatic rotation, aspiring to give units five to six years at home for every 

nine to twelve months deployed. The Army Reserve, for example, reorganized 

most of its units into ten Army Reserve Expeditionary Packages (AREPs) and 

then cycled these through levels of readiness. Demands overseas, although high, 
Kevlar Legions

378

stabilized, allowing greater predictability to soldiers and their employers. Given 

predictability, corporations and large businesses could accommodate five- and 

six-year cycles into routine personnel turbulence, as could most federal, state, 

and local government agencies. This was much harder for small businesses and 

the self-employed. Coworkers and family members could cover in some, but not 

all, cases. Dentists and physicians running small practices, for example, were 

likely to lose those practices if deployed for a year. In due course self-selection 

tilted membership in the Guard and Reserve away from those who could not 

afford to routinely deploy. This made it even harder to acquire certain specialties, such as medical and dental, but not necessarily harder to acquire manpower 

overall. By 2000 60 percent of National Guard accessions were first-time, rather 

than the fifty-fifty split between first-time and prior service previously considered ideal. Presumably the first-timers were younger, with fewer family obligations. Many would be students, to whom educational benefits would appeal and 

from whom a single deployment could be expected before they left the military 

for other things. Soldiers would not serve if they could not afford to.31

A key consideration with respect to whether reserve-component soldiers 

with families could afford to serve was how much they were paid. Steady campaigning by the Department of Defense and its supporters had kept military 

salaries roughly comparable with those of civilian counterparts with equivalent responsibility, education, and experience. This was less true while Army 

downsizing progressed and the national economy prospered through the mid1990s, and more true when deployments accelerated and the economy faltered 

Reserve-component soldiers filled a wide range of responsibilities when

called on to serve.
379

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

thereafter. After 9-11 Congress was generally receptive to annual pay raises, 

and deploying soldiers could count on separation pay and hazardous duty 

pay as well. In addition, enlisted were relieved and officers partially relieved 

from taxes while deployed, and selective reenlistment bonuses could be handsome. Many found themselves making more money while serving on active 

duty than they had as civilians, and some much more. Teachers, for example, 

generally earned more when serving as active-duty soldiers, and certainly the 

recently unemployed did. Families found themselves measuring risks versus 

rewards. Some reserve-component soldiers engineered multiple tours by volunteering as individual replacements. As average active-duty stints stretched 

beyond twelve months, such cost-cutters as the post exchange and commissary 

became more important to reserve-component families. Even in the Cold War 

spousal possession of a military identification card had been a bit of a perk. 

When the sponsor was on active duty and geography permitted, post facilities 

could be scoured for good deals—perhaps a favorable price on a television or 

some other major appliance, for example. When active-duty stints stretched 

to months and years rather than days and weeks, commissary and AAFES 

benefits could be exploited more systematically. Families living close to major 

installations could cut some costs as much as 20 to 30 percent, as their activecomponent counterparts did. Soldiers and families chafed at restrictions that 

did remain and lobbied for ever greater access to the benefits of military life. In 

2003, for example, the law was amended to allow reserve-component soldiers, 

family members, and retirees with identification cards unlimited access to commissary stores. Robust pay and benefits were of little help if soldiers were not 

actually paid, of course. There were considerable growing pains in this regard. 

Automation designed in the 1970s to handle pay for drills and summer camp 

was overwhelmed by the much larger and more complex demands of mobilization. Special pay had to be entered by hand, as did the transition to an active 

status. Finance clerks were often themselves recently mobilized and not much 

more current than the automation that served them. Employers generally cut 

off pay immediately, whereas it often took several pay cycles—months—to 

get pay properly flowing to mobilized soldiers. Pay complaints and transactions often required laborious workarounds to bypass the system as originally 

designed. Fortuitously, reserve-component finance personnel gained increasing experience with and training in these workarounds through the accelerating 

deployments of the 1990s before being faced with massive deployments after 

9-11. Surveys from 2001 through 2004 established that base pay was generally 

handled satisfactorily but entitlements, particularly those emerging after 9-11, 

were not. Ironically, overpayments became a significant problem too. Finance 

personnel worked hard to manually kick in benefits and entitlements for 

deployed soldiers but were often delayed in terminating them when a soldier 

returned. Without knowing it, Reservists and Guardsmen could accumulate 

considerable debt to the government. Forestalling this required careful scrutiny 

of leave and earnings statements by soldiers and their supervisors. The longterm fix was to replace manual workarounds applied by transient personnel 

with an overhauled pay system. The Forward Compatible Payroll (FCP) went 

online in March 2005, comprehensively automating pay and entitlements and 
Kevlar Legions

380

eliminating previous workarounds. In 2006 the Defense Integrated Military 

Human Resources System (DIMHRS) would integrate pay and personnel 

systems. This meant, for example, that the pay system would automatically 

take note of such relevant personnel actions as promotion, assignment to an 

overseas theater, or reassignment from one.32

Health care and child care were as big an issue to the families of the reserve 

component as they were to those of the active component, but these were not 

much visible to the Cold War Army. When active-duty training averaged two 

weeks, it made little sense to involve the families in government programs. 

Whatever arrangements they already had at home or through employers would 

have to do. The soldiers themselves benefited from annual medical attention 

when mobilized, although those in the Individual Ready Reserve often went 

long periods without seeing a military doctor. During Desert Shield/Desert 

Storm predeployment screening picked up a sizable catalog of medical issues, 

especially dental. From that point medical screening became less cursory as 

a feature of the annual cycle. With respect to families, the ever-increasing 

frequency and duration of mobilizations made a military connection with 

respect to health care more feasible. In addition, the maturation of TRICARE 

offered an alternative that fit in well with the geographical dispersion of Army 

Reserve and National Guard families. Beginning in 1992 the Army emphasized preenrollment in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System 

(DEERS). This positioned families to apply for entitlements and benefits as 

their circumstances suggested. Eligibility for TRICARE and its related dental 

program evolved through complexities, depending on whether the sponsor was 

not activated, preactivated, activated, or recently inactivated. As TRICARE 

matured, an activated sponsor and his dependents were eligible for TRICARE 

without premiums. During preactivation and inactivation coverage could be 

continued with modest costs. Since preactivation eventually spread to 90 days 

and postactivation to 180, totals could come to two years of coverage. In due 

course TRICARE Reserve Select (TRS) emerged, allowing eligible soldiers 

to buy into programs extending coverage for themselves and their families 

through periods of preactivation and postactivation as well. This compared 

favorably with alternatives in many cases and further eroded distinctions 

that had separated the active and reserve components. Insofar as health care 

involved child care, the evolution described above benefited adult and child 

alike. Army child and youth services also evolved to be more accommodating 

to the reserve component. Families were eligible upon activation, and utilization could make sense if the geography was right or the spouse was visiting 

the AAFES, commissary, or some other facility. Reserve-component sole parents grew to depend on Army child and youth services as well. In many cases 

Reservists or Guardsmen backfilled active-component soldiers who had in 

turn deployed. In these cases the mobilized soldiers benefited from the facilities on the installation that they now manned.33

As entitlements and benefits available to the reserve component accumulated, they needed to be communicated to soldiers and their families. 

Announcements and handouts at drill did not necessarily get back to spouses. 

By 1988 the National Guard and Army Reserve had formed Family Support 
381

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

Groups, for about the same reasons 

that units in the active component 

had them. During Desert Shield/

Desert Storm family support 

liaison officers were deployed to 

mobilization sites for the first 

time. These undertook not only to 

keep soldiers informed, but also 

to counsel spouses with respect to 

services and benefits. The link was 

considered crucial since the soldier 

could be largely out of communication once deployed, and the spouse 

would be running the household. 

Feedback with respect to Family 

Support Groups from Desert 

Shield/Desert Storm within 

the reserve component paralleled 

that within the active component. 

This resulted in reform, renewed 

emphasis, increased involvement in 

such training programs as AFTB 

and later SOLD, and the change 

in philosophy discussed previously 

that redesignated Family Support 

Groups as Family Readiness 

Groups. Family Readiness Groups 

within the reserve component faced additional challenges, however. We have 

already discussed geographical dispersal. In addition, there was the greater 

likelihood that soldiers of the reserve component would deploy to headquarters and units they had not previously trained in. This meant the spouse 

would be as unfamiliar with the Family Readiness Group as the sponsor was 

with the unit. This phenomenon resulted in part from the improvisation that 

went into designing each unique major headquarters overseas and in part 

from turbulence when bringing understrength units up to strength and compensating for the nondeployable. Deployment as an individual was intrinsic 

in service as an Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), Individual Mobilization 

Augmentee (IMA), or in a United States Army Reserve Command (USARC) 

Augmentation Unit (UAU). Family Readiness Groups, already struggling 

with geographical separation, scrambled to take such new arrivals into the 

fold. Leadership proved critical. Diligent work through telephone trees and 

e-mail got news and information out, and increased attention at mobilization 

sites and in other venues ensured that counseling with respect to benefits and 

other assets was available. Difficulty getting people together degraded some 

of the social purposes served by Family Readiness Groups. The informal 

coffee klatch atmosphere of most Family Readiness Group get-togethers, and 

the frequency with which they occurred, proved important to spousal team 

Reserve-component soldiers with 

special skills could deploy as

individuals to join units.
Kevlar Legions

382

building. Given geographical dispersal to start with, and the likelihood of 

fillers from even further afield, physically bringing Family Readiness Groups 

together was more challenging to the Reserve than to the active component. 

The National Guard and Army Reserve leaned heavily on the Web to get 

their messages out, establishing “virtual” Family Readiness Groups to reach 

all of the eligible and provide at least some correspondence and interaction. 

Topics broadened to include child and youth services, volunteer options, 

and training opportunities—typically not constituent to Family Readiness 

Groups, although certainly among Army family programs. In 2002 the Army 

Reserve stood up the IRR/IMA/UAU Family Program Office. This specifically addressed the needs of those who customarily mobilized as individuals. The reserve component evolved methods to disseminate information to 

families and to provide physical and emotional support that was understandably different than that of the active component.34

Conclusions

From 1989 through 2005 the Army as an institution advanced considerably 

with respect to family support appropriate to its new expeditionary posture. 

While doing so, it broadened in focus from families with children to address 

spouses, parents, and retirees as well. The families of the reserve component 

became actively involved. The first step was to close out most overseas stations 

and to convert stateside mega-posts into ever-ready deployment platforms. 

Family housing became increasingly privatized, and assignment and pay policies encouraged families to buy their own homes. After a period of turbulence 

AAFES and the commissary system regained their footing, saving Army families considerable money and plowing funds back into morale, welfare, and recreation services. These services included child care and youth services, of which 

the former became a national standard and the latter a useful supplement to 

indigenous school and community activities. Consciousness of and attention 

to exceptional family members became routine and systematic. Health care 

morphed from a post-centric model to a diffuse network of military and civilian 

care providers suitable for geographically dispersed populations. TRICARE 

ultimately proved suitable for active-component, reserve-component, and 

retiree families alike. Spousal employment emerged as an issue to which the 

Army gave serious attention, with some success. Other mechanisms to ensure 

family financial security evolved as well. Family Support Groups evolved 

into Family Readiness Groups and reinforced physical and emotional wellbeing while furthering a long-standing volunteer spirit. Parents were drawn 

in as never before, drawing support and information from Family Readiness 

Groups and directly assisting their deployed offspring. Retirees, who now outnumbered those actively serving, continued to serve as counselors, contractors, 

and advocates and provided persuasive examples of fruitful military careers 

to those who might consider one. Families of the reserve component worked 

out their own unique solutions with respect to financial security, health care, 

child care, information dissemination, and emotional support in the face of 

geographical dispersal, elongated force generation cycles, and civilian careers. 
383

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

Home stationing with respect to the active component and having a home with 

respect to the reserve component lent domestic stability to the platforms from 

which the expeditionary Army was launched. This evolution took place in the 

context of accelerating deployments, and then sustained combat. Families 

faced and dealt with all the rigors of deployment, separation, combat, and 

reintegration. Some faced wounds, and some faced death. Sustaining the force 

in the face of hardship and challenge drew upon the collaboration of the 

Army, Army families, parents, and retirees, as well as of the soldiers actually 

deployed. An underlying premise was to keep the soldier serving because of 

confidence that his or her family—as well as country—was better off for his 

or her having done so.
Notes

1 General Eric K. Shinseki, The Army Family: A White Paper (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 2003), 1–19; General John A. Wickham Jr., The Army 

Family (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1983).

2 Vincent H. Demma, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 

1989 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998), 109–36, 161–81; Shinseki; 

Wickham; General Crosbie E. Saint, “Changes Pose Challenges for Army Forces, 

Europe,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book: The Year of Training, October 1989, 56–70; 

Author’s personal experience from twelve years’ military service in Europe. 

3 Shinseki; Army Regulation 210–20, Master Planning for Army Installations 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1992); Families and Mission: A Review of 

the Effects of Family Factors on Army Attrition, Retention and Readiness (Washington 

DC: Rand Arroyo, 1987); The Reciprocal Nature of Work and Family: Spouse’s 

Perception of the Army/Family Interface and Its Impact on Soldier Retention 

(Washington DC: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 1989); Survey of Army 

Families I (Washington DC: Army Research Institute, 1987). 

4 Shinseki, 1–19, 33–57; Demma, 109–36, 161–81; William Joe Webb et al., 

Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Years 1990–1991 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 1997), 45–47; L. Martin Kaplan, Department of 

the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1994 (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2000), 118–19; Connie L. Reeves, Department of the Army 

Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1996 (Washington DC: Center of Military 

History, 2002), 125–27; Jeffery A. Charlston, Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Year 1999 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2006), 

108–09; MWR Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1994 (Arlington, Virginia: Policy and 

Plans Directorate, U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, 1995); 

MWR Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1995 (Arlington, Virginia: Policy and Plans 

Directorate, U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, 1996); MWR 

Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1996 (Arlington, Virginia: Strategic Planning and 

Policy Directorate, U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, 1997); 

MWR Fiscal Year 1999 Annual Report (Arlington, Virginia: U.S. Army 

Community and Family Support Center, 2000); Bradford Booth, Mady W. Segal, 

and D. Bruce Bell, What We Know About Army Families: 2007 Update 

(Washington DC: Caliber, 2007); Public Law 104–106, The National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 (Washington DC: 104th Congress, 1996); 

Lieutenant General Robert Wilson, “Installations and Families: Restoring the 

Balance, Army (April 2008): 19–27; Rick Maze, “Congress’ Unfinished Business: 6 

Benefits Lawmakers Need to Fix Right Now,” Army Times, 1 June 2009, 14–15; 

Brendan McGarry, “Pay Atlas: Where Your Paycheck Goes Furthest–and Where It 

Comes Up Short,” Army Times, 7 September 2009, 20–22; Rick Maze, “Path to 

Better BAH,” Army Times, 6 July 2009, 8.

5

 Roberto Salas, An Analysis of AAFES and Its Relevance to the Future of the Army 

and Air Force (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Command and General Staff College 

Master of Military Arts and Science, 2009), 11–48; Webb et al., Department of the 

Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Years 1990–1991, 47–49, 59–60; Stephen E. Everett 

and L. Martin Kaplan, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1993 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2002), 99, 110; Kaplan, 111–13, 120–21; 

Stephen L. Y. Gammons and William M. Donnelly, Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Year 1995 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004), 81, 89; 
385

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

MWR Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1994; MWR Fiscal Year Annual Report: Fiscal Year 

1995; Charlston, 101–02, 111.

6

 Shinseki, 1–19; Lizette Alvarez, “Wartime Soldier, Conflicted Mom: Overseas and 

Back Home, Torn Between Service and Family,” New York Times, 27 September 2009, 

1, 22; Demma, 109–36, 161–81; Webb et al., Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Years 1990–1991, 45–47; Gail L. Zellman and Anne Johansen, 

Examining the Implementation and Outcomes of the Military Child Care Act of 1989

(Santa Monica, California: RAND National Security Research Division, 1998); 

Dwight D. Oland and David W. Hogan Jr., Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Year 1992 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2001), 165–

67; Reeves, 125–27; MWR Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1996; Army Regulation 600–20,

Army Command Policy (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2008); “Army 

MWR: Child, Youth and School Services,” http://www.armymwr.com/portal/family/

childandyouth, accessed 8 October 2009; Be All That We Can Be: Lessons from the 

Military for Improving Our Nation’s Child Care System (Washington DC: National 

Women’s Law Center, 2004). 

7

 Shinseki, 8, 17, 27–32; Department of Defense Instruction 1015.10, Programs for 

Military Morale Recreation and Welfare (MWR) (Washington DC: Government 

Printing Office, 2007); Demma, 109, 136, 161–81; Webb et al., Department of the Army 

Historical Summary, Fiscal Years 1990–1991, 45–47; Zellman and Johansen; Everett 

and Kaplan, 99, 110; Gammons and Donnelly, 81–83; Reeves, 125–27; MWR Annual 

Report: Fiscal Year 1994; MWR Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1995; Charlston, 101–02, 

111; Karen Jowers, “DoDEA Students Score High in Academic Assessment,” Army 

Times, 28 September 2009, 13; Karen Jowers and Rick Maze, “Gates Agrees to Study 

Opening More DoD Schools,” Army Times, 21 September 2009, 16; “Army MWR: 

CYS System of Care,” http://www.armymwr.com/portal/family/childandyouth, 

accessed 12 October 2009; E-mail, Ms. Mary Jo Reimer to Brigadier General (USA, 

Ret.) John S. Brown, sub: John–Some Things on the Army Teen Panel, 27 November 

2009, Historians Files, CMH; Notes, Ms. Patty Shinseki to Brigadier General (USA, 

Ret.) John S. Brown, on draft Chapter 8 Manuscript, 21 April 2010, Historians Files, 

CMH.

8

 Public Law 94–142, Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Washington DC: 

United States Congress, 1975); Mary Ellen Condon-Rall, Department of the Army 

Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1983 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

1990), 75–76; Terrence J. Gough, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal 

Year 1986 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1995), 21–25; Performance 

Report . . . Community and Family Programs Surging Ahead (Arlington, Virginia: U.S. 

Army Community and Family Support Center, 1987); Demma, 171–78; Shinseki, 18; 

Army Regulation 608–75, Exceptional Family Member Program (Washington DC: 

Department of the Army, 2006).

9

 Shinseki, 3–32; Demma, 166–71; Webb et al., Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Years 1990–1991, 52–53; Oland and Hogan, 170–75; Kaplan, 114–17; 

Charlston, 103–06; MWR Fiscal Year 1999 Annual Report; Lieutenant General Ronald 

R. Blanck, “Healthy Soldiers Are the Army’s Best Credentials,” Army 1997–1998 

Green Book, October 1997, 145–49; Lieutenant General Ronald R. Blanck, “The Army 

Medical Department: On Call for the 21st Century,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, 

October 1999, 171–75; Lieutenant General James B. Peake, “We Will Always Be 

There—Caring Beyond the Call of Duty,” Army 2001–2002 Green Book, October 2001, 

151–56; Lieutenant General James B. Peake, “Delivering Quality Health Care to 

Soldiers and Their Families,” Army 2002–2003 Green Book, October 2002, 175–80; 

Major General Kevin C. Kiley, “Caring for Soldiers in War and Peace,” Army 2004–
Kevlar Legions

386

2005 Green Book, October 2004, 163–68; Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, 

“Preserving Soldier’s Lives and Health—Anytime, Anywhere,” Army 2005–2006 Green 

Book, October 2005, 121–24; Survey of Army Families 1991 (Arlington, Virginia: 

United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1991); 

Survey of Army Families 2001 (Arlington, Virginia: United States Army Research 

Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2001); TRICARE Prime Handbook 

(Phoenix, Arizona: TriWest Healthcare Alliance, 2005); “History of TRICARE,” 

http://www.tricare.mil, accessed 26 October 2009. 

10 Shinseki, 3–32; Demma, 166–71; Webb et al., Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Years 1990–1991, 52–53; Oland and Hogan, 170–75; Kaplan, 114–17; 

MWR Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1994; Charlston, 103–06; MWR Fiscal Year 1999 

Annual Report; Maze, “Congress’ Unfinished Business,” 14–15; “Strong Families 

Critical for Army,” AUSA News, November 2008, 18; Karen Jowers, “Study Shows 

Deployments Take Toll on Children,” Army Times, 20 July 2009, 8; Alvarez, 1, 22; 

Kelly Kennedy, “Daddy ? Are You OK? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Wrenches a 

Service Member’s Heart and Home,” Army Times, 21 September 2009, 10–11; Dr. 

Steven J. Cozza, Children and Families of Combat Veterans, Center for the Study of 

Traumatic Stress (http://www.centerforthestudyoftraumaticstress.org), accessed 18 

October 2010; Author’s personal experience as an Army dependent and then Army 

officer, 1949–2005. 

11 Army Regulation 600–20, Army Command Policy, 2008; Shinseki, 7–32, app. 1; 

Alvarez, 1, 22; Rick Maze, “Stretched and Stressed, Leaders’ Spouses: Families Need 

Help Now,” Army Times, 15 June 2009, 52; Department of the Army Form 5305,

Family Care Plan (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2005); “Helping 

Spouses, Children Cope in Wartime,” AUSA News, January 2008, 22; Gina Cavallaro, 

“Program Helps Troops, Families Prepare for Possible Casualties,” Army Times, 23 

February 2009, 18–19; Jowers, “Study Shows Deployments Take Toll on Children,” 8; 

Karen Jowers, “Program Aims to Help Kids Adapt to Service Members’ Return,” 

Army Times, 14 September 2009, 10; Notes, Ms. Patty Shinseki to Brigadier General 

(USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, on draft Chapter 8 Manuscript, 21 April 2010. 

12 Demma, 166–71; Shinseki, 7–25; Deirdre E. Painter, “The Distaff Factor: 

Attitudinal Change and Continuity Through Four Generations of Army Wives,”

Student thesis, United States Military Academy, 3 May 1984, 1–25. 

13 Shinseki, 7–25; William J. Webb, Department of the Army Historical Summary, 

Fiscal Year 1988 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1993), 28–33; Demma, 

166–71; Webb et al., Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Years 1990–

1991, 52–53; Charlston, 103–06; MWR Fiscal Year 1999 Annual Report; What We 

Know About Army Families (Arlington, Virginia: Army Research Institute for the 

Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1993); What We Know About Army Families: 2007 

Update; The Reciprocal Nature of Work and Family; Survey of Army Families 1995 

(Arlington, Virginia: Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 

1995); Survey of Army Families 2000 (Arlington, Virginia: Army Research Institute for 

the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2000); Sylvia E. J. Kidd, “Staying on Top of Army 

Family Issues,” AUSA News, June 2009, 28–29; Military Spouse Career Center Home 

Page, http://www.military.com/spouse, accessed 2 November 2009; Army One Source: 

Army Spouse Employment Partnership, http://www.myarmyonesource.com, accessed 2 

November 2009; Karen Jowers, “Spouses Find Rules for Unemployment Cash a 

Puzzle,” Army Times, 20 April 2009, 25.

14 Shinseki, 7–25; Webb, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 

1988, 28–33; How to Support Army Families During Overseas Deployments: A 

Sourcebook for Service Providers (Arlington, Virginia: Army Research Institute for the 
387

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1996); SGLI/VGLI Handbook (Washington DC: 

Veterans Benefits Association, 2002); “SGLI” on Department of Veterans Affairs Web 

site, http://www.insurance.va.gov, accessed 3 November 2009; Department of Defense 

Financial Management Regulation (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2009), 

vol. 7A, ch.10; “Combat Pay (Imminent Danger Pay),” in http://www.usmilitaryabout.

com, accessed 3 November 2009; Rick Maze, “The Changing Face of Special Pay,” 

Army Times, 30 April 2007, 14–15; Jim Tice, “BEAR Program Options Decrease,” 

Army Times, 9 March 2009, 20; Karen Jowers, “Emergency Aid: Services’ Relief 

Societies Mostly Offer No-Interest Loans,” Army Times, 9 March 2009, 10–12; Rick 

Maze, “Family Food Aid Would Rise Under Senate Plan,” Army Times, 20 July 2009, 

9; Jowers, “Spouses Find Rules for Unemployment Cash a Puzzle,” 25.

15 Painter, 1–25; Shinseki, 7–32; Reeves, 119–23; MWR Annual Report: Fiscal 

Year 1996; “Building Strong and Ready Army Families,” http://www.army.mil, 

accessed 4 November 2009; Victoria Niederhauser, Jay Maddock, Francine 

Ledoux, and Martin Arnold, “Building Strong and Ready Army Families: A 

Multi-Risk Health Reduction Pilot Survey,” Military Medicine 170 (2005): 227–33; 

Spring 2000 Sample Survey of Army Families (Arlington, Virginia: Army Research 

Institute of the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2005); What We Know About Army 

Families: 2007 Update; Army Regulation 608–18, The Army Family Advocacy 

Program (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2006); Demma, 175–76; 

Defense Force Management: Department of Defense Policy on Homosexuality 

(Washington DC: Government Accounting Office, 1992); Kyle Dropp and Jon 

Cohen, “Acceptance of Gay People in Military Grows Dramatically,” Washington 

Post, 19 July 2009, 1.

16 Shinseki, 7–25; Reeves, 122; MWR Annual Report: Fiscal Year 1996; Charlston, 

101–03; MWR Fiscal Year 1999 Annual Report; Brian F. Waters, Family Support 

Groups: Making the Most of a Combat Multiplier (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: 

Command and General Staff College Master of Military Arts and Science, 1994), 

1–47; Mandy W. Segal and Jesse J. Harris, What We Know About Army Families 

(Alexandria, Virginia: United States Army Research Institute of the Behavioral and 

Social Sciences, 1993); What We Know About Army Families: 2007 Update; Audrey M. 

Burnam et al., Army Families and Soldier Readiness (Santa Monica, California: 

RAND, 1992); Survey of Army Families, 2001 (Alexandria, Virginia: United States 

Army Research Institute of the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 2001); United States 

Army, Looking Back: Family Support Group Lessons Learned During Desert Shield/

Desert Storm (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: United States Army War College, 

1993); Department of the Army Pamphlet 608–47, A Guide to the Establishment of 

Family Support Groups (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1993); Comments 

of Ms. Traci Cook and Ms. Rose Smyth, in “Commander-FRG Team Leaders,” Army

(November 2007): 68, 70.

17 Shinseki, 7–27; Gammons and Donnelly, 81–82; Waters, 1–47; Painter, 1–25; 

Sheila Gibbons, “Commanders Wives,” Ladycom, June 1984, 51–58, 63–65, 70; Clella 

R. Robbins, Army Woman’s Handbook (New York: McGraw Book Company, 1942); 

Helen Westpheling, Army Lady Today (Charlotte, North Carolina: Heritage House, 

1959); The Reciprocal Nature of Work and Family; Evaluation of Army Family Team 

Building (AFTB) (Fairfax, Virginia: Caliber Associates, 2002); Comments of Ms. 

Barbie Peppie, in “Commander-FRG Team Leaders,” Army (November 2007): 67–68; 

Army Commander’s Guide to Family Readiness Group Operations (Washington DC: 

United States Army Community and Family Support Center, 2005).

18 Florence R. Rosenberg, Survey of Army Families 1991: A Summary of Results 

(Washington DC: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, 1991); What We Know 
Kevlar Legions

388

About Army Families: 2007 Update; Waters, 1–47: Shinseki, 7–25; Joel M. Teitelbaum, 

Army Supports to Prevent and Mitigate Family Dysfunction During Military Combat 

Operations (Washington DC: American Psychological Association–National Institute 

for Occupational Safety and Health Conference, 1992); Rick Maze, “Volunteer Help 

Favored by Families During War,” Air Force Times, 4 November 1991, 5; “Operation 

Ready Smart Book,” from http://www.armyfrg.org, accessed 11 November 2009; Gina 

Cavallaro, “Program Helps Troops, Families Prepare for Possible Casualties,” Army 

Times, 23 February 2009, 18–19: Kelly Kennedy, “Daddy? Are You OK?” Army Times, 

21 September 2009, 10–12; Notes, Ms. Patty Shinseki to Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) 

John S. Brown, on draft Chapter 8 Manuscript, 21 April 2010; Briefing, Department 

of the Army, “ARMY SOLD XXI: Spouse Orientation and Development for the 21st 

Century,” August 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Michael Moss and Ray Rivera, “At 

Fort Hood, Some Violence is Too Familiar,” New York Times, 10 November 2009, 1, 

22. 

19 Shinseki, 1–12, 27–60; TRADOC Regulation 350–6, Enlisted Initial Entry 

Training (IET) Policies and Administration (Fort Monroe, Virginia: United States 

Army Training and Doctrine Command, 2005); VA Life Insurance Programs for 

Veterans and Servicemembers (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Department of Veterans 

Affairs, 2009); A. O. Scott, “Delivering Bad News and Truths About War,” New York 

Times, 12 November 2009, 1, 11; Mike Link and Kate Crowley, Grandparents Colorado 

Style: Places to Go and Wisdom to Share (Cambridge, Minnesota: Adventure 

Publications, Inc., 2009), 6–11. 

20 Daniel Vandergriff, Manning the Future Legions of the United States (London, 

Praeger Security International, 2008); “Ask Sergeant Star,” http://www.goarmy.com, 

accessed 21 November, 2009; “Army Career Training,” http://www.goarmyparents

.com, accessed 21 November 2009; Army Senior Staff Council Meeting notes, 7 July 

1999, Historian’s Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes 21 July 

1999, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 August 

1999, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 13 

September 1999, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

16 March 2000, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 2 

August 2000, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 8 

January 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 5 

March 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 9 

July 2001, Historians Files, CMH; “Retention Pressures,” Army Times, 8 December 

2008, 15. 

21 Shinseki, 7–25; Charlston, 101–03; MWR Fiscal Year 1999 Annual Report; 

Waters, 1–47; Segal and Harris; What We Know About Army Families: 2007 Update;

Army Commander’s Guide to Family Readiness Group Operations; Teitelbaum; Vicki 

Cody, Your Soldier, Your Army: A Parent’s Guide (Arlington, Virginia: Association of 

the United States Army, 2005). 

22 Shinseki, 7–22; Cody, 1–28; Legal Assistance Handbook (Fort Gordon, Georgia: 

U.S. Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, 2009); Title 10, United States Code, 

Section 1044a; Army Regulation 220–10, Preparation for Overseas Movement of Units 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2004); Army Regulation 350–9, Overseas 

Deployment Training (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2004); Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 9 July 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 25 November 2002, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army Regulation 600–20, Army Command Policy, 2008; Alvarez, 1, 22; Maze, 

“Stretched and Stressed, Leaders’ Spouses,” 52; Department of the Army Form 5305,

Family Care Plan. 
389

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

23 Shinseki, 7–22; Cody, 6–51; Todd S. Brown, Battleground Iraq: Journal of a 

Company Commander (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 59–73, 

220–29; Ben Shepherd, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth 

Century (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2001); Alvarez, 1, 22; “Army Families; 

Strength Behind the Soldier,” AUSA News, November 2009, 20; Alex Witchel, 

“Confessions of a Military Wife,” New York Times Magazine, 6 November 2005, 

62–67; Trista Talton, “What Means the Most,” Army Times, 14 September 2009, 31; 

Kidd, 28; Author’s personal experience, both as a deployed soldier with parents and as 

the parent of a deployed soldier. 

24 Army Regulation 600–8–1, United States Army Casualty Program (Washington 

DC: Department of the Army, 2007); Casualty Notification Guide for the Casualty 

Notification Officer (Fort Gordon, Georgia: Military Personnel Services Division, U.S. 

Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, 2002); Cody, 14–51; “Fisher House CEO to 

Receive Marshall Medal,” AUSA News, October 2009, 2; Kiley, “Preserving Soldiers’ 

Life and Health—Anytime, Anywhere,” 121–24; Army Vice Chief of Staff of the 

Army Council Meeting notes, 13 April 2000, Historians Files, CMH; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 9 July 2001; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

28 January 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Rick Maze, “No Help for Wounded Soldier’s 

Mom, She Says,” Army Times, 28 September 2009, 10; William H. McMichael, 

“Obama: Changing VA’s Mission Could Take Years,” Army Times, 17 August 2009, 4.

25 Demma, 131–32; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 9 November 1999, 

Historians Files, CMH; “About Us,” Military Officers Association of America, http://

www.moaa.org, accessed 25 November 2009; “Association of the United States Army 

Officers and Council of Trustees,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 320; 

“Army Echoes,” http://www.armyg1.army.mil/rso/echoes, accessed 25 November 2009; 

Lieutenant General Ellis D. Parker and Sergeant Major of the Army Richard A. Kidd, 

“A Vital Network to Champion Retiree Issues,” Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 

1998, 189–92.

26 “A Continuing Inspiration,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 5; 

Everett and Kaplan, 31–38; Gammons and Donnelly, 33–36; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 21 July 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 1 April 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Public Law 99–143, The 

Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986; James R. Lochner III, Victory on 

the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon (College Station, Texas: 

Texas A&M University Press, 2002); Mark D. Sherry, The Army Command Post and 

Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2009); 

Army Senior Leader Update Briefing, “Precision Strike: A Unique American Military 

Advantage . . . but with Limitations,” 14 August 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

Senior Leader Update Briefing, “The Army Quadrennial Defense Review,” 11 July 

2000, Historians Files, CMH; General Gordon R. Sullivan, “Relevant and Ready: 

AUSA Supports Soldiers and Families,” Army 2006–2007 Green Book, October 2006, 

9; “AUSA Sustaining Membership Program,” http://www.ausa.org, accessed 25 

November 2009; Briefing, Army General Staff, “Army Strategic Communications, 

America’s Army: One Team, One Fight, One Future,” 14 January 1999, Historians 

Files, CMH; David Barstow, “One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex,” New 

York Times, 30 November 2008, 1, 26–27. 

27 “Advertisers in this Issue,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 369; 

Mary L. Haynes, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1987 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1995), 57–58; Charlston, 3–13, 32–35, 

101–03, 108–09; Interv with A. David Mills, Principal Deputy for Logistics, in 

Reflections of Senior Army Material Command Officials, Volume II (Fort Belvoir, 
Kevlar Legions

390

Virginia: U.S. Army Material Command Historical Office, 2006), 147–66; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 10 April 2000, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 5 March 2001; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 1 April 2002; Deborah D. Avant, The Market for Force: The 

Consequences of Privatizing Security (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); 

Briefing, “The Role of BAL in Global Industry,” Bethesda, Maryland, Burdeshaw 

Associates Ltd, 1999; “AUSA Sustaining Membership Program”; Kaplan, 120; 

“Defense Military Pay Office–National Capital Region, Retirement Information 

Guide” (Fort Myer, Virginia: Defense Military Pay Office, 2004); Author’s notes from 

his own retirement transition workshop, June 2004, Historians Files, CMH. 

28 Shinseki, 3–32; Peake, “Delivering Quality Health Care to Soldiers and Their 

Families,” 175–80; Lieutenant General John A. Dubia and Sergeant Major of the 

Army Robert E. Hall, “Top Retiree Issues: Health Care, Communications and 

Education,” Army 2005–2006 Green Book, October 2005, 219–22; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 19 July 1999, Historians Files, CMH; McMichael, 10; 

TRICARE Prime Handbook; “History of TRICARE”; Parker and Kidd, “A Vital 

Network to Champion Retiree Issues,” 189–92; Lieutenant General Ellis D. Parker and 

Sergeant Major of the Army Richard A. Kidd, “Tackling the Tough Issues That 

Retired Soldiers Face,” Army 1999–2000 Green Book, October 1999, 203–05; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 16 March 2000; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 6 August 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Lieutenant General John A. 

Dubia and Sergeant Major of the Army Richard A. Kidd, “Retired but Still Serving 

and Focused on Health Care Issues,” Army 2001–2002 Green Book, October 2001, 

185–88; Lieutenant General John A. Dubia and Sergeant Major of the Army Robert 

E. Hall, “CSA Retiree Council Focuses on Health Care and Communication,” Army 

2003–2004 Green Book, October 2003, 213–16.

29 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 17 April 2000, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 7 May 2001, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 July 2001, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 27 August 2001, Historians Files, 

CMH; “Careers and Jobs,” http://www.goarmy.com, accessed 1 December 2009; Parker 

and Kidd, “A Vital Network to Champion Retiree Issues,” 189–92; Lieutenant General 

John A. Dubia and Sergeant Major of the Army Richard A. Kidd, “The Chief’s 

Retiree Council: Still Serving” Army 2000–2001 Green Book, October 2000, 199–202; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 17 April 2000; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 30 July 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 15 October 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Lieutenant General 

John A. Dubia and Sergeant Major of the Army Robert E. Hall, “Once a Soldier 

Always a Soldier,” Army 2004–2005 Green Book, October 2004, 205–08; Lieutenant 

General Frederick E. Vollrath and Sergeant Major of the Army Jack L. Tilley, “CSA 

Retiree Council Promotes Strategic Communication, Health Care,” Army 2007–2008 

Green Book, October 2007, 249–51; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 9 

November 1999; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 30 July 2001; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 3 January 2000, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes,10 July 2000, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 28 October 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

Regulation 600–8–7, Retirement Services Program (Washington DC: Department of 

the Army, 2008); Department of Defense Directive 1300.15, Military Funeral Support, 

2007.

30 Shinseki, 7–25, 34–55; Major General Donald Burdick, “The Guard: America’s 

Army on Call,” Army 1988–1989 Green Book, October 1988, 124–32; Michael D. 
391

The Army Family and Army Family Support, 1989–2005

Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History of the Army National Guard 1636–2000 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2001), 301–68; James T. Currie and 

Richard B. Crossland, Twice the Citizen: A History of the United States Army Reserve 

1908–1995 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1997), 343–82, 475–580.

31 Ibid.; United Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, Title 38, United 

States Code, Sections 4301–4333; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 24 April 

2000, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 3 May 

2000, Historians Files, CMH; Major General Roger C. Schultz, “The National 

Guard’s Secret to Success,” Army 1998–1999 Green Book, October 1998, 95–100; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 2 January 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 28 January 2002; Lieutenant James R. Helmly, 

“Profound Change While Fighting the War,” Army 2004–2005 Green Book, October 

2004, 103–14.

32 Doubler, 301–68; Currie and Crossland, 475–580; Burdick, 124–32; Major 

General Max Baratz, “A Restructured Army Reserve,” Army 1996–1997 Green Book, 

October 1996, 97–107; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 3 January 2000; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 3 May 2000; Helmly, 103–14; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 28 January 2002; Joe Burlas, “More Fixes to 

Reserve Pay Issues on the Way for Mobilized Soldiers,” Armywide News, 22 October 

2004; “Reserve Pay and Benefits,” http://www.army.com, accessed 22 December 2009.

33 Doubler, 301–68; Currie and Crossland, 475–580; Major General William F. 

Ward Jr., “Top-Notch Training and Equipment Raise Reserve Readiness Levels,”

Army 1989–1990 Green Book, October 1989, 100–107; Major General Roger W. 

Sandler, “Reserve: Finding Steel as It Slims, Reshapes,” Army 1992–1993 Green Book, 

October 1992, 122–29; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 16 March 2000; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 6 August 2002; Lieutenant General Roger 

C. Schultz, “The Army National Guard: Ready to Serve Our Nation,” Army 2003–

2004 Green Book, October 2004, 97–102; “TRICARE: Choices for the National Guard 

and Reserve,” http://www.tricare.mil, accessed 21 December 2009. 

34 Shinseki, 7–32; Burdick, 124–32; Major General William F. Ward Jr., 

“Performance in Panama Underscores Readiness,” Army 1990–1991 Green Book, 

October 1990, 104–13; Major General Robert W. Sandler, “When the Call Came 

Reserve Was Ready,” Army 1991 Green Book, October 1991, 100–106; Sandler, 

“Reserve: Finding Steel as It Slims, Reshapes,” 122–29; Schultz, 107–13; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 October 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 25 October 2002, Historians Files, CMH. 

Chapter 9

The “Transformed” Army in Action

Generals Vuono, Sullivan, Reimer, and Shinseki, as we have seen, envisioned Army transformation as an extended project. A driving force was 

money; there was only so much to invest in the indeterminate intermediate and 

distant futures. With General Schoomaker the future war became the present 

one, money flowed, and the focus of transformation narrowed while its pace 

increased. The Army that fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere during 

the Global War on Terrorism was appreciably different than that of the Cold 

War and became more so with each month that passed after March 2003. If 

the Army of Desert Storm and Restore Hope can generally be thought of 

as “before” transformation and that of the Global War on Terrorism as “after,” 

comparisons can be made—with caveats and qualifications, of course. Had 

considerable attention to and investment in expeditionary capabilities resulted 

in forces that deployed more quickly and effectively? Did the Army dominate 

the conventional battlefield, overmatching opponents who sought to seize 

or contest critical terrain? Was the Army the flexible, adaptable force transformers aspired to, transitioning smoothly to various points on the combat 

spectrum? Did investments in high technology pay off on low-intensity battlefields? Was the “transformed” Army sustainable? Answers to these questions 

should permit a critique of fifteen years of institutional endeavor.

An Expeditionary Army: Getting There

Deployments are difficult to compare. Factors such as diplomacy, politics, 

timing, and perceived need radically affect the working mechanics of force 

flow. Deployments associated with Desert Storm, for example, progressed in 

two impulses: an initial rush to put in forces sufficient to defend Saudi Arabia 

(Desert Shield), and a somewhat larger effort after the decision to eject Saddam 

Hussein from Kuwait by force had been made. The first of these impulses dispatched the 82d Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), 

the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), the 1st Cavalry Division, and the 3d 

Armored Cavalry Regiment, primarily deploying from Forts Bragg, Campbell, 

Stewart, Benning, Hood, and Carson. A dozen years later the forces initially 

committed to Iraqi Freedom included the 82d Airborne Division, the 101st 

Airborne Division (Air Assault), the 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized), the 

4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), and the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, 
Kevlar Legions

394

again primarily deploying from Forts Bragg, Campbell, Stewart, Benning, 

Hood, and Carson. Parallels with respect to size, force structure, and geography were striking. The buildup for Desert Shield progressed with all possible 

haste, as Saudi oil fields were exposed and vulnerable. The buildup for Iraqi 

Freedom featured less urgency, since the Iraqis were not postured to attack 

and no one really knew where the volatile diplomacy of the moment was leading. Nevertheless, the buildup of ground combat power in theater prior to 

Iraqi Freedom progressed significantly more quickly and efficiently than 

during Desert Shield. In the dozen years that separated the two operations, 

as we have seen, the Army sought to improve upon its expeditionary posture 

by pre-positioning, increased sealift and airlift, and lightening the weight of 

deploying units. The first two of these initiatives yielded immediate benefits 

during Iraqi Freedom. The third did so in due course.1

Chapter 3 discussed dramatic changes with respect to pre-positioning 

after Desert Storm. Subsequent chapters described the further growth and 

exercise of pre-positioned stocks. Intrinsic Action emerged as a recurrent 

deployment operation sustaining a heavy battalion combat team in Kuwait on 

a nearly continuous basis. In 2002, as post 9-11 tensions with Iraq mounted, 

this continuous presence expanded to a brigade combat team. Contingents 

flew in from the United States and drew equipment from Camp Doha, north 

of Kuwait City. In December the 2d Brigade, 3d Infantry Division, was on 

hand and had drawn equipment in Kuwait when the National Command 

Authority decided to expand to a full division. On 6 January 2003, the 

remaining 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized) troops from Forts Stewart 

and Benning began streaming by air into Kuwait. Here they married up with 

equipment, much of it speedily relocated from other pre-position sites, at 

Camp Doha and at newly reconfigured Camp Arifjan. Long-rehearsed proPre-positioned equipment and supplies greatly facilitated preparations for

Operation Iraqi Freedom.
395

The “Transformed” Army in Action

cedures progressed smoothly, and the troops rolled on to desert assembly 

areas. Time elapsed between landing at the airport and being fully established 

in the desert was measured in hours, with twelve hours being respectable for 

a company. The formidable pre-positioned panoply and drilled procedures 

resulted in a reinforced heavy division on the ground in a fraction of the 

time it had taken the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), also deploying 

from Forts Stewart and Benning, to arrive for Desert Shield. The Marines 

were similarly well prepared, and within sixteen days off-loaded a division 

equivalent force boasting 120 M1A1 tanks, 276 amphibious assault and 

light-armored vehicles, and 63 howitzers. During Desert Shield anxious 

paratroopers waited almost a month for tanks to arrive, stoically characterizing themselves as “speed bumps” in the meantime. Prior to Iraqi Freedom

two heavy divisions (one Army and one Marine) beat the paratroopers—and 

the Iraqis—into the battle space. The dramatic success of pre-positioning 

was not just a matter of guessing right about having stockpiles in Kuwait. 

Flexibly packaged pre-positioned stocks moved efficiently across hundreds 

or thousands of miles of ocean to meet the timelines of troops arriving by 

air. Carefully rehearsed teams of soldiers, civilians, and contractors managed by the Army Materiel Command sped equally rehearsed units of prepositioned savvy soldiers on their way to confront the enemy.2

In addition to pre-positioning, the Army relied on improved sealift and 

airlift to enhance its strategic mobility. In this it was dependent on the United 

States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) and the Navy and Air 

Force. The sister services may not have embraced transporting the Army as 

their highest priority, but substantial progress was nevertheless made. Sealift 

capabilities, as we have seen, ramped up, with the inventory of highly efficient 

roll-on/roll-off ships (RO/ROs), for example, climbing from seventeen in 1990 

to thirty-six in 1996. Relevant infrastructure at home stations and in selected 

ports dramatically improved as well. The digitized 4th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized) was chosen to be the first heavy division to deploy to Iraqi 

Freedom with its own equipment from home station. Equipment and supplies 

moved smoothly by road and rail from Forts Hood and Carson to Beaumont, 

Texas, and other ports. Here it loaded quickly into more than forty ships and 

then steamed into the eastern Mediterranean. Troops continued to train at the 

home station, earmarked to fly in and join their equipment when it debarked 

in Turkey pursuant to opening a northern front in Iraq. Unfortunately, the 

efficiency of the sealift was compromised by the intransigence of diplomacy. 

At the eleventh hour the Turkish Parliament refused to support the American 

plan and denied the 4th Infantry Division permission to debark in and operate from Turkey. The 101st Airborne Division had better luck. Destined for 

Kuwait, it deployed as planned through upgraded infrastructure from Fort 

Campbell to Jacksonville, Florida, by road, rail, and air. More than 250 helicopters flew to Florida, then were reconfigured and stowed for the 9,000-mile 

voyage to Kuwait. The 101st had made much the same trip with about the 

same equipment en route to Desert Shield in 1990. In 1990 the division 

took almost three months to close; in 2003 it took a little more than one. The 

much greater speed can be largely attributed to greater deployment efficiencies 
Kevlar Legions

396

and effectiveness developed during the intervening dozen years. Meanwhile 

ships bearing the 4th Infantry Division gave up on the Turkish option, sped 

through the Suez Canal to Kuwait, and off-loaded there. They caught up with 

the Central Command (CENTCOM) Blitzkrieg just as conventional operations were sputtering to a close. Not counting time lost waiting off the coast 

of Turkey the overseas movement of the 4th Infantry Division was efficient, 

albeit ill-starred. The 1st Cavalry Division and 1st Armored Division were 

moving in the queue behind the 4th Infantry Division but were delayed rather 

than rushed forward as the “running start” to the campaign got off to an 

auspicious beginning.3

The diplomatic imbroglio that delayed the 4th Infantry Division’s deployment by sea did position the Army to demonstrate post–Cold War enhancements in its ability to deploy by air. Perhaps the most notable postwar development in that regard was the C–17 Globemaster III. The C–17 can routinely carry 

payloads of 160,000 pounds 4,400 kilometers and can land on unimproved 

runways only 3,500 feet long and 90 feet wide. It can drop 102 paratroopers 

and deliver the mammoth seventy-ton M1A1 Abrams heavy common tank. 

It has four 40,400-pound thrust F117-PW-100 turbofan engines and avionics 

that facilitate control in dramatic descents. The first C–17 flew in 1991, and 

the first Air Force squadron so equipped became operational in January 1995. 

The 4th Infantry Division had been intended to open a northern front in Iraq, 

drawing off Iraqi forces from the main attack, covering the friendly Kurds, and 

tightening the squeeze on Baghdad. Even while bobbing off the Turkish coast 

it accomplished some of that purpose, but American commanders still wanted 

a more direct effort. Special Operations Forces were already on the ground 

with the Kurdish Peshmerga, and the 173d Airborne Brigade from Vicenza, 

Italy, was directed to parachute in to reinforce them. Entering Iraq at 30,000 

feet to avoid air defenses, the C–17s screamed down to 1,000 feet to drop the 

paratroopers onto Bashur Airfield in Kurdistan, then roared back aloft to high 

altitude. The paratroopers linked up with the Peshmerga and quickly secured 

the airfield for follow-on traffic. A stream of C–17s soon flowed across the 

airfield, most notably twenty-seven that delivered the M1 tanks, Bradleys, and 

M113s of Task Force 1-63 Armor. Suddenly the Special Operating Forces were 

powerfully reinforced with a brigade combat team sporting heavy armor. The 

Vice Chief of Staff of the Army quipped that it was like reinforcing a Navy 

SEAL team with a carrier battle group. The small contingent posed the Iraqis 

a large dilemma. If they massed to fight it, they were horribly exposed to 

American airpower delivering precision-guided munitions. If they dispersed, 

they would be defeated in detail or swamped by the Peshmerga. Unnerved by 

these threats and mindful of developments in the south, Iraqi forces began to 

disintegrate. The Kurds and Americans seized the initiative. Bashur would not 

have been technically feasible in 1989. For a time supplies of all types flowed 

through Bashur in the wake of the combatants, until the Turks ruled that traffic and commerce in nonlethal supplies across their border were permissible. 

Elsewhere American airlift also showed well, although not as dramatically as 

at Bashur. Veteran workhorses such the C–5 and C–130 continued to move 

freight and personnel. Soldiers deploying to join their equipment or draw from 
397

The “Transformed” Army in Action

pre-positioned stocks generally flew in by commercial air. These techniques 

had worked well during Desert Storm and continued to work well during 

Iraqi Freedom. The difference was that soldiers and units had been deploying like this for a dozen years, and most “learning curves” had long since been 

surmounted. Aerial ports of embarkation (APOE) and aerial ports of debarkation (APOD) were well-rehearsed drills, generally amid facilities that had 

been designed and built to accommodate them.4

The third post–Cold War initiative to improve strategic mobility, lightening the units to be deployed, played less directly in the initial deployment to 

Iraqi Freedom. The units that advanced on Baghdad were not much lighter 

than their predecessors of Desert Storm, although there were fewer of them. 

Only the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment was custom-built for lightness and 

also participated in the conventional phase of the campaign. The 2d Armored 

Cavalry Regiment had been redesigned as General Reimer’s experimental Strike 

Force and rode in up-armored high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles 

(HMMWVs) with a panoply of modernized equipment. Its capabilities proved 

ideal when the battle for lines of communication trailing the 3d Infantry Division 

(Mechanized) developed in earnest. A particularly attractive feature of the 2d 

Armored Cavalry Regiment was that it could be readily shuttled about within 

the theater by air. However, the poster child for custom-designed lightness was 

the Stryker Brigade, introduced and brought to fruition by General Shinseki. 

The first of these was declared deployable in May 2003, too late for the opening shots of Iraqi Freedom. Its lightness and mobility would influence the 

campaign subsequently, concerning which, more later. A development related 

The HMMWV-mounted 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment represented greater 

deployability through lighter “platforms” with appliqué digital technology.
Kevlar Legions

398

to custom-designed lightness was the attempt to render units already light more 

lethal. We have already discussed the introduction of the Javelin antitank missile, which was useful against bunkers as well as vehicles. The Javelin showed 

well in the several Iraqi Freedom engagements wherein it was used. Light units 

benefited heavily from advances with respect to aviation and air support, concerning which, more later. Light units had also gotten into the habit of working 

small contingents of tanks and Bradleys into their operations. The introduction 

of the C–17, as we have seen, considerably enhanced the ability to get armor 

into a light scenario early on. Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) rotations 

picked up on this prospect, and by the mid-1990s they almost inevitably featured 

light brigades operating with a heavy company team attached. Infantrymen and 

paratroopers learned to make a little bit of armor go a long way in difficult 

terrain or a fluid situation, offsetting their own relative lack of firepower once 

on the ground. The M551 Sheridan and the aborted armored gun system had 

been intended to fill such a role, but there was no real substitute for actual tanks 

if you could get them. The deployment to Iraqi Freedom seeded light units 

with contingents of armor. The 173d Airborne Brigade got Task Force 1-63 

Armor, the 82d Airborne Division got Task Force 1-41 Infantry (Mechanized), 

and the 101st Airborne Division got Task Force 2-70 Armor. Pre-positioned 

stocks offered a further means to enhance capability while keeping weight down. 

The 82d Airborne Division motorized itself overnight with pickings left over in 

Kuwait after the 3d Infantry Division passed through. Some paratroopers drove 

off to battle in pre-positioned engineer dump trucks. Wags observed that it was 

better than stealing cars from the locals. The 101st Airborne Division benefited 

from large inventories of pre-positioned helicopter Class IX, reducing the tonnage it had to bring by itself. Although only the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment 

actually came as a lighter unit, a number of other 1990s’ developments nevertheless economized on strategic lift.5

Deployment to Iraqi Freedom demonstrated impressive advances, but 

it was not flawless. Indeed, in one sense it regressed as leaders and planners 

eager for speed, flexibility, and minimal force structure walked away from the 

established time-phased force and deployment list (TPFDL) process without 

providing an alternate means to ensure adequate combat service support. 

The TPFDL was a somewhat mechanical Cold War legacy whereby the Joint 

Operations Planning and Execution System (JOPES) employed computer databases and recurrent conferences to ensure adequate “below-the-line” logistical 

forces were always associated with the “above-the-line” tactical forces intended 

to fight the battle. It fit in well with the operations plan for Iraq (OPLAN 1003) 

as it existed in 2002, which in turn represented an inheritance from the general 

defense plans (GDP) of the Cold War and from Desert Storm. As planners 

dialed up or dialed down the tactical forces associated with a given course of 

action, the TPFDL would automatically dial up or dial down forces to support 

them. Since a major fraction of these forces were in the reserve component, the 

TPFDL played a critical role in initiating mobilizations. Since deployments 

are joint, the JOPES followed up on the TPFDL to guarantee appropriate 

sealift and airlift. The heft of below-the-line forces can appear daunting, since 

customary proportions had been 1.6 below the line to 1 above it. From time 
399

The “Transformed” Army in Action

to time commentators opine that all of that support is not really necessary, or 

that branches and specialties have inflated particular requirements for parochial purposes. Under the lash to design a plan that could be executed quickly 

and with minimal force structure, CENTCOM planners thrashed through 

six TPFDL conferences before abandoning the TPFDL in favor of a callforward system. In their favor, one could cite pre-positioning and considerable 

improvements to Kuwaiti logistical infrastructure, as well as expectations that 

contracting would reduce the load. Fuel lines now flowed directly into staging 

areas on the Iraqi border, for example, and even in Desert Storm contracting 

had reduced requirements for below-the-line forces by 20 percent. A mantra 

of the time was “speed kills”; the campaign would progress so quickly and 

decisively that all the TPFDL logistical baggage would not really be necessary. 

The mantra was correct enough in the case of Iraqi Freedom that logistical 

thinness proved an embarrassment rather than a disaster. The advance outran 

the advantages of Kuwaiti infrastructure within a few days. By and large contractors, other than embedded technicians, performed unreliably amid highintensity conflict. Only 150 heavy trucks were available for transportation, 

whereas the TPFDL called for 700. Orphaned supplies accumulated in vast 

“dumps” in Kuwait. Forward troops were consistently close to the margin with 

respect to food and water, somewhat less so with respect to fuel and ammunition. Repair parts, lubricants, and oil simply did not move; cannibalization 

and foraging became common practice to sustain the offensive. The medical 

supply system “failed to work.” Fortuitously, Iraq collapsed before the Third 

Army reached a Clausewitzian “culminating point.” The call-forward system 

did allow more control than the mechanical TPFDL, but it introduced petrifaction of a different sort. Pressure to minimize numbers elevated the level at 

which decisions to deploy were made. Harried, fatigued, and otherwise preoccupied senior leaders had to be persuaded concerning the details of each 

force package. Bias emerged; combat forces slid forward and logisticians back. 

Activated Reservists and Guardsmen accumulated at mobilization sites, away 

from their civilian lives but not yet called forward. As much as it had accomplished in becoming more expeditionary, the Army fell between two stools 

with respect to the initial logistics of Iraqi Freedom. The institutional Army 

had not yet gotten around to transforming the Cold War TPFDL into a more 

responsive system. CENTCOM planners acted as if they had.6

If Desert Shield offers a reasonable parallel to Iraqi Freedom with 

respect to deployment, there is no real parallel for Enduring Freedom, the 

liberation of Afghanistan. Afghanistan, like Siberia and Timbuktu, had long 

been a metaphor for the distant and inaccessible. In 2001 there were no existing plans for ground intervention in Afghanistan, and actions against hostile 

elements there had been largely confined to ineffectual long-distance strikes 

with precision-guided munitions. The 9-11 attacks precipitated a frenzy of 

planning to go where American forces had not gone before. In this endeavor a 

few 1990s vintage developments facilitated success: the maturation of United 

States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and in particular the 160th 

Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), interest in a force projection 

doctrine and in particular the concept of an intermediate staging base (ISB), 
Kevlar Legions

400

the introduction of the C–17, and the logistical concept of split-basing. The 

endeavor was also facilitated by Afghan factionalism and an ongoing civil war 

against the Taliban. The CENTCOM commander, General Tommy Franks, 

determined to reinforce the Afghan resistance with Special Operating Forces 

capable of accessing American airpower and then to build up a mix of conventional and Special Operating Forces sufficient to pursue American interests 

after the Taliban regime collapsed. In the face of enormous strategic distances, 

he needed intermediate staging bases close enough to support operations in 

Afghanistan, yet shielded from counterattack. Such secure platforms would 

allow him to prepare and stage units for combat and to accumulate logistical assets without exposing them. Doctrine suggests 500 miles is an upper 

limit to the distance from which an ISB will be useful. Since Afghanistan is 

more than 500 miles across in all directions and deep in the heart of Asia, 

this provoked intense diplomacy with several neighbors. The former Soviet 

air base of Karshi Kanabad in Uzbekistan proved the best approach from the 

north. Teams of soldiers, airmen, and contractors soon put it into shape to 

handle a growing stream of C–17s. From the south Pakistan gave overflight 

and qualified support, short of allowing combat elements to openly base there. 

Instead such elements were based on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. In 

a logistical pinch American forces had so employed an aircraft carrier off of 

Haiti in 1994 and experimented with the possibility thereafter. By 2003 the 

role of a floating ISB was generally accepted as a possibility for the mammoth ships, albeit one not much loved by the Navy. Further afield bases in 

the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean adequately supported aircraft with longer 

“legs.” The forces Franks hastily gathered to initiate hostilities against the 

Taliban numbered over forty thousand. At the tip of the spear were a few 

hundred Special Operations Forces inserted by breathtaking airlifts to embed 

within the Afghan resistance. More than thirty ships and about four hundred 

aircraft also supported the operation, as did a growing logistical footprint at 

Karshi Kanabad and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives already in 

Afghanistan. As the fighting progressed more conventional forces moved in, 

first to secure key facilities and then to conduct operations directly. The force 

structure was always a potpourri of different assets and initially impossible for 

the theater to sustain. Split-basing came into play, as home stations fulfilled 

many requirements. Installations within Afghanistan, such as Bagram Air 

Base in the north and Camp Rhino in the south, stood up to further sustain 

the campaign effort. Stockpiles built up there reduced reliance on split-basing 

without ever eliminating it—particularly with respect to Classes VII and IX. 

Within months troop strength had climbed to ten thousand in country but 

was kept low to avoid mission creep or the appearance of an occupation. As 

a deployment Enduring Freedom displayed both improvisation in unique 

circumstances and the exercise of force projection capabilities developed over 

time.7

Initial entries into Afghanistan and Iraq were impressive displays of expeditionary force projection. Less noticed but also impressive were recurrent 

rotations of units into and out of theater. In earlier wars units were deployed 

for the duration, and individuals rotated into and out of them—if rotation 
401

The “Transformed” Army in Action

occurred at all. Units did rotate as units into and out of the Balkans and 

Afghanistan, as we have seen. In the spring of 2004 a massive unit rotation 

replaced units that had been in Iraq a year or more with an entirely fresh set. 

The scale of this troop movement was so vast it may be better thought of as a 

demonstration of force projection rather than of force sustainment. Within a 

three-month period more than 260,000 troops and 50,000 pieces of equipment 

moved. Brigades and divisions came and left, by and large through ports and 

airports in Kuwait. Ironically, this massive movement was punctuated by the 

largest and most dangerous uprising of the Iraq war. Shi’a militants inspired 

by Moqtada al-Sadr suddenly threw themselves into the fighting, forcing 

combat well beyond the Sunni areas wherein it had previously concentrated. 

Vital logistical routes from Kuwait were contested and compromised, with 

bridges, culverts, and roadways seized or blown. The 1st Armored Division 

and 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment, at the time rotating out, pivoted abruptly 

and returned to the fight. Logisticians scrambled to make good the repair 

parts, ammunition, and other supplies these units had already turned over to 

the units that had replaced them. Improvised airlifts sustained isolated units 

while ground main supply routes were hastily restored. Troop flows continued 

into Iraq while the newly refurbished 1st Armored Division and 2d Armored 

Cavalry Regiment reinforced the units already on the ground. Back off their 

haunches, Coalition forces delivered crushing blows to Shi’a insurgents at 

The Sadr uprising provoked widespread street fighting throughout Iraq.
Kevlar Legions

402

Al Kut, An Najaf, and Karbala. Several months later soldiers and marines 

similarly bludgeoned Sunni militants in Al Fallujah. Events of this period 

paved the way for the transfer of sovereignty and national elections. They also 

marked the last time Iraqi insurgents seriously attempted to forcibly seize and 

hold ground from the Coalition. Taken as a whole, the unit rotations between 

Operation Iraqi Freedom I (OIF I) and Operation Iraqi Freedom II (OIF 

II) offer yet another impressive display of American expeditionary capabilities. 

Airlift and sealift enabled a massive transfer of troops and equipment, while 

logisticians were flexible enough to reverse the tide of withdrawal, improvise 

quick fixes for broken links, and support an impromptu counteroffensive. It 

should be noted that the rotations and the battles involved the troops of thirtytwo nations other than the United States, few of whom were self-sufficient 

with respect to transportation, logistics, or command and control.8

War at the High End

Army transformation, as we have seen, aspired to full-spectrum capabilities but tilted toward high-end conventional combat. If revolutionary developments were to occur, one might have most expected them within this range. The 

first several weeks of Iraqi Freedom offer an example of warfare at this level, 

and thus an opportunity to make comparisons with Desert Storm—also 

fought at this level. In the dozen years that separated the two campaigns, the 

Army labored to harness Information Age digital technologies to the demands 

of the battlefield, creating a posture of “dominant knowledge.” It also sought 

to radically improve technologies that had existed during Desert Storm, and 

to render “jointness” a reality more than just a platitude. Although there was 

some triumphalism after Baghdad fell and before Iraqi liberation soured into 

Iraqi insurgency, claims of a revolution in military affairs seem notably absent 

from most eyewitness accounts. Indeed the aspirations for “shock and awe” 

many associated with defense transformation were widely derided, and pundits discovered the Information Age battlefield was still chaotic, bloody, and 

confusing. Some noted that the poster child for Army transformation, the 4th 

Infantry Division, had not made it into the conventional fray, suggesting that 

transformation essentially remained untested. This was only partially true. 

Advances with respect to command and control, navigation, friendly situation 

awareness, battlefield surveillance, precision-guided munitions, and joint operations significantly affected the course of the combat. Some aspects of this 

advance had already become so commonplace that they hardly inspired comment. Others were appliqué. Taken as a whole, they seemed potent enough to 

convince General Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander, that he could 

achieve a lopsided victory on par with Desert Storm while deploying far less 

force. Insofar as the conventional phase of the campaign was concerned, he 

proved correct. If not quite yet a revolution in military affairs, Iraqi Freedom

certainly heralded one.9

Command and control was most notably affected by advances with respect 

to communications between Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Satellitefacilitated communications and networked computers were ubiquitous in 2003, 
403

The “Transformed” Army in Action

whereas these were still in their infancy in 1991. One is struck, for example, 

by the extent to which senior leaders coordinated via video teleconferences 

(VTCs). During the 1990s video teleconferencing rapidly evolved from highly 

expensive yet unreliable proprietary assets to readily available standards-based 

technology. The Kosovo campaign was coordinated by VTC at the highest 

levels and Iraqi Freedom at several levels below that. Commanders and staff 

officers scattered from the Persian Gulf through other overseas stations and 

the United States routinely talked to each other face-to-face. E-mail exchanges 

were even more continuous and largely overcame the correspondence difficulties of operating in different time zones since one could reply when ready. 

VTC was not available at the tactical level, but satellite phones and blue 

force tracking (which included a satellite-enabled messaging capability) were. 

Commanders well forward could stay in reliable communications with their 

own command and control nodes and higher headquarters. This encouraged 

up-front leadership and enabled units to operate across daunting frontages and 

in multiple directions. A few cases in point include the 2d Armored Cavalry 

Regiment sprawling out to secure over two hundred kilometers along the lines 

of communications, the five simultaneous V Corps attacks of 310300Z March 

on an arc stretching from As Samawah to Karbala, and the Thunder Run 

of 5 April wherein the brigade commander of 2d Brigade Combat Team, 3d 

Infantry Division, accompanied the attacking column while maintaining control of two other battalions attacking in an opposite direction. During Desert 

Storm communications were severely degraded while Tactical Operations 

Centers (TOCs) and Tactical Actions Centers (TACs) were moving, and 

commanders relied on awkward patchworks of radio relays to stay in touch. 

Fragile communications contributed to methodical tactics, as loss of control 

could have led to catastrophic results. During Iraqi Freedom brigade combat 

teams pirouetted nimbly across much vaster distances, not infrequently shifting axes of advance and passing objectives from one to another like so many 

bus tokens. Such freewheeling tactics would not have been feasible without the 

communications to support them. The most stunning single demonstration of 

advanced communications occurred in the aftermath of an imbroglio. For a 

catalog of reasons the deep attack of the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment on 

23 March did not go well. Enemy innovations, mismatched tactics, operational 

overreach, the fog of war, and Murphy’s Law conspired to render the regiment combat ineffective. Within hours veterans of the disaster were linked up 

by satellite phone in a conference call with aviators from the 101st Airborne 

Division and other units. This after-action review ranged back and forth 

as pilots of the 11th recounted their harrowing experiences and all parties 

involved shared opinions concerning appropriate responses and countermeasures. Attack helicopter tactics, techniques, and procedures throughout the 

theater changed overnight. Within days the 101st conducted a very different—

and successful—deep attack building upon lessons learned by and exchanged 

with their less fortunate predecessors. Other successful operations followed. In 

World War II veterans of combat were shipped back to the United States to 

impart battlefield wisdom to those who would follow. In Iraqi Freedom the 

turnaround time for such mentorship was measured in minutes rather than 
Kevlar Legions

404

months. This paralleled a broader “reach-back” capability that gave combatants instant access to anything that had been posted on defense networks or 

throughout the Internet itself. As advanced as communications were, however, 

the revolution with respect to them was not quite complete. Leaders spoke of a 

“digital divide” separating those with ready access to satellite phones and blue 

force tracking from those without it. Radio remained dominant at the tactical 

level, and most long-range electronic communications moved through venerable mobile subscriber equipment (MSE) employing line-of-sight antenna 

nodes that had to be stationary when used. Ambitious signal planning rapidly 

constructed a robust network of these nodes in the wake of the advance, but 

not quite fast enough to reliably support leading or outlying units. Near the 

bottom rung of the ladder one still found that recurrent nightmare for mechanized commanders, a support platoon rolling with a convoy of trucks through 

the middle of a firefight with a radio in the lead vehicle and one in the rear, but 

none in between.10

Land navigation immeasurably advanced with the general availability 

of satellite-based global positioning systems (GPSs). These had made their 

battlefield debut during Desert Storm but were then too unfamiliar and too 

thinly distributed to achieve their full potential. Perhaps a vehicle or two in 

a company had had one and could reliably navigate with it. Sweeping across 

the featureless desert in formation, the rest of the vehicles lined up on the 

relative few who actually knew where they were. This worked out reasonably 

well given the openness of the terrain, the size of the forces involved, and the 

minimal maneuver required at company level. Accounts of Iraqi Freedom

describe considerably greater complexities with respect to tactics, terrain, 

and maneuver and considerably more incidence of companies, platoons, and 

even sections operating independently. They also report leaders at every level 

moving out with a “Plugger” or some other GPS device in one hand and a map 

in the other. The map was more often than not reinforced by satellite photographs and imagery derived from such software programs as “TopScene” or 

“FalconView.” Those who had blue force tracking aboard could draw on it 

to assist in navigation as well. At least one commander who weathered the 

blinding sandstorms of the last week in March set his maps aside and relied 

on GPS and blue force tracking from that point. Despite the pace and intricacy of the tactics, one reads little about lost or disoriented units. Virtually 

all knew where they were with elegant precision, and those momentarily 

disoriented quickly recovered. During the first Thunder Run into Baghdad 

on 5 April the lead tank, embroiled in combat and engulfed in smoke, took 

the wrong ramp out of the appropriately nicknamed “Spaghetti Junction” at 

the intersection of Highway 8 with the Qadisiyah Highway. Equipped with 

a “Plugger,” the tank commander quickly regained his bearings, executed a 

horseshoe turn, smashed down a guardrail, and resumed his march to the 

Baghdad International Airport. The rest of the armored column dutifully followed, some wondering why they were executing a corkscrew in the middle of 

an intersection under fire. In Chapter 4 we discussed the historical ubiquity of 

units lost on the battlefield and the elaborate control measures commanders 

habitually imposed to maintain orientation. With Iraqi Freedom much of 
405

The “Transformed” Army in Action

that disappeared. The prospect of units becoming lost was at least an order of 

magnitude less. Control measures thinned out, and most were communicated 

electronically. Elaborate collections of hand-drawn map overlays, phase lines a 

kilometer or so apart, company boundaries, and “measles sheets” of reference 

points were out. Orders were often simply to go some place and do something, 

and command radio nets were free of units trying to figure out where they 

were or where they should be. Indeed, the most studied and consequential 

incident of battlefield misdirection during Iraqi Freedom makes the point 

in an inverse sort of way. On 23 March the 507th Maintenance Company 

had six global positioning systems (including Garmin and ETREX VISTA) 

and received a CD-ROM disc containing orders and directions. The captain 

commanding misinterpreted his course to be Route Blue through the outskirts 

of An Nasiriyah, whereas it was actually to detour onto Route Jackson well 

clear of An Nasiriyah. The convoy initially followed GPS waypoints without incident, but in the darkness and confusion momentarily departed from 

Route Blue and crossed a bridge into An Nasiriyah itself, then drove through 

it. Referring to his GPS, the commander recognized his mistake. He knew 

exactly where he was, but he was in the wrong place. He also knew where he 

needed to be and a way to get there. At that point he made the fateful decision 

to drive back through An Nasiriyah. It is noteworthy that there were so few 

incidents of this type, given the distances being moved, the relative autonomy 

of traveling serials, and the thinness of security and traffic control en route. 

Land navigation was not yet zero defects, but it was vastly improved.11

Iraqi cities presented huge problems to traditional land navigation.
Kevlar Legions

406

Awareness of the friendly situation was considerably advanced by 

improved communications and the fidelity of GPS coordinates, but true revolution in that regard was presaged by appliqué blue force tracking (BFT). The 

Army hastily bolted 1200 Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below–

Blue Force Tracking (FBCB2-BFT) kits onto selected Army, Marine, and 

British vehicles. This put at least one in each maneuver company. Each kit 

featured a laptop computer, a global positioning system, a satellite terminal 

and antenna, command and control software, mapping software, and a transponder. The transponder automatically updated all other vehicles within the 

system concerning its location via satellite communications. One finds, for 

example, the commanding general of the 3d Infantry Division monitoring the 

progress of the Thunder Runs into Baghdad on the screen of his blue force 

tracker. This swept the requirements for situational updates off of the division command radio net, freeing it up for actual decision making. An iconic 

anecdote from Desert Storm relates to an incident at Safwan. The theater 

commander ordered the crossroads at Safwan secured on the last day of the 

war and subsequently decided it would be a great place to conduct ceasefire talks. Two hundred kilometers to the rear, his headquarters was beyond 

tactical communications and getting orders and information back and forth 

proved problematic. The Corps commander believed he had been instructed to 

interdict the crossroads at Safwan, and did so with attack helicopters. No one 

at theater or army headquarters realized that there were no American ground 

units at Safwan, and that the nearby airfield was occupied by Iraqis. Only a 

bit of post–cease-fire bullying allowed the talks to go forward as envisioned. 

A parallel iconic anecdote from Iraqi Freedom relates to the lightning movements of the 3-7 Cavalry after the breakthrough at the Karbala Gap. The 

theater commander, over a thousand kilometers from Baghdad and updating 

himself via BFT, noted a blue icon well to the north of Karbala. Concerned 

that it represented an isolated unit, he called the Army commander on a satellite hotline. The Army commander chuckled and told him to open up his 

Tracker screen a notch or two. When he did so, a stream of icons representing 

the rest of a major armored thrust appeared in the wake of the advancing cavalrymen. The two generals then talked face-to-face via VTC, contemplating 

current circumstances and next steps. They consciously did not interfere with 

the ongoing battlefield leadership of the corps, division, and brigade commanders. All instantaneously shared the same picture of the battlefield, and 

senior leaders could concentrate on decisions appropriate to their level without pestering their subordinates for updates. BFT not only facilitated command and control, it also greatly reduced the risk of fratricide. During Desert 

Storm a large percentage of the casualties that did occur were due to fratricide, and virtually every brigade-size unit had some incidence of blue-on-blue 

engagements. The lethal and precise M1A1 tank could capably engage targets 

at ranges considerably in excess of those wherein they could be confidently 

identified, particularly in limited visibility or at night. Other advanced weapons systems experienced similar dilemmas. Commanders responded with elaborate protocols for clearing fires and with increasingly cautious or lock-step 

maneuvers. By the last day of the ground war these precautions approached 
407

The “Transformed” Army in Action

paralysis in some cases. During Iraqi Freedom the friendly situation was 

better and more broadly known, although through-sight identification had 

not much improved and only a fraction of the vehicles on the battlefield had 

BFT. Proximity to vehicles with BFT and the general availability of GPS radically reduced the likelihood of one unit wandering into another unit’s line of 

fire. Tactics remained fluid. Indeed, some of the most daring departures from 

linear tactics appeared toward the end of the conventional combat. Units 

attacked on converging axes in the open desert, bobbed along separate trails 

in vegetated terrain, and fought amid the confusion of urban sprawl, all the 

while confident they knew where other friendly units were. The situation was 

imperfect and blue-on-blue engagements did occur, but circumstances had 

radically improved since Desert Storm.

12

Awareness of the enemy situation was the third leg of the triad “where am 

I, where are my buddies, and where is the enemy” discussed at some length in 

Chapter 4. Whereas coping with the first two questions proved to have been 

enormously advanced between Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, coping 

with the third was less so. Dominant knowledge enthusiasts envisioned an 

“unblinking eye” provided by satellites, manned aircraft, and unmanned aerial 

vehicles hovering over the battlefield and precisely identifying enemy locations. 

Desert Storm had presaged such a capability, particularly with respect to the 

detailed imagery gathered prior to the breeches in the first days of the ground 

war. When the fighting became fluid, such information could not be gathered, 

interpreted, and distributed quickly enough to be useful. Ground commanders 

had to fight for immediately pertinent tactical intelligence, as they had always 

done. During Iraqi Freedom improved technical means of surveillance, newly 

available unmanned aerial vehicles, and a nascent network to automatically 

disseminate their findings in real time improved this situation to a point. That 

point seemed to be fixed facilities and large concentrations of tactical vehicles 

mustered in combat array. The unhappy fate of the Adnan, Hammurabi, and

Nebuchadnezzer Divisions when they moved to reinforce the Medina Division 

south of Baghdad offers an example of American detection and destruction 

capabilities, as does the fate of the Medina Division itself. The Iraqis mistakenly 

believed a gigantic sandstorm would provide them sufficient cover, only to be 

obliterated by GPS-enabled munitions relying on thermal and infrared detection. Attempts to maneuver major units in the face of American surveillance 

and joint attack capabilities proved suicidal. The digital divide discussed earlier 

and Iraqi camouflage and countermeasures combined to erode intelligence on 

levels less grand, however. Vehicles that were dispersed, hidden amid vegetation or urban sprawl, and mindful of their thermal signatures tended to escape 

the unblinking eye. These had to be discovered and knocked out in the old way. 

Even more vexing were unconventional attacks such as those launched by the 

Fedayeen. These combatants generally wore civilian clothes, employed human 

shields, fought from converted civilian pickup trucks, employed automobiles 

as car bombs, feigned surrender to close in for attacks, misused mosques and 

other protected sites as bases, and pressed attacks regardless of casualties. 

They seemed to take their cues from lessons learned in Somalia, Chechnya, 

and Palestine. Given that the Fedayeen generally bubbled up out of urban 
Kevlar Legions

408

sprawl, technical intelligence was very limited in its ability to detect the group’s 

presence and even more limited in its ability to ascertain the group’s intentions. 

The mix of intelligence available to columns embarking on the Thunder Runs 

into Baghdad on 5 and 7 April illustrate the point. Unmanned aerial vehicles 

(UAVs) correctly identified a fistful of mortar positions, a few tactical vehicles, 

barriers across the road, and probable ambush sites. Scouts defined opposition along the line of departure. Commanders rolled with up-to-date street 

maps and satellite imagery in their turrets. They knew the kinds of opposition 

they were likely to encounter, but not where or for how long. Dismounted 

ambushes were recurrent. By and large units gathered tactical intelligence by 

drawing fire and relied upon their wits, superb gunnery, and robust armor to 

get them through. Information was too fleeting and the “network” too immature to dump the intelligence they were gathering into some kind of joint database all operations centers could see and all platforms in range could act on 

simultaneously. Spot reports and calls for fire were discrete events, as they had 

previously been, and much of the fighting was at close range with little notice. 

The ability to see the enemy had advanced considerably since Desert Storm, 

but not nearly as quickly as the ability to identify one’s own location or the 

locations of friendly units.13

Once the enemy was identified, the next imperative was to render him 

ineffective in combat. Desert Storm witnessed an effective use of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) that fueled discussion of a revolution in 

military affairs. As impressive as the Desert Storm performance was in this 

regard, its use of PGMs paled in comparison to that of Iraqi Freedom. 

In the intervening dozen years PGMs improved somewhat in quality and 

radically in availability. Whereas less than 10 percent of the tonnage dropped 

on the Iraqis in 1991 had been precision guided, over two-thirds of bombs 

dropped in 2003 were. Munitions were far more plentiful because they were 

far cheaper. The air-launched cruise missiles, Tomahawk missiles, and laserguided bombs of the first Gulf War easily ran to hundreds of thousands if not 

millions of dollars each, and inventories were quickly exhausted. Successors 

to these models continued to perform well against high-value targets but, 

as discussed in Chapter 4, much cheaper Joint Direct Attack Munitions 

(JDAMs) became the weapon of choice when the GPS coordinates of the 

target could be reliably identified. Given the pervasiveness of GPS systems 

among ground forces, this was commonly the case. Unlike missiles guided by 

laser designation or requiring other electromagnetic feeds, JDAMs were little 

degraded by dust or limited visibility. A radical increase in the numbers of 

precision-guided munitions radically altered the nature of the fighting. Cases 

in point included putting “G-Day” before “A-Day,” daring thrusts through 

restrictive terrain, refined urban operations, and the demolition of four 

Republican Guard divisions in the middle of a fierce sandstorm. “A-Day” is 

the point at which air bombardment commences, historically a preparatory 

phase to soften up an enemy for ground assault. In Desert Storm the air 

war lasted thirty-nine days before “G-Day,” the launching of the ground 

assault. The Iraqis anticipated a repeat of this pattern in Iraqi Freedom, 

allowing them ample time to sabotage their oil fields after hostilities began. 
409

The “Transformed” Army in Action

The Americans attacked on the ground and in the air nearly simultaneously, 

achieving surprise and overrunning the southern oil fields before they were 

set on fire. Iraqi preparations for such destruction were picked up by UAV 

shortly prior to the ground attack. The Americans were confident that the 

incredible accuracy of their munitions against conventional targets, coupled 

with their destruction of enemy air defenses during a decade of Southern 

Watch and the disposition of the strongest enemy forces away from the 

border, justified a surprise assault without preliminary bombardment. They 

demonstrated similar daring in subsequent operations. The term Karbala 

Gap, for example, is relative. It is not much of a gap: not very wide and not 

very open. Ground traffic is confined to constricted routes readily brought 

under fire from several directions, including Karbala itself. Nevertheless the 

3d Infantry Division bulled its way through at the first opportunity, counting 

on precision-guided munitions and accurate direct fires to immediately suppress any who might contest its advance. The division drove into other tight 

spots with similar aggressiveness, confident it could blow its way out of what 

would have been “kill sacks” in earlier wars. Urban sprawl had long been 

considered a severe impediment to mechanized operations. Urban terrain 

was cluttered, the enemy was likely to be dug in, and the prospect for collateral damage and civilian casualties was high. Precision-guided munitions 

greatly reduced these risks. Even the most stubbornly dug-in enemy could 

be precisely targeted with powerful penetrating munitions while nearby 

buildings remained unscathed. When the 101st Airborne Division was securing An Najaf, for example, it routinely dropped 500-pound bombs on the 

verge of mosques, schools, and hospitals without damaging them. Buildings 

known to be occupied by insurgents were demolished with elegant efficiency, 

whereas nearby buildings went unharmed. This selectivity was most notable 

during the attack on Baghdad itself. Armored columns roared through the 

city after two weeks of air attacks, blazing away with devastating direct fires 

and supported by JDAMs and other precision-guided munitions. The casualties they inflicted on the enemy were horrific, yet this was no Stalingrad, 

Hue, or Groznyy. Damage and disruption experienced by the vast majority 

of Baghdad’s five million people were minimal. There was no great stampede of refugees and no resultant humanitarian crisis. Most citizens stayed 

put and out of the way, relying on their own stockpiles of food and water 

until transportation of these items into the city resumed. Identifiable combatants were not so lucky, as the demolition of the Republican Guard in 

the middle of a raging sandstorm attested. This discussion is not intended 

to imply PGMs rendered warfare antiseptic. There were errors, misplaced 

strikes, and occasional difficulties marrying munitions up with targets. The 

fog of war had not yet disappeared, surprises occurred, and fighting could be 

fierce. The Fedayeen in particular employed tactics and ruses that got it close 

too quickly to make PGM strikes practical. It was swept away by close-in 

American firepower instead. It was Iraqi conventional units conventionally 

deployed and fixed defenses that proved the most vulnerable to American 

PGMs. Here the mismatch was arguably an order of magnitude greater than 

it had been a mere dozen years before.14
Kevlar Legions

410

Extensive use of precision-guided munitions during Iraqi Freedom was 

inherently joint. Calls for fire originated with forward observers from all four services and from the maneuvering commanders themselves. Platforms launching 

precision-guided munitions included B–52 bombers, F/A–18 Hornets, AH–64D 

Longbow Apache helicopters, Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) field 

artillery, and Navy ships offshore, to name but a few. The marching array of 

sensors and the network that tied all this together, although imperfect, put a 

potent joint panoply at the service of embattled commanders. As recently as 

Desert Storm ground commanders deconflicted air strikes more so than they 

integrated them, and the fire support coordination line (FSCL) offered a convenient control measure to dump missiles and bombs well clear of maneuvering 

troops. A few horrific fratricides reinforced the tendency of ground commanders to keep air support at arm’s length. GPS and JDAMs changed that. Iraqi 

Freedom ground commanders routinely wove air and missile strikes tightly into 

their own maneuvers, bringing them as close to their vehicles as they did to 

mosques, schools, and hospitals. Dramatically enhanced jointness was apparent 

throughout the theater, nowhere more so than in the desert vastness stretching 

westwards from the Euphrates River to the Jordanian border. During Desert 

Storm swarms of Iraqi “Scud” missile launchers had hidden themselves in this 

wilderness, bedeviling Israel with recurrent missile strikes. Israeli intervention 

could have derailed the Coalition fighting the first Gulf War. A difficult and 

only partially successful campaign to contain this effort sucked off a major fraction of the American sorties available in theater. In Iraqi Freedom a joint special operations task force for western Iraq (JSOTF-West) stood up to preclude a 

repeat performance and also to deny free use of the western desert to the Iraqis. 

Special Operations Forces (SOF) had, as we have seen, evolved into virtually a 

American firepower proved more lethal than ever.
411

The “Transformed” Army in Action

separate service, so a joint special operations task force was particularly ecumenical. Racing across the desert in light vehicles or inserted by helicopter, SOF 

hammered enemy forces with airpower and long-range artillery, wrested airfields 

from Iraqi control, deployed fleets of UAVs, seized the critical Hadithah Dam, 

and compromised Iraqi use of the desert vastness. Operating in the region was 

inherently a strain on Iraqi logistics. If they massed to hunt down the SOF they 

would be hammered by airpower; if they dispersed they could be defeated by 

SOF qualitative superiority. At the height of the fighting the Air Force lifted a 

tank-heavy combat team into newly captured Tallil Air Base by C–17. This multiplied the ground-based firepower and protected mobility of the SOF severalfold, and it further underscored the jointness of the campaign. The tightening 

web of SOF, UAVs, manned aircraft, and satellite surveillance rendered Iraqi 

rocketry exposed indeed. American airmen believed the message communicated 

had been “you launch, you die.” Those Iraqi missiles that did launch were rendered ineffectual by Coalition joint theater air and missile defense. The first to 

launch, an Ababil–100, was detected within two seconds by the USS Higgins, 

an Aegis destroyer afloat in the Gulf. It automatically flashed a warning to the 

theater air defense operations center, which alerted the Patriot (PAC3) batteries. 

Battery radars picked the incoming missile up, computers dictated a firing solution within fourteen seconds, and two Patriots destroyed the missile well short 

of its target. The pattern repeated itself, slapping down Iraqi missiles and sparing American casualties such as the twenty-eight killed and almost a hundred 

wounded when a Scud hit a barracks in Dhahran during Desert Storm. The 

32d Army Air and Missile Defense Command coordinated the effort, and its 

commander served as deputy to the Coalition Force Air Component Command 

for theater air and missile defense (TAMD). TAMD illustrated jointness at the 

most sophisticated level: advanced technologies, robust and redundant networks, integrated and automated information sharing and resolution, and decisive responses from whichever platforms or assets made sense. Desert Storm

was a joint campaign. Iraqi Freedom was even more so.15

The Army had not yet committed to a brigade-based posture in the spring 

of 2003, but the conduct of operations through the fall of Baghdad certainly 

demonstrated further movement in that direction. During Desert Storm

brigade combat teams had occupied the geography and exceeded the firepower of World War II divisions. Improved communications and professionalized leadership had given them considerable autonomy even then, a factor 

that played in the advocacy of a brigade-based Army discussed in Chapter 

7. During Iraqi Freedom the maneuver confidence enabled by GPS, blue 

force tracking, satellite communications, air supremacy, and ready access to 

precision-guided munitions considerably furthered this trend. Rather than 

the great wheel of brigades’ on line characteristic of Desert Storm, Iraqi 

Freedom featured brigades maneuvering independently, each on its own 

axis. The V Corps’ five simultaneous attacks of 31 March, for example, were 

each conducted by a brigade combat team. In the approach to An Najaf, 

one brigade circled to the north and another to the south. Throughout the 

battles for Baghdad the staple for operational maneuver was the brigade 

combat team, securing one major objective after another, then bringing on 
Kevlar Legions

412

a climax when the 2d Brigade of the 3d Infantry Division thundered into 

the heart of Baghdad and spent the night in Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace. Throughout the conventional phase of Iraqi Freedom, brigade 

combat teams assumed the operational roles occupied by divisions in earlier 

wars, whereas divisions performed as if corps, corps as if armies, and Third 

Army as if an army group. This bump-up in capability and responsibility in 

part accounts for so few soldiers achieving such striking results. The brigade 

combat teams of Iraqi Freedom did not look much different than those of 

Desert Storm, however. Old dogs like the M1 tank, M2/3 Bradley, AH–64 

attack helicopter, and M113 personnel carrier were still there and performing capably—incrementally upgraded but demonstrably the same pieces of 

equipment. Wheeled vehicle fleets also looked pretty much the same as they 

had in 1991. Infantrymen did have the newly developed Javelin missile, and 

its innovative top-attack capability proved useful in urban combat—particularly when clearing rooftops or engaging targets in defilade. The M109A6 

Paladin was an arguably new artillery piece, but it featured a 1950s vintage 

chassis and justifiably retained the venerable M109 nomenclature. Appliqué 

advances with respect to command and control, navigation, friendly situation awareness, battlefield surveillance, precision-guided munitions, and 

joint operations combined to make the brigade combat team considerably 

more potent than it had been before. It looked the same but was different.16

During Desert Storm a Coalition of almost a million uniformed 

personnel, of whom over two-thirds were Americans, decisively defeated 

540,000 Iraqis in the Kuwaiti theater of operations and drove them from it. 

To do so the Coalition suffered an estimated 379 fatalities, of whom about 

half were Americans. The campaign took forty-three days and overran about 

24,000 square miles of territory, most of which was unpopulated. In the 

same period of time during Iraqi Freedom, a Coalition of about a half 

million uniformed personnel, of whom about nine in ten were Americans, 

destroyed Iraqi armed forces numbering 540,000 backed by reserves estimated at 650,000. Coalition forces overran 170,000 square miles of territory 

encompassing thirty million people. They suffered 172 fatalities, of whom 

139 were Americans. The first campaign liberated a small friendly country; 

the second destroyed a large hostile regime. In both cases American forces 

were at a peak with respect to state of training and professional caliber. In 

both cases Iraqi regular forces were equipped with formidable panoplies of 

modern weapons. During Iraqi Freedom Iraqi irregulars fighting amid 

urban sprawl brought a new dimension to the conflict. The metrics are 

hardly rigorous and only arguably comparable, but they do suggest the Army 

of Iraqi Freedom prior to 1 May produced several times the result soldier 

for soldier and fatality for fatality as the rightly celebrated Army of Desert 

Storm. In the intervening dozen years the Iraqis had stood still or slipped 

backwards; the Americans had further improved themselves—considerably. 

Coming out of Desert Storm the United States Army qualitatively overmatched any potential opponent who might presume to seize or contest critical terrain on a conventional battlefield. Coming out of the first weeks of 

Iraqi Freedom, this was even more true.17
413

The “Transformed” Army in Action

Adaptability: The Pivot to Unconventional Warfare

As Iraqi Freedom soured from liberation into insurgency, pundits found 

fault with the Army and its leadership. Transformation had overstressed conventional warfare, their thinking went, and the Army had merely increased 

its capabilities for a type of warfare within which it already had no peer. 

Meanwhile capabilities at the low end of the combat spectrum had been 

neglected, and Iraqi Freedom unmasked dramatic qualitative weaknesses 

with respect to that low end. If these accusations were true, a major fraction 

of the deliberations steering Army transformation and Quadrennial Defense 

Reviews would have been for naught. Low-intensity scenarios, as we have 

seen, consistently figured into the analytic mix, even if conventional scenarios 

always seemed the most dangerous and consequential. Units were supposed 

to be able to transition nimbly from one point on the combat spectrum to 

another, fighting what the Commandant of the Marine Corps famously characterized as the “three block war.” A body of relevant doctrine did exist. Most 

soldiers and virtually all combat units had served in stability operations since 

Desert Storm, although only in Somalia and Afghanistan did these become 

as “kinetic” as they would in Iraq. Advocates for the Army, with considerable 

justification, pointed out that shortcomings in Iraq were quantitative far more 

so than they were qualitative. If the Army and Marines had been dealt a fair 

hand with respect to numbers, they opined, problems would have been far less 

acute. Greater numbers would have made a significant difference, but they also 

might have masked rather than remedied qualitative flaws that did exist. These 

fell under the broad headings of intelligence, command and control, and the 

approach to the Iraqis. Similar problems manifested themselves in Afghanistan 

as well, but less visibly so since ambitions with respect to Afghanistan were 

much more modest during this period.18

During the Vietnam War designers of Army doctrine took an understandable interest in counterinsurgency and stability operations. The writings of 

Mao Zedong figured heavily in their assessments of the threat, and the successful British campaign in Malaya from 1948 through 1956 figured heavily in 

their assessments of appropriate responses. These responses clustered under 

the headings counterguerrilla, population, and resources control and nation 

building. Within each of these venues the United States Army developed considerable sophistication by 1970, and this manifested itself in a body of doctrine available to operators and students alike. Cases in point included Field 

Manual 100–20, Field Service Regulations—Counterinsurgency, published in 

1964 and Field Manual 31–23, Stability Operations, and Field Manual 31–73, 

Advisor Handbook for Stability Operations, published in 1967. In 1962 the 

Army’s capstone doctrinal manual, Field Manual 100–5, Operations, also gave 

considerable attention to counterinsurgency and stability operations. Interest 

waned in the aftermath of Vietnam, and Army doctrine as a whole shifted 

back to an overwhelming emphasis upon high-end conventional combat in 

a European-like setting. Special Operations Forces were an exception to this 

trend, and sustained their own doctrinal interest in low-intensity conflict. 

As we have seen, the Special Operations Command evolved into a largely 
Kevlar Legions

414

autonomous quasi-service and took appreciable doctrinal responsibility with 

it, following the Fiscal Year (FY) 1987 National Defense Authorization Act. 

The doctrinal emphasis upon high-end conventional combat seemed justified 

by Desert Storm itself, but with the aftermath came a queasy feeling that 

low-intensity conflict could not simply be left to the SOF. What occupation 

there was of Iraq in 1991 seemed clumsy, and Kurdistan and Somalia soon 

bubbled up as crises beyond the capabilities of SOF alone to contain. The 

1993 version of Field Manual 100–5, Operations, reintroduced an emphasis on 

low-intensity conflict under the heading of “operations other than war.” Field 

Manual 100–23, Peace Operations, soon followed. By this time the Center for 

Army Lessons Learned (CALL), established at Fort Leavenworth in 1985, 

was quickly turning insights captured from the field into recommended tactics, techniques, and procedures for the Army at large. These fed into the 

development of further doctrine and increasingly were distributed electronically. Veterans of Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans joined the dialogue, adding 

their inputs in the forms of student papers, studies, and, eventually, doctrine. 

Analysts shaping Army transformation and Quadrennial Defense Reviews 

were, as we have seen, dutifully mindful of the lower end of the combat spectrum. Were one to sample an array of Fort Leavenworth student papers, Army 

magazine articles, or blogs popular with company commanders dating from 

the period 1998 through 2003, one would encounter a respectable appreciation 

of the working mechanics of stability operations. Certainly the paramount 

importance of gaining popular support was understood, as was the necessity of achieving balance among counterguerrilla, population, and resources 

control and nation building. The cliché “winning hearts and minds” was not 

much used, but the underlying principle seems to have been grasped by most. 

Shortly before Iraqi Freedom kicked off, these musings came together in the 

new and intellectually respectable Field Manual 3–07, Stability Operations and 

Support Operations.

19

Doctrine is of little use unless it is applied, of course. When Iraqi Freedom

launched, the United States Army had already been heavily involved in stability operations for over a dozen years, and the number of soldiers involved 

at any given time had often been in the tens of thousands. Earlier chapters 

have described deployments to Kurdistan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, 

Afghanistan, and other places. In each case operational plans gave deference 

to existing doctrine, in part because of the nearly universal presence of School 

of Advanced Military Studies graduates on staffs at the division level or above. 

Problems and shortcoming were addressed in after-action reviews (AARs) and 

in the musings of veterans in various official and unofficial publications. These 

in turn found their way through the Center for Army Lessons Learned and other 

routes into evolving tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) and, ultimately, 

doctrine. Not everyone paid sufficient attention to AARs, lessons learned, 

TTP, and doctrine, of course—a perennial issue in a very busy Army with its 

share of anti-intellectual bias. The recurrent experience of stability operations 

year after year did much to ameliorate such inattention as did occur. By 2003 

virtually every combat brigade in the active component had deployed somewhere in the past dozen years. Most active-component soldiers had as well. 
415

The “Transformed” Army in Action

Senior officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) were not uncommonly 

veterans of several such deployments. Experience and expectation leavened 

Army training programs. Predeployment training for the Balkans consciously 

and conscientiously leaned toward requirements at the low end of the combat 

spectrum. National Training Center scenarios from the mid-1990s inevitably 

included some mix of guerrillas, hostile civilians, and innocent bystanders. 

The Joint Readiness Training Center, oriented on nonmechanized units, was 

even more sophisticated in this regard. Here scenarios featured a robust mix 

of low-end and high-end combat. Participants encountered civilians, refugees, 

guerrillas, terrorists, third-country NGOs, and the ever-present media. When 

a unit was on the cusp of deploying, a number of the actors participating in 

their training might well be drawn from the country to which they intended 

to deploy. Practice in training reflected itself in performance in the field. The 

presence of patrols, population engagement, checkpoints, raids, and security 

missions at the training centers became actual responsibilities in the field.20

Doctrine, training, and practical experience all suggested that stability 

operations were manpower intensive. One could not police the streets, secure 

key infrastructure, or gain the confidence of the people with firepower alone. 

Without coming to precise figures, soldiers of all ranks were aware that numbers mattered and that there were appropriate ratios between populations to 

be secured and the troops committed to do so. The successful British counterinsurgency in Malaya from 1948 through 1956 considerably influenced 

American doctrine of the Vietnam era and thus played indirectly into the 

rekindled interest in stability operations during the 1990s. The British effort 

Training center rotations included role players acting the part of local nationals.
Kevlar Legions

416

arguably fielded about twenty-five soldiers per thousand in the population, or 

about one for forty. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and NATOaligned forces in Bosnia and Kosovo were only somewhat shy of this ratio initially and enjoyed considerable success. The United States and its allies fielded 

fewer than five soldiers per thousand in Haiti and Somalia, achieving modest 

results in the first case and ultimately losing control in the second. As intervention in Iraq loomed imminent, the Joint Staff’s director of strategic plans and 

policy (J–5) and the Army operations and training officer (G–3) separately 

canvassed the Army’s Center of Military History and others for insights into 

potential occupational requirements. The Center of Military History reviewed 

twenty United States Army occupations during the twentieth century, with 

force ratios that ranged from a low of one to five hundred in postwar Japan 

to a high of one to ten in Vietnam. Ironically, the lowest ratio ended in great 

success because the Japanese emperor accepted defeat and mandated cooperation, whereas the highest ratio ended in defeat because of sanctuaries available 

to the insurgents and recurrent conventional attacks by the North Vietnamese 

Army. Occupations are complex and can feature collateral requirements for 

external defense, humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, law and order, and nation 

building. Noting the uniqueness of each situation, the Center opined that one 

soldier or more to a hundred inhabitants seemed to have been a reasonable 

rule of thumb. Coming at the problem from a different angle, CENTCOM 

Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) planners arrived at 

much the same result. Envisioning constabulary responsibilities throughout 

Iraq, CFLCC troop-to-task analysis determined twenty combat brigades with 

their supporting units would be required, satellited on sixteen major cities or 

provinces. This came to about one soldier for a hundred Iraqis. General Eric 

K. Shinseki was mindful of these and other assessments when he famously 

responded to congressional inquiry that several hundred thousand troops 

would be required to secure Iraq, although his own personal experiences in 

Vietnam and Bosnia may have influenced him more. For reasons discussed 

elsewhere the Coalition attempted to occupy Iraq with force-to-population 

ratios roughly equivalent to those in Somalia. The assertion that Iraqis would 

welcome them as liberators proved a fantasy in all but Kurdistan. In May 2003 

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III swept away plans for employing the former 

Iraqi Army for security when he disbanded it, and he further alienated many 

citizens of consequence with a severe “de-Ba’athification” policy. Whatever 

the long-term purposes of these initiatives, they immediately aggravated the 

Coalition’s difficulties with respect to numbers. Law and order had broken 

down even as American units in Iraq were still engaged in intense conventional fighting. Looting, revenge killings, and crimes of all description swept 

the country. Soldiers recovering from the rigors of combat were diverted to 

secure porous borders with Syria and Iran and to search for weapons of mass 

destruction. The remainder had to pick and choose the facilities they could 

secure, leaving the rest to the natives. When initial unrest subsided, Coalition 

numbers remained too few to gain a secure grip. A journal kept by a Bradley 

company commander illustrates the point. Initially assigned to secure the 

environs of Camp Anaconda near Balad, he was soon familiar with the ter-
417

The “Transformed” Army in Action

rain and people in it. He was effectively mayor pro tempore of a number of 

villages, spoke a little Arabic himself, and had access to interpreters. In due 

course he had sustained a continuous presence with foot patrols, delivered 

hard knocks to Iraqi “outsiders” attempting to mortar the base, established 

working relations with the locals, and been invited to more than one dinner 

and offered the hand of more than one bride. This progress was recurrently 

interrupted by taskings to go elsewhere: a raid on an insurgent concentration 

in the deep desert, a relief expedition to Samarra, participation in searchand-clear operations elsewhere, and yet another extended battle for Samarra. 

Since there were no actual reserves, these operations featured pickup teams 

hastily assembled from multiple parent units. Each time the captain returned 

with his company to Balad, their grip had slipped further. Cooperating locals 

had been killed or intimidated, indigenous security had folded or deserted, 

insurgents had become more organized and daring, and other Americans had 

unwittingly compromised modus vivendi on his turf. He lost traction, and 

his own soldiers became increasingly impatient with mercurial locals. Abuses 

occurred. His company could, in his opinion, have overcome its imperfections 

had it remained in place, but it was too often someplace else. Across Iraq the 

campaign acquired a certain “whack the mole” aspect to it. Identifiable insurgents—an immediate threat—attracted hastily assembled contingents wielding 

overwhelming force. Population and resources control and military security 

to nation-building projects were a lesser priority and intermittently resourced 

in most places. In theory the newly redesigned Iraqi Army and police forces 

were to fill this void. In practice these took time to become effective. Stability 

operations are manpower intensive, and the Army of 2003 knew this. More 

than any other factor, the dearth of numbers best explains outcomes in Iraq. 

Troop shortages magnified the effects of qualitative shortcomings with respect 

to intelligence, command and control, and the approach to the Iraqis, since 

there was no depth of reserves to make up for “slack.”21

The United States Army rolled into Baghdad with an intelligence structure 

well suited to the high-end warfare it was engaged in at the time. Satellite, airborne, and ground sensors picked up enemy movements and positions, drawing 

hurricanes of direct and indirect fires on to them. Signals intelligence reinforced 

the technical mix. Intelligence was top driven, with the most elaborate staffs 

and sophisticated equipment concentrated at the upper echelons. These developed intelligence products to feed down the chain. Units at lower echelons had 

responsibilities to report what they encountered, information that fed up the 

chain to be sorted, sifted, and analyzed by those with the breadth of vision to 

do so. The fog of war and enemy countermeasures resulted in imperfect information and a few surprises, to be sure, but the invading Army had a clearer 

picture of enemy physical capabilities than had ever been the case before. The 

prolonged struggle against Fedayeen along the lines of communications introduced an opponent against which centralized and technical intelligence means 

proved less useful. This phenomenon expanded with the insurgency through 

the summer and fall of 2003. Insurgents blended in with the civilian population, hid their weapons, attacked via ruse or remote device, embraced suicide 

bombing, and presented fleeting targets. Countering such threats required 
Kevlar Legions

418

human intelligence (HUMINT) drawn from the local population, which in 

turn meant the population needed to be secured against intimidation. In the 

absence of reliable native troops, American soldiers assumed responsibility 

for policing the streets, securing local populations, drawing intelligence from 

them, and striking down terrorists or insurgents before they themselves could 

strike. This stood the intelligence paradigm on its head. Only local commanders familiar with the streets and the populations they secured could extract 

the intelligence circumstances required. Battalion commanders hastily beefed 

up their intelligence (S–2) staffs to provide better direction. Lack of linguists 

proved a huge impediment. Squads, platoons, and even companies were dispatched to search buildings or pick up suspects with nary an Arabic speaker 

among them. Perplexed junior leaders came across weapons or contraband 

and hauled off for questioning all proximate adult or near-adult males, amid 

crying children and wailing women. When identities could not be determined, 

all who remotely fit a description were snatched up. Informants often proved 

to be unreliable or, worse, to be settling personal scores. Since they usually 

were off site or hidden incognito behind a mask inside a vehicle while a raid 

took place, they did not moderate the tendency toward enlarged catchments. 

Detainee numbers soared, and with them resentment. Companies had no, and 

battalions limited and improvised, means to accommodate detainees. They 

also had guidance to pass them along quickly since their means to interrogate 

were so limited and intelligence might be lost. Detainees accumulated in huge 

holding areas, distant from where they were apprehended and unlikely to be 

interrogated in a timely manner. In the early months a major fraction of the 

linguists that were available were committed to the search for weapons of mass 

destruction or to the contracting necessary to establish an emerging constellation of base camps and other facilities. The common soldier and intelligence 

specialist alike soon recognized existing methods of gathering intelligence were 

dysfunctional. Tactical HUMINT teams (THTs), of which there were only 

ten organic to a division, were deployed in larger numbers from the reserve 

component and pushed down to local commanders. Linguists were recruited 

and deployed as a top priority. Intelligence staff officers, recognizing the need 

for immediate tactical intelligence, relaxed restrictions on who could interrogate and how long they could do so at the point of capture. The intelligence 

apparatus was virtually redesigned from the bottom up to prioritize the timely 

acquisition and use of HUMINT. By late 2003 the improvements had gained 

traction, as the capture of those who mortared the Al Rasheed Hotel while 

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was in it, and then the capture 

of Saddam Hussein himself, would attest. Nevertheless, shortcomings with 

respect to HUMINT in Iraq and Afghanistan lingered for years as a critical 

weakness of the transformed Army. These shortcomings were the greatest and 

the most consequential in the six months that followed the fall of Baghdad.22

Shortcomings with respect to command and control were also at their 

greatest and most consequential in the six months that followed the fall of 

Baghdad. The chain of command that ran from CENTCOM down through 

tank crews and rifle squads was ideally poised to smash the Republican 

Guards—or any other conventional adversary, for that matter. From the 
419

The “Transformed” Army in Action

lowest echelons through V Corps organizations were standing, well prepared 

for their specified mission-essential tasks and stable with respect to personnel 

and equipment. Third Army had required augmentation and improvisation 

to stand up as Combined Forces Land Component Command, but all of that 

had taken place well ahead of Iraqi Freedom. Indeed, the Army and others 

had gone to great lengths to ensure that CFLCC was a “dream team” with 

respect to rank, fill, and quality, and this team had refined itself with training and experience real and simulated. CENTCOM, a standing organization, 

was similarly favored with respect to fill, quality, and extent of preparation. 

Within two months of the fall of Baghdad CENTCOM and CFLCC summarily departed the theater, turning operational control over to a Combined Joint 

Task Force–7 (CJTF-7) hastily assembled around the V Corps headquarters. 

For some time the United States and its allies had considered fielding standing 

joint task forces capable of immediately taking over during such circumstances, 

but preparations remained largely theoretical. NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction 

Corps was in fact a capable (British-led) standing headquarters that deployed 

to Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999. NATO was not in Iraq, however, and the 

more usual practice was to hastily cobble together headquarters with laundry 

lists of individual taskings to augment whatever was on the ground at the time. 

This approach applied to V Corps in the spring of 2003, along with a change 

of command and the rotation out of many seasoned players. The V Corps 

was, as we have seen, exceptionally potent as a ground tactical headquarters. 

It was thin with respect to jointness, however, even thinner with respect to 

allied representation, too underranked in its staff to run a theater, and altogether lacking in the combat service support overhead necessary to support a 

theater. All of this had to be improvised. Services were understandably reluctant to move personnel from documented billets elsewhere to fill an emerging yet still ad hoc joint manning document in V Corps, so many positions 

were filled 120, 60, or even 30 days at a time—often by activated Reservists 

or faculty borrowed from schools. Officer and NCO manpower requirements 

within the headquarters soared from under 300 to about 1,000, but actual fill 

in many staff sections hovered under 50 percent for months. Where one general officer served in the command post in June, nineteen ultimately served 

eight months later. The force structure and manning issues of CJTF-7 did not 

finally stabilize until the spring of 2004. Beneath CJTF-7 the divisions were 

standing organizations enjoying high levels of talent and fill, but their structure was not particularly suited to the circumstances they found themselves 

in. Sprawled in penny packets across the vastness of Iraq to secure it, their 

mobility was impaired by the weight of their combat vehicles and the expense 

of maintaining them. Coverage rather than concentration was the new priority, and major constituent organizations—notably artillery, air defense, and 

combat engineers—found their conventional roles considerably less relevant. 

Operations were increasingly dominated by HMMWV and foot patrols, and 

organizations had to adjust. In Chapter 7 we discussed the modular redesign 

of Joint Task Force (JTF)–capable corps and division headquarters, modular 

brigade combat teams, and the shift to a brigade-based army. In due course 

these adjustments fielded a force better suited to circumstances in Iraq, as 
Kevlar Legions

420

did reapportionment of billets among the branches and ever-expanding numbers of up-armored wheeled vehicles, but these changes had not yet occurred 

in 2003 and early 2004, the period wherein resistance in Iraq morphed into 

insurgency.23

Paucity of numbers, underdeveloped capabilities with respect to human 

intelligence, and an ad hoc command structure all complicated the Army’s 

approach to the Iraqis. Perturbations on the civil side, including a flawed handoff from the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) 

to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), severe de-Ba’athification, and the 

estrangement of the capitulated Iraqi Army made things worse. Army transformers had little to do with the most serious mistakes made in Iraq, but as 

circumstances plunged downhill further design shortcomings manifested themselves. Beyond those previously discussed with respect to intelligence, linguists, 

and command structure, these included detainee operations, rules of engagement, and partnering. We have described the escalating numbers of detainees 

swept up “just in case” during the course of operations by soldiers who did not 

speak the language or much understand the culture. These accumulated in large 

holding areas such as Camp Bucca and Abu Ghurayb, while too few interrogators struggled to cope with them. Their numbers invited the use of contractors to supplement military interrogators and the watering down of traditional 

distinctions between military police securing the prisoners and military interrogators drawing information from them. Commanders of the facilities had 

multiple priorities and distractions, personnel were inexperienced and in cases 

undisciplined, the pressure to secure actionable intelligence was high, and widely 

infamous abuses occurred. The Army had anticipated capturing far more prisDetainee operations proved problematic as their scale increased.
421

The “Transformed” Army in Action

oners of war than it actually did during the conventional phase, and one might 

have anticipated adequate preparations. Prisoners of war under conventional 

circumstances are different than potential insurgents, however. They generally 

have an internal chain of command capable of facilitating life support, are of 

limited intelligence value, and can be secured en masse at a remote site with relatively few people. At Abu Ghurayb potential but perishable intelligence value 

and the imperative of separating the guilty from the innocent placed additional 

demands on the captors. In due course manning, training, and policies improved 

at major holding areas. Perhaps more important, input to them thinned as battalions and brigades refined detention practices and acquired a capability to 

hold detainees long enough to sort them out, and Iraqi institutions stood as 

backup to carry some of the load. The inadvertent heavy-handedness that overstocked Abu Ghurayb manifested itself in rules of engagement as well. Soldiers 

are expected to fire when fired upon, and there is no such thing as having too 

much firepower in a conventional engagement. Insurgents consciously provoked 

overreactions from the forces they engaged, firing from positions likely to result 

in civilian casualties. Troops conditioned to the violence of conventional combat 

were likely to respond to potshots with disproportionate force. Artillery and air 

strikes on fleeting mortar or rocket positions became particularly problematic. 

It takes time for units to acquire a feel for the appropriate level of response. 

One wants to decisively outgun an adversary while keeping collateral damage 

at a minimum. Results in Iraq understandably varied by unit and circumstance, 

and each rotation of units periodically required yet another reconditioning. 

Long experience in NATO, the Balkans, and other peacekeeping operations 

had conditioned American soldiers to anticipate like-type local or third-country 

counterparts. A battalion commander, for example, could reasonably expect to 

talk matters over with a battalion commander from another nation—even if an 

adversary—and have a lot in common. This paradigm was attempted in Iraq, 

with concerted efforts to stand up and train Iraqi battalions that would partner 

with Americans in a traditional manner. Constraints concerning a “proper” military sphere were self-defined. Local militia were treated with suspicion, given 

their proneness to factional, religious, and clan loyalties at cross-purposes with 

the national state the Coalition aspired to erect. Civilian leaders and agencies 

were often kept at a distance, hopefully to be someone else’s counterpart—and 

problem. This approach did not work out neatly. Leadership and individuals 

within newly raised Iraqi battalions often owed factional, religious, or clan loyalties. Militias were the de facto security in much of the country. Most local civilian 

leaders and agencies would have had no Coalition counterpart unless a soldier 

assumed the role; security was too problematic. Over time the Army in Iraq took 

a broader approach, most notably with the “Anbar Awakening” somewhat after 

the period of this study. It began moving in that direction much earlier than that. 

In 2003 company commanders were already de facto security advisers to mayors 

of villages and towns. The 1st Cavalry Division prepared for its rotation in Iraq 

with a curriculum as heavy on urban management as it was on counterguerrilla 

tactics, techniques, and procedures. Its “lines of operation” included services, 

governance, economic intervention, and the training and employment of Iraqi 

security forces along with combat operations.24
Kevlar Legions

422

Afghanistan offers a rather different model of the transformed Army’s 

capability to transition to unconventional operations. Iraqi Freedom started 

out as a major conventional battle that morphed into a counterinsurgency. 

Insofar as there was a conventional phase in Afghanistan, it was fought by 

Afghans with technical assistance and fire support from the Americans. 

Through 2005 and some years beyond the United States Army never attempted 

anything that remotely resembled an occupation in Afghanistan, nor did it 

assume meaningful responsibilities for population and resources control. With 

respect to boots on the ground in comparison to the Afghan population, its 

numbers gradually rose from miniscule to tiny during this period. Effective 

control resided with victorious anti-Taliban warlords at first, and then with 

a United Nations–brokered representative national government perched atop 

an alliance of former warlords, arguably elected officials and the newly influential. The United States Army was broadly supportive of United Nations 

negotiations and programs for nation building, but it focused on hunting 

down residual al-Qaeda and those Taliban still disposed to fight. Concurrently 

an also small NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) 

stood up to secure Kabul and its environs while the nascent Afghan government got under way. Special Operating Forces dominated initial operations 

and significantly influenced them thereafter, lending their long-sustained 

emphasis upon low-intensity conflict to the course of events. Structural and 

practical weaknesses with respect to HUMINT, while clearly present, proved 

less severe than in Iraq. In part this was because of the long tenure of the 

Central Intelligence Agency in the theater and contacts they had sustained 

over time with local warlords. In part it was also because of the severity of 

the Taliban’s defeat and the long time it took them to reestablish a presence 

sufficiently threatening to intimidate local cooperation. The Taliban and alQaeda were immeasurably assisted by sanctuaries in the remote tribal areas 

of Pakistan, at the time beyond the effective reach of the Americans. Those 

who escaped, most notably Osama bin Laden himself, reorganized there. 

Allied command and control at the upper levels was about as improvised 

and ad hoc in Afghanistan as in Iraq, although there was never a vacuum 

induced by wholesale leadership departures such as that preceding CJTF-7. 

After an initial phase wherein major players reported through CENTCOM 

and USSOCOM separately, Combined Joint Task Force Mountain, based on 

the 10th Mountain Division, assumed responsibility for Operation Anaconda

on 15 February 2002. In June 2002 CJTF-180, based on Headquarters, XVIII 

Airborne Corps, took over. In November 2003 CJTF-180 restructured to subordinate itself to Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan (CFC-A). CJTF76 (based on the 25th Infantry Division and then the Southern European 

Task Force) and CJTF-82 based on the 82d Airborne Division followed in due 

course. CFC-A would be inactivated in 2006, introducing further restructuring and turbulence. As had been the case in Iraq, each of these redesigns was 

accompanied by newly emergent joint-manning documents, plaintive requests 

to services and allies to provide personnel, intermittent levels of fill, and occasional lapses of grip. When Iraqi Freedom launched, Afghanistan became 

a clearly secondary theater, with further consequences for the manning of its 
423

The “Transformed” Army in Action

senior headquarters. A standing CJTF would have helped, as would have a 

policy of replenishing senior headquarters by individual rather than “unit” 

rotation. Given the amount of augmentation necessary to render a division 

or corps into a CJTF, the results were ad hoc anyway, reducing the logic of 

labeling them as unit rotations. Detainee operations in Afghanistan avoided 

the overwhelming numbers of Iraq—unless one counts those accommodated 

by the tender mercies of the warlords—but critical issues with respect to the 

status of detainees, responsibilities for securing and interrogating them, and 

ultimate disposition did emerge. During this period civilian casualties were not 

yet excessive, so rules of engagement with respect to air strikes and the use of 

firepower did not come under the scrutiny they would later on. Efforts to stand 

up a truly counterpart Afghan National Army were plagued by ethnic and 

tribal loyalties, competition with local militias, and mismatched professional 

ethics—as was the case in Iraq. Afghanistan echoed without mirroring Iraq 

with respect to the Army’s adaptability to unconventional warfare. In both 

cases the Army seems to have been reasonably served by doctrine and experience, but far too few in numbers to adequately apply either in the face of the 

missions ultimately assumed. There nevertheless were qualitative shortcomings, aggravating the paucity of numbers, that became manifest as operations 

progressed. Outstanding among these were lack of linguists, inadequate capabilities for HUMINT, recurrently ad hoc senior headquarters, unpreparedness 

for detainee operations, conventionally biased rules of engagement, and unrealistic expectations concerning the roles and nature of requisite counterparts.25

Goodness of Fit: Army Transformation on the

Unconventional Battlefield

Given the bias of Army transformation toward high-end combat and 

shortcomings with respect to unconventional warfare discussed above, how 

much did the technological innovations from 1989 through 2003 contribute 

to war at the low end? More than is often supposed. A brief example may 

make the point. In Chapter 3 we discussed Somalia and mentioned the fighting in Mogadishu on 3–4 October 1993—famously recaptured in the book 

and then the motion picture Black Hawk Down. These re-creations and official 

accounts provide ample testimony to the courage, tenacity, and initiative of 

the American soldier in trying circumstances. They also describe columns lost 

in a rabbit warren of streets, unknown friendly locations, unknowable enemy 

locations, huge difficulties bringing firepower effectively to bear, and vehicles 

overmatched by ubiquitous enemy firepower. Soldiers of the Stryker-borne 

5-20th Infantry Battalion had their own so-called Mogadishu moment on 4 

September 2004, when an OH–58D helicopter went down hard in the urban 

sprawl of Tall’ Afar. The pilots, although injured, escaped the wreckage and 

crawled to the relative safety of a nearby rock wall. The insurgents seem to 

have been familiar with Mogadishu precedents, and a race developed between 

Americans trying to prevent another Black Hawk Down and Iraqis trying 

to reproduce one. The first combatants on the scene were the 5-20th’s Scout 

Platoon. The OH–58D’s icon had remained visible on their Force XXI Battle 
Kevlar Legions

424

Command, Brigade and Below (FBCB2), so they knew where it was. Scalable 

electronic downloadable maps gave them an exact appreciation of the geography, global positioning systems gave an exact appreciation of their own positions, and blue force tracking showed the locations of friendly vehicles. As they 

raced through the streets, a potpourri of light munitions ricocheted harmlessly 

off the armor of the wheel-borne Strykers. They knew where they were going 

and how to get there, and they got there first. They had not won the race by 

much, however, as increasing volumes of fire into their hasty positions around 

the helicopter amply attested. More troubling, UAVs flying above the fray 

downloaded imagery of an accelerating enemy buildup, including insurgents 

unloading rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and machine guns from civilian 

vehicles. A relief column, Company B of the 5-20th Infantry, was churning its 

way through the dusty streets of Tall’ Afar toward them. Ever more numerous insurgents divided their attention between attempts to crush the isolated 

platoon and blocking positions to delay the relieving company. The blocking 

positions soon disappeared in dirt plumes raised by GBU31 bombs precisely 

laid by F–16 fighter-bombers that had scrambled overhead. Company B

ignored residual small arms pinging off their vehicles and rolled on to the 

helicopter crash site. The half-score soldiers who clattered out of the back of 

each Stryker bore a formidable panoply: Kevlar body armor, laser designators, 

Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) radios, 

Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI) accoutrements, a mix of automatic weapons, 

and lots of ammunition. The insurgents again tried to overwhelm the now 

reinforced position. This was a mistake. Hurricanes of well-aimed fire swept 

them off the rooftops, out of the streets, and ultimately from surrounding 

buildings room by room. Americans were hit, but their body armor minimized 

the damage done. With the coolness of troops who completely dominate their 

battlefield, the Americans brought forward a heavy expanded mobility tactical truck (HEMTT) wrecker and a Palletized Load System (PLS) flatbed 

truck. The recovery team sawed off the helicopter blades and loaded all the 

wreckage on the flatbed, and the entire contingent then disengaged by stages 

and drove away. There would be no pictures of jubilant insurgents dancing 

on a helicopter, no American bodies dragged through the streets, no captured 

materials, and no hostages. There also would be no book and no movie. The 

episode illustrated transformational advances with respect to combat per se, 

but also illustrated advances relevant at the low end of the combat spectrum 

with respect to land navigation, blue force tracking, battlefield surveillance, 

command and control, and information operations.26

Some fraction of low-intensity conflict involves actual combat, people 

trying to kill each other with simultaneous exchanges of fire. When combat 

erupts, nuances that separate high-intensity conflict from low-intensity conflict 

fade or disappear for the soldiers involved. It all seems intense to them. The 

difference is often in the prelude. Insurgents, lurking in difficult (in the case of 

Iraq, urban) terrain and hiding among the local population or in sanctuaries, 

generally determine the time and place of engagements. Suffering an overall 

deficit with respect to firepower and equipment, they seek a momentary surprise advantage to strike a lethal blow. With enough such blows, the gnat will 
425

The “Transformed” Army in Action

bring down the elephant. Counterinsurgents in such cases must survive the initial blow and then escalate their own combat power rapidly enough to render 

the insurgents net losers in the engagement. Several aspects of Army transformation favored the Americans with respect to this timeless asymmetry. Their 

venerable M1 tanks and M2/3 Bradleys were already highly survivable against 

virtually all munitions the Iraqi insurgents deployed. Advanced body armor 

significantly improved the survivability of individual soldiers as well. Indeed, 

footage exists of soldiers knocked to the ground by shots to their chests, only 

to get back on their feet to continue the mission. The Stryker combat vehicle 

offered a potent combination of mobility and survivability, and increasing 

proportions of up-armored HMMWVs enhanced the survivability of the average mounted patrol. Perhaps most important, American contingents traveled 

within an envelope of all-around surveillance networked with similarly distributed firepower. The System Enhancement Package (SEP) of the M1A2 tank, 

with independent thermal sights for tank commander and gunner and automatic weapons for each, was the ultimate expression of survivability, surveillance, and firepower. “Boxes” of American vehicles, be they tanks, Bradleys, 

Strykers, or HMMWVs, traveled down avenues wide enough to accommodate them ready for a fight, or overwatched infantry similarly deployed for 

all-around protection in narrower quarters. When fired upon, contingents as 

small as a platoon immediately generated withering counterfires. These could 

be quickly reinforced by incredibly precise GPS or laser-guided munitions, 

delivered from planes or helicopters loitering overhead or hastily scrambled. 

Precision served the dual purpose of speedily inflicting casualties on identified 

enemy while avoiding collateral damage to unintended targets. Once located, 

the enemy seldom survived long if he remained in place. Direct-fire ambushes 

on American combat units, even small ones, became increasingly unpopular as 

an insurgent technique. Over time, direct-fire ambushes on American logistical convoys became costly as well. On several occasions, most notably during 

the April 2004 uprisings and at An Najaf, Samarra, and Al Fallujah several 

months later, insurgents chose to dig in, hold ground, and fight. The results 

were lopsided blood baths. At Al Fallujah, for example, two Marine regimental combat teams reinforced by two Army battalions and supported by 350 

close air support (CAS) strikes and 7,000 rounds of artillery routed a dug-in 

force of 4,500 that had had months to prepare, killing 1,200 in the process. The 

Army battalions suffered one and five dead, respectively, and the attacking 

force as a whole sixty-three. Incidents of open force-on-force combat dropped 

off from that point. If the insurgents intended to attrite Coalition forces, they 

would have to find another way.27

Counterinsurgents should not wait passively to be ambushed, of course. 

They deploy networks of surveillance in the hopes of identifying their assailants before they themselves become a target. The boxes of vehicles described 

above featured robust arrays of thermal sights, night-vision goggles, daylight 

sights, and trained eyeballs. Infantrymen deployed with suites of sensors as well. 

Ideally these arrays were but the core of a surveillance network much broader 

with respect to space and time. UAVs were a prime aspect of Army transformation, and they matured rapidly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Smaller craft could 
Kevlar Legions

426

be overhead in minutes, and larger ones could loiter for hours. The absence of 

pilots rendered them less time-constrained and more daring. Beyond nosing 

around in front of a moving column to detect an ambush, they could canvass 

broadly for unusual or suspicious activity. As Iraqi insurgents increasingly 

abandoned direct-fire engagements in favor of improvised explosive devices 

(IEDs), UAVs often were able to detect their activity. Sometimes intelligence 

was so timely IED installation parties could be taken under fire. Other times 

disturbances in the ground or thermal variations clued alert observers. In this 

effort time-stamped film footage enabled comparisons over time, rendering 

what had changed that much more visible. The ubiquity of global positioning 

systems significantly enhanced surveillance. Film footage had a precise location. Spot reports from patrols, over-flying aircraft, and even casual passersby 

acquired elegant precision as well. Cooperating Iraqis could be issued cellular 

phones and GPS to improve the timeliness and sharpen the precision of their 

reports. Gone were the days of agonizing over where a patrol actually was in the 

dark in order to confidently locate whatever they had seen. In some locations 

continuously running cameras provided permanent surveillance, not unlike in 

an American shopping mall. All of this imagery generated vast amounts of 

data. Fortuitously most of it was digital, and computers could be mustered 

to catalogue and keep track of it—and to monitor it with respect to specific 

parameters. Such computer-assisted monitoring was even more common with 

respect to signals intelligence than it was with respect to image intelligence. 

As insurgents increasingly backed away from direct confrontation, surveillance took on an aspect that often seemed more forensic than tactical. This 

was perhaps appropriate since crime and insurgency seemed so intertwined. 

Detainees were screened for biometrics such as fingerprints and iris scans, as 

were others coming under military supervision. Entered into databases, these 

could be drawn on later to identify personnel or perpetrators. Official accounts 

of engagements and incidents acquired the feel of police reports more so than 

spot reports. Persons apprehended in the vicinity of an incident were checked 

for gunshot residue and blood spatter and handled accordingly. Human intelligence fed into the data pool as well: tracked, cataloged, and analyzed. Much of 

the surveillance conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been familiar 

to counterinsurgents from earlier wars, but much was new with Army transformation as well. Unmanned platforms and sensors, digital technologies, and 

computer-assisted analyses took surveillance to a new level.28

We have mentioned that the ubiquity of GPS considerably facilitated 

battlefield surveillance. It greatly advanced land navigation as well, of course. 

Not getting lost is as important in low-intensity as in high-intensity conflict. 

Indeed, it may be even more so since smaller units move across vaster spaces. 

Targets are fleeting, and counterinsurgents are often called upon to mass 

quickly in isolated or obscure locations. In Iraq the imperative of following 

up on intelligence tips to snatch individual insurgents or police up contraband 

weapons sent small contingents of Americans hurrying through the darkened 

streets of cluttered urban sprawl. In this they were immeasurably assisted not 

only by GPS, but also by electronically downloadable maps and overhead 

graphics that enabled them to “zoom in” and “zoom out” to varying levels of 
A 1st Cavalry Division slide used to brief standard operating procedures, 2004.
Kevlar Legions

428

resolution. American patrols already enjoyed huge advantages with respect to 

night-vision equipment, and these further navigational technologies enabled 

them to take full advantage of it in an urban setting. They could find their 

way efficiently in totally unfamiliar terrain, and with a few days to familiarize 

themselves, they could master whatever terrain they were in. Indeed, more than 

one battlefield account stands a traditional paradigm on its head and finds the 

counterinsurgent better able to exploit the terrain than the insurgent. From 

time immemorial insurgents have struck from hiding places and faded away 

into trackless terrain that baffled pursuit. The working mechanics of urban 

combat in Iraq often brought insurgents into neighborhoods other than their 

own, relying on local guides or finding their own way. Mechanized Americans 

sped through the streets confident of their own locations and that of their 

brethren, and with a little time on the ground knew where to lay down “spiderwebs” of interlocking positions to intercept, isolate, and bring to ground their 

adversaries. Engagements could acquire the tenor of a “cops and robbers” 

television drama, with desperate insurgents fleeing on foot through unfamiliar 

streets or careening along in cars while counterinsurgents pursued or raced 

laterally to position for a few clear shots. Given American marksmanship and 

gunnery, a few clear shots could be decisive. Insurgents proved particularly 

vulnerable when “puddling,” gathering briefly to figure out where they were 

or what they wanted to do—often unmindful that they were being observed 

because of high-power sights and asymmetries in night-vision capability. For 

spiderwebs to work, each participant must know the location of the others. In 

cops and robbers dramas the good guys have an amazing facility to track street 

corners and each other’s radio chatter, ultimately swamping the bad guys in 

a sea of blinking lights. In Iraq blue force tracking (BFT) facilitated similar 

fidelity in coordinating movements, if not necessarily with the same colorful 

quips and timely dramatic results. In the Tall’ Afar incident discussed above, 

for example, the downed OH–58D’s icon remained visible on the screens of 

its rescuers, and the rescuers’ icons were visible on the screens of each other. 

Such electronic assists to command and control were exploited time and 

again. American forces converged in the dark on one target after another with 

a minimum risk of fratricide. Small units and even individual vehicles safely 

crossed each other’s line of fire at a pace and with a frequency that would 

have been unthinkable a dozen years earlier. As is often the case, the value 

of this capability may be best illustrated by performance in its absence. More 

than one operation foundered when someone’s BFT icon disappeared from 

the screen, provoking anxious tiptoeing as all parties involved attempted to 

reestablish contact. The most egregious fratricides of the war occurred in the 

absence of BFT. A case in point was a spectacular shoot-out in Al Fallujah in 

September 2003, when Americans, Iraqi police, and Jordanian security forces 

all shot into each other as a small contingent of insurgents passed somewhere 

between them. It should perhaps be noted that the concluding events in a 

GPS-facilitated take-down of a house or a BFT-facilitated interception of a 

moving vehicle were rarely high tech. Final encounters in a dingy apartment or 

on a darkened street were generally “up close and personal,” testing training, 

reaction time, and resolve rather than technology.29
429

The “Transformed” Army in Action

Army transformation focused heavily upon command and control. We 

have already discussed the utility of blue force tracking and a shared operational picture. In conventional combat prior to the fall of Baghdad we found 

widely scattered units coordinating effectively via satellite-facilitated communications. This remained true during unconventional combat. The explosive 

events of April 2004 provide ample evidence. Suddenly and unexpectedly 

Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army rose in revolt, and further vast stretches 

of Iraq came to be contested with insurgents. Ground communications and 

landlines were cut. Areas populated by Shi’a, theretofore quiescent and with a 

minimal American presence, became battlegrounds. Tiny allied garrisons and 

even armed contractors clung to isolated outposts. The 1st Armored Division, 

en route to rotate home and with units already in Kuwait, was extended, and 

its so-called “Extension Campaign” offers a metaphor for advances in command and control during the previous dozen years. Within days the division 

reinforced Al Hillah and An Najaf, and it counterattacked from Baghdad and 

Kuwait to oust insurgents from Al Kut. On 18 April the division was given 

tactical control of all Coalition units in four hastily designed Joint Operating 

Areas (JOAs) covering much of southern Iraq. Since fighting in Al Fallujah 

was ongoing and Sunni areas of Iraq were still contested, forces available for 

fighting in the south consisted of units of the 1st Armored Division racing in 

from wherever they had been in the process of redeployment, and contingents 

cobbled together from whatever other units could momentarily be spared elsewhere. The force that relieved An Najaf, for example, was notably eclectic. 

It included the headquarters of the 3d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry 

Division, its constituent Task Force 2-2 Infantry, the light 1-14 Infantry dispatched from the separate brigade in Mosul, and a Stryker company each from 

the 5-20 Infantry, 2-3 Infantry, and 1-23 Infantry, plus supporting units. These 

bits and pieces came together across hundreds of miles on the fly, downloading electronically generated orders and graphics that were readily tweaked or 

adjusted as circumstances changed. Electronic reach back gave them access 

to relevant maps, overhead graphics, and local information. The Strykers in 

particular had embedded rather than appliqué FBCB2, and they used it to 

great advantage while shepherding swarms of logistical vehicles from all across 

Iraq around blown bridges and through threatened areas to reconfigure the 

theater logistical posture. With logistics reset, American forces in the south 

overmatched the insurgents and then ground them down in a series of lopsided 

engagements. A chastened al-Sadr sought and obtained negotiated political 

egress from his military debacle and shifted to politics rather than force when 

confronting the Coalition. A robust network of ground-based antennae nodes 

sustained radio communications across most of Iraq throughout the crisis, 

and satellite communications filled in where these proved inadequate. The 

Mahdi uprising may have been envisioned as an Iraqi version of the Tet offensive, but deft American movements rendered it far less costly or consequential. Digital and satellite-facilitated mechanisms for command and control 

exploited during it had not existed a dozen years before, and these allowed the 

Americans far more daring movements at far less risk. This capability proved 

of value regardless of the scale of ongoing operations.30
A 1st Cavalry Division slide illustrating a nontraditional aspect of Army operations in Iraqi Freedom
431

The “Transformed” Army in Action

The technologies that enabled command and control advanced information operations (IO) as well. Information operations matured as a concept 

during the 1990s and encompassed efforts to protect friendly information systems, attack or exploit enemy information systems, and use information and 

information systems to further one’s goals. By doctrine it included electronic 

warfare (EW), computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations 

(PSYOPS), military deception (MILDEC), and operations security (OPSEC). 

Underlying principles were not new, but Space and Information Age technologies greatly altered the manner in which they were applied. American leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan understood that long-term solutions were ultimately political and that success depended on the support of the indigenous 

population—and thus upon visibly demonstrating that cooperation with the 

Coalition was in its best interest. Information management within Task Force 

Baghdad during the tenure of the 1st Cavalry Division offers an example. 

“Full Spectrum Information Operations” were mobilized to lend legitimacy 

to Coalition combat operations, the training and employment of Iraqi security forces, support to essential services, the promotion of sound governance, 

and various economic initiatives. Rather than merely tracking engagements, 

casualties, and suspects, task force databases also monitored water, sewage, 

electricity, and garbage throughout Baghdad in elaborate detail. One could 

find, for example, that the 3d Brigade Combat Team at one point supervised 

unfinanced requirements for twenty water projects totaling $8.8 million, fourteen sewer projects totaling $10.5 million, eighteen electricity projects totaling 

$12 million, and four solid waste projects totaling $1.1 million. Pictures promulgated of the situation “before” included standing ponds of contaminated 

water blocking off streets, power lines dangling dangerously across roads or 

underfoot, darkened apartments without electricity, and mountains of garbage. Photographs of the situation “after” could include a small child happily drinking clean water from a tap in a lighted apartment. Relevant projects 

were numerous, heavily contracted, and often small scale and required detailed 

management. Beyond the information necessary to monitor progress, there 

was also the requirement to make this progress visible to the Iraqis with a 

“drumbeat” of local coverage. The Coalition sought to “put an Iraqi face” on 

both the nation building and collateral security. Whenever possible, local contractors using local labor were employed. Commander’s Emergency Response 

Program (CERP) funds proved particularly useful in this regard. With respect 

to security, Iraqi forces were showcased after the several months of eddying 

that followed Ambassador Bremer’s dissolution of the Iraqi Army in May 

2003. Task Force Baghdad, for example, married three Iraqi National Guard 

brigades to twelve American brigade-size units, and fifty-eight Iraqi National 

Guard companies to 322 American companies. On joint patrols these helped 

overcome language and cultural barriers and proved particularly useful dealing with sensitive sites such as mosques. The Coalition did not pursue information operations in a vacuum, of course. Insurgents proved adept at connecting 

through the Internet with each other and with sympathizers, getting their own 

version of a given story out early, and muddying the Coalition’s message of 

progress. Arab media could be suspicious of Coalition motives and actions and 
Kevlar Legions

432

receptive to insurgent accounts of both. Video posted on the Web of Coalition 

casualties inflicted by insurgents and of civilian casualties ostensibly inflicted 

by the Coalition proved particularly vexing. Americans recognized the limitations of both the media and insurgent photography at night and sought to stay 

beneath the “IO threshold”—the point of uncomfortable or negative visibility 

in the international press—by doing the fighting they initiated at night. This 

minimized the risks of adverse graphic imagery getting into circulation while 

taking advantage of Coalition night-vision superiority. The approach influenced ever larger operations. The III Corps planners, for example, believed the 

April 2004 uprising had spiked well above the IO threshold, whereas the clearings of An Najaf in August and Samarra in September had stayed beneath 

it. Over time the Coalition developed considerable sophistication exploiting 

or blocking insurgent communications. The battle for “hearts and minds” 

remained intense, however, and seldom offered a clear sense of success. In a 

digital age information operations contended with bias and suspicion dating 

back centuries. Worldwide communications offered everyone access to conflicting imagery and commentary instantly. All knew that ultimate resolutions 

were political, not military.31

In the case of Iraq’s number one killer of Coalition troops, improvised 

explosive devices, Army transformation from 1989 through 2003 offered pieces 

relevant to a solution without yet having actually pulled them together. For 

much of the 1990s professional interest in landmine warfare was in eclipse as 

the United States came under pressure from its European allies and others to 

join the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, 

and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (1997 Mine 

Ban Treaty). Landmine hazards in Bosnia dampened the rosy view that unattended explosives were a thing of the past, as did the fact Russia and China 

refused to sign the treaty. Mine clearance in the Balkans evolved into a major 

enterprise, promoting interest in explosive ordnance detachments (EODs) and 

relevant robotics. The conventional phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom did not 

particularly feature landmine warfare. Certainly nothing approached the vast 

mine belts of Desert Storm. As American columns converged on Baghdad, 

however, there were insufficient forces to secure huge ammunition dumps when 

the Iraqi Army melted away. Some estimate that as many as three million tons 

of munitions remained outside of Coalition control. These began showing up 

as IEDs. Triggering mechanisms included trip wires, pressure sensors, electrical 

lines, remote devices, and suicide bombers. As battles large and small demonstrated the undesirability of direct-fire engagements with the Americans, IEDs 

became the weapon of choice for the insurgents, inflicting over half of all casualties month after month. Remote devices such as cell phones and garage door 

openers came to be preferred for triggering. Trip wires and pressure sensors 

required victims to make actual contact, and electrical lines could be readily 

traced to their point of origin. The Army had experimented with jamming as a 

constituent of electronic warfare and soon developed a capability to jam some 

Iraqi remote IED-triggering devices as well. Meanwhile experience and selective 

training made troops more conscious of IEDs and countermeasures to them, and 

the Army rushed to up-armor HMMWVs and other vehicles. These measures 
433

The “Transformed” Army in Action

did reduce vulnerability. IED attacks on Coalition forces went up, but casualties 

from them did not. In September 2004, for example, of about 700 IED incidents 

about 150 produced casualties. A year later the number of IED incidents had 

doubled, whereas the number producing casualties remained about the same. 

In another year the number of IED incidents doubled again, but the number 

producing casualties again remained about the same. The balance of IED incidents without casualties was about evenly split between IEDs discovered and 

cleared, and those detonated without producing casualties—often by virtue of a 

friendly device. The relative success of electronic countermeasures forced insurgents back into the use of electrical lines or detonation cords, again bringing 

them closer and making them easier to find. Effective surveillance increased the 

likelihood IEDs would be discovered before they were detonated, as came to 

be the case more often than not. Knowing what to look for and good scouting 

were part of the solution, as were newly introduced advanced sensors and UAVs. 

UAVs, as we have seen, could loiter for hours without endangering pilots. They 

could pick up suspicious roadside activity, and advanced sensors could detect 

disturbances the naked eye could not. Robots such as “Talon” and “PackBot” 

came into play, allowing closeup inspections without putting humans at risk. In 

time robots would be able to handle and even disarm IEDs. Surveillance fed into 

intelligence, and intelligence sought to campaign against IEDs at their source. 

As HUMINT improved, cells deploying IEDs and factories producing them 

could be compromised or destroyed. Such preemption was particularly important in the case of VBIEDs, vehicle-borne IEDs. About two-thirds of these were 

to be guided to detonation by suicide bombers, and foot-borne suicide bombers 

bearing explosive vests joined the battle as well. Suicide bombers may have represented foreign influences, and they considerably increased in number as directfire engagements with Coalition forces proved too costly. In February 2005 

there were sixty-five car bombings for example, whereas there had only been 

ten in February 2004. Insurgents did experiment with complex attacks, integrating suicide bombers into larger forces attacking with direct and indirect fires. 

In due course the Coalition worked out tactics for these, intercepting suicide 

bombers through traffic control and heightened vigilance, employing advanced 

technologies and trained dogs to detect the presence of explosives, and preempting suicide bombers with attacks on the cells and facilities that supported 

them. Countermeasures were never perfect, but they did keep casualties down. 

If IEDs continued to inflict casualties at the rate per attack of the summer of 

2004, American casualties from IEDs would have more than quadrupled—and 

casualties for the war as a whole more than doubled. In Chapter 6 we discussed 

the eventual systemization and funding of the counter-IED campaign under the 

auspices of the Joint IED Defeat Organization, JIEDDO. Even before JIEDDO 

stood up, bits and pieces of transformational technologies were already being 

redirected against IEDs.32 

Sustaining a Transformed Army 

Operations overseas inevitably created sustainment demands. Many of 

these would have been comparable whether Army transformation during 
Kevlar Legions

434

1989–2003 had been attempted or not, but within a few venues Army transformation initiatives were directly tested. Computer-facilitated distribution-based 

combat service support experienced the rigors of combat. Recurrent rotations meant recurrent recycling. Dependence on contracting amply illustrated 

strengths and weaknesses. The transformed or transforming Army shared the 

load with untransformed allies. Specific equipment acquired during the course 

of transformation introduced specific logistical demands. Manpower was ever 

an issue. Recognizing that this study is not the place to describe or assess logistical efforts from 2003 to 2005 as a whole, let us focus on these particular areas 

wherein transformation and logistics particularly overlapped.

Chapters 3 through 6 described an accelerating commitment to computerfacilitated distribution-based logistics. Chapter 7 described force structure 

redesign wherein table of organization and equipment (TOE) logistical units 

became modular and brigade-based. Transformers intended to radically 

increase the efficiency of Army logisticians while reducing their “footprint” 

on the battlefield. Information Age technologies would enable “total asset visibility”; logisticians would always know in detail where everything was and 

who needed what. The fabled “iron mountains” and ponderous unit trains 

of yesteryear would be gone, and trimmed down arrays of logisticians in 

theater would deliver all that units required “just in time.” Like Walmart, 

Amazon.com, or FTD Florists, the Army would manage assets and diminish 

overhead with elegant precision. This revolution in military affairs worked to 

a point in Afghanistan and Iraq. Combat service support digital automation 

was ubiquitous, and logistical information was in fact universally shared once 

communicated. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags speedily identified the contents of containers and allowed them to be accurately tracked. 

Ports of debarkation became considerably more efficient, with nowhere near 

the numbers of lost containers or “frustrated cargo” of Desert Shield/

Desert Storm. Aspirations to track beans, bullets, and all else from the “factory to the foxhole” did not quite surmount the digital divide discussed above, 

however. Combat service support units at lower levels, many of which were 

from the reserve component, were by and large last in line for upgrades to 

radios, satellite communication sets, and other advanced communications. 

When logistical units exceeded the range of venerable ground-based mobile 

subscriber equipment (MSE), they generally fell back on fragile radio relays 

to communicate complex information. Few had the direct satellite communications—or bandwidth—necessary to move large volumes of data quickly. 

Understandably, this affected relatively unpredictable commodities such as 

Class IX (repair parts) far more than it did relatively predictable ones such 

as fuel or water. Mechanized units fell back on cannibalization for many of 

their maintenance needs. MSE service improved in Iraq as units settled into 

the occupation and nodes stabilized, but the country never did get full coverage—and coverage in Afghanistan was far worse. The digital divide, as earlier 

discussed, was largely the result of Army transformation having been caught 

in mid-stride. As supplementals increased and money flowed, more and better 

satellite communications, expanded bandwidth, and access to commercial 

alternatives pushed transformational technologies down the logistical chain. 
435

The “Transformed” Army in Action

Improved electronic communications could not fully compensate for at-risk 

ground communications, however. We have discussed the fierce battles for the 

lines of communication that preceded the fall of Baghdad. Logistical convoys, true to historical precedent, became a favored target for the insurgents. 

Once the occupation settled in, at any given time of day somewhere between 

800 and 1,300 trucks were on the road ferrying supplies from Kuwait into 

Iraq. Others made local runs or brought supplies in from Turkey. Attempts 

to interrupt Coalition logistics were often a prelude to insurgent attacks or 

an effort to spoil Coalition initiatives. The widespread attacks of April 2004 

gave considerable attention to interrupting Coalition lines of communication. 

Anticipating such interruptions and distractions, Coalition forces got in the 

habit of stockpiling supplies prior to major initiatives of their own. A case 

in point was the buildup prior to the second battle of Al Fallujah. “Just in 

case” logistics partially recovered from their eclipse behind “just in time.” Iron 

mountains like those of Desert Storm may have been a thing of the past, but 

iron foothills were not.33

Chapters 6 and 7 discussed the accelerated move toward a brigade-based 

Army coincident with recycling units through Iraq and Afghanistan, and 

Chapter 6 discussed coming to grips with the human demands of that recycling. In both cases initiatives associated with Army transformation occurred 

sooner and perhaps more comprehensively because of wartime demands. 

Wartime unit recycling also forced a modest increase in active-duty manpower, pressed ever greater operational requirements upon the reserve component, and eroded restrictions upon the role of women in combat. Again 

these results, previously discussed, picked up the pace in a direction that Army 

transformation was already moving. Army transformation did not particularly forecast the multiple roles individual units would assume in Iraq and the 

logistical implications of those multiple roles. After the fall of Baghdad artillery battalions had relatively few calls for fire, combat engineers had relatively 

Daily convoys supplied units deployed throughout Iraq.
Kevlar Legions

436

few obstacles to breach, and air defenders continued with negligible threats 

from above. Tankers employed armored firepower with good effect from time 

to time but as often patrolled in HMMWVs or on foot. Light infantrymen, 

conversely, found they patrolled more effectively when motorized. Heliborne 

delivery was not consistently practical, nor could it achieve the desired interface with the local population. Only the Stryker brigades seemed appropriately 

designed for the mix of missions at hand. Other units drew supplemental or 

even alternate sets of equipment, often leaving some fraction of their TOE 

equipment at their home station. HMMWV-mounted patrols, customarily several vehicles in convoy, became a signature of the war. Theater requirements 

for HMMWVs soared, then soared again when the IED threat forced a general shift to up-armored HMMWVs. Eventually demands for mine-resistant 

ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles would spike as well. Vehicle requirements 

in theater and the dual (or multiple) roles assumed by most units drove prepositioned stocks to new highs. Logisticians in Iraq found themselves responsible for more than 50,000 vehicles supported by 90,000 twenty- or forty-foot 

containers full of supplies and equipment. Estimates for the total items of 

equipment in the inventory ran as high as 2.8 million. Components included 

crew-served weapons, night-vision systems, blue force tracker identification 

terminals, and improvised explosive device counter systems. Individual equipment was available for issue as well, particularly the advanced body armor 

that saved so many lives. Kevlar armor with ceramic plates had originally 

been envisioned for combat units only, but its proven effectiveness and the allaround dangers of the Iraqi battlefield drove demand up. Whereas the Army 

requirement for constituent plates stood at 10,000 in December 2002, it rose to 

110,000 in March 2003 and 475,000 in December 2003. Overall coordination 

Mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles
437

The “Transformed” Army in Action

of logistical support for Coalition forces fell to the 377th Theater Support 

Command (TSC), designed as the Army’s only deployable TSC and consisting 

largely of Reservists. Interestingly enough, the 377th TSC did not rotate as 

did other headquarters and units. Instead the headquarters sustained itself by 

individual replacements, although subordinate logistical units did rotate. In 

this particular case the value of continuity trumped other considerations to 

sustain combat units as they cycled into and out of Iraq.34

Chapter 4 explored a revolution in military contracting beginning in the 

1990s, and subsequent chapters have revisited that topic. By 2003 contractors 

were an integral, if not always intentional, aspect of Army transformation. 

They provided flexibility, mustered unique skills, partially offset downsizing, 

and became an indispensable shadow workforce. Estimates of their numbers 

in Iraq vary wildly, depending in part on definitions. At the core would be 

such altogether embedded personnel as the logistical assistance representatives (LARs) servicing new or specialized equipment, or the Logistics Civil 

Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) personnel managing forward operating 

bases and other Coalition facilities. Looking more broadly, one finds such 

personnel as the lower-level staffs of LOGCAP facilities or the commercial 

truck drivers who dominated most logistical convoys. Most projects and many 

sites were physically secured by contracted personnel. Hundreds of thousands 

more contractors were temporarily employed on specific projects, often under 

the auspices of CERP and other programs in part designed to keep local manpower gainfully employed—and out of the insurgency. In the case of commodities being managed “from the factory to the foxhole,” the front end of the 

equation was almost entirely in the hands of contractors. Best estimates suggest that more than 100,000 in Iraq were directly signed on to contracts with 

the United States government, and several times that number were temporarily 

employed on projects or by friendly agencies and individuals at any given time. 

Some American logistical nimbleness would have been impossible without 

contracted support. In a matter of months most soldiers went from sleeping 

on the backs of vehicles or “in the dirt” to living in prefabricated buildings or 

converted Iraqi facilities. Logistics Support Area (LSA) Anaconda alone had 

two hundred buildings surrounded by thirteen miles of fence. Even soldiers 

living in Saddam Hussein’s former palaces relied upon contractors for such 

base operations support (BASOPS) functions as utilities, maintenance, and 

mess support. When the insurgency bubbled up and IEDs became a major 

threat, Third Army hastily converted thousands of wheeled vehicles to an 

up-armored posture. By December 2004 six thousand had intrinsic built-in 

armored protection, ten thousand had custom-manufactured protective 

add-on kits, and almost five thousand had improvised ad hoc armor. All of 

the built-in armor and add-on kits came via contract, and virtually all of the 

add-on kits were mounted by contractors. When it became apparent Iraqi 

Freedom would require recurrent rotations and that vehicles in Iraq grossly 

exceeded traditional monthly mileages, contractors stood up the programs 

and infrastructure to refurbish hundreds of vehicles a month as part of the 

“reset” process. Arab-speaking linguists proved essential as the occupation 

lengthened and deepened, and most came under contract. Many of these 
Kevlar Legions

438

uniquely qualified personnel were not eligible for service in the United States 

Army, and others found that service as a contractor paid better. In addition to 

circumstances wherein only contractors could have gotten the job done, there 

were many others wherein it was more practical and convenient to pass the job 

along to them. A case in point was the destruction of ubiquitous unexploded 

ordnance. The Corps of Engineers signed on five civilian firms and 2,600 contractors to a program that ultimately destroyed 450,000 tons of munitions. 

Contractors proved essential to the success of Iraqi Freedom, but there was 

a down side. A stated goal of the Army in Iraq was to “maximize contracted 

CSS [combat service support] capabilities to minimize CSS force deployments.” 

Prior to April 2004 transportation, field services, bulk fuel, retail fuel, food 

service operations, and BASOPS functions were heavily dominated by contractors. The system seemed to be working well, other than the usual grousing 

about time lags separating statements of work from actual execution and the 

relative inflexibility of contracts once signed. The April 2004 conflagration 

shook the premise that uniformed and contracted CSS were interchangeable. Contractors took significant casualties, encountering risks considerably 

beyond those they had signed up for. The first battle of Al Fallujah was precipitated by the murder and mutilation of contractors. Five times as many 

contractors as soldiers were killed in the spectacular Good Friday ambush 

of the 724th Transportation Company. Contractors were killed, endangered, 

or kidnapped across the country. Many fought for their lives alongside the 

soldiers they were supporting. Most performed ably and well, but more than 

a few did not show up for work or refused to assume further risks. The logistical paradigm changed. Higher proportions of combat troops were diverted to 

securing installations and convoys. Outposts were consolidated, rationalized, 

and reduced in number—reducing “presence” in many Iraqi communities. 

Troops were diverted to theretofore contracted functions, and the force structure altered as more CSS formations were brought in. Contractors expanded 

their own security, hiring more guards, deploying more weapons, and charging 

accordingly. The goal of contracting as much CSS as possible remained, with 

the hedge that the Army always be postured to operate under “nonpermissive 

conditions” anywhere in Iraq. This changed force structure somewhat, but the 

underlying logic of Army transformation’s revolution in military contracting 

remained. The Army was too small and too combat oriented not to contract 

for functions it had always considered “below the line.”35

Cooperation with Allies had been problematic for Army transformation since 

its origins in the 1990s. Most Allies operated within a framework of American 

communications and logistical support when deployed, and the United States 

in turn was dependent on them to offset its paucity of manpower. In Iraq only 

the British were remotely on par with the technologies Army transformation 

involved, yet American Patriot missiles nevertheless shot down one of their 

planes in the first few days of Iraqi Freedom. British vehicles were fitted out 

with appliqué BFT in numbers sufficient to render their units intervisible with 

American counterparts, and by and large fit in capably with American communications. Other Coalition forces were not so well tucked in, and problems were 

hugely aggravated when the Coalition integrated Iraqi units into the effort. Part 
439

The “Transformed” Army in Action

of the problem stemmed from initial differences of opinion concerning the roles 

Iraqi soldiers were to play. Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provisional 

Authority, mindful of Saddam Hussein’s excesses, envisioned a small Iraqi 

Army oriented on the borders with a minimal domestic role. American commanders, facing an emerging insurgency, wanted Iraqi auxiliaries that would 

become partners as the struggle progressed. Two militaries began to emerge: 

the CPA endorsed Iraqi Armed Forces (IAF) and a paramilitary Iraqi Civil 

Defense Corps (ICDC) parented locally throughout Iraq by various divisions 

and brigades. On 22 April 2004, the initiatives came together when the ICDC 

became the Iraqi National Guard (ING) of the IAF, and the CPA accepted a 

substantial and growing domestic role for the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Army and 

the Iraqi National Guard both originated as garrison-based troops with little 

sustainment capability and virtually no deployable combat service support. They 

imposed a considerable burden on the Coalition CSS structure that was mitigated over time by a heavy reliance upon contracting. Contracting could in fact 

deal with such basics as food, water, fuel, transportation, and the maintenance 

of venerable equipment—whether of U.S. or Soviet design. It could not bring 

the Iraqis within the envelope of Army transformation, however. Shortages of 

equipment, maintenance issues, and concerns for security compromises argued 

against plugging the Iraqis directly into blue force tracking, networked battlefield surveillance, or the entirety of the American digital command and control 

system. GPS and unencrypted radios could be and were issued to Iraqis with 

no particular degradation or risk. By and large Iraqi units operated within an 

American framework during this period, and American headquarters or liaiAmerican and Iraqi soldiers on a combined operation
Kevlar Legions

440

son teams gave them indirect access to precision-guided munitions, networked 

battlefield surveillance, GPS-facilitated friendly situation awareness, and other 

military technologies of the Information Age. For some time the United States 

had struggled with multitiered national technical capabilities within NATO. In 

Iraq it encountered an extreme case. The good news was that Iraqi companies 

and battalions performed increasingly capably within the American framework. 

The bad news was that they could only go so far with respect to modernization 

or scale of operations without a change of approach.36

Afghanistan and Iraq imposed, as we have seen, huge maintenance 

demands upon the Army’s legacy vehicles and aircraft. Mileages and hours 

greatly exceeded customary usages. Such mundane items as road wheels and 

track shoes were consumed at unprecedented rates, creating major shortages 

and multiplying production several-fold. In a matter of months thousands 

of HMMWVs went from being unarmored to up-armored, in most cases by 

virtue of factory-made or locally improvised add-on kits. This added hundreds of pounds to the weight borne by suspension systems, with predictable maintenance implications. Beyond this wear on traditional fleets, there 

were maintenance demands associated with the new equipment brought in 

by Army transformation. Stryker vehicles and the potpourri of MRAPs 

introduced later were new, but traditional enough in their design to maintain 

routinely. More challenging were the tens of thousands of appliqué electronic components that increasingly digitized the force. Appliqué BFT kits, 

as we have seen, ballooned from 1,200 to 55,000 in a few years’ time. Each 

consisted of multiple components, as did the hardware that enabled FBCB2. 

The most critical or sensitive items of this equipment operated in temperature-controlled environments, but most were routinely exposed to horrific 

heat, suffocating dust, and the tender mercies of inexperienced operators. At 

the unit level the technical sophistication to repair these electronic components did not exist, and units were only marginally capable of debugging the 

software as well. Dependence on embedded contractors was nearly absolute 

for all but the simplest of interventions. The simplest intervention of all, 

of course, was simply to remove a “black box” and replace it with another, 

evacuating the original back through channels until it ultimately reached a 

facility capable of repairing it—generally a depot or factory. This reinforced 

a maintenance trend that had been under way for some time, rendering the 

maintenance of Army vehicles ever more akin to the maintenance of hightechnology aircraft—and requiring a corresponding depth of spares. It also 

further added to the significance of lines of communication, as the bits and 

pieces that made for a transformed Army moved along them. Fortuitously 

electronic components could be and often were moved by helicopter. Other 

similarly proliferating high technologies in Afghanistan and Iraq included 

UAVs, robotics, and the various jammers and sensors introduced to combat 

IEDs. Each of these required substantial debugging, and each came with 

a maintenance trail highly oriented toward evacuating constituent components. Much the same could be said of upgrades to such common missiles 

as the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), Patriots, and Hellfire, and 

of advances in avionics as well. Of the technologies associated with Army 
441

The “Transformed” Army in Action

transformation, only JDAMs and other joint munitions did not imply a 

substantial overhaul to the Army maintenance system. These were maintained by others in bases far away, but with modular replacement systems 

and industrial links analogous to those in the direction Army maintenance 

was traveling.37

Perhaps the most demanding sustainment challenge the Army faced, manpower, was not particularly related to Army transformation per se—although 

it was tightly interwoven with the smaller and leaner Army some futurists 

believed transformation made possible. Previous chapters have described an 

ever-increasing reliance on the reserve component and steady improvements in 

family programs and other initiatives to encourage soldiers to reenlist. Chapter 

6 described the move to a brigade-based Army, military occupational specialty 

(MOS) reallocations, and increases in manpower ceilings in the context of 

rotational demands for Afghanistan and Iraq. By the end of 2005 the Army 

sustained 600,000 soldiers on active duty, of whom 72,000 were National 

Guard and 41,000 Army Reserve. The active component exceeded an enlistment goal of 71,000 in 2003 and 77,500 in 2004, but fell 6,400 short of its goal 

of 80,000 in 2005. Fortuitously, active-component retention remained robust. 

The average reenlistment bonus more than doubled from under $5,000 to 

over $10,000, and the numbers of bonus recipients soared from 7,500 in 2003 

through 18,000 in 2004 to 44,500 in 2005. The reserve component struggled 

with enlistments and retention through FY2005, generally retaining strength 

overall but often “under glide path” for recruitment. Some called for a return 

to the draft, although this was never seriously considered. Somewhat after the 

period of this study a souring national economy and declining casualties in 

Iraq contributed to bringing recruitment back on track, as did extraordinary 

efforts by the Army Recruiting Command and those assisting it. Until that 

time, manpower was tight and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan depended on 

repeated rotations from a military manpower base that was perilously thin.38

Conclusions

Army planners often speak of an “80 percent solution,” an unperfected 

plan that nevertheless accomplishes the mission with available time and 

resources. This seems a useful metaphor for the performance of the transforming Army in Afghanistan and Iraq. Prior to 2003 Army transformers had 

ample time but little money. After 2003 they had ample money but little time. 

The Army nevertheless showed well in diverse and challenging circumstances. 

Certainly it demonstrated its newly expeditionary posture by deploying more 

quickly and capably than ever before. When faced with opponents in conventional array, it dominated them by margins even greater than those of Desert 

Storm. Relative casualties were more akin to nineteenth-century colonial wars 

than to twentieth-century conventional battles. The pivot from conventional 

to unconventional operations proved problematic, largely because of a dearth 

of manpower to cope with recognizably manpower-intense requirements. 

Reasonably served by doctrine and experience, the Army did demonstrate 

qualitative shortcomings with respect to human intelligence, linguists, the con-
Kevlar Legions

442

figuration of its command and control, rules of engagement, detainee operations, and its overall approach to the locals outside of self-defined constraints 

for a “proper” military sphere. Much of the technology associated with Army 

transformation did prove useful in unconventional operations. Cases in point 

included satellite-facilitated command and control, blue force tracking and 

related measures for friendly situation awareness, unmanned aerial vehicles 

and other enhancements to battlefield surveillance, GPS navigation, digital 

information management and reach back, ubiquitous precision-guided munitions, and an increased capacity for joint operations. Digitally facilitated “just 

in time” logistics worked out imperfectly; perilous ground communications 

dictated a partial return to “just in case” stockpiling. Vehicle fleets did have to 

be reconfigured for stability operations, providing alternate sets that emphasized up-armored wheels over armored tracks. Contractors proved indispensable in the light of technical sophistication and manpower constraints, 

but relative divisions of labor had to be reworked in the light of battlefield 

experience. Maintenance did continue to move in the direction of “black box” 

exchange more so than onsite repair. The greatest tactical challenge of the 

war, improvised explosive devices, emerged to inflict over half the American 

casualties in both wars. In the face of this threat the Army devised countermeasures that kept casualties down despite an order of magnitude increase in 

attacks. This capacity to muster tactics, technique, and technology to minimize 

casualties was a hallmark of both campaigns. Absent Army transformation, 

casualties undoubtedly would have been multiplied many-fold to achieve the 

same results. Russian experiences in Afghanistan and Chechnya suggest a 

probable fate had the Army failed to advance. Transformation enabled the 

United States to dispatch conventional foes handily and to sustain prolonged 

major counterinsurgencies with relatively few casualties and a small volunteer 

Army.
Notes

1 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington DC: 

Department of Defense, 1992), 371–449; Gregory Fontenot, E. J. Degen, and David 

Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004), 29–84.

2 Operation Iraqi Freedom–“It Was a Prepositioned War” (Fort Belvoir, Virginia: 

Historical Office, U.S. Army Material Command, 2003); E-mail, Major William 

Story (CFLCC/3d Army Forward Historian) to Mr. William W. Epley, CMH, 22 

July 2003, sub: CSI Paper, Historians Files, CMH; General Paul J. Kern, 

“Technology, Transformation and War–A Kaleidoscope of Force,” Army 2003–2004 

Green Book, October 2003, 63–70; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 7 

January 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

14 July 2003, Historians Files, CMH; MFR of Telephone Conversation, Brigadier 

General (USA, Ret.) John S. Brown with General (USA, Ret.) Gordon R. Sullivan, 

091300 August 2008, Historians Files, CMH; “Speed Bumps: 82nd Airborne’s Shaky 

Line in the Sand,” Army Times, 21 October 1991; Birger Bergesen and John 

McDonald, Assessment of Contingency and Expeditionary Force Capabilities 

(McClean, Virginia: Science Applications International Corporation, 1994); After 

Action Review, 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Intrinsic Action 95–3, 17 October 

1995, Historians Files, CMH.

3

 U.S. Transportation Command: A Short History (Scott Air Force Base, Illinois: 

U.S. Transportation Command Office of Public Affairs, 2005); Lieutenant General 

Johnnie E. Wilson, “Power Projection Logistics Now . . . and in the 21st Century,” 

Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 1994, 137–43; Army Regulation 210–20, Master 

Planning for Army Installations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1992); 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003, Historians Files, CMH; 

Lessons Learned: Executive Summary (Fort Hood, Texas: 4th Infantry Division, 17 

June 2004); Rick Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat (New 

York: Henry Holt, 2004), 11–42; Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to 

Congress, 371–449; Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, 29–84; General Tommy Franks, 

American Soldier (New York: Reagan Books, 2004), 321–431.

4 Betty R. Kennedy, Globemaster III: Acquiring the C–17 (Scott Air Force Base, 

Illinois: Air Mobility Command Office of History, 2004); Fontenot, Degan, and 

Tohn, 222–30; Lieutenant Colonel Thomas W. Collins, “173rd Airborne Brigade in 

Iraq,” Army (June 2003): 42–46; E-mail, Major William Story (CFLCC/3d Army 

Forward Historian) to Mr. William W. Epley, CMH, 22 July 2003, sub: CSI Paper; 

Kern, 63–70; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 7 January 2003; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Franks, American Soldier, 432–

536; Atkinson, 11–42; Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, 

371–449. 

5 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, 371–449; Fontenot, 

Degen, and Tohn, 94, 178, 219–20, 441–95; General Dennis J. Reimer, “The Strike 

Force Operational Concept Paper,” in Soldiers Are Our Credentials: The Collected 

Papers and Selected Works of the Thirty-third Chief of Staff, United States Army 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2000), 254–63; History—2nd Stryker 

Cavalry Regiment (Heidelberg, Germany: Seventh Army Public Affairs, 2009); 82d 

Airborne Division, Campaign Plan Overview Briefing (Fort Bragg, North Carolina: 

82d Airborne Division, 2004); Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 1 April 

2002, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 21 July 
Kevlar Legions

444

2003, Historians Files, CMH; Major Wayne Eyre, “Heavy-Light Integration: Why 

Reinvent the Wheel?” Army Doctrine and Training Bulletin, May 1999.

6

 Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, 73–84, 408–11; Franks, American Soldier, 321–432; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 25 November 2002, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Memo, Department 

of the Army, 9 July 2003, sub: Acting CSA Visit to Kuwait and Iraq, 4–6 July 2003, 

Historians Files, CMH; Kim Burger, “Iraq Campaign Raises New Logistics 

Concerns,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, 10 September 2003; Gordon Trowbridge, “Too 

Many Troops,” Army Times, 1 May 2006, 8–9; Briefing, Multi-National Corps–Iraq, 

“What Did We Learn That Illuminated the Future of This Fight?” 3 April 2005, 

Historians Files, CMH; Office Call notes, Project and Contracting Office, Iraq, with 

Chief of Military History, 7 July 2005, Historians Files, CMH; Michelle Tan, “No 

Easy Exit,” Army Times, 24 August 2009; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

21 July 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 12 January 2004, Historians 

Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 26 April 2004, Historians 

Files, CMH.

7

 Franks, American Soldier, 238–320; Charles H. Briscoe, Richard L. Kiper, James 

A. Schroder, and Kalev I. Sepp, Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations 

Forces in Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, 2003), 

33–92; Richard Stewart, The United States Army in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring 

Freedom, October 2001–March 2002 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2003), 3–30; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 4 February 2002, Historians 

Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 25 November 2002; Sean D. 

Naylor, “Alliances Bolster Taliban Strength,” Army Times, 5 January 2010, 16; 

Ruhullah Khapalwak and David Rohde, “A Look at America’s New Hope: The 

Afghan Tribes,” New York Times, 31 January 2010; Master Sergeant Sue Harper and 

Staff Sergeant Gregory Jones, “Supporting Afghanistan from Europe: U.S. Army 

Europe’s 21st Theater Support Command,” Army (August 2002): 41–43; E-mail, 

Brigadier General Mark E. O’Neill to Major General Franklin Hagenbeck, 6 January 

2003, sub: Anaconda Lessons Learned–NDU Paper, Historians Files, CMH. 

8

 CMH Information Paper, Robert S. Rush, The Individual Replacement System: 

Good, Bad or Indifferent? Army Replacement Policy, Cold War and Before (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, n.d.); General Peter Schoomaker and General Richard 

Cody, Transcript of Media Roundtable Conducted at the Association of the United 

States Army Annual Meeting, 26 October 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 8 September 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 20 October 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting 

notes, 26 April 2004; Dr. Donald P. Wright and Colonel Timothy R. Reese, On Point II: 

Transition to the New Campaign, The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom,

May 2003–January 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 

2008), 322–58, 489–525; Peter R. Mansoor, Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s 

War in Iraq (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2008), 242–340.

9

 Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, 1–26, 383–426; Robert H. Scales Jr., Certain Victory: 

The United States Army in the Gulf War (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Staff, 

United States Army, 1993); Thomas K. Adams, The Army After Next: The First 

Postindustrial Army (Stanford; California University Press, 2008); James R. Blaker, 

Transforming Military Force: The Legacy of Arthur Cebrowski and Network Centric 

Warfare (London: Praeger Security International, 2007); Eric L. Haney with Brian 

Thomsen, Beyond Shock and Awe: Warfare in the 21st Century (New York: Berkley 

Publishing Group, 2006); D. Robert Worley, Shaping Military Force: Revolution or 
445

The “Transformed” Army in Action

Relevance in a Post–Cold War World (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security 

International, 2006); Franks, American Soldier, 321–81.

10 Fontenot, Degen and Tohn, 1–26, 42–44, 174–76, 209–21, 258–82, 340–47, 383–

426; Franks, American Soldier, 321–431; Atkinson, 103–296; David Zucchino, Thunder 

Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 

2004), 1–66; Scales, 213–320, 370–76; Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to 

Congress, 543–76; Todd S. Brown, Battleground Iraq: Journal of a Company 

Commander (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 231–36; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 5 August 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 11 August 2003, Historians Files, CMH. 

11 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, 543–76, 806–07; 

Scales, 151, 186, 203, 254, 305, 362; Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, 85–382; Atkinson, 

103–298; Zuccino, 1–308; John S. Brown, “The Battle for Norfolk,” in Frederick W. 

Kagan and Chris Kubik, Leaders in War: West Point Remembers the 1991 Gulf War 

(New York: Frank Cass, 2005), 11–24; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 5 

August 2002; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003; E-mail, Major William Story 

(CFLCC/3d Army Forward Historian) to Mr. William W. Epley, CMH, 22 July 2003, 

sub: CSI Paper; TRADOC Case Study for the Chief of Staff, Attack on the 507th 

Maintenance Company, 23 March 2003, An Nasiriyah, Iraq, Historians Files, CMH.

12 Lieutenant Otto J. Guenther, “Blue Force Tracking,” Army (April 2004): 13–15; 

Zucchino, 67–69; Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 329–82; General Fred Franks Jr. with 

Tom Clancy, Into the Storm: A Study in Command (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 

1997), 433–87; Franks, American Soldier, 515–19; Briefing, Department of the Army, 

“Friendly Fire Determination,” 9 August 1991, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Army 

Combat Identification Task Force, “Combat Identification,” 22 November 1991, 

Historians Files, CMH; Sean D. Naylor, “Friendly Fire: The Reckoning,” Army Times, 

21 August 1991; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003.

13 Scales, 370–73; H. R. McMaster, Crack in the Foundation: Defense 

Transformation and the Underlying Assumption of Dominant Knowledge in Future 

War, Historians Files, CMH; Eric T. Olson, “Attacking the Republican Guard,” in 

Kagan and Kubik, 25–43; H. R. McMaster, “The Battle of 73 Easting,” in Kagan and 

Kubik, 105–17; Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 241–328; Franks, American Soldier, 501–

30; Ltr, James A. Thomson, CEO, RAND, to Donald A. Rumsfeld, SecDef, 7 

February 2005, sub: Iraq: Translating Lessons Into Future Defense Policies, Historians 

Files, CMH; Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

“The Lessons of the Iraq War: Summary Briefing,” 15 July 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Major David J. Rude and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel E. Williams, “The 

Warfighter Mindset and the War in Iraq,” Army (July 2003): 35–40; Zucchino, 1–66, 

86–308; Atkinson, 103–277; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003.

14 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, 657–808; Scales, 364–

73; Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 195–208, 258–81, 329–82, 400–406, 414–26; Army 

Senior Leader Update, “Precision Strike: A Unique American Military Advantage . . . 

but with Limitations,” 14 August 2001, Historians Files, CMH; Peter Grier, “The 

JDAM Revolution,” Air Force On Line: The Journal of the Air Force Association, 

September 2006; Ltr, James A. Thomson, CEO, RAND, to Donald A. Rumsfeld, 

SecDef, 7 February 2005, sub: Iraq: Translating Lessons Into Future Defense Policies; 

Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Lessons 
Kevlar Legions

446

of the Iraq War: Summary Briefing,” 15 July 2003; Franks, American Soldier, 382–477; 

Dennis Steele, “Baghdad: The Crossroads,” Army (June 2003): 30–34; E-mail, Major 

William Story (CFLCC/3d Army Forward Historian) to Mr. William W. Epley, CMH, 

22 July 2003, sub: CSI Paper; Zucchino, 102–16, 261–308; Atkinson, 103–24, 215–56; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 26 August 2002, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 11 August 2003.

15 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 15–22, 329–82, 383–424; Field Manual 100–5,

Operations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1986); Conduct of the Persian 

Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, 88–179, 234–40, 589–98; Scales, 157–212, 355–84; 

Franks, American Soldier, 432–536; Atkinson, 103–296; Zucchino, 261–308; Anthony 

H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Lessons of the 

Iraq War: Summary Briefing,” 15 July 2003; General Crosbie E. Saint, Brigadier 

General E. J. Sinclair, and Major Jonathan O. Gass, “Army Aviation: On the Move,” 

Army (July 2004): 33–37; Lieutenant General Larry J. Dodgen, “Integrating Global 

Missile Defense,” Army (December 2005): 29–32; Major General Robert P. Lennox, 

“Air and Missile Defense Goes Global,” Army (December 2006): 36–44; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

11 August 2003. 

16 John J. McGrath, The Brigade: A History (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat 

Studies Institute Press, 2004), 77–140; Scales, 364–73; Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 

195–208, 258–81, 329–82, 400–406, 414–26; Ltr, James A. Thomson, CEO, RAND, to 

Donald A. Rumsfeld, SecDef, 7 February 2005, sub: Iraq: Translating Lessons Into 

Future Defense Policies; Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, “The Lessons of the Iraq War: Summary Briefing,” 15 July 2003; 

Franks, American Soldier, 382–477; Steele, “Baghdad: The Crossroads,” 30–34; E-mail, 

Major William Story (CFLCC/3d Army Forward Historian) to Mr. William W. Epley, 

CMH, 22 July 2003, sub: CSI Paper; Zucchino, 102–16, 261–308; Atkinson, 103–24, 

215–56; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003; “Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Chronology,” 

Army (May 2003): 47–52.

17 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, 2–16, 292–97, 313–17, 

333–46; Scales, 65–69, 355–84; Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 99–102, 329–82, 427–36; 

Franks, American Soldier, 321–536.

18 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (London: 

Penguin Books, 2006), 85–148; Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White 

House History, 2006–2008 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 1–41; Douglas 

Macgregor, “Fire the Generals!” Defense and the National Interest, 30 April 2007; Greg 

Jaffe, “Critiques of Iraq War Reveal Rifts Among Army Officers,” Wall Street Journal,

29 June 2007, 1, 11; Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, “A Failure in Generalship,” 

Armed Forces Journal (May 2007); Eric Herring and Glen Rangwala, Iraq in 

Fragments: The Occupation and Its Legacy (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University 

Press, 2006), 161–209; William Terdoslavich, “From Shock and Awe to Aw Shucks,” in 

Haney with Thomsen, Beyond Shock and Awe, 11–63; Andrew J. Bacevich, The New 

American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2005), 175–204; Wright and Reese, 49–85.

19 Wright and Reese, 49–85; Jeffrey J. Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final Years, 

1965–1973 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1988); James L. Collins Jr., 

The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 1975); Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined 

Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (New York: Harcourt 
447

The “Transformed” Army in Action

Brace, 1999); Field Manual 100–20, Counterinsurgency (Washington DC: Department 

of the Army, 1964); Field Manual 31–23, Stability Operations (Washington DC; 

Department of the Army, 1967); Field Manual 31–73, Advisor Handbook for Stability 

Operations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1967); Field Manual 100–5,

Operations, 1962; The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987; Scales, 

355–90; Richard W. Stewart, The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2003); Field Manual 100–5, Operations, 

1993; Field Manual 100–23, Peace Operations (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 1994). 

20 Wright and Reese, 55–65; Lawrence A. Yates, The US Military’s Experience in 

Stability Operations, 1789–2005 (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute 

Press, 2006); Gordon W. Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention: Assisting the Iraqi Kurds in 

Operation Provide Comfort, 1991 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2004); Walter E. Kretchik, Robert F. Baumann, and John T. Fishel, Invasion, 

Intervention, “Intervasion”: A Concise History of the U.S. Army in Operation Uphold 

Democracy (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 1998); 

Stewart, The United States Army in Somalia; R. Cody Phillips, Bosnia-Herzegovina: 

The U.S. Army’s Role in Peace Enforcement Operations, 1995–2004 (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 2005); R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The 

U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2006); Stewart, The 

United States Army in Afghanistan; Responses to E-mail, John S. Brown, 21 May 2002, 

sub: SA Directed “Think Piece,” Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, Center for Army 

Lessons Learned for the Chief of Military History, 20 January 2000, Historians Files, 

CMH. 

21 John J. McGrath, Boots on the Ground: Troop Density in Contingency Operations 

(Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006); Andrew J. Birtle, 

U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1860–1941 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998); Richard Clutterbuck, The Long, 

Long War: Counterinsurgency in Malaya and Vietnam (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 

1966); Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences from Malaya 

and Vietnam (London: Chatto and Windus, 1972); Kretchik, Baumann, and Fishel; 

Stewart, The United States Army in Somalia; Briefing, Center of Military History, 

“Numerical Considerations in Army Occupations Past,” Historians Files, CMH; 

Wright and Reese, 25–129; Kevin C. M. Benson, “PH IV CFLCC Stability Operations 

Planning,” in Brian M. De Toy, ed., Turning Victory into Success: Military Operations 

After the Campaign (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004); 

Brown, Battleground Iraq. 22 Wright and Reese, 191–272; Field Manual 34–1, Intelligence and Electronic 

Warfare (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1994); Fontenot, Degan, and 

Tohn, 195–208, 258–81, 329–82, 400–406, 414–26; Army Senior Leader Update, 

“Precision Strike: A Unique American Military Advantage . . . but with Limitations,” 

14 August 2001; Ltr, James A. Thomson, CEO, RAND, to Donald A. Rumsfeld, 

SecDef, 7 February 2005, sub: Iraq: Translating Lessons Into Future Defense Policies; 

Anthony H. Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, “The Lessons 

of the Iraq War: Summary Briefing,” 15 July 2003; Franks, American Soldier, 382–477; 

Field Manual 34–52, Intelligence Interrogation (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 1992); Atkinson, 159–256; Brown, Battleground Iraq, 74–219; Mansoor, 33–85, 

114–24; Briefing, Multi-National Corps–Iraq, “What Did We Learn That Illuminated 

the Future of This Fight?” 3 April 2005; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

26 August 2002; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003.
Kevlar Legions

448

23 Fontenot, Degan, and Tohn, 29–84; Franks, American Soldier, 382–477; Wright and 

Reese, 139–83; Briefing, V Corps, “V Corps and CJTF-7 Transitions and Challenges,” 30 

September 2004, Historians Files, CMH; E-mail, Major William Story, CFLCC/3d 

Army Forward Historian to Mr. William W. Epley, CMH, 22 July 2003, sub: CSI Paper; 

Atlantic Resolve CINC’s Exercise Book, 31 March 1995, Historians Files, CMH; 

Briefing, General Wesley K. Clark to the NATO Norfolk Conference, “The 21st Century 

Force: Defining Requirements,” 12 November 1998, Historians Files, CMH; Brown, 

Battleground Iraq, 74–219; Mansoor, 1–154; William M. Donnelly, Transforming an 

Army at War: Designing the Modular Force 1991–2005 (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2007); Army Comprehensive Guide to Modularity (Fort Monroe, 

Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 2004); Telephone Conversation 

notes, Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. Brown with General (USA, Ret.) Peter J. 

Schoomaker, 111330 May 2009, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 26 August 2002; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 

2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003. 

24 Wright and Reese, 139–83, 241–67, 427–77; Benson; Major General Antonio M. 

Taguba, Article 15–6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade (The Taguba 

Report), 15 February 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Lieutenant General Anthony R. 

Jones, AR 15–6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence 

Brigade, 24 August 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Brown, Battleground Iraq, 74–219; 

John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from 

Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), ix–xvi; Clarke; 

Collins, The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950–1972; 

Briefing, Multi-National Corps–Iraq, “What Did We Learn That Illuminated the 

Future of This Fight,” 4 March 2005; Briefing, Major General Peter Chiarelli, 

Commanding General, 1st Cavalry Division, to the Joint Staff, “Task Force Baghdad: 

Operation Iraqi Freedom II,” 16 March 2005, Historians Files, CMH. 

25 Briscoe, Kiper, Schroder, and Sepp; Stewart, The United States Army in 

Afghanistan; Doug Stanton, Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. 

Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan (New York: Scribner, 2009); Anthony H. 

Cordesman, The Lessons of Afghanistan: War Fighting, Intelligence and Force 

Transformation (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

2002); Sean D. Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation 

ANACONDA (New York: Penguin Group [USA], 2005); “U.S. Military Command in 

Afghanistan Is Redesigned,” Stars and Stripes, 9 March 2007; Chris Stump, “New 

CJTF Commander Promises Continued Success,” American Forces Press Service, 28 

March 2005; Douglas DeMaio, “10th Mountain Division Takes Afghanistan Task 

Force Command,” American Forces Press Service, 21 February 2006; CMH 

Information Paper, 30 November 2001, sub: Military Commissions, Historians Files, 

CMH; Dexter Filkins, “4 Afghan Soldiers are Killed by a Mistaken Airstrike,” New 

York Times, 31 January 2010, 11; Sean D. Naylor, “McChrystal Pushes to Grow 

Afghan Army,” Army Times, 12 October 2009, 26. 

26 Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (New York: Penguin 

Books, 1999); United States Forces, Somalia, After Action Report and Historical 

Overview: The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2003); Mark J. Reardon and Jeffery A. Charlston, From Transition to 

Combat: The Initial Stryker Brigade Deployment to Iraq (Washington DC: Center of 

Military History, 2006); Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 February 

2004, Historians Files, CMH. 

27 Wright and Reese, 313–59; Brown, Battleground Iraq, 237–65; Mark J. Reardon, 

“Hell in a Very Small Marketplace: Abu Ghraib—April 2004,” in John T. Hoffman, 
449

The “Transformed” Army in Action

gen. ed., Tip of the Spear: U.S. Army Small-Unit Action in Iraq, 2004–2007 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2009), 13–36; Zucchino, 1–17, 67–85; 

Kris Osborn, “Abrams to Get High-Tech Upgrade,” Army Times, 6 July 2009, 25; 

Matthew Cox, “Flexibility Key to Future GCVs,” Army Times, 21 September 2009, 22; 

Dennis Steele, “The Siege of Raider Base,” Army (August 2004): 26–34; Lieutenant 

General Richard Leahy, “The Medium-Weight Force: Lessons Learned and Future 

Contributions to Coalition Operations,” Army (September 2004): 49–56; Mansoor, 

277–333; Dick Camp, Operation Phantom Fury: The Assault and Capture of Fallujah, 

Iraq (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Zenith Press, 2009), 123–295; Briefing, Multi-National 

Corps–Iraq, “What Did We Learn That Illuminated the Future of This Fight?” 3 April 

2005; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 February 2004. 

28 Wright and Reese, 221–32, 313–59; Zuccino, 102–32; Mansoor, 85–154, 304–33; 

Camp, 97–107; 157–78; Mark D. Sherry, “Fighting in the Valley of Peace: Najaf—

August 2004,” in Hoffman, Tip of the Spear, 65–84; Christopher Drew, “For U.S., 

Drones Are Weapons of Choice,” New York Times, 17 March 2009, 1; Briefing, Major 

General Peter Chiarelli, Commanding General, 1st Cavalry Division, to the Joint Staff, 

“Task Force Baghdad: Operation Iraqi Freedom II,” 16 March 2005; Dennis Steele, 

“UAV: The Buddy Overhead,” Army (May 2005): 44–45; Dennis Steele, “Commanders 

in Iraq: Some Lessons Learned,” Army (June 2005): 24–30; Kris Osborn and Michael 

Hoffman, “Services Hammer Out Rules for UAV Operations,” Army Times, 22 

September 2008, 18; P. W. Singer, “Humans and Hardware,” Army Times, 23 March 

2009, 38; Dennis Steele, “Growing Pains: Getting UAV Aviation off the Ground in 

Iraq,” Army (January 2006): 20–26; Kris Osborn and William Matthews, “Scans of 

Eyes, Fingerprints Help Army Find Insurgents,” AUSA Special Report, Historians 

Files, CMH; Colonel Robert P. Walters Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel E. Soler, 

“The Battlefield Surveillance Brigade in Iraq,” Army (December 2009): 40–45; Colonel 

Christopher B. Carlile, “Leading the Army’s UAS Synchronization Efforts,” Army

(January 2010): 35–38; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 15 October 2001, 

Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 5 September 

2002, Historians Files, CMH; Army Vice Chief of Staff Council Meeting notes, 21 

March 2002, Historians Files, CMH.

29 Wright and Reese, 196–201, 313–59; Zucchino, 67–85; Mansoor, 1–32, 114–54; 

Brown, Battleground Iraq, 237–71; Kelly Kennedy, They Fought for Each Other: The 

Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hits Unit in Iraq (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 

2010); Charles W. Sasser, None Left Behind: The 10th Mountain Division and the 

Triangle of Death (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009); Camp, 11–30; Richard E. 

Killblane, “Good Friday Ambush: Abu Ghraib—9 April 2004, in Hoffman, Tip of the 

Spear, 37–64; Scott Pace et al., The Global Positioning System: Assessing National 

Policies (Santa Monica, California: RAND, 2004); Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 20 May 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 11 August 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 August 

2003.

30 Franks, American Soldier, 432–564; Zucchino, 67–85, 117–32; Atkinson, 61–78, 277–

303; Wright and Reese, 139–83, 322–59; Brown, Battleground Iraq, 231–36; Mansoor, 114–

54, 277–333; Camp, 63–78, 123–40; Kennedy, They Fought for Each Other, 66–72, 162–67, 

180–88; Sasser, 15–30, 281–95; Dennis Steele, “Back with the 3-15,” Army (September 

2005): 38–41; Reardon, “Hell in a Very Small Marketplace: Abu Ghraib—April 2004,” 

13–36; Sherry, 65–84; Dennis Steele, “The New Battle for Baghdad: Persistent Presence,” 

Army (March 2007): 26–56; Scott R. Gourley, “JTRS JPEO Update: From On the Rocks 

to On the Air,” Army (May 2008): 65–70; “Air-Ground Integration in Company 
Kevlar Legions

450

Command; Building Combat Ready Teams,” Army (April 2006): 71–74; Captain 

Christopher L. Budihas, “So, You’re Going to Iraq,” Army (January 2005): 24–31; Briefing, 

Multi-National Corps–Iraq, “What Did We Learn That Illuminated the Future of This 

Fight?” 3 April 2005; Briefing, Major General Peter Chiarelli to the Joint Staff, “Task 

Force Baghdad: Operation Iraqi Freedom II,” 16 March 2005; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 11 August 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 23 February 2004. 

31 Wright and Reese, 273–307, 519–22; Field Manual 100–6, Information Operations 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1996); Field Manual 3–13, Information 

Operations: Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (Washington DC: Department of the 

Army, 2003); Briefing, Major General Peter Chiarelli to the Joint Staff, “Task Force 

Baghdad: Operation Iraqi Freedom II,” 16 March 2005; Mansoor, 33–84, 334–57; 

Camp, 123–53, 289–95; Dennis Steele, “Helping Iraq: A Block-by-Block Battle,” Army

(September 2004): 42–44; Thomas E. Ricks, “A Light in Ramadi,” Army (March 2009): 

54–68; Martin G. Clemis, “The Cultural Turn in U.S. Counterinsurgency Operations,” 

Army History (Winter 2010): 21–27; James R. Crider, “Operation Close Encounters: 

One Unit’s Strategy to Build an Alliance with the Iraqi People,” Army History (Fall 

2009): 22–36; Captain Bill Putnam, “Winning Iraqi Hearts and Minds,” Army (January 

2005): 7–8; Stanley T. Grip Jr., “The Avghani Model, Army (May 2008): 47–54; 

Lieutenant Colonel Craig T. Trebilcock, “The Modern Seven Pillars of Iraq,” Army

(February 2007): 25–33; Captain Aaron T. Render, “Saba Al Bor—A City Reborn,” 

Army (January 2007): 34–36; Colonel Norvell B. De Atkine, “Islam, Islamism and 

Terrorism,” Army (January 2006): 55–62; Memo for Army Staff, 9 July 2003, sub: 

Acting CSA Visit to Kuwait and Iraq, 4–6 July 2003; Briefing, Multi-National Corps–

Iraq, “What Did We Learn That Illuminated the Future of This Fight?” 3 April 2005; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 2 January 2002, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 April 2003, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 December 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH. 

32 Memo, Chief of the Histories Division for Chief of Military History, sub: Recent 

Landmine Treaty Developments, 14 April 2000, Historians Files, CMH; Fontenot, 

Degan, and Tohn, 85–140; Wright and Reese, 313–17; Brown, Battleground Iraq, 

74–159, 255–60; Sasser, 163–86; Kennedy, They Fought for Each Other, 42–65, 142–61; 

William H. McMichael, “Unsatisfactory Planning: Swift March to Baghdad Left 

Ammo Depots Unguarded, GAO Finds,” Army Times, 2 April 2007, 16; Joint IED 

Defeat Organization, “IED Trends,” as reproduced in Army Times, 27 October 2008; 

John T. Bennett, “Turning Point in Fight Against IEDs,” Army Times, 1 October 2007, 

34–35; Blake Morrison and Peter Eisler, “IED Numbers Drop as Troops Attack 

Bombs’ Source,” Army Times, 26 November, 2007, 10; “The Struggle for Iraq,” New 

York Times, 18 March 2007, 12; William H. McMichael, “Head of Anti-IED Agency 

Says It’s Been Effective,” Army Times, 8 May 2007, 16; Greg Grant, “An Evolving 

Enemy,” Army Times, 6 March 2006, 14; Greg Grant, “Savvy Attacks: Three Years of 

Fighting Have Produced Capable and Sophisticated Insurgents,” Army Times, 13 

February 2006, 14–15; Nina Kamp, Michael O’Hanlon, and Amy Unikewicz, “The 

State of Iraq: An Update,” New York Times, 19 March 2006, 12; Clay Wilson, 

Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq: Effects and Countermeasures (Washington DC: 

Congressional Research Service, 2005); Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 2 

January 2002; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 April 2003; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 23 December 2003. 

33 Wright and Reese, 489–558; Field Manual 4–0, Combat Service Support 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2003); Operation Iraqi Freedom: “It Was 
451

The “Transformed” Army in Action

a Prepositioned War”; Burger; Matthew Cox, “Iraq War Takes Toll on Readiness,” 

Army Times, 27 March, 2006, 17; Harper and Jones, 41–42; Scott R. Gourley, “The 

Arsenal of the Ground War,” Army (May 2003): 37–44; Sergeant Frank N. Pellegrini, 

“Supporting Gulf War 2.0,” Army (September 2003): 20–26; Dennis Steele, “Carrying 

the Load in Iraq,” Army (July 2004): 14–22; Lieutenant Colonel Peter B. Everitt, “The 

Mobility Officer—Master of Deployment,” Army (April 2005): 33–36; Charles W. Fick 

Jr., “Army Field Support Brigades Move Out in Europe and Iraq,” Army (December 

2005): 23–28; Matthew Cox, “What They Need, When They Need It,” Army Times, 22 

October 2006, 16; “Army Prepositioned Stocks: Indispensable to America’s Forceprojection Capability,” Association of the United States Army, December 2008; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 2 September 2002, Historians Files, CMH; 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 11 August 2003.

34 Wright and Reese, 489–527; Eric Peltz et al., Sustainment of Army Forces in 

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Major Findings and Recommendations (Santa Monica, 

California: RAND, 2005); Actions Needed to Improve the Availability of Critical Items 

During Current and Future Operations (Washington DC: Government Accountability 

Office, 2005); William H. McMichael, Gina Cavallaro, and Rick Maze, “Help Is on the 

Way,” Army Times, 3 August 2009, 16–17; William McMichael, “Paying for More 

Troops,” Army Times, 31 August 2009, 8; Gordon Lubold, “QDR Provides Blueprint 

for a Long War,” Army Times, 13 February 2006, 9; The Rebalance of the Army 

National Guard, Association of the United States Army, January 2008; Michelle Tan, 

“Guard, Reserve Chiefs Laud Components’ Evolution, Army Times, 15 October 2007, 

28–29; Lizette Alvarez, “G.I. Jane Stealthily Breaks the Combat Barrier,” New York 

Times, 16 August 2009, 1, 20–21; “Dwell Time Key to Resolving Out-of-Balance 

Issues, Casey Says,” AUSA News, September 2009, 2; Ltr, John G. Montgomery, 

Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, to General Eric K. Shinseki, 5 August 

1999, Historians Files, CMH; Gina Cavallaro, “Casey’s To-do-now List,” Army Times, 

18 January 2010, 20–21; Michelle Tan, “OEF, OIF Deployments Total Nearly 3 

Million,” Army Times, 4 May 2009, 26–27; Dennis Steele, “Gen. Petraeus’ Second Iraq 

Report,” Army (June 2008): 40–51; Gourley, “The Arsenal of the Ground War,” 36–44; 

Dennis Steele, “Third Army: Directing Traffic at the Crossroads of Two Wars,” Army

(February 2010): 18–35; “Army Prepositioned Stocks: Indispensable to America’s 

Global Force-Projection Capability,” Association of the United States Army, 

December 2008; Matthew Cox, “Iraq War Takes Toll on Readiness,” Army Times, 27 

March 2006; Tan, “No Easy Exit,” 18–19; Major General David E. Kratzer, “The Role 

of the 377th Theater Support Command,” Army Reserve Magazine (Spring 2003): 

28–35; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 2 January 2002; Army General 

Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 

11 August 2003.

35 Wright and Reese, 489–527; Field Manual 100–10–2, Contracting Support on the 

Battlefield (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1999); Charles Devarics, 

Contractors Fill Key Role Through the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (Fort 

Belvoir, Virginia: US Army Material Command, 2005); Christopher Drew, “High 

Costs Weigh on Troop Debate for Afghan War,” New York Times, 15 November 2009, 

1, 14; Cox, “Iraq War Takes Toll on Readiness”; Killblane, 37–64; Bill Loper, 

“Majority of Funding Targets Iraq, Afghanistan Operations,” AUSA News, August 

2009, 22; “DOD Makes Changes to Civilian Job Management,” AUSA News, 

November 2009, 15–17; Scott R. Gourley, “Equipping Today’s Warfighters,” Army 

(July 2003): 49–52; Steele, “Carrying the Load in Iraq,” 14–22; Fick, 23–28; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 2 January 2002; Army General Staff Council 
Kevlar Legions

452

Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 August 

2003; E-mail, General (USA, Ret.) Dennis Reimer to Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) 

John S. Brown, 10 October 2009, sub: Follow-Up, Historians Files, CMH; Briefing, 

Multi-National Corps–Iraq, “What Did We Learn That Illuminated the Future of 

This Fight?” 3 April 2005.

36 Briefing, General Wesley K. Clark to the NATO Norfolk Conference, “The 21st 

Century Force: Defining Requirements,” 12 November 1998; Jeffrey Simon, “NATO’s 

Membership Action Plan and Defense Planning: Credibility at Stake,” Problems of 

Post-Communism, May/June 2001, 28–36; Wright and Reese, 427–77; Aaron D. Boal, 

“On the Ground: Training Indigenous Forces in Iraq,” in De Toy, Turning Victory into 

Success; Rebuilding Iraq: Preliminary Observations on the Challenges in Transferring 

Security Responsibilities to Iraqi Military and Police (Washington DC: US Government 

Accountability Office, 2005); Briefing, Multi-National Corps–Iraq, “What Did We 

Learn That Illuminated the Future of This Fight?” 3 April 2005; Briefing, Major 

General Peter Chiarelli to the Joint Staff, “Task Force Baghdad: Operation Iraqi 

Freedom II,” 16 March 2005; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 21 July 

2003. 

37 Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, 383–426; Wright and Reese, 489–527; Briefing, 

Multi-National Corps–Iraq, “What Did We Learn That Illuminated the Future of 

This Fight?” 3 April 2005; Scott R. Gourley, “Tomorrow’s Technology,” Army

(February 2010): 38–48; Fick, 23–32; Gourley, “The Arsenal of the Ground War,” 

36–44; Matthew Cox, “Flexibility Is Key to Future of GCVs,” AUSA Special Report, 

12 October 2009, 16–17; Staff Sergeant Tanya L. Trebes, “Agile Robotics,” Army

(March 2010): 99–104; Matthew Cox, “Small Unmanned Vehicles Provide New 

Capabilities,” AUSA Special Report, 12 October 2009, 3; Army General Staff Council 

Meeting notes, 2 January 2002; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 

2003; Army General Staff Council meeting notes, 11 August 2003; E-mail, General 

(USA, Ret.) Dennis Reimer to Brigadier General (USA, Ret.) John S. Brown, 10 

October 2009, sub: Follow-Up.

38 Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 27 May 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes,16 June 2003, Historians Files, 

CMH; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 July 2003; General Peter 

Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, Transcript of Media Roundtable Conducted 

at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 26 

October 2004; Gordon Lubold, “Troop-level Forecast May Test Patience,” Army 

Times, 23 September 2006; Michelle Tan, “DoD: Army Exceeds October Recruiting 

Goals,” Army Times, 24 November 2008; Erik Holmes et al., “Retention Pressures,” 

Army Times, 8 December 2008, 15; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 11 

August 2003; Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, 19 April 2004, Historians 

Files, CMH.
Chapter 10

Concluding Thoughts

From 1989 through 2005 the United States Army attempted a centrally 

directed and institutionally driven revolution in military affairs relevant 

to ground warfare that exploited Information Age technology, adapted to 

post–Cold War strategic circumstances, and integrated into parallel Joint 

and Department of Defense efforts. This transformation, if successful, would 

be comparable to the shifts to an Army for Empire around the turn of the 

last century, to the mobilization-based Army that fought World Wars I and 

II, to the atomic-armed early Cold War Army, and to the all-volunteer late 

Cold War Army. These earlier transformations adapted to radically altered 

strategic, socioeconomic, and technological circumstances of their times. 

Beginning in 1989 the end of the Cold War again radically altered the strategic 

circumstances, the arrival of the Internet and the Information Age altered the 

socioeconomic, and such products of the microchip as advanced sensors and 

precision-guided munitions changed the technological circumstances in which 

the Army found itself. Earlier transformations were not about technology 

alone; they were also about doctrine, organization, training, administrative 

practices, and service culture. This was true from 1989 through 2005 as well. 

Earlier transformations provoked debate, engaged multiple actors, drew mixed 

responses from Congress and others, and extended across indistinct temporal 

boundaries. This also was true from 1989 through 2005. Let us review the 

results of Army transformation from 1989 through 2005. Then let us flag the 

compromises and trade-offs accepted during its course. Finally, let us comment on what this study may contribute to further finding our way ahead. 

Army Transformation, 1989–2005

Chief of Staff General Carl E. Vuono and others recognized that the Army 

was approaching a historical watershed at least as early as 1989. Under Vuono’s 

auspices the study projects QUICKSILVER, VANGUARD, and ANTAEUS 

anticipated an end to the Cold War and massive funding cuts while attempting to fathom a way ahead for the Army. Departing from several generations 

of historical precedent, Vuono and his successors committed to maintain a 

small Army at the highest possible levels of readiness and modernization, 

rather than a larger Army as a skeletal framework for national mobilization. 

Several presidential administrations and Offices of the Secretary of Defense 
Kevlar Legions

454

and Joint Staffs were of a like mind, leaving how much to cut the Army rather 

than whether to cut it the subject of continuing debate. Just Cause, Desert 

Storm, and deployments to Northern Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia, Haiti, the 

Balkans, Afghanistan, and elsewhere provided recurrent reminders that the 

end of the Cold War brought no end to violence and strife. The redesigned 

Army had to be expeditionary to remain relevant, dispatching potent forces 

on short notice throughout the globe. Conversely, the United States seemed 

unlikely to fight a peer or near-peer adversary any time soon, so large forward 

deployed forces and mammoth mobilization plans were out. Chief of Staff 

General Gordon R. Sullivan and his colleagues recognized the revolutionary implications of the Information Age. Modernization and technological 

dominance had long been tenets of the American way of war. Now these took 

a new twist as Sullivan and his successors added digitization to downsizing 

and deployability as Army imperatives. Army exploitation of digitization and 

other advanced technologies hopefully would lead to a revolution in military 

affairs, although Army spokespeople were generally too cautious to embrace 

that term. Such revolutionary transformation would require radical changes 

to doctrine, organization, training, administration, and service culture. These 

occurred, albeit not as thoroughly as some proposed. There were more cooks 

than ever stirring the broth. These proved to be both a blessing and a curse.1

With respect to Information Age technologies, the Army exploited along 

three overlapping avenues. First, digital networks hugely improved communications and the shared battlefield picture. At higher levels and in administrative circumstances the Secure Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET), 

the Nonsecure Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET), and general 

use of the Internet evolved to revolutionize military communications just as 

the Internet was revolutionizing commercial communications. Digital burst 

transmission, expanding bandwidth, improved durability, microwave, and satellite access drove such communications down to the tactical level, steadily 

expanding the network as they did so. This, in turn, enabled global positioning 

systems (GPSs) and blue force tracking to reliably answer such perennial questions as “where am I?” or “where are my buddies?” Logistical variants revolutionized capabilities to track and manage cargo, inventories, and supplies. 

Second, networked communications and global positioning systems improved 

the effectiveness of precision-guided munitions by at least an order of magnitude. Most notably the GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) 

provided a cheap all-weather precision-guided munition. Because it was cheap 

it became ubiquitous, with profound effects for the conduct of operations on 

the ground. Third, networked communications wedded to advanced sensors 

appreciably improved capabilities to detect the enemy and to do something 

about them. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were most notable in this 

regard but hardly alone in the arrays of sensors and cameras that populated 

the battlefield and the space above it. What was known of the enemy could 

be immediately shared with all on the same network. Beyond digitization and 

other fruits of the microchip, technology advanced in other venues as well. 

Cases in point included body armor, prostheses, and fuel standardization. 

Technological exploitation was not just serendipitous. From Sullivan on, Army 
455

Concluding Thoughts

leaders experimented in networked battle labs and other simulations to identify 

promising technical mixes. Advanced Warfighting Experiment (AWE) took 

this experimentation into the “dirt” of major training centers and other field 

circumstances. Spiral development batted equipment back and forth between 

producer and consumer as evolution and scale of application progressed. 

Three generations of exploratory or experimental enterprises came and went: 

the modern Louisiana Maneuvers, the Experimental Force (EXFOR), and 

Strike Force. Each moved technologies along within its purview. Blue force 

tracking, for one example, went from a potpourri of black boxes on a tank 

platoon to a combat theater-wide network of intervisible transponders in less 

than a decade. Within the limits of its funding, the Army pushed itself into the 

Information Age.2

Changing technologies drove changes in doctrine. The facts that small 

contingents in motion instantly and almost invariably knew where they were 

and where their buddies were had large implications. During Desert Storm

and earlier periods more than two-thirds of the transmissions on an average 

command net were given over to trying to determine such basic information, 

leaving less than a third for actual command and control. Given the ranges 

and lethality of modern weapons, this led to heavily choreographed and 

tightly controlled tactics. Late Cold War general defense plan (GDP) “Battle 

Books” were awash with detailed control measures: terrain-referenced unit 

boundaries, phase lines every couple of kilometers, battle positions thickly 

arrayed like paisley, measles sheets of coordination points and target reference points, and so on. The best Battle Books even had photographs, so crews 

would know exactly where their vehicles were supposed to go during each 

phase of the action. The featureless desert of Desert Storm worked hardships on such battlefield controls, prompting the ponderous movement of 

vast armored phalanxes as fratricide-wary commanders struggled to stay on 

line. Even so, incidental fratricides constituted a major fraction of the casualties. A dozen years later, GDP Battle Books seemed a quaint anachronism. 

Control measures, such as they were, arrived electronically and were more 

likely to appear on a computer screen than a map overlay. Many abandoned 

paper maps altogether in favor of “zoom in, zoom out” electronic versions. 

Friendly units were represented by electronic icons, and the momentary 

absence of such an icon prompted a flurry of radio transmissions to find 

out why it was not visible. Command net proportions reversed themselves, 

with more than two-thirds of transmissions committed to fighting the battle 

and less than a third to ascertaining the status of units. Tactics loosened 

up, and armored columns sped merrily along on separate axes confident 

that they knew where their buddies were and that long-range gunnery and 

precision-guided munitions could pick off enemies that exposed themselves 

in intervening ground. Commanders worried less about keeping under the 

protective umbrella of artillery. Field artillery, particularly Multiple Launch 

Rocket Systems (MLRSs), had improved considerably in range and accuracy. More important, relatively cheap GPS-guided JDAMs provided ready 

access to potent air-delivered precision-guided munitions. Gone were the 

days when an incoming friendly air strike prompted concerns for fratricide 
Kevlar Legions

456

approaching paranoia, and prudent ground commanders dumped air strikes 

on the far side of the fire support coordination line (FSCL). Companies and 

even platoons routinely integrated JDAM strikes into maneuver schemes as 

they picked their way through contested ground. During Desert Storm few 

battalions actually called in an air strike, and only the highly trained Air 

Force Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) could be relied upon to bring one 

in. In Afghanistan and Iraq Army lieutenants and sergeants routinely had 

JDAMs at their beck and call. As discussed in Chapter 7, Colonel Douglas 

Macgregor titled his influential book Breaking the Phalanx. The phalanx 

the United States Army actually broke up was its own. With respect to 

operations other than war, Army doctrine gave respectable and increasing 

attention to the lower end of the combat spectrum throughout the period. 

This attention increased considerably after 9-11. There was not a similar 

resurgence of doctrinal interest in the upper level of the combat spectrum, 

nuclear warfare.3

Nimbler doctrine requires nimbler organization. In Desert Storm the 

newly greater lethality and larger geographical footprint of brigade combat 

teams suggested that they were assuming the operational role formerly held 

by divisions. Force XXI was by and large technical appliqué on existing divisional structure, but Chief of Staff General Dennis J. Reimer’s Strike Force 

was a definitive attempt at brigade-based organization. It improved upon the 

brigade-size “Division Forwards,” National Guard Enhanced Brigades, and 

separate brigades of the time as a harbinger of things to come. Chief of Staff 

General Eric K. Shinseki’s Interim Brigade Combat Team, later the Stryker 

Brigade Combat Team, furthered the trend. Shinseki’s Legacy Force was the 

appliqué Force XXI, his Interim Force was brigade-based, and his Objective 

Force was to draw heavily upon the lessons learned from his Interim Force. 

Chief of Staff General Peter L. Schoomaker finalized commitment to a brigade-based Army and phased the transition division by division into deployments overseas. Schoomaker agreed with operational doctrine advocating a 

shift to brigades, but he also had the responsibility to efficiently rotate units 

in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Interchangeable modular brigades were 

more practical than divisions in this regard and soon were organized as heavy, 

infantry, aviation, fires, maneuver enhancement, sustainment and reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition brigades. Headquarters above brigade were divested of their huge inventories of combat support and combat 

service support units. Most of these were invested into the modular brigades, 

with a few kept as specialized separates at the theater level. Corps and divisions became slimmed down headquarters focused exclusively on command 

and control. These were to be constructed into command hierarchies as circumstances required. Modular brigades plugged Lego-like into this command 

structure, building up the forces necessary without much overhead above 

the brigade. The reserve component was subsumed into this structure, both 

in theory and in fact. Recurrent rotations into Afghanistan and Iraq would 

have been impossible to sustain without converting reserve-component units 

into full operational participants, albeit cycling on different timelines. This 

was in part because of the sheer numbers required and in part because a large 
457

Concluding Thoughts

disproportion of combat support and combat service support specialties—

the “enablers”—resided in the reserve component. Even tapping the reserve 

component was insufficient to address some shortages, so significant numbers 

of Air Defense, Field Artillery, and Engineer billets were reprogrammed into 

combat service support. Further shortages were offset by contracting, as a 

shadow workforce of civilian contractors became essential to Army operations and force structure both at home and overseas. In Afghanistan and Iraq 

they offset huge requirements for force structure, as discussed in Chapter 9.4

Doctrine and organization are of little use unless the latter trains in accordance with the former. During the early 1990s Army leadership was preoccupied with maintaining quality control amid plummeting budgets and radical 

downsizing. The mantra was “no more Task Force Smiths” and the imperative 

was to hold the fewer remaining units to standards at least as high as those 

of their late Cold War counterparts. This in itself was ambitious, given funding, but Army trainers soon introduced other imperatives as well. The entire 

Army began training toward expeditionary capabilities that had once been 

those of light forces alone. Rotations to the National Training Center and 

elsewhere prominently featured reception, staging, onward movement, and 

integration (RSOI). Heavy units flew in, drew pre-positioned equipment, settled into it, and raced to the field. What they did in training was replicated in 

operations, as deployments increased and much of the Army rotated through 

“commuter containment” in Kuwait and elsewhere. Heavy divisions got into 

the habit of designating Division-Ready Brigades, held to peaks of readiness 

and deployability. Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises (EDREs) and 

A Stryker Brigade Combat Team in action
Kevlar Legions

458

Sea Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises (SEDREs) tested the ability 

of units to react on short notice. After the invasion of Iraq huge rotational 

demands solidified the Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) model as 

brigade-based cyclical training, premised upon routine deployments. Units 

trained, deployed, returned to home station, stood down, reorganized, and 

then started the cycle all over again. Units trained more broadly on the combat 

spectrum than had been the case for most during the Cold War. Major training 

exercises almost invariably featured vignettes drawn from low-intensity conflict. This emphasis meshed with ever-increasing deployments: Northern Iraq, 

Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, and elsewhere. Training packages to specifically 

prepare units for these deployments emerged, deepening an appreciation for 

operations other than war. Prior to Desert Storm the Army made considerable use of electronic simulators, the unit conduct-of-fire trainer (UCOFT) 

being a case in point. With the digital revolution these were networked in ever 

larger arrays, overcoming geographical separation as desired. This allowed 

widely dispersed individuals, units, and headquarters to participate in training 

and mission rehearsal exercises. Electronic “reach back” prolonged and deepened the experience. Constituent elements of the training could be recovered 

for review—as could virtually any policy, guidance, doctrine, tactic, technique, 

or procedure. Frequent use of digital training aids enhanced familiarity with 

digital equipment as it became ever more pervasive throughout the Army. 

In 1991 “digital warriors” were anomalous; in 2005 they were ubiquitous. 

Distributed training proved particularly useful in the reserve component, to 

whom geographical dispersion had always been a considerable impediment. 

This improvement was timely, as the National Guard and Army Reserve were 

increasingly drawn into overseas deployments. They sought to achieve training 

standards comparable to those of their active-component counterparts before 

deploying. With Iraqi Freedom active- and reserve-component units became 

virtually interchangeable, although coursing through Army Force Generation 

cycles on different timelines.5

Administrative and logistical policies changed with doctrine, organization, 

and training. Most notably, the ARFORGEN cycles of the brigade-based 

Army depended on unit manning to succeed. Since the early twentieth century 

the Army had relied on individual replacements to keep up unit strengths overseas. Now combat-ready units replaced each other, often flying in and drawing 

equipment that was already in theater. Provided casualties remained low, the 

advantages to training, cohesion, and esprit seemed obvious. Bringing units up 

to strength for ARFORGEN cycles and providing overstrengths for deployments forced a new paradigm on personnel managers. The easy fungibility 

of individual replacement was considerably circumscribed, and timing with 

respect to schools and other professional self-development opportunities had 

to be reworked to accommodate ARFORGEN. Accelerating deployments, 

particularly after Iraqi Freedom began, put major installations into nearly 

continuous preparations for overseas movement (POM). Almost every month 

some unit was shipping out and another returning, prompting the full slate 

of medical examinations, inoculations, legal counsel, property disposition, 

powers of attorney, equipment and barracks turn-ins, ammunition and equip-
459

Concluding Thoughts

ment draws, and all else that went with the process. “Stop loss,” the retention 

policy that kept soldiers in deploying units beyond their anticipated separation 

dates, became contentious as it became commonplace; it no longer seemed 

reserved for the “Big One.” Installations came into their own as power projection platforms, shouldering aside tactical units that had once considered themselves capable of managing such processes. Since divisions and corps were now 

just headquarters and themselves deploying, this installation assumption of 

mission was timely. Once deployed, units remained connected to the installation that had launched them via split-basing. Advanced digital communications, reliable air transportation, and a determination not to create unnecessary logistical “iron mountains” overseas came together to migrate some 

support from overseas theaters back to American installations. Calculable 

supplies such as food, water, and fuel came from the theater. Less predictable 

items, such as repair parts, featured limited inventories forward and “just in 

time” policies for replenishment. Information Age accounting, tracking, and 

requisition allowed far greater efficiency, although the vagaries of combat did 

force some stockpiling as a precaution. Most of these “just in time” assets 

came from the industrial base, but unique items and items requiring the intervention of depots could track back to the installation. The briefer the unit 

deployment, the more likely this was. People—emergency leaves, exceptional 

individual replacements, rest and recreation beneficiaries, short-term medical issues, and others with stateside business—trekked back and forth from 

“down range” to the installation in a volume unprecedented in earlier wars. 

The reserve component was drawn into this vortex and experienced administrative adjustments even greater than those of the active component. A driving 

force was the near certainty of deployment, sooner or later. This forced out 

those who could not afford to or who were not inclined to deploy, for a period 

perturbing both recruitment and retention. The reserve component became an 

operational force. Inefficiencies that had accumulated over time with respect 

to pay, promotion, professional development, personnel administration, and 

training were necessarily addressed. What had worked when soldiers showed 

up one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer did not work when 

they routinely deployed for as much as a year into a combat theater.6

Army culture evolved with the shift to an expeditionary Army, most notably 

with respect to family life. “Homesteading” in the vicinity of the new mega-posts 

became a new norm. Soldiers rotated through repeated tours overseas while their 

families remained established at a single location. Stability encouraged spousal 

employment and careers, home ownership, and the education of children within 

a single school system. Post exchanges, commissaries, child care centers, and 

other on-post facilities remained attractive, but families increasingly availed themselves of these while nevertheless investing their housing allowances in homes of 

their own off post. TRICARE evolved as practical medical care for geographically dispersed families increasingly unable to rely on military medical facilities. 

Downsizing and deployments hit the uniformed medical establishment as severely 

as the rest of the Army, so this transition to subsidized civilian medicine proved 

timely. TRICARE proved even more useful to retirees and reserve-component 

families, given their greater geographical dispersal. The Army actively courted 
Kevlar Legions

460

families, both because it seemed the right thing to do and because of favorable 

effects on recruitment and retention. Family Readiness Groups and constellations of related programs deepened communications and cooperation between 

families and their units and across the families themselves. These tapped into a 

growing array of helpful agencies ranging from such venerable stalwarts as Army 

Emergency Relief and Army Community Service through such relatively recent 

initiatives as the Exceptional Family Member Program or the Family Advocacy 

Program. Family Readiness Groups, increasingly drawn to digital communications, extended their reach to include parents and significant others as well as Army 

families per se. Administrative and emotional support for and by families became 

increasingly important as deployments escalated during the 1990s and escalated 

again in significance with Iraqi Freedom. Permanent change of station (PCS), 

long the largest disruption in Army family life, paled in comparison to the rigors 

of recurrent deployments to a combat theater. Ulysses recycled overseas again and 

again, forcing whole new rhythms of personal and family adjustment—especially 

if illness or injury were involved. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) became a 

widely recognized household term, as most deployed soldiers were exposed to its 

potential causes at one time or another. Watchful spouses and families endured 

processes of decompression along with soldiers and their units. This is not to mention the emotional pressure already on the spouses and families themselves, or the 

exceptional circumstances of sole parents and those who filled in for them. No 

deployed soldier was immune from danger. Iraq and Afghanistan were wars withAn Army family reunites.
461

Concluding Thoughts

out boundaries, forcing constant vigilance in 360-degree fights. This prompted 

Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker to ardently pursue a Warrior Ethos, 

psychologically committing every soldier to the demands of combat regardless 

of specialty or component. This further committed the reserve component and 

its families to the rigors endured by the active component. In some ways the lot 

of reserve-component families was harder, given their geographical dispersal and 

relative isolation from military facilities. Fortuitously Information Age technology 

provided partial redress, connecting them with their soldier when he or she was 

deployed, and with supportive groups and agencies whether he or she was or not.7

Like earlier Army transformations, the period from 1989 through 2005 witnessed changes to doctrine, organization, training, administration, and service 

culture as well as to technology. It also, as had been the case in earlier transformations, provoked considerable debate among diverse actors. More players than ever before were now involved. During World War II Chief of Staff 

General George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson by and 

large designed transformation within the Army Staff and then made overtures 

for funding directly to Congress. The early Cold War added the Department 

of Defense to shepherd service rivalries. The late Cold War diffused deliberations within the Army from the Army Staff per se. The Training and Doctrine 

Command (TRADOC) and Army Materiel Command (AMC) assumed 

important high-level institutional responsibilities toward the future—beyond 

the casual contributions individual officers in such assignments had always 

made. Army transformation 1989–2005 occurred in the wake of the GoldwaterNichols Act, which again changed the matrix of players. Goldwater-Nichols 

tightened the grip of the Department of Defense and the Joint Staff upon 

the services and increased the autonomy of theater commanders within their 

spheres. It also pushed Secretarial political appointees deeper into the bowels 

of the service staffs than they had been before. A former model, not always 

adhered to, had been that the Army Staff conducted deliberations internally 

without much thought to politics, and then the Secretary of the Army and 

his administration colleagues edited and ran political interference. Now deliberations with respect to most administrative and logistical topics involved the 

Secretariat—and their attendant political considerations—from the outset. 

This facilitated like-mindedness between services and the administration but 

also added more cooks, considerations, and complexity. Goldwater-Nichols 

sanctioned a “purple” mind-set as a tonic to service parochialism. Much of its 

approach was within service educational systems, but the greater grip of the 

administration, Department of Defense, and Joint Staff did stifle externally 

visible debate. Services were supposed to get along harmoniously rather than 

bickering, as had been their tradition. Some believed debate was still worth 

having, however, and retirees found ways to move it along. The Association of 

the United States Army (AUSA) provides an example of a retiree-facilitated 

service voice. Its annual conventions morphed from being primarily social to 

providing active forums engaging key players in the Army, industry, and politics. Specialized conventions multiplied in numbers and focal areas. AUSA’s 

Institute of Land Warfare (ILW) emerged as a clearinghouse for Army-oriented 

publications and arguments. General Omar N. Bradley once famously advised 
Kevlar Legions

462

cutting out the tongues of retired generals. By 2005 this approach would have 

been too late, as AUSA and others sustained prominent “green” voices in an 

increasingly “purple” world. Contractors figured prominently among AUSA 

members and attendees, and they grew in importance in service deliberations 

as well. Downsizing gutted much of the Army’s capability to anticipate the 

future. Civilian (heavily populated by military retirees) “think tanks” expanded 

or proliferated to fill the void. Vital Quadrennial Defense Review instruments 

such as Dynamic Commitment or the Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study 

(DAWMS) were heavily dependent on contracted support. Contractors often 

provided continuity that used to be the province of Department of the Army 

civilians, thus giving them a voice of their own. Congressional staffers could 

hire the same contractors the Army did, in effect watering down the uniqueness of service advice and counsel. This progressed amid a culture-wide diffusion of knowledge management. Internet Web sites proliferated wildly, and 

niche “bloggers” came into their own as alternatives to more heavily edited 

traditional media. Debate, information, and disinformation coursed along the 

Internet with more diversity than ever before.8

 

Given the discussion to this point, did the Army achieve a centrally 

directed and institutionally driven revolution in military affairs relevant to 

ground warfare that exploited Information Age technology, adapted to 

post–Cold War strategic circumstances, and integrated into parallel Joint and 

Department of Defense efforts? With respect to centrally directed and institutionally driven, Chiefs of Staff by and large retained control of transformation initiatives and had the support of the Army Secretariat while doing so. 

Recognizing the inevitability of Department of Defense, Joint, and congressional initiatives, they sought to stay out in front of them with studies and proposals of their own. Vuono’s QUICKSILVER and ANTAEUS were cases in 

point, working out sensible programs for downsizing before being forced into 

them. When Quadrennial Defense Reviews emerged as congressionally sanctioned mechanisms for change, Chiefs of Staff invested heavily to ensure that 

Army positions were persuasively made. Platoons of contemplative colonels, 

iron majors, war gamers, analysts, computer geeks, and “PowerPoint rangers” 

mustered to engage in twenty-first-century decision making. Even beyond the 

bonds of collegiality, Chiefs actively courted Army near-peers to ensure that 

such consequential fiefdoms as TRADOC and AMC remained synchronized 

with the Army Staff. Four-star conferences were meaty, restricted with respect 

to observers, and freewheeling. Sullivan went so far as to entrust transformation to a four-star General Officer Steering Committee (GOSC), and all went 

to considerable lengths to sustain cohesion at the highest level. Chairmen and 

vice chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were trying to accomplish much 

the same thing across the services, again relying on recurrent targeted meetings to do so. Army senior leaders worked within this larger system. For most 

of this period Army aspirations and Defense aspirations for transformation 

were broadly compatible, and relationships collegial. When a contrarian rant 

from a service “attack dog” seemed desirable, someone associated with AUSA 

could provide it unbidden. The principal leverage enjoyed by the Chiefs of 

Staff with respect to transformation was influence over the Army budget. Far 
463

Concluding Thoughts

from simply going to Congress and asking for money, the uniformed Army 

Staff worked first with the Army Secretariat and major commands to establish requirements, and then the Department of the Army competed within the 

Department of Defense before Congress was approached—officially. Politically 

appointed assistant secretaries of the Army for Research, Development, and 

Acquisition; Manpower and Reserve Affairs; Installations, Logistics, and 

Environment; Financial Management; and Civil Works occupied critical positions with respect to funding or overseeing aspects of Army transformation. 

Generally these paired off with uniformed Army Staff three-star generals 

within their purview, and the two formed relationships and worked together—

often colocating and sharing office staff and other assets. The Director of the 

Army Staff emerged as a key player, coordinating the activities and agendas 

of Army Staff and Secretariat alike. Army Staff and Army Secretariat served 

alongside each other in Quadrennial Defense Review panels, promoting likemindedness as approaches to the future developed. Although they had considerably different backgrounds and somewhat different priorities, the Army 

Staff and Army Secretariat grew through the changes of Goldwater-Nichols 

to work well together. Their relationships were particularly responsive to good 

relationships between the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Army. Each 

Chief worked hard to keep these agreeable and to keep Secretaries enthusiastic about next steps with respect to transformation as they emerged. To operationalize transformation initiatives, Chiefs shifted to exceptional organization 

to get across what they perceived as major hurdles, and they then reverted back 

to traditional organization when the time seemed right. Sullivan’s modern 

Louisiana Maneuvers (LAM) and LAM Task Force and Shinseki’s Objective 

Force Task Force were examples of exceptional organization. Reimer migrated 

the LAM Task Force back to traditional TRADOC and Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Operations and Plans (DCSOPS) responsibilities once Force XXI 

was well under way, and Schoomaker similarly redefined the Objective Force 

as the Future Force under TRADOC auspices while he was focusing on the 

wars at hand. Beyond immediate decision makers, transformation needed 

the knowledgeable support of hundreds of thousands inside the Army and 

out if it were to succeed. To this purpose, Chiefs employed mechanisms for 

“strategic communications” to reach out to the Army rank and file and the 

interested public. The interested public, of course, could influence Congress. 

The most formal and evolved strategic communications programs were those 

of General Shinseki in pursuit of Army Transformation, but all Chiefs and 

Secretaries understood the imperative to achieve consensus and mobilize support. Given all the players and influences, at least one light-hearted observer 

likened a Chief of Staff pursuing transformation to a surfer. With skill and 

daring the Chief could substantially determine the Army’s course, but he did 

have to ride the wave—and if he momentarily lost balance he would plunge 

into the unfeeling mercies of crosscurrents and contrary forces.9

If we accept that Army transformation in 1989–2005 was by and large centrally directed and institutionally driven, was it a revolution in military affairs? 

Was there anything exponential about it? One can reasonably argue that small 

digitized contingents were ten times less likely to become lost or disoriented, ten 
Kevlar Legions

464

times more likely to know where their comrades were, and ten times less likely 

to commit fratricide than their counterparts of a dozen years before. Although 

data are not rigorous, comparisons of Desert Storm with Iraqi Freedom support such conclusions. In both cases the soldiers who fought were superb human 

material at a peak of training and professionalism, so differences in performance 

seem best explained by transformative efforts in the interim. Certainly precisionguided munitions were ten times less expensive in 2003 than they had been a 

decade before, and the tendency to use them correspondingly an order of magnitude higher. This integrated airpower into ground maneuver far more tightly, 

and radically increased the numbers of troops on the ground sufficiently equipped 

and confident to bring it into play. Less measurable but surely as consequential, 

Information Age–networked communications profoundly altered command and 

control. Satellite-based communications tied units together across vast distances 

and linked them seamlessly to joint counterparts and other agencies. Commanders 

and staffs deliberated face-to-face from different continents. The disjunction of 

time zones largely disappeared with e-mail; one’s message was immediately available to act upon when one’s antipodal counterpart was awake and ready to read it. 

A small point to some, but important to those who work there, headquarters and 

tactical operations centers quieted as phones rang less and mouses clicked more. 

What was known to one could be immediately known to all, a shared battlefield 

picture. Commanders and staffs at all levels spent far less time trying to determine 

the locations and status of their own forces, leaving them far more time to determine what to do with them. Blue force tracking was instrumental in this, as were 

various digital means to manage logistics and administration. The picture of the 

enemy remained understandably less clear than that of friendlies, but advanced 

sensors and UAVs did improve it. Again, what was known by one could be immediately known by all, further enriching the shared battlefield picture. Information 

Operations assumed a digital dimension, and rivals competed for information and 

ideation in cyberspace as surely as they did on the ground. None of the phenomenon described above was complete by 2005, and virtually all soldiers then serving 

recall some incident when transformational technologies failed to work as designed. 

Participants rightly spoke of a “digital divide” separating echelons and portions 

of the Army with the most modern hardware and software from those without it. 

Nevertheless, the revolution was at least far enough along that Generals Tommy 

Franks and Dave McKiernan believed they could stand traditional technique on 

its head and attack with a small force without preliminary bombardment into 

the operational depth of Iraq. From a “rolling start” they accrued reinforcements 

on the move, staying several steps ahead of the enemy because they knew more 

faster—and could act on their knowledge. In Chapter 1 we established that revolutions in military affairs do not occur overnight. Mechanized warfare we characterize as Blitzkrieg, for example, originated in World War I but did not mature until 

the battles for France and Central Europe in 1944–1945. With respect to achieving 

the equivalent in Information Age warfare, the United States Army of 2003–2005 

may still have been to the “left” of General George S. Patton’s Third Army, but it 

was considerably to the “right” of the British at Cambrai.10

Much of Army transformation in 1989–2005 represented adaptation to 

post–Cold War circumstances more so than entry into the Information Age. 
465

Concluding Thoughts

The shift to an expeditionary footing offers the most striking case in point. 

Plus-ups with respect to sealift and airlift featured technological advances in 

the newer ships and planes, but in essence they were about increasing capacity rather than about advancing technology. Pre-positioned stockpiles that 

accumulated around the world consisted almost entirely of vintage equipment. Infrastructure initiatives to improve deployability were old-fashioned 

construction projects mindful of providing additional power sources and 

electrical outlets. Initial attempts to make heavy forces lighter and light forces 

more lethal, such as the Stryker combat vehicle or the Javelin missile, were 

not particularly dependent on Information Age technologies. Digitization 

undoubtedly improved the effectiveness of expeditionary forces, but technology was not the underlying premise of an expeditionary posture. The shift 

to a brigade-based Army was a hybrid, in part inspired by the possibility of 

doing more with less when digitized, but in part inspired by the efficiencies 

of transporting and rotating brigade-sized units without the encumbrance 

of division and corps overheads. The final design of brigade combat teams 

was determined by rotational demands in Iraq at least as much as by potential combat with a near-peer adversary. Unit manning similarly fit best with 

current circumstances: frequent deployments, rigorous tactical demands, and 

few casualties. Post–Cold War circumstances ramped up the Army’s involvement in operations other than war, and then Iraq after May 2003 multiplied 

that involvement tenfold. Low-intensity conflict had long been recognized as 

manpower-intensive and had long been considered unresponsive to technological advance. In Chapter 9 we found the Army’s transformational technologies to be more useful than many suppose in Afghanistan and Iraq, although 

not altogether able to offset the mismatch between national ambitions and 

the manpower deployed to achieve them. One initiative, the campaign against 

improvised explosive devices (IEDs), wedded advancing technology and timeless tactics, techniques, and procedures in innovative ways. This kept casualties stable despite manyfold increases in attacks. Acquiring, processing, and 

corroborating human intelligence was another largely nontechnical venue 

wherein the Army came up short initially and improved itself over time with a 

combination of traditional and innovative means. The post–Cold War world 

was a very different environment for the Army than the one that had gone 

before, and not only because it corresponded in time to the Information Age. 

Army transformation in 1989–2005 took both Information Age technologies 

and post–Cold War circumstances into account.11 

Trade-offs: Transformation and Vulnerability 

An Army’s equipment, force structure, doctrine, and training are never 

perfect. They cannot equivalently meet all conceivable challenges and certainly are not timeless. At best they are appropriate for an Army’s present 

circumstances or for specific operations for which they have been designed. 

Trade-offs inevitably emerge to comport with priorities and resources available. Beginning in the late 1980s, as we have seen, the United States’ Cold War 

Army transformed. It embraced Information Age technologies, adapted to 
Kevlar Legions

466

post–Cold War circumstances, and integrated into parallel Joint and Defense 

transformation efforts. The Cold War Army was built upon paradigms that had 

worked well in the global wars of the twentieth century and that served well 

in facing down a mammoth near-peer adversary. In transforming, the Army 

leadership stepped away from decisions made by earlier leaders in earlier times. 

The leaders shifted from a philosophy of national mobilization to one favoring 

a small but ready standing Army. They abandoned the top, and arguably for 

a period the bottom, of the combat spectrum in favor of conventional forces 

of general utility. The Army became expeditionary. It digitized. It reorganized 

to become brigade-based and unit-manned. These changes served the nation 

well, but they present risks should circumstances change. As is often the case, 

today’s adaptations create potential future vulnerabilities. Let us address these 

potential vulnerabilities in historical context, reviewing the relevant decisions 

made and weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each.

The post–Cold War Army was standing more so than mobilization-based. 

America’s founding fathers were generally adverse to a standing Army, viewing 

one as an invitation to tyranny and oppression. After a few hard knocks they 

accepted the wisdom of such an Army on the frontiers, but they kept it small and 

underresourced. This presented dilemmas with respect to expansion when wars did 

occur. Two schools of thought emerged. One, championed by Secretary of War 

John C. Calhoun, envisioned an “expansible” Army. Existing units were skeletons 

to which further flesh could be added. A peacetime regiment could prepare for 

war by doubling its privates. Such an approach worked fairly well in the Mexican 

War, but it was overwhelmed by the manpower demands of the Civil War. The 

Civil War inspired an alternate vision, that of small cadres of professionals organizing and training divisions of recruits and draftees. In World Wars I and II the 

United States employed a hybrid. Understrength Regular and National Guard 

divisions filled out with volunteers and draftees, then they bore the brunt of early 

combat. Meanwhile, tiny cadres created new divisions out of a mass of draftees. 

Mobilization from the Cold War to World War III would have started from a 

higher plane. The active Army was several times larger than it had ever been in 

peacetime, and mobilization plans were more thoroughly rehearsed. America’s 

allies were similarly committed to programs of mass mobilization supported by 

the conversion of formidable industrial bases. As discussed in Chapter 2, Chief of 

Staff General Carl E. Vuono (1987–1991) initiated studies to anticipate inevitable 

post–Cold War budget cuts and downsizing. QUICKSILVER examined table 

of organization (TOE) and VANGUARD table of distribution and allowances 

(TDA) structure. More secretively ANTAEUS, named after the mythical titan 

who remained powerful as long as he touched the ground, explored inactivations 

in Europe. Army planners boiled the basic force structure options down to two. 

They could sustain an active Army of five corps, twenty divisions, and constituent 

units at reduced strength, training, and readiness, while maintaining a mobilization apparatus sufficient to bring them up to strength in a crisis—and to add new 

divisions in due course. Alternatively, they could slash force structure and maintain fewer units at high levels of manning, training, modernization, and readiness. 

Given lead time, the first option, America’s traditional one, would generate mass 

more efficiently. The second option would provide forces more readily available 
467

Concluding Thoughts

to immediately respond to crises. 

Mindful of the “Hollow Army” 

embarrassment of the 1970s, the newly 

perceived lack of peer competitors, 

the speed with which Just Cause and 

Desert Shield/Desert Storm came 

upon them, and the volatility of the 

post–Cold War world, the Army Staff 

recommended and Vuono accepted 

the second option. The Department 

of Defense, working through studies 

of its own, readily concurred. The 

active Army would be smaller, but 

immediately deployable. Readiness 

trumped mobilization potential. 

When Vuono committed to this 

smaller but still potent active Army, 

the reserve component remained as 

a hedge against unforeseen requirements for expansion. Their eight divisions, twenty-three separate brigades, 

and scores of supporting units, while 

not exactly skeletal, offered an organizational framework as mobilization 

progressed. Beyond these a robust 

training base featuring active and 

reserve assets made raising new divisions en masse feasible. Some thought had 

gone into finding the cadre for such units. In 1987, for example, the Army Retiree 

Recall Program had 232,000 qualified retirees on its books and had issued preexisting orders to 122,000 of them. The working mechanics of the draft, although 

rusty, were still within the memory of administrators capable of implementing 

them. The Center of Military History had a point system for bringing back the 

divisions of World War II and flags on hand to do so. However, accelerating 

deployments during the 1990s, followed by huge rotational demands in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, changed the nature of the increasingly downsized reserve component. Several years into Iraqi Freedom the Chief of the Army Reserve rightly, 

and with some pride, observed that the reserve component was now an indispensable operational force rather than a strategic reserve. Far from waiting around for 

the “Big One,” Reserve and National Guard units routinely deployed in the aftermath of 9-11, albeit with timelines for their force generation cycles different than 

those of the active component. The training base was much smaller than in 1987, 

heavily dependent on contractors in lieu of soldiers, and not particularly focused 

on mass mobilization. The draft was now alien to the Army as an institution, as it 

was to the nation at large. The potential for national mobilization was in eclipse. 

During World War II the United States was a nation of 132 million people that 

put 15 million in uniform. In 2007 it was a nation of 300 million that characterized 

30,000 additional troops as a “surge.”12

The United States mobilized on an 

unprecedented scale for World War II. 
Kevlar Legions

468

The Cold War Army was a nuclear power. Within a few years of the 

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1988, this was no longer 

true. The INF Treaty eliminated nuclear missiles with ranges between 500 and 

5,500 kilometers, such as the Pershing II. A series of presidential nuclear initiatives soon swept away the rest of the Army’s nuclear munitions, such as the 

venerable Lance missile and artillery-fired atomic projectiles. Eliminating the 

Army’s tactical nuclear weapons made sense at the time. Mammoth Warsaw 

Pact forces that had been their original logic were dissipating. The elimination of 

American tactical nuclear weapons accompanied a corresponding elimination 

of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons and thus facilitated further engagement in the 

interests of peace. America’s European allies, striving to put Cold War dangers 

behind them, were eager to be rid of weapons that made them logical nuclear 

targets. Nonnuclear precision-guided munitions (PGMs) seemed capable of 

many roles envisioned for tactical nuclear weapons, offsetting lesser yields with 

greater accuracy. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, emphasizing jointness 

and hostile to redundancy, reinforced a notion that nuclear munitions were best 

left to the Air Force and Navy. The Army would be nimbler and more capable as 

a conventional force if unencumbered by nuclear weapons and their attendant 

logistics and security. Tactical nuclear weapons had driven an Army subculture 

and a way of life. Generations of artillerymen grew up in the zero defects mentality of the nuclear surety program. Excruciating regimes of training, exercise, and 

inspection ensured that soldiers were up to their tasks, nuclear materials were 

never in inappropriate hands, and units had the skills necessary to survive in a 

nuclear environment. With a penumbra effect, nonnuclear units were affected by 

such preparations. Operational readiness tests and field exercises generally featured at least one nuclear scenario. The code word Yorktown, for example, designated a friendly nuclear strike at a specified location and triggered a rehearsed 

sequence of drilled responses. Crews and squads were familiar with dosimeters 

and detection kits, understood downwind diagrams and vehicle protective factors, and rehearsed the various hazards of an imagined nuclear battlefield. In 

1989 the Army had 141 nuclear-weapons-certified units. In 1992 it had one. 

Over time interest and training diminished, and practical knowledge of nuclear 

warfare at the unit level precipitously declined. Few Cold Warriors thought the 

Army would conduct business as usual amid nuclear holocaust. They did expect 

much of it to survive, however, and believed it could continue major operations 

in the face of a few nuclear strikes. The intellectual underpinnings of the Army’s 

approach to nuclear warfare were laid in an era when its adversaries could count 

on delivering relatively few nuclear weapons to their targets. The Army’s intent 

at the time was not to be held hostage to such a threat. By 2005 India, Pakistan, 

North Korea, and Iran seemed destined to join those who could reliably deliver 

at least a few nuclear weapons to their targets. Army units were less well prepared for such attacks than they had been thirty years earlier.13

At about the same time that the Army abandoned the top end of the 

combat spectrum, it became partially divorced from the lower end as well. 

A provision of the Fiscal Year (FY) 1987 National Defense Authorization 

Act split off the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) 

to be a joint command in its own right, with a budget independent of the 
469

Concluding Thoughts

services. Such “special operators” as Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs (seaair-land teams), and aviators in various classified programs migrated there. 

The failed 1980 hostage rescue mission in Iran illustrated the stakes involved 

when services cooperated ineffectively, as did features of the Grenada intervention in 1983. The Special Operations Command became analogous to a 

theater with respect to command and control, and it was relatively autonomous once forces had been committed to it. Unlike a theater command, however, its area of operations was worldwide. The overwhelming majority of 

Special Operations Command manpower came from the Army. The redesign 

effectively removed the Army—and Marines—from primacy with respect 

to envisioning and executing low-intensity conflict. USSOCOM became 

responsible for operations, resource planning, and, increasingly, doctrine 

and training. This evolution was not entirely unwelcome to the rest of the 

Army. Low-intensity conflict hardly fired the service’s imagination, and the 

Army as an institution had happily returned its attention to conventional 

warfare in Europe in the course of its post-Vietnam “Renaissance.” Given 

dramatically dwindling resources following 1989, one less priority was comforting. TRADOC studies opined that low-intensity conflict would involve 

a State Department lead, local allies would provide the vast majority of the 

manpower required, and the small special operations community would be 

generally sufficient to tip the balance in the favor of the United States and its 

allies. If the rest of the Army were to become involved, it would do so with 

conventional forces temporarily departing from core missions. To be fair, 

recurrent Quadrennial Defense Reviews and the Army’s own doctrine and 

transformational efforts did address the full combat spectrum. Insurgencies, 

terrorism, drug violence, refugee crises, natural disasters, and humanitarian 

relief inevitably numbered among the crises with which analysts and scenario writers were to deal. Far more of the “boots on the ground” during 

accelerating deployments to operations other than war during the 1990s 

were from conventional units rather than from special operations forces, a 

fact duly noted by Army planners. The Army never fully embraced such 

missions as core, however. Transformation addressed the full combat spectrum but emphasized the conventional. The most riveting analytic scenarios 

were against regional near-peers, and the transforming Army seemed most 

capable of dealing with these as well. “Phase IV,” the aftermath of major 

operations, achieved little focused attention in either doctrine or operational 

planning. Chapter 9 discusses the Army’s pivot to unconventional operations after 2003. The energy Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus applied 

to deliver and promote effective counterinsurgency doctrine when he was 

Combined Arms Center commander has become the stuff of legend. He 

and his colleagues were not deriving new knowledge, however. They were 

organizing and reemphasizing knowledge and experience that had long been 

within the organization and rendering it accessible to soldiers who needed it 

at the time.14

The post–Cold War Army became expeditionary. America was a world 

power rather than a continental power following the Spanish-American War 

of 1898. From that point it crossed vast oceans to fight its principal adversar-
Kevlar Legions

470

ies. During World Wars I and II the United States Army entered most theaters 

benefiting from a glacis provided by embattled allies already there. During the 

Cold War American soldiers joined their allies on the glacis, forward deploying 

in Europe and Asia. When the Cold War disintegrated these forces seemed out 

of place, other than in Korea. Just Cause and Desert Shield/Desert Storm

underscored the unexpectedness with which contingencies could emerge. Chief 

of Staff General Gordon R. Sullivan (1991–1995) explored Army redesign 

with his modern Louisiana Maneuvers and committed to an expeditionary 

rather than a forward-deployed posture. This decision allowed him to take the 

great majority of the vast manpower (and thus budget) cuts imposed out of 

Europe, collaterally divesting the Army of considerable European infrastructure as well. The “stateside” active Army remained largely intact, albeit often 

reflagged, and turned its attention to how it could best get to the different 

places it might need to go. Solutions were to improve sealift and airlift, to preposition equipment, and to lighten the weight of deploying units. The Ready 

Reserve Fleet went from seventeen roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) ships in 1990 to 

thirty-six in 1996. These included Fast Sealift Ships (FSS) that sped along 

at twenty-seven knots carrying brigade sets of seven hundred vehicles—the 

lift equivalent of 116 World War II Liberty ships. Airlift in general and the 

Civilian Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) in particular showed well during Desert 

Shield/Desert Storm and further improved in its aftermath. The Cold War 

Army had relied upon pre-positioned unit sets of equipment to facilitate the 

Return of Forces to Germany (REFORGER). Now it relocated brigade sets 

to Southwest Asia, Korea, Italy, afloat (in the Indian Ocean), and in reserve 

in the United States. During Desert Shield/Desert Storm 99 percent of the 

troops deployed by air and married up with equipment moving by sea. With 

pre-positioning, much of the equipment might already be there, as was the 

case with the 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized) in Iraqi Freedom. Efforts 

For an expeditionary Army, deployability is essential.
471

Concluding Thoughts

to make deployable units lighter had mixed results, as discussed in Chapter 9. 

The assumption of an expeditionary posture further required upgrading the 

infrastructure of stateside posts to be “power projection platforms,” logistics 

initiatives such as dual basing, improved asset and inventory controls to diminish Cold War “iron mountains,” training programs that routinely deployed 

troops under realistic circumstances, and such support to families as Family 

Readiness Groups and TRICARE. The shift to an expeditionary posture was 

necessary, but not without its consequences. Post–Cold War soldiers deploying 

from the continental United States were almost invariably unfamiliar with the 

lands and cultures into which they deployed. During Just Cause in Panama 

American soldiers had already trained proximate to many of the objectives 

they seized. GDP exercises rendered potential German and Korean Cold War 

battlefields equally familiar. Within platoons a few soldiers or more knew the 

local language. This easy familiarity disappeared with forward deployment.15

The Army became digitized and embraced the Information Age about 

as quickly as it arrived. The Army’s room-sized World War II Electronic 

Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was arguably the world’s first 

computer, and Signal and Artillery branches kept pace as technology progressed from the vacuum tube through the transistor, integrated circuit, and 

microprocessor. Hypertext markup language (HTML), hypertext transfer 

protocol (HTTP), and a practical browser came out separately around 1990. 

Taken together, they were for digital communications what movable type was 

for printing. Networking on a vast scale through multiple sites and addresses 

became practical. Sullivan’s Louisiana Maneuvers featured linked “Battle 

Labs” increasingly dependent on digital technology. Other Army agencies 

followed. Soon “off-the-shelf” digital equipment proliferated throughout the 

Army, and in 1994 the Army Digitization Office stood up with considerable 

powers to discipline the process. Leaders at every level got into the habit of 

tapping away at personal computers, and digital technologies became integral 

to administration, logistics, and communications. The digital revolution Army 

transformers sought most fervently was tactical. Desert Storm exposed 

huge problems with respect to fratricide, battle command, and battle space 

management largely because capabilities to move and shoot had considerably 

outpaced capabilities to command and control. TRADOC boiled the issues 

involved down to three questions: Where am I? Where are my buddies? Where 

is the enemy? General Sullivan initiated and Chief of Staff General Dennis 

J. Reimer (1995–1999) matured digital solutions. The general proliferation of 

satellite-based GPS rendered it an order of magnitude less likely that soldiers 

would become lost, although some still managed. Networks that automatically self-reported GPS locations, such as the Enhanced Position Location 

Reporting System (EPLRS) and the Inter-Vehicular Information System 

(IVIS), matured into what we now call blue force tracking (BFT). Reliably 

finding the enemy proved harder, but once enemy information was known to 

anybody it could immediately be made available to everybody, simultaneously 

broadcasting a shared battlefield picture. Digitization seemed most promising wedded to other advanced technologies, particularly sensors and “shooters.” Robotics and ever-improving UAVs provided breakthroughs as “eyes on 
Kevlar Legions

472

target”—sensors. The development and mass deployment of JDAMs in the 

late 1990s radically increased access to precision-guided munitions—shooters. 

In the institutional blink of an eye the effective cost of precision-guided munitions dropped by an order of magnitude. They were available for all targets, 

not just high-value targets. An Army that was never lost, always knew where 

its own people were, quickly found the enemy, and inevitably destroyed them 

when it did would be truly revolutionary. Digitized warfare as the Army waged 

it was highly dependent on space assets, air supremacy, and adequate electromagnetic bandwidth. Were any of these to be compromised, thirty years of 

technological progress would be compromised as well.16

The Army of 2005 was well on its way to being brigade-based and unitmanned. Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker (2003–2007) faced the 

enormous challenge of establishing a rotational base large enough to sustain 

operations in Afghanistan and Iraq without breaking the Army. He was 

mindful of the downside of individual replacement in World War II, Korea, 

and Vietnam, and he determined that units would rotate into Iraq as stable, 

trained, mutually confident “bands of brothers.” For some time theorists 

had opined that existing army, corps, and division structure presented too 

much overhead and that technology had rendered the brigade combat team 

most viable as an operational “chip on the board.” Reimer’s Strike Force and 

Shinseki’s Stryker Brigade anticipated such a development, as had a considerable body of TRADOC analysis and interpretation. Brigade combat teams 

were small enough to make unit manning feasible. They could rotate through 

force generation cycles, absorbing replacements en masse before their training 

phases. Brigade combat teams could be modular, constructed only of units 

they would customarily employ. This allowed thinning out such “big war” specialties as air defense, artillery, and engineers that had been concentrated at the 

division and levels above it. Manpower saved allowed more brigade combat 

teams and other critical units, thus expanding the rotational base. Schoomaker 

aspired to raise active-component brigade combat teams from thirty-three to 

forty-two and those in the National Guard from fifteen to twenty-eight. For 

a time he contemplated eliminating an echelon of command—army, corps, 

or division—to further economize and “flatten” the command hierarchy. In 

the end it seemed spans of control would become too large, so divisions and 

corps instead slimmed down to modular headquarters without the combat 

support and service support units formerly assigned to them. These assets 

went into brigade combat teams or other modular “units of action,” became 

theater assets, or were inactivated. The connection between division and brigade diminished, and deployed division headquarters routinely controlled 

brigades not wearing their patch. The brigade-based Army as it existed by 

2010 forfeited former abilities to mass air defense, artillery, engineer, and other 

assets. Many of these were tied into the brigade combat teams, and others no 

longer existed. What if such massing were once again needed? Unit manning 

works if casualties are few and combat episodic. Should the United States 

Army again face a foe capable of inflicting significant casualties, it would have 

to reconsider individual replacement. Being brigade-based and unit-manned is 

appropriate for present circumstances, not for all circumstances.17
473

Concluding Thoughts

Thoughts on the Way Ahead

Someday the Army will undoubtedly seek to transform again. When 

it does, it will look back on its ongoing transformation to a Digitized 

Expeditionary Army, just as it now looks back on its earlier transformations to 

the All-Volunteer Late Cold War Army, the Draftee Early Cold War Army, the 

Mobilization-Based Armies of World Wars I and II, and the Army for Empire 

that preceded them. If past is precedent, some mix of technological advance, 

socioeconomic change, and changing strategic circumstances will indicate 

that thorough transformation rather than modest adaptation has become 

necessary. Until that point the Digitized Expeditionary Army will continue 

to mature, further evolving away from the Late Cold War Army in which it is 

rooted. Perhaps new vehicular platforms, revived shades of the future combat 

systems (FCSs), will replace such venerable stalwarts as the M1 Abrams and 

M2/3 Bradley. Perhaps not. This will not be crucial, as the essence of the 

Digitized Expeditionary Army will have been networked digital communications, Information Age sensors and munitions, and speedy deployability. This 

Army has already been tested by war and contingency, and it undoubtedly will 

be tested again. Accepting the considerable risk of imagining the future rather 

than examining the past, let us project material previously discussed in this 

chapter—and thus in this study—forward. Are there thoughts worth sharing 

with those who would lead the Digitized Expeditionary Army into near-term 

contingencies? Are there thoughts worth sharing with those who might seek to 

again transform the Army in the more distant future? 

On balance, the trade-offs accepted to transform to the Digitized 

Expeditionary Army have worked out. Combat-ready units have frequently 

been in demand on short notice since 1989, whereas circumstances requiring 

mass mobilization have not occurred. Nuclear attack has never seemed imminent. Despite some difficulties, general purpose forces have adapted well to 

low-intensity conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. There seems to be 

little to complain about with respect to quality in that regard, since American 

soldiers have “kept the lid on” in two volatile countries with a fraction of the 

force structure customarily required given the sizes of their restive populations. 

The expeditionary Army has deployed quickly to hot spots around the globe 

and has capably sustained itself once there. American soldiers are seldom lost, 

almost invariably know where their comrades are, and share a common picture 

of the battlefield. Their sensors and shooters network with devastating effect. 

Unit-manned brigade combat teams filled with veterans routinely rotate past 

each other overseas, maintaining their qualitative edges as they do so. All of 

this having been said, what if circumstances change? American vulnerabilities 

are no particular secret. Most know the United States has a smallish Army 

that as now committed has no actual strategic reserve and that capabilities to 

expand this force are largely eroded. Many consider the United States casualty 

averse and believe it will fold if drawn into a fight more deadly than it has the 

stomach for. Nuclear weapons proliferation presents a particular danger in 

this regard, especially if these can be detonated without presenting suitable 

targets for retaliation. The United States Army is, quite simply, unprepared 
Kevlar Legions

474

for nuclear attack. The low end of the combat spectrum, however, seems the 

most likely venue wherein American arms will continue to be challenged. Iraq 

and Afghanistan offer ample testimony to the manpower intensiveness of such 

conflicts, which does not match up well against a small Army with a moribund 

mobilization base. The world’s most dangerous trouble spots reside in areas 

with which American soldiers are least culturally familiar, hugely complicating 

deployments into them. Potential adversaries work diligently to develop the 

means to compromise American bandwidth and aerospace supremacy, both 

vital to digitized warfare as Americans wage it. Future adversaries are likely to 

play to the Digitized Expeditionary Army’s weaknesses and avoid its strengths. 

The Army and the nation cannot afford to simultaneously overmatch all potential threats at once, hence the trade-offs that have created the vulnerabilities. 

Given this dilemma, a sports metaphor may be helpful. Football teams cannot 

be equally adept at all their plays at once. Each week they rehearse the menu 

that best fits their upcoming adversary. There are huge differences between 

knowing what is supposed to happen, having the ability to make it happen, 

and actually making it happen. Rehearsal focused on the imminent contest 

primes performance in it. General Frederick M. Franks Jr., former TRADOC 

commander and beloved mentor to many, spoke of fighting “from the neck 

up.” To him the “art of war” was to be broadly prepared, prescient enough 

to identify the next challenge, and timely enough to specifically prepare for it. 

An Army, like a football team, needs plays to transition from one adversary 

to the next. It cannot be physically ready, but it can be conceptually ready, for 

all of the contingencies it can foresee. In a sense the battlefield debut of the 

Digitized Expeditionary Army offers an illustration of this point. The tactical 

units poised to invade Iraq were initially Legacy Force with respect to digitization, less those of the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) so long at sea. 

However, the conceptual underpinnings of digitization had been worked out, 

and requisite hardware and software was on hand—albeit in limited quantities. 

Within weeks Legacy units became digitized by appliqué, hurriedly trained 

with their new equipment, and performed quite well in their newly digitized 

posture. Units rotating into theater were “hosed down” with equipment and 

training in turn, each arriving more digitized and better prepared than the 

one before. Thought came first; hardware followed. Those destined to lead the 

Digitized Expeditionary Army in future contingencies might do well to keep 

this precedent in mind. Hopefully they will prepare diligently, think broadly, 

remain flexible, and tweak a generally prepared Army for the specifics of each 

next mission at hand.18

How will the Army’s leadership know that the time for yet another transformation is upon them? If past is precedent, they won’t be altogether sure. 

The prospect of change will inspire resistance and ignite debate. Some galvanizing event, like Pearl Harbor, may guarantee focus and garner resources, but 

by then it may well be too late to conjure up a transformational game plan. 

The mobilization for World War II, as we have seen, was rehearsed in World 

War I. Similarly, the Digitized Expeditionary Army that deployed after 9-11 

was a half generation in the making. Digitization and the use of cyberspace 

will continue to evolve through generations more. The starting point for the 
475

Concluding Thoughts

next transformation will be more 

apparent after the fact than it will be 

as it begins. Leaders will anticipate 

the future as best they can, adapting 

rather than transforming until they 

believe a watershed—technological, 

socioeconomic, and strategic—justifying radical change has been 

reached. With respect to technology, 

the next major leap ahead seems 

likely to be propelled by robotics. 

Other promising candidates include 

directed energy weapons, cyberelectronic warfare, nanotechnology, and 

genetic engineering, but robotics are 

already pervasive enough and far 

enough along that one can envision 

near-term breakthroughs equivalent 

to the HTML, HTTP, and practical 

browsers that transformed isolated 

computers into a planetary Internet. 

Already unmanned aerial vehicles 

piloted from Nevada attack targets in Pakistan, “PackBots” hunt 

for roadside bombs and scout out 

buildings in war zones, Modular 

Advanced Armed Robotic Systems 

(MAARSs) carry machine guns 

and grenade launchers athwart 

miniature tracks, and autonomous trucks negotiate courses scores of miles 

in length. Sixth-graders compete in statewide contests to design Lego robots 

that best clear away debris, negotiate obstacle courses, or fight each other. If 

contemporary robots are metaphorically equivalent to the biplanes of 1917 

and today’s sixth-graders are the military-age manpower of the 2020s, where 

will robotics be in twenty years? With respect to prospective socioeconomic 

change, one obvious candidate among several is the graying of America. In 

twenty years the proportion of senior citizens in the United States seems 

likely to double, the proportion of Americans gainfully employed to stagnate 

because of automation, and the proportion of youths of traditional military 

ages to decline because of lower birth rates. Surely these dramatic demographics will have military as well as socioeconomic consequences. With respect to 

changing strategic circumstances, a popular candidate for concern has been 

the rise of China. This development is certainly worthy of note with respect 

to its military implications, but nothing makes confrontation inevitable and 

much argues against it. China, like Europe, Japan, India, Australia, South 

Africa, and even Russia and most of South America, has benefited mightily 

from the interdependent, Internet-connected, increasingly globalized world 

Future technologies must integrate 

with doctrine, organization,

training, administrative practices,

and service culture. 
Kevlar Legions

476

economy. Far from hunkering down in Soviet-style self-isolation, the Chinese 

are gamely playing the international economic system within its rules and have 

much to lose should it be disrupted. They are also aging, as are Americans and 

virtually everyone else most prospering within the global economic system. 

Societies not aging are by and large have-nots, with the highest growth rates in 

such garden spots as Zaire, Yemen, and Oman. Most of Africa and much of 

the Middle East share in this trend, with medical advances and fertility not yet 

balanced by family planning or the emancipation of women. Youth cohorts 

accumulate in large numbers, far beyond the capability of local economies 

to absorb them. Emigration is ever less of an answer, as increasingly automated advanced countries need less and less unskilled labor. These fertile but 

disadvantaged nations are prone to strongman rule and account for a major 

fraction of the world’s armed quarrels. They have access to modern weapons. 

Some have fielded large, and a few formidable, armies. Historically, armed 

have-nots with a youth bulge have often been threats to more prosperous and 

less fecund neighbors. There is no reason to believe this pattern will not continue. Whatever the specifics of the next technological, socioeconomic, and 

strategic watersheds, worthy candidates are already brewing.19 

For the purpose of conjecture, imagine that the next leap in military 

technology sufficient to be transformative is associated with robotics. Army 

transformers will not find it sufficient to issue contingents of robots to existing organizations and consider their mission complete. Like their predecessors, they will have to manage profound doctrinal, organizational, training, 

administrative, and cultural changes in addition to technological modernization per se. With respect to doctrine, for example, what battlefield role do the 

robots play? Are they bionic exoskeletons, radically enhancing the capabilities 

of individual warriors who advance arrayed like the corporate mercenaries in 

Avatar? Are they remotes, individually piloted by soldiers at a safe distance 

from danger—like UAVs and PackBots today? Are they automated teammates, cruising along to execute the mandates of humans sprinkled among 

them? Are they autonomous, executing precoded missions with lethal effects? 

Are they some mix of the above? Robots would be ill-used if not set within 

a conceptual framework. Doctrine can drive technology. If doctrine writers 

determine that what they really want are bionic exoskeletons, industry is that 

much more likely to develop them. Robotic units will be differently organized 

than all-human ones. One could perhaps envision a platoon of bionic exoskeletal warriors, but it would have to come with its own robust maintenance 

section. If a support platoon consists of one human and twenty automated 

trucks, does a truck company consist of three people? Do UAVs piloted from 

Nevada come under the tactical control of humans further forward? When 

a mechanized robotic platoon clears a wood line, does the human platoon 

leader dismount? Robotics will introduce huge training implications. Human 

mastery of the associated hardware and software will demand a prodigious 

honing of intellectual, neuromuscular, and physical skills. Teenagers invest 

days into perfecting their skills with a single Internet avatar. How much more 

difficult will it be to manage multiple robotic avatars simultaneously? How 

much of a defile drill can be automated, and how much requires human deci-
477

Concluding Thoughts

sion making? Beyond maintenance and logistics for robots, a robotic Army 

has profound administrative implications for humans as well. How does the 

Army recruit the talent it needs, particularly if the youth demographic with 

the requisite skill is an ever-smaller proportion of the population—and heavily competed for by industry as well? What do promotion pyramids look like 

when entry-level soldiers assume battlefield responsibilities equivalent to those 

of sergeants today? One presumes, for example, that conflating a four-man 

tank crew into one would end up with a human tank commander, not a loader. 

With respect to culture, the implications are breathtaking. Who exactly constitutes the “band of brothers” that inspires soldiers above and beyond the call 

of duty? What establishes prestige when rank, age, physical vigor, and gender 

have so much less to do with battlefield outcomes than “geek” insight and 

selected neuromuscular skills? To what extent can decisions to kill be delegated 

to automatons? Can robots take meetings where assassination—or paralyzing 

boredom—seems likely? What are the new proportions between fighters and 

sustainers? In the Air Force, according to common belief, only a tiny fraction 

of the whole actually flies planes and constitutes a “gene pool” for senior leadership. Would that be true in a robotic Army? Will units be awarded campaign 

streamers based on the percentage of humans that deploy, or will robots count 

too? Admitting that we are on a slippery slope from analysis to fantasy, we can 

return to our original point. Whatever the technological advances are that are 

deemed transformative, exploiting them will require due attention to doctrine, 

Nontraditional and noncombat missions will continue.
Kevlar Legions

478

organization, training, administration, and service culture. It will also require 

adaptation to socioeconomic and strategic circumstances. If the United States, 

for example, deploys fewer older soldiers and robots to hold off hordes of 

young men armed with Industrial Age weapons and a few “nukes,” it faces 

challenges well beyond those of technology alone.20

Can the Army conduct a centrally directed and institutionally driven transformation in the future? As we have seen, maintaining substantial control over 

its own destiny was difficult during the period 1989 through 2005, and there 

seems no reason to believe this will get any easier. The Department of Defense 

and Joint Staff will have legal preeminence and seem likely to at least in part 

differ with service priorities. Squabbling with sister services will flag up issues 

to the Joint Staff that may or may not be resolved in the Army’s favor. With 

robotics in mind, for example, the flying altitudes and levels of supervision of 

unmanned aerial vehicles are already points of contention among the Army, 

Navy, and Air Force. At what level of aircraft sophistication should seasoned 

licensed pilots serve instead of young uniformed reprogrammed computer 

buffs? The Secretariat will continue to extend deep within the bowels of Army 

decision making, particularly with respect to research, development, financial management, and human resources. This means that the tipping point 

for including political as well as “purely military” considerations will come 

sooner rather than later. TRADOC, AMC, and United States Army Forces 

Command (FORSCOM) will continue as four-star behemoths with critical 

transformational responsibilities, inspiring further creative tensions between 

themselves and the Army Staff. Contractors will have their own priorities and 

the connections and leverage to pursue them. The most robust will have the 

ears of Congress and the administration, who themselves will have a lot on 

their minds other than Defense transformation. If there are new players, they 

may be newly empowered scions of the “blogosphere” and the “24/7” news 

cycle. Less subject to editing and constraint than traditional media, they have 

a demonstrated ability to capture public attention and to hyper-reinforce the 

passions of niche audiences. One Chief of Staff considered assigning Army 

Staff members to surreptitiously get the Army view across on selected blogs, 

and another considered the opposite tactic of banning soldiers from blogs 

altogether to avoid compromising sensitive information. Both proposals 

appalled legal counsel, and neither got beyond casual contemplation. They 

do, however, underscore the importance accorded “strategic communications” by Chiefs and the Army Staff. At the time of writing, the emerging 

Army Enterprise System offers considerable promise as a means to sustain 

coherent shared pictures. Several techniques served the Army well from 1989 

through 2005 with respect to maintaining a grip on its future. The first was to 

get out in front of other participants with respect to serious staff work and 

specific proposals. Since being bested by the British at Casablanca and earlier 

World War II conferences, the Army Staff has lived in fear of confronting 

plans and proposals more thoroughly thought through than its own. Vuono’s 

ANTAEUS, Sullivan’s LAM Task Force, Reimer’s Army XXI, and Shinseki’s 

Army Transformation all represented determined efforts to establish “going-in 

positions” persuasive enough that others would rather edit them than compete 
479

Concluding Thoughts

with them. By and large the approach worked, with the partial exception of 

Army Transformation’s clashes with Office of the Secretary of Defense alternatives. A second and related approach has been to stock Quadrennial Defense 

Review (QDR) and similar Defense-wide deliberations with “top drawer” 

talent, ensuring mastery of such analytic enterprises as Dynamic Commitment 

or DAWMS. Time and again rigorous analysis pointed to a need for more 

rather than fewer ground forces, staving off potential cuts. A third imperative 

was to ensure consensus within the Army when negotiating outside it, no sure 

thing amid legitimate debate, branch concerns, potent fiefdoms like TRADOC 

and AMC, and the enlarged role of the Secretariat. Sullivan’s GOSC and the 

four-star board of directors associated with the modern Louisiana Maneuvers 

are best appreciated in this light, as are similar initiatives by his successors 

and the elaboration of Shinseki’s transition survey and interview process. The 

Director of the Army Staff shepherded elaborate protocols to align the Army 

Staff and the Army Secretariat, a process that could be and generally was 

much advanced by good personal relations between the Secretary of the Army 

and the Chief of Staff, and between assistant secretaries of the Army and 

their Army Staff counterparts. A fourth approach was to sustain the support 

of retirees, contractors, and others of the interested public, as these directly or 

indirectly assisted the Army with Congress and others. It is no accident that 

AUSA conventions played such a prominent role in the general promulgation of Army messages. Finally, exceptional organizations such as the LAM 

Task Force, the Experimental Force, and the Objective Force Task Force stood 

up, served for a period, and then divested. These had valuable roles to play 

but could have become dysfunctional had they survived too long. Timing was 

everything to ensure that they improved rather than degraded the grip on the 

future. An earlier paragraph likened a Chief of Staff attempting to keep a 

grip on transformation to a surfer tracking his course while keeping his balance. That metaphor for both possibility and challenge seems likely to remain 

valid.21

An Army pursuing transformation can reasonably anticipate significant 

distractions from that purpose. These can come under at least three headings: 

contemporary contingencies, making up for mismatches, and “political” distractions. The current contingency will almost inevitably trump hypothetical 

future missions with respect to attention and resources, particularly if lives are 

at risk and casualties involved. General Sullivan when arriving, as we have seen, 

opined that there would be “no time out from readiness” regardless of the challenges of downsizing and transformation. He proved correct. Northern Iraq, 

Somalia, Haiti, Kuwait, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq involved the Army 

in near-continuous cycles of deployment, as did hosts of lesser contingencies, 

operations, and exercises. Each of these legitimately was the priority of its time. 

Soldiers were in danger; they needed to be optimally led and well supported. As 

operations progressed, mismatches appeared between preparations previously 

made and threats actually encountered. Sensible enemies develop or strike at 

weaknesses, perhaps in unanticipated ways. This produces distraction of a different sort, that of rushing to resolve the immediate threat while postponing initiatives not relevant to it. The efficiencies of systematic evolution are abandoned 
Kevlar Legions

480

for the effectiveness of quick, if costly, solutions. The campaign against IEDs 

offers an example of this phenomenon. Perfect foresight might have rendered 

IEDs simply one more target of prolonged transformational efforts. Instead billions of dollars and significant supervisory efforts were thrown into spasms of 

up-armoring, proliferating electronic countermeasures, revamping tactics, and 

acquiring relevant new equipment. Results were creditably successful but underscored the fact that the unanticipated threat can quickly become the priority, 

brushing other transformational initiatives aside. Another genre of distraction 

encountered by Army transformers might best be described as “political.” Raised 

through their adult lives in a unique environment, uniformed Army senior leaders can be caught off-balance by the emphases of their political leaders. A case 

in point might be the “Aberdeen Sex Scandal” of 1996. A number of officers and 

noncommissioned officers stood accused of heinously abusing their positions to 

solicit sex from female trainees. One might have thought the Uniformed Code of 

Military Justice, with severe sanctions against such behavior, might have ground 

along on its own to mete out punishment. However, Army leaders who refused 

to comment on cases still under investigation appeared obtuse to the public—

perhaps even insufficiently interested. Efforts by the Secretary of the Army and 

others to rectify this backfired, as defense attorneys accused them of prejudging 

the case and exerting undue command influence and sought a gag order on the 

Secretary himself. The media picked up on the theme and connected the dots to 

other cases at other times in other places. Sexual abuse and gender inequality 

already were, understandably, “hot button” political issues. The Army leaped 

to set right its image. Congressional hearings, hot lines, admonitions of “zero 

tolerance” policies, sexual harassment training, gender sensitivity classes, and 

uniformed presentations to civilian audiences proliferated. The effort siphoned 

off an enormous amount of supervisory time addressing an issue few if any had 

anticipated—and attempted to prove the essentially unprovable. On a lighter 

note, General Shinseki provoked a different time-consumptive flap when he 

appropriated the black beret for the Army at large from the ever-popular but 

somewhat tribal Rangers and then bought berets from China to procure enough 

of them. Other examples abound, diverting Army senior leaders at least a couple 

of times each year from whatever they thought they were going to be doing. 

To question the root cause would be to question the constitutional principle of 

civilian control over the military. Fortuitously, aspects of the Goldwater-Nichols 

Act assist in controlling distraction. The sharpened division of labor between 

theater commanders as force employers and services as force providers theoretically reduces the focus of the Army Staff on events overseas, ideally providing 

more time to focus on forces yet to deploy. Sustained effort in that regard should 

make it easier to fathom adversaries in advance, reducing the distraction of reconciling capability mismatches. For all of the complexities involved in bringing 

the Secretariat deeper into the traditional purview of the Army Staff, this renders an earlier appreciation of politically charged issues likely. Hopefully fewer 

such flaps will escape the Department of the Army. Like priests, Army officers 

often find that their distractions are their vocation. No Secretary of the Army 

or Chief of Staff will ever be able to focus exclusively on Army transformation. 

Divisions of labor should reflect this, empowering some leaders and agencies to 
481

Concluding Thoughts

sustain momentum with respect to transformation regardless of the other issues 

at hand.22

The most significant single impediment to Army transformation in

1989–2005 was, as we have seen, funding. Congress must approve and appropriate the money the Army spends, passing along the costs to the American 

people who vote for them (Chart 9). The tectonic shifts centered on 1989 that 

rendered transformation necessary also inspired an understandable desire for 

a “peace dividend” throughout the electorate. From 1989 through 1993 the 

Army lost over a third of its effective budget. Much of this was absorbed by 

shedding force structure and European infrastructure, but austerity pervaded 

modernization, research and development, and other activities as well. The 

Army’s percentage of the overall Defense budget declined slightly, hovering 

around 26 percent of the whole through most of the 1990s. By comparison, 

the Navy and Air Force averaged a third of the budget each during this 

period. Their expensive high-tech platforms were arguably more popular with 

Congress, whereas the Army budget remained dominated by mundane personnel costs. In this fiscal environment the Army could and did experiment 

with prototypes and over time stood up and trained with experimental units. 

General Fred Franks’ digital epiphany occurred, for example, while observing 

an IVIS-equipped tank platoon. In due course this was followed by a company team, a battalion task force, and, with National Training Center (NTC) 

97–06, a brigade combat team. It took ten years to progress from a digitally 

seasoned platoon to a digitally seasoned division, and this division was a brigade combat team short with respect to digital equipment. It is worth noting 

that this digital equipment was by and large appliqué on venerable existing 

platforms. The proposed future combat systems initiated by General Shinseki 

“slipped to the right” with respect to fielding. Prior to Iraqi Freedom plans 

for Army digitization extended decades into the future, with a few units at a 

time becoming so equipped. With Iraqi Freedom, as is generally the case in 

American wars, money previously doled out sparingly flowed freely. Much 

of this took the form of supplementals rather than base budget. The Army’s 

base budget in 2005 and 2006 was $100 billion each year, for example, but the 

Army received supplementals of $60 billion in 2005 and $70 billion in 2006. 

Transformation narrowed in focus to the exigencies of Iraq and Afghanistan, 

but exponentially picked up its pace. Blue force tracking mounted on vehicles 

exploded from 1,200 to 55,000 sets during General Schoomaker’s tenure, and 

fieldings with respect to advanced avionics, UAVs, satellite communications, 

precision-guided munitions, and other relevant technologies kept pace. The 

Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI) hosed down units with off-the-shelf equipment as they prepared to deploy. Within the course of a few unit rotations, 

the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan had transformed. Future Army transformers might profit from examining this pattern. When the Army substantially 

redeploys from Iraq and Afghanistan, budgets are likely to plummet. In particular, supplementals will dry up. Transformers must gather what money they 

can and invest in prototypes and small prototypical units. If robots are the 

next big thing, there will not be very many of them in “peacetime.” Perhaps 

residual operations overseas will allow them to be tested in the field, as will 
Kevlar Legions

482

the successors to AWEs and NTC 97–06. Transformation will be gradual, 

prototypical, evolutionary, and sparsely funded unless or until a new crisis is 

reached. Then money will flow. Successful transformation will depend upon 

being well positioned to spend a lot of money quickly and efficiently, deflecting it into the new war or emergency at hand. Veterans of fiscal year closeouts 

understand the basics: prioritized “want” or decrements lists, contracts poised 

for immediate obligation, understandings with service and industrial providers, tiered spending plans, and personnel trained to execute them. Woe be unto 

the division comptroller who receives year-end money he or she cannot spend 

by midnight on 30 September. The phenomenon of dramatic infusions of 

money propelling a theretofore nascent transformation has ample precedent. 

The Philippine “Insurrection” enabled the transformation to an Army for 

Empire, Pearl Harbor the conclusive transformation to a mobilization-based 

Army, the Berlin crisis and Korean War the transformation to the Early Cold 

War Army, the embarrassment of the Iranian hostage crisis and the “Reagan 

buildup” the transformation to the Late Cold War Army, and Iraqi Freedom

the transformation to the Digitized Expeditionary Army. In each case years 

of thought, debate, experimentation, and even rehearsal preceded the crisis, 

but the crisis freed up the funding to actually transform the Army as a whole. 

Theoretically it is possible to transform an Army in peacetime; the United 

States has never actually done so. From 1989 through 2003 Army transformers positioned the Army to effectively throw money quickly into a Digitized 

Expeditionary Army when money came available. This was a creditable, if 

more modest than hoped for, accomplishment. It may well be the peacetime 

achievement future transformers should reasonably aspire to.23

Conclusions

From 1989 through 2005 the United States Army attempted, and largely 

achieved, a centrally directed and institutionally driven revolution in military 

affairs relevant to ground warfare that exploited Information Age technology, 

adapted to post–Cold War strategic circumstances, and integrated into parallel Joint and Department of Defense efforts. To thus transform it not only 

modernized equipment, it also substantially altered doctrine, organization, 

training, administrative and logistical practices, and service culture. The transformed Army has withstood the test of combat, performing superbly with 

respect to deployment and high-end conventional combat and capably with 

respect to low-intensity conflict. For all of its impressive strengths, however, 

the Digitized Expeditionary Army accepted trade-offs to best fit contemporary circumstances with the funds available. It now lacks a mobilization base 

for expedient expansion, is unprepared for nuclear warfare, is unlikely to be 

familiar at the unit level with countries into which it will be deployed, would 

have difficulty massing selected combat support and combat service support 

assets, and is vulnerable to compromises of bandwidth or aerospace supremacy. These vulnerabilities result from decisions sensible at the times they were 

made, but plans should exist to redress each on short notice—should it become 

necessary. The Army will continue to digitize and modernize into the foresee-
483

Concluding Thoughts

able future. At some point a new juxtaposition of strategic, socioeconomic, 

and technological watersheds will become so great another transformation 

will become necessary. That transformation, like its predecessors, will have 

to address doctrine, organization, training, administration and logistics, and 

service culture to become complete. If it is to be centrally directed and institutionally driven, Army leaders will have to take positive steps to remain in 

control. Techniques that proved useful in that regard from 1989 through 2005 

included anticipatory up-front planning, drilled teams of articulate analysts, 

mechanisms to achieve and sustain consensus, strategic communications, and 

the occasional use of exceptional organizations. There will be distractions in 

the future as there have been in the past. Legacy contingency missions will 

follow one another, capability mismatches will emerge demanding speedy resolution, and politically contentious issues will absorb supervisory time. Army 

leadership must organize itself to accommodate these while sustaining the 

momentum of transformation. There will not be enough money most of the 

time. Future transformative efforts will most likely roll on for years as patchworks of research initiatives, prototypes, and experimental units. Hopefully 

these will provide blueprints applicable to the organization as a whole, when 

crisis erupts and money again flows. The quality of the next transformation 

will reflect the quality of these blueprints. Five Chiefs of Staff and innumerable soldiers and civilians served their country well transforming the Army 

from 1989 through 2005 and operating with that transforming Army in the 

field. Much is instructive in their experience. Hopefully it will prove useful to 

those who “pick up their rucksacks” to follow behind them.
Notes

1

 See Richard W. Stewart, ed., American Military History, vol. 2, The United States 

in a Global Era, 1917–2003 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2005), 369–

497; D. Robert Worley, Shaping U.S. Military Forces: Revolution or Relevance in a 

Post–Cold War World (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2006).

2

 See James F. Dunnigan, Digital Soldiers: The Evolution of High-Tech Weaponry 

and Tomorrow’s Brave New Battlefield (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); James R. 

Blaker, Transforming Military Force: The Legacy of Arthur Cebrowski and Network 

Centric Warfare (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 2007); Max 

Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History 1500 to Today 

(New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 307–436.

3 See John L. Romjue, American Army Doctrine for the Post–Cold War (Fort 

Monroe, Virginia: Military History Office, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command, 1996); Thomas K. Adams, The Army After Next: The First Postindustrial 

Army (Stanford: Stanford Security Studies, 2008); Field Manual 71–1, The Tank and 

Mechanized Infantry Company Team (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 

1988); Field Manual 71–1, The Tank and Mechanized Infantry Company Team, 2005; 

Field Manual 100–5, Operations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1986); 

Field Manual 3–0, Operations (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2008); 

Douglas A. Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx: A New Design for Landpower in the 21st 

Century (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997). 

4

 See John L. Romjue, The Army of Excellence: The Development of the 1980s Army 

(Fort Monroe, Virginia: Office of the Command Historian, U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command, 1993); John J. McGrath, The Brigade: A History (Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004); William M. Donnelly, 

Transforming an Army at War: Designing the Modular Force, 1991–2005 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 2007). 

5

 See Anne W. Chapman, The Army’s Training Revolution, 1973–1990: An Overview 

(Fort Monroe, Virginia: Office of the Command Historian, U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command, 1994); Benjamin King, Victory Starts Here: A 35-year History of 

the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat 

Studies Institute Press, 2008); General Peter Schoomaker and General Richard Cody, 

Transcript of Media Roundtable Conducted at the Association of the United States 

Army Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 26 October 2004, Historians files, CMH. 

6

 See Donnelly; Randy Talbot, Forging the Steel Hammer: TACOM LCMC Support 

to the Global War on Terrorism, 2001–2005 (Warren, Michigan: U.S. Army TACOM 

Life Cycle Management Command, 2006); Philip A. Shiman, “Defense Acquisition in 

an Uncertain World: The Post–Cold War Era, 1990–2000,” in Shannon A. Brown, gen. 

ed., Providing the Means of War: Historical Perspectives on Defense Acquisition, 1945–

2000 (Washington DC: Center of Military History and Industrial College of the 

Armed Forces, 2005), 283–309. 

7

 See Eric K. Shinseki, The Army Family: A White Paper (Washington DC: Center 

of Military History, 2003); Ben Shepherd, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists 

in the Twentieth Century (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2001); David Dobbs, “The 

Post Traumatic Stress Trap,” Scientific American (April 2009): 64–69; Michael D. 

Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History of the Army National Guard, 1636–2000 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2001). 

8 See James R. Lochner III, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater Nichols Act 

Unifies the Pentagon (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2002); 
485

Concluding Thoughts

George C. Wilson, This War Really Matters: Inside the Fight for Defense Dollars 

(Washington DC: CQ Press, 2000); Deborah D. Avant, The Market for Force: The 

Consequences of Privatizing Security (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 

9 See Mark Sherry, The Army Command Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2009); James L. Yarrison, The Modern 

Louisiana Maneuvers (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1999); Joint Pub 

3–0, Doctrine for Joint Operations (Washington DC: Department of Defense, 1995); 

Edward N. Luttwak, The Pentagon and the Art of War: The Question of Military 

Reform (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985); Lochner. 

10 See MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military 

Revolution, 1300–2050 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Gregory 

Fontenot, E. J. Degen, and David Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in 

Operation Iraqi Freedom (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 

2004); Donald P. Wright and Timothy R. Reese, On Point II: Transition to the New 

Campaign, The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003–January 

2005 (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008). 

11 See Stewart, American Military History, vol. 2, 369–497; Worley; Wright and 

Reese.

12 See Marvin A. Kriedberg and Merton G. Henry, History of Military Mobilization 

in the United States Army, 1775–1945 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 

1955); Robert R. Palmer, Bell I. Wiley, and William R. Keast, The Procurement and 

Training of Ground Combat Troops (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military 

History, 1948); R. Elberton Smith, The Army and Economic Mobilization (Washington 

DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1959); John S. Brown, Draftee Division: 

The 88th Infantry Division in World War II (Lexington, Kentucky: University of 

Kentucky Press, 1986); Sherry; Mary L. Haynes, Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Year 1987 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1995), 32–35, 

57–68; Lieutenant General Jack C. Stultz Jr., “The Army Reserve: A Positive 

Investment for America,” Army 2009–2010 Green Book, October 2009, 131–34.

13 See Treaty Between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 

on the Elimination of Theater Intermediate Range and Shorter Range Missiles, entered 

into force 1 June 1988, United States Department of State, http://www.state.gov; 

Robert A. Doughty, The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946–1976 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2001); Romjue, American Army Doctrine 

for the Post–Cold War World; Brian Alexander and Alistair Miller, Tactical Nuclear 

Weapons in an Evolving Security Environment (Washington DC: Brassey’s, 2003); 

Vincent H. Demma, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1989 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1998); John S. Brown, “Historically 

Speaking: The Denuclearization of the United States Army,” Army (May 2008): 102–

03.

14 See S. 2453, A Bill to Enhance the Capability of the United States to Combat 

Terrorism and Other Forms of Unconventional Warfare; HR 5109, A Bill to Establish a 

National Special Operations Agency Within the Department of Defense to Have Unified 

Responsibility for All Special Operations Forces and Activities; The National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987; Demma, 35, 76–78; Sherry, 36; AirLand 

Operations: The Evolution of AirLand Battle for a Strategic Army (Fort Monroe, 

Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1991); The National Defense 

Panel Assessment of the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (Arlington, Virginia: 

National Defense Panel, 1997); The Army Quadrennial Defense Review: Senior Leader 

Update (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 11 July 2001); David Cloud and 

Greg Jaffe, The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the 
Kevlar Legions

486

United States Army (New York: Crown Publishers, 2009); Andrew J. Birtle, U.S. Army 

Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1860–1941 (Washington DC: 

Center of Military History, 1998). 

15 See Stewart, American Military History, vol. 2; Yarrison; The Conduct of the 

Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress (Washington DC: Department of Defense, 

1992), 30–47, 358–59, 365, 371–450; Birger Bergesen and John McDonald, Assessment 

of Contingency and Expeditionary Force Capabilities (McClean, Virginia: Science 

Applications International, 1994); Lieutenant General Johnnie E. Wilson, “Power 

Projection Now . . . and in the 21st Century,” Army 1994–1995 Green Book, October 

1995, 137–43; Army Regulation 210–20, Master Planning for Army Installations 

(Washington DC: Department of the Army, 1992); General Peter J. Schoomaker and 

General Richard Cody, Transcript of the Media Roundtable Conducted at the 

Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 26 October 

2004. 

16 See Ms, Clayton R. Newell, Digitizing the Army (Arlington, Virginia: Association 

of the United States Army); Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge, 

Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1999); Yarrison, 1–51, 87–95; Adams; Report to Congress 

on Army Digitization (Washington DC: Army Digitization Office, 1995); Romjue, 

American Army Doctrine for the Post–Cold War World; “Combat Identification 

Technology Demonstration Presentation to Senior Officers Review Group,” Combat 

Identification Systems Program Office, 14 February 1992, Historians Files, CMH; 

General William M. Hartzog, “TRADOC: Moving the Army into the Future,” Army 

1997–1998 Green Book, October 1997, 49–54; Army Senior Leader Update, “Precision 

Strike: A Unique American Military Advantage . . . but with Limits,” 14 August 2001, 

Historians Files, CMH; Peter Grier, “The JDAM Revolution,” Air Force Online: The 

Journal of the Air Force Association (September 2006). 

17 See Donnelly; McGrath; Mark J. Reardon and Jeffery A. Charlston, From 

Transformation to Combat: The First Stryker Brigade at War (Washington DC: Center 

of Military History, 2007); Objective Force Tactical, Operational and Organizational 

Concept for Maneuver Units of Action (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command, 2001); Objective Force Unit of Employment Concept (Fort 

Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 2003).

18 See Stewart, American Military History, vol. 2; Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn; 

Wright and Reese; Birtle; John S. Brown, “Numerical Considerations in Military 

Occupations,” Army (April 2006): 125–26; Colonel Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang 

Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America (Panama 

City, Panama: Pan American Publishing Company, 2002); Eric L. Haney and Brian M. 

Thompson, eds., Beyond Shock and Awe: Warfare in the 21st Century (New York: 

Berkley Caliber, 2006).

19 See P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st 

Century (New York: Penguin, 2009); Boot; P. W. Singer, “War of the Machines,” 

Scientific American (July 2010): 56–63; Jaclyn Schiff, “The Graying of America: 

Census Shows Americans Are Living Longer, Retiring Earlier,” CBS/AP, 9 March 

2006; Liang and Xiangsui; Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming 

Conflict with China (New York: Random House, 1998); Thomas P. M. Barnett, The 

Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Putnam 

Publishing Group, 2004); CIA World Factbook (Washington DC: Government Printing 

Office, 2008); Lewis F. Richardson, The Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (Pittsburg: 

Boxwood Press, 1960).

20 See Singer, Wired for War, for an accessible discussion of robotics. Much of this 

paragraph is, admittedly, inspired by science fiction. This does not mean that it is 
487

Concluding Thoughts

flawed for its purpose, only that it is conjectural. Movies, such as the Star Wars series, 

Battlestar Galactica, and Avatar, and the corpus of literature associated with them 

might prove helpful in that regard. 

21 See Sherry; Yarrison; Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 

1943–1944 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1959); Wilson, This War 

Really Matters; Farhad Manjoo, True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society 

(New York: Wiley, 2008); Blaker; Worley. 

22 See Stewart, American Military History, vol. 2; Gordon W. Rudd, Humanitarian 

Intervention: Assisting the Iraqi Kurds in Operation Provide Comfort, 1991 

(Washington DC: Center of Military History, 1991); Richard W. Stewart, The United 

States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2002); Charles E. Kirkpatrick, “Ruck It Up!” The Post–Cold War Transformation of V 

Corps, 1990–2001 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2007); Clay Wilson, 

Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq: Effects and Countermeasures (Washington DC: 

Congressional Research Service, 2005); “House Members to Visit Aberdeen Proving 

Ground,” CNN Interactive, 21 November 1996; “Military-Civilian Panel to Probe 

Army Sex Scandal,” CNN Interactive, 22 November 1996; “Three Soldiers Arraigned 

in U.S. Army Sex Scandal,” CNN Interactive, 6 December 1996; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 2 January 2002, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 14 April 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army General Staff 

Council Meeting notes, 23 December 2003, Historians Files, CMH.

23 See Demma, 38–42: William Joe Webb et al., Department of the Army Historical 

Summary, Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

1997), 129–33; Dwight D. Oland and David W. Hogan Jr., Department of the Army 

Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1992 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2001), 104–07; Stephen E. Everett and L. Martin Kaplan, Department of the Army 

Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1993 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 

2002), 18–22; L. Martin Kaplan, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal 

Year 1994 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2000), 27–34; Stephen L. Y. 

Gammons and William M. Donnelly, Department of the Army Historical Summary, 

Fiscal Year 1995 (Washington DC: Center of Military History, 2004), 11–22; Connie 

L. Reeves, Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1996 (Washington 

DC: Center of Military History, 2002), 39–46; Jeffery A. Charlston, Department of the 

Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1999 (Washington DC: Center of Military 

History, 2006), 19–24; Briefing, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to the 

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, “WFLA FY99–09 Modernization 

Recommendations,” 31 January 1997, Historians Files, CMH; Robert D. Hormats, The 

Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars (New York: Henry Holt, 2007); Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 31 March 2003, Historians Files, CMH; Army 

General Staff Council Meeting notes, 14 April 2003; Army Staff Principals Staff Call 

Meeting notes, 26 April 2004, Historians Files, CMH; Honorable Francis J. Harvey 

and General Peter J. Schoomaker, A Statement on the Posture of the United States 

Army 2006 (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Staff, United States Army, 10 

February 2006).

489

Appendix

Selected Key Civilian and Military Participants in Army 

Transformation, 1989–2005

Secretaries of the Army (Twelve Months or More)

Michael P. W. Stone, 14 August 1989–20 January 1993

Togo D. West Jr., 22 November 1993–4 May 1997

Louis Caldera, 2 July 1998–20 January 2001

Thomas E. White, 31 May 2001–9 May 2003

Romie L. “Les” Brownlee (Acting), 10 May 2003–18 November 2004

Francis J. Harvey, 19 November 2004–9 March 2007

Chiefs of Staff of the Army

General Carl E. Vuono, 23 June 1987–21 June 1991

General Gordon R. Sullivan, 21 June 1991–20 June 1995

General Dennis J. Reimer, 20 June 1995–21 June 1999

General Eric K. Shinseki, 21 June 1999–11 June 2003

General Peter J. Schoomaker, 1 August 2003–10 April 2007

Training and Doctrine Command Commanders

(Twelve Months or More)

General John W. Foss, August 1989–August 1991

General Frederick M. Franks Jr., August 1991–October 1994

General William W. Hartzog, October 1994–September 1998

General John N. Abrams, September 1998–November 2002

General Kevin P. Byrnes, November 2002–July 2005

General Anthony R. Jones (Acting), August 2005–September 2005

General William S. Wallace, September 2005–December 2008
Kevlar Legions

490

Army Materiel Command Commanders

General William G. T. Tuttle Jr., September 1989–January 1992

General Jimmy D. Ross, January 1992–February 1994

General Leon E. Salomon, February 1994–March 1996

General Johnnie E. Wilson, March 1996–May 1999

General John G. Coburn, May 1999–October 2001

General Paul J. Kern, October 2001–November 2004

General Benjamin S. Griffin, November 2004–November 2008

Forces Command Commanders

General Edwin H. Burba, September 1989–April 1993

General Dennis J. Reimer, April 1993–June 1995

General John H. Tilelli Jr., June 1995–July 1996

General David A. Bramlett, July 1996–August 1998

General Thomas A. Schwartz, August 1998–December 1999

General John W. Hendrix, December 1999–November 2001

General Larry R. Ellis, November 2001–May 2004

General Dan K. McNeill, May 2004–January 2007

Assistant Secretaries of the Army, Research, Development

and Acquisition/Acquisition, Logistics and Technology

(Twelve Months or More)

Steven K. Conver, March 1990–September 1993

Gilbert F. Decker, April 1994–May 1997

Kenneth J. Oscar (Acting), May 1997–May 1998

Paul J. Hoeper, May 1998–January 2001

Kenneth J. Oscar (Acting), January 2001–January 2002

Claude M. Bolton, January 2002–January 2008

Deputy Chiefs of Staff for Operations and Plans/G–3

Lt. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, July 1989–May 1990

Lt. Gen. Dennis J. Reimer, May 1990–June 1991

Lt. Gen. J. H. Binford Peay III, June 1991–March 1993

Lt. Gen. John H. Tilelli Jr., March 1993–July 1994

Lt. Gen. Paul E. Blackwell, July 1994–August 1996

Lt. Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, August 1996–June 1997

Lt. Gen. Thomas N. Burnette Jr., July 1997–August 1999

Lt. Gen. Larry R. Ellis, August 1999–November 2001

Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, November 2001–August 2002

Lt. Gen. Richard A. Cody, August 2002–June 2004

Lt. Gen. Buford C. Blount (Acting), June 2004–October 2004

Lt. Gen. James L. Lovelace, October 2004–December 2007
491

Appendix

Deputy Chiefs of Staff for Programs/G–8

Lt. Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, December 2000–November 2001

Lt. Gen. Benjamin S. Griffin, November 2001–October 2004

Lt. Gen. David F. Melcher, October 2004–December 2006

Director of the Objective Force Task Force

Lt. Gen. Johnny M. Riggs, June 2001–November 2003

Executive Directors of the Louisiana Maneuvers Task Force

Brig. Gen. Tommy R. Franks, May 1992–June 1994

Brig. Gen. David Ohle, June 1994–June 1995

Col. Richard A. Cowell, June 1995–February 1996

Col. Wayne W. Boy, May 1996–July 1996

493

Bibliographical Note

Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005, is based 

on official documents, briefings, meeting notes, oral and e-mail testimony, 

professional publications, studies, and the commentary of veterans. It has also 

been enabled and enriched by secondary sources, official and unofficial. The 

project has extended for over ten years, and my access to each genre of primary source material has benefited immeasurably from subject matter experts 

in the agencies, holdings, and archives where they work.

Documents and briefings supporting the text have not, by and large, been 

retired to the National Archives and Records Administration. When they have 

been, most will probably reside in the Records of the Army Staff, Record Group 

(RG) 319, while other documents are in record groups responsible for the major 

Army commands (MACOMs) and Department of Defense agencies. In two 

years’ service as the executive officer of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for 

Operations and Plans (1995–1997) and seven years’ service as the Army Chief 

of Military History (1998–2005), I personally gathered a considerable body of 

these documents and briefings in anticipation of a project of this type. These 

are characterized as in Historians Files, U.S. Army Center of Military History 

(CMH), in the endnotes and were turned over to CMH’s Historical Resources 

Branch, Field Programs and Historical Services Division. They are located in 

the branch’s archives as documents supporting Kevlar Legions. That branch also 

holds the supporting materials for the annual Department of the Army historical summaries (DAHSUMs). The DAHSUMs are invaluable sources in themselves, and their supporting materials even more so. Each year CMH’s Historical 

Support Branch, Histories Division, dutifully vacuums up significant documents, records, briefings, and self-summations from Department of the Army 

and Army Staff constituents and agencies. Once these have been gathered and 

organized, a historian is given the mission of distilling them into a manuscript 

of reasonable length, such as the Department of the Army Historical Summary, 

Fiscal Year 1989. In due course, DAHSUMs are published and accessible on 

the Internet through http://www.history.army.mil, at which point the documents 

from which they derive migrate to the Historical Resources Branch. Until that 

point, they remain in the custody of the Historical Support Branch and the 

assigned authors working with them. Over time these holdings have become, 

understandably, vast. In the endnotes, I have cited DAHSUMs as the sources 

of statistics and agreed upon facts because the DAHSUMs are so readily accessible. When dealing with decisions or points of contention, I have instead cited 

the relevant original documents or briefings.
Kevlar Legions

494

Documents and briefings originating outside of the Department of the 

Army and the Army Staff travel different routes and thus become accessible 

at different nodes. Major Army commands have their own historians and 

historical offices. These also canvas their staff agencies and subordinate 

commands for significant documents, records, briefings, and self-summations; consolidate these on an annual basis; and produce annual summaries analogous to the DAHSUM. The process is overseen and periodically 

inspected by CMH’s Field and International Branch, Field Programs and 

Historical Services Division, and the annual summaries come into the 

Center via that branch. The documents, records, briefings, and self-summaries remain in the MACOM historical offices, each of which has its own 

archives. In the endnotes, I do not cite the MACOM annual summaries 

but instead cite the original materials in such a manner as to identify the 

headquarters of origin. The reader will note a considerable reliance on the 

U.S. Army Forces Command, Army Materiel Command (AMC), Space 

and Missile Defense Command, and Training and Doctrine Command 

(TRADOC) documents, records, and briefings. At the time of research and 

writing, the historical archives for Forces Command were located in Fort 

McPherson, Georgia; for the Army Materiel Command in Fort Belvoir, 

Virginia; for the Space and Missile Defense Command at Redstone Arsenal 

in Huntsville, Alabama; and for the Training and Doctrine Command in 

Fort Monroe, Virginia. The reader will also observe documents and briefings drawn from operational and tactical headquarters and units deployed 

overseas. Other than those collected personally, these largely became 

available through deployed military history detachments. Military history 

detachments are three-man Army National Guard and Army Reserve units 

mobilized and deployed to support operational headquarters under the 

staff supervision of CMH’s Field and International Branch. Among other 

responsibilities, they collect and organize significant documents, records, 

and briefings and forward copies to the Field and International Branch. 

I had access to such materials when they were still in the hands of that 

branch, but these have now been moved to the U.S. Army Heritage and 

Education Center (AHEC) at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Meeting notes reinforce my citations in numerous places. The meetings 

most frequently cited are those of the Army General Staff Council (GSC). One 

will also find references to Army Staff meetings chaired by the Vice Chief of 

Staff of the Army (VCSA), selected Army Staff offsites and four-star conferences, and planning sessions associated with the Quadrennial Defense Review 

(QDR). In each case, a field-grade representative of the Director of the Army 

Staff (DAS), affectionately referred to as a “dwarf,” sat in on the meeting and 

consolidated notes, which were stored and promulgated electronically. When 

I was Chief of Military History, seven such officers under the supervision of 

a full colonel shared this responsibility. Inevitably the colonel became “Snow 

White” and the office “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” The dwarves’ 

notes consolidated material actually covered at meetings with submissions 

by each attendee reflecting what he or she would have shared had there been 

time. The DAS remains the proponent for these records, which are vast and 
495

Bibliographical Note

have only incidentally achieved printed form. In my endnotes, when I cited 

Army General Staff Council Meeting notes, date, Historians Files, CMH, I 

am referring to my own handwritten notes taken during the meeting, which 

were turned over to CMH’s Historical Resources Branch. The notes are bulleted and reflect what was actually said or exchanged. They can be reinforced 

by the dwarves’ electronic records as necessary, should one have appropriate 

access. The Chief of Military History routinely attended meetings at this level 

to further the historical record, as well as to participate as a member of the 

Army Staff.

Oral histories and correspondence considerably improve the account, 

particularly with respect to nuance, eyewitness testimony, and exchanges 

that may not have made it into the official record. CMH’s Oral History 

Activity, Histories Division, routinely interviews departing principals of the 

Army Staff and the Department of the Army. Most of these interviews are 

not yet transcribed, but all are recorded and cataloged. MACOM historians 

have the same responsibility, and similarly interview their principals. Army 

and MACOM historians also conduct interviews on major developments, 

to advance projects and studies, and as directed. The Oral History Activity, 

strongly encouraged by the Department of the Army Historical Advisory 

Committee (DAHAC), has undertaken a project to identify the interviews 

that have been conducted across subordinate headquarters and to draw them 

all into a single electronic database. Transcripts can be immediately available 

electronically, and knowledge of audio versions and where they are stored 

readily found out. Happily for historians, the junior officers who help their 

Army Staff principals prepare for interviews (or testimony) also help them 

write their entries for the annual Army Green Book of the Association of the 

United States Army. For at least a generation the Army Green Book has been 

the unofficial forum through which senior Army leaders have communicated 

the accomplishments and aspirations of their commands and agencies to the 

Army at large. Understandably, there is a huge overlap between what a principal might choose to share with a historian and what he or she reports in 

these annual self-assessments. In my endnotes, when a point has been made 

in both an interview and an Army Green Book article, I have cited the Army 

Green Book. For most, the Army Green Book is far more accessible and does 

commit key individuals to certain comments at specific points in time. In 

this study, the use of personal accounts has a third leg beyond interviews 

and articles. Once a chapter was written in draft, I circulated it to senior 

leaders particularly involved. They often came back to me with comments 

and clarifications, some of them extensive. Most responded by e-mail, some 

by telephone. Copies of the e-mails and memorandums for the record of the 

telephone conversations were turned over to CMH’s Historical Resources 

Branch, there to be found along with other primary materials supporting 

Kevlar Legions. The Center of Military History publishes selected speeches, 

messages, and papers of each Army Chief of Staff sometime after the end 

of his tenure. Of these, I have particularly relied on the collected works of 

Generals Gordon R. Sullivan, Dennis J. Reimer, and (unpublished at the 

time of use) Eric K. Shinseki.
Kevlar Legions

496

The subject of Army transformation during 1989–2005 understandably 

attracted considerable professional interest beyond that manifested in official 

documents and briefings. I have already discussed the value of the Army Green 

Book and also drew on and cited professional writings from Army magazine. 

Other professional journals that figured prominently in my endnotes include 

Armed Forces Journal, Armor, Army History, Army Logistician, Infantry, Joint 

Forces Quarterly, Military Review, Parameters, and Strategic Review. Army 

Times caters to a somewhat different audience in a considerably different 

format but also provided many articles relevant to my subject. A particularly rich vein with respect to professional writing has been student papers 

and, within them, theses supporting the master of military arts and science 

(MMAS) program. Candidates for the MMAS are seasoned officers who 

often speak with authority on projects and events they have participated in 

at the field-grade level. They are mentored by the accomplished faculty of the 

Command and General Staff College and the School of Advanced Military 

Studies, who ensure that students achieve appropriate levels of clarity, scholarship, and documentation. The result is often a thoughtful primary source and 

through its documentation a window into others. Helpfully, MMAS theses, 

and much else, are available through the Combined Arms Research Library 

(CARL) or online through http://www.cgsc.edu. The Army War College and 

other Army and Department of Defense schools also produce and catalog 

student papers, which furnish reasoned insights from officers with firsthand 

knowledge of their subjects. It is often said that the Pentagon is run by its 

“iron majors.” There is no reason that their writings should not be useful. 

Veteran commentary is embedded in each type of primary source discussed above but also comes through the military history detachments and 

through recurring assessments and surveys such as those by the Center for 

Army Lessons Learned (CALL) or the Army Research Institute (ARI) for the 

Behavioral and Social Sciences. A primary responsibility of the military history 

detachments, previously discussed, is to conduct, transcribe, and catalog interviews within their commands or purview. Subjects include those in key positions, those who have had striking experiences, and those selected to achieve a 

mix representative of a given unit’s composition. Copies are deposited with the 

command, with the historical offices of the Army Reserve or Army National 

Guard as appropriate, and with CMH’s Field and International Branch. I had 

access to interviews that were still in the hands of the Field and International 

Branch, but these have now been forwarded to the U.S. Army Heritage and 

Education Center. The choice of AHEC for storage makes great sense, as it 

has evolved into the repository for all such “unofficial” materials as interviews 

and private papers. CALL is also an ideal source for veteran commentary, as it 

has assessed tactics, techniques, and procedures since 1973, and has built up a 

considerable inventory of historical materials while doing so. Its publications 

are widely available and individually cited in my endnotes. Most are accessible online through http://www.usacac.army.mil/cac2/call. ARI is even more 

venerable and has been assessing and surveying soldiers for generations. In my 

endnotes, I cited its studies individually. Many are available online through 

http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari.
497

Bibliographical Note

A subject as complex and as institutionally significant as Army transformation inevitably generated studies and assessments. Those developed within the 

Army Staff, TRADOC, AMC, and other Army agencies became visible and 

are accessible as described above. I have mentioned the role of the Center for 

Army Lessons Learned and the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and 

Social Sciences in engendering and consolidating veteran commentary. They 

conduct studies relevant to my topic as a matter of course as well. Other government agencies conducting studies that appear in my endnotes include the 

Congressional Research Service, U.S. Army Community and Family Support 

Center, and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. The Army is heavily 

dependent on contractors to sustain its intellectual endeavors, and these organizations produce studies that become central to deliberations. Contractors of 

this type that appear in my endnotes include Burdeshaw Associates, Caliber 

Associates, the Center for Military and Strategic Studies, the Center for Strategic 

and International Studies, RAND, and Science Applications International 

Corporation (SAIC). Independent of both the Department of the Army and 

contracting, the Association of the United States Army’s Institute of Land 

Warfare is prolific, relevant, and visible in my notes. 

I have depended on some primary sources to relate the activities of the 

Joint Staff, Department of Defense, Congress, and the George H. W. Bush, 

William J. Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations to Army transformation. Beyond those available through Army archives, these have not been 

the products of comprehensive archival research meriting discussion here. 

Some documents were personally collected over the ten years I was involved in 

Army transformation deliberations and appear in the endnotes in Historians 

Files, CMH. More records were offered by colleagues from the Joint Staff, 

Department of Defense, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps familiar with 

and supportive of the project. These materials were turned over to CMH’s 

Historical Resources Branch. Beyond this gathered material, I relied on secondary sources when dealing with agencies outside the Army. Fortunately, the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, Office of the Secretary of the Navy, Office of the Secretary of the 

Air Force, and the Congressional Research Service have produced much that 

proved useful and that appears in my endnotes. The Congressional Record, of 

course, is available online at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord. 

Secondary sources have considerably improved the reach and grasp of this 

volume. To my knowledge, this is the first attempt at a comprehensive study 

of the subject throughout the period, but important patches of ground have 

already been plowed. The Center of Military History has published superb 

studies that illuminate important aspects of my topic. Cases in point include 

Shannon A. Brown’s Providing the Means of War: Historical Perspectives on 

Defense Acquisition, 1945–2000; Anne W. Chapman’s The Army Training 

Revolution, 1973–1990: An Overview (the reprint of a TRADOC volume); 

William M. Donnelly’s Transforming an Army at War: Designing the Modular 

Force, 1991–2005; Robert A. Doughty’s The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical 

Doctrine, 1946–76 (a reprint of a Leavenworth Paper); Robert K. Griffith Jr.’s 

The U.S. Army’s Transition to the All-Volunteer Force, 1968–1974; Francis T. 
Kevlar Legions

498

Julia’s Army Staff Reorganization 1903–1985; Charles E. Kirkpatrick’s “Ruck 

It Up!” The Post–Cold War Transformation of V Corps, 1990–2001; Marvin A. 

Kreidberg and Merton G. Henry’s History of Military Mobilization in the United 

States Army, 1775–1945; Edgar F. Raines Jr.’s The Army and the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff: Evolution of Army Ideas on the Command, Control, and Coordination of the 

U.S. Armed Forces, 1942–1985; Mark J. Reardon and Jeffery A. Charlston’s From 

Transformation to Combat: The First Stryker Brigade at War; John L. Romjue’s 

American Army Doctrine for the Post–Cold War (the reprint of a TRADOC 

work); John L. Romjue’s The Army of Excellence: The Development of the 1980s 

Army (the reprint of a TRADOC book); Mark D. Sherry’s The Army Command 

Post and Defense Reshaping, 1987–1997; Richard W. Stewart’s The U.S. Army 

in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001–March 2002; and 

United States Forces, Somalia, After Action Report and Historical Overview: 

The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994; James Walker’s Seize the High 

Ground: The Army in Space and Missile Defense and Space Warriors: The Army 

Space Support Team (both reprints of Space and Missile Defense Command 

publications); John B. Wilson’s Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of 

Divisions and Separate Brigades; and James L. Yarrison’s The Modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers. Beyond these studies that particularly address transformational 

issues, my endnotes also cited an even broader array of Center of Military 

History products that describe specific campaigns, operations, or developments. 

Army MACOMs publish secondary sources too. Some addressing transformational subjects that recurred in my endnotes include Army Comprehensive 

Guide to Modularity (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command, 2004); Charles H. Briscoe, Richard L. Kiper, James A. Schroder, 

and Kalev I. Sepp, Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations Forces 

in Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 

2003); James T. Currie, Twice the Citizen: A History of the United States Army 

Reserve, 1908–1995 (Washington DC: Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, 

1997); Michael D. Doubler, I Am the Guard: A History of the Army National 

Guard, 1636–2000 (Washington DC: Department of the Army, 2001); John J. 

McGrath, The Brigade: A History, Its Organization and Employment in the US 

Army (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2004); John 

L. Romjue, From Active Defense to AirLand Battle: The Development of Army 

Doctrine, 1973–1982 (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command Historical Office, 1984); TRADOC Pamphlet 525–3–91, Objective 

Force Tactical Operational and Organizational Concept for Maneuver Units of 

Action (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, 

6 November 2001); and TRADOC Pamphlet 525–3–92, Objective Force: Unit 

of Employment Concept (Fort Monroe, Virginia: U.S. Army Training and 

Doctrine Command, 20 May 2003). Beyond these, my endnotes also cited an 

even broader array of publications that describe specific campaigns, operations, and developments. Those of the Strategic Studies Institute (Army War 

College) and Combat Studies Institute (Command and General Staff College) 

are particularly visible and are accessible online.

Sadly, not every worthy manuscript makes it to publication—at least 

not right away. The Historical Resources Branch of the Field Programs and 
499

Bibliographical Note

Historical Services Division of the Center of Military History is a treasure trove 

of thoughtful and well documented not yet published manuscripts. Those that 

recurred in my endnotes include Lieutenant Colonel H. R. McMaster’s Crack 

in the Foundation: Defense Transformation and the Underlying Assumption 

of Dominant Knowledge in Future War; Clayton R. Newell’s Digitizing 

the Army; Deirdre E. Painter’s The Distaff Factor: Attitudinal Change 

and Continuity Through Four Generations of Army Wives; and Robert S. 

Rush’s The Individual Replacement System: Good, Bad or Indifferent? Army 

Replacement Policy, Cold War and Before. In due course, hopefully, these and 

other worthy manuscripts, or successor documents, will be published. 

Unofficial secondary sources that are commercially available also have 

given appreciable attention to Army transformational issues. Roughly in the 

order that they appeared in my endnotes, these include MacGregor Knox 

and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050 

(Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Michael 

Roberts, The Military Revolution, 1560–1660 (Belfast: M. Boyd, 1956); Geoffrey 

Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 

1500–1800 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2001); 

George and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology and 

American World Dominance in the 21st Century (New York: Crown Publishers, 

1996); Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 

1991); Major General Robert H. Scales Jr., Yellow Smoke: The Future of Land 

Warfare for America’s Military (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); 

D. Robert Worley, Shaping U.S. Military Forces: Revolution or Relevance in a 

Post–Cold War World (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 

2006); Mark D. Mandeles, Military Transformation Past and Present: Historic 

Lessons for the 21st Century (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security 

International, 2007); Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the 

Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006); Admiral 

William Owens and Ed Offley, Lifting the Fog of War (New York: Farrar, 

Straus and Giroux, 2000); Brad C. Hayes with others, Transforming the Navy 

(Newport, Rhode Island: U.S. Naval War College, 2000); John S. Brown, Draftee 

Division: The 88th Infantry Division in World War II (Lexington: University 

Press of Kentucky, 1986); Brian M. Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s 

Way of War (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007); 

Robert M. Citino, Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm: The Evolution of Operational 

Warfare (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2004); Bernard 

Rostker, I Want You! The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force (Santa Monica, 

California: RAND, 2006); George C. Wilson, This War Really Matters: Inside 

the Fight for Defense Dollars (Washington DC: CQ Press, 2000); Jonathan M. 

House, Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century (Lawrence, Kansas: 

University Press of Kansas, 2001); Brian Alexander and Alistair Millar, 

Tactical Nuclear Weapons in an Evolving Security Environment (Washington 

DC: Brassey’s, 2003); Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War 

and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004); 

Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 

1999); Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The 
Kevlar Legions

500

Origins of the Internet (New York: Touchstone, 1998); James F. Dunnigan, 

Digital Soldiers: The Evolution of High-Tech Weaponry and Tomorrow’s Brave 

New Battlefields (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); James R. Blaker, 

Transforming Military Force: The Legacy of Arthur Cebrowski and Network 

Centric Warfare (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Security International, 

2007); Thomas K. Adams, The Army After Next: The First Postindustrial 

Army (Stanford, California: Stanford Security Studies, 2008); Colonel Trevor 

N. Dupuy, Understanding War: History and Theory of Conflict (New York: 

Paragon House Publishers, 1987); Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, Attrition: 

Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War (Fairfax, 

Virginia: Hero Books, 1990); Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War (New 

York: Public Affairs, 2001); Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How 

War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century (New York: Free Press, 2003); Robert 

D. Hormats, The Price of Liberty: Paying for America’s Wars (New York: 

Henry Holt, 2007); Douglas A. Macgregor, Breaking the Phalanx: A New 

Design for Landpower in the 21st Century (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 

1997); Douglas A. Macgregor, Transforming Under Fire: Revolutionizing How 

America Fights (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2003); Eric L. Haney with 

Brian Thomsen, Beyond Shock and Awe: Warfare in the 21st Century (New 

York: Berkley Publishing Group, 2006); and P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The 

Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (New York: Penguin, 

2009).
501

Abbreviations

AAE Army Acquisition Executive 

AAFES Army and Air Force Exchange Service 

AAR after-action review

AC active component 

ACAP Army Career and Alumni Program 

ACS Army Community Service 

ACSIM Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation 

Management 

ACTD Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration 

ADCSOPS Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and 

Plans 

ADO	 Army Digitization Office

AEF American Expeditionary Forces (World War I)

AER Army Emergency Relief 

AFAP Army Family Action Plan 

AFATDS Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System 

AFTB Army Family Team Building 

AI air interdiction

AMC Army Materiel Command 

AN/PVS Army/Navy Portable Visual Search 

AOE Army of Excellence

APOD aerial ports of debarkation 

APOE aerial ports of embarkation 

AREP Army Reserve Expeditionary Package 

ARFORGEN Army Force Generation 

ARI Army Research Institute 

ARNG Army National Guard 

ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency 

ARTADS Army Tactical Data System 

ARTBASS Army Training Battle Simulation System 

ARV armed robotic vehicle

ASA (RDA) Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research, 

Development, and Acquisition 

ASAS All Source Analysis System 

ASCC Army Service Component Command 

ASD SO/LIC Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special 

Operations and Low Intensity Conflict
Kevlar Legions

502

ATACMS Army Tactical Missile System 

ATC associate transportation company 

ATD Advanced Technology Demonstration 

ATEC Army Test and Evaluation Command 

ATO Air Tasking Order 

AUS Army of the United States 

AUSA Association of the United States Army 

AWACS Airborne Warning and Control System 

AWD	 Advanced Warfighting Demonstration

AWE	 Advanced Warfighting Experiment

AWR Army War Reserve 

BAH Basic Allowance for Housing 

BAI	 battlefield air interdiction

BAQ Basic Allowance for Quarters 

BASOPS base operations support 

BAT Brilliant Anti-armor Technology 

BCIS	 Battlefield Combat Identification System

BCT brigade combat team

BCTP Battle Command Training Program 

BFT blue force tracking 

BIDS Biological Integrated Detection System 

BOS	 Battlefield Operating System

BRAC base realignment and closures

BSFV-E Bradley Stinger Fighting Vehicle–Enhanced 

BSRF Building Strong and Ready Families 

BSTB brigade special troops battalion

BUR Bottom-Up Review

C2 command and control

C4ISR command, control, communications, computers, 

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

CAA Center of Army Analysis

CACDA Combined Arms Combat Developments Activity

CALFE	 combined-arms live-fire exercise 

CALL Center for Army Lessons Learned

CARS Combat Arms Regimental System 

CAS close air support

CAS3 Combined Arms Service Staff School

CBAS Company/Battalion Administrative System 

CBRS Concepts-Based Requirements System 

CBS Corps Battle Simulation System 

CCIR commander’s critical intelligence requirements 

CENTCOM Central Command 

CEO	 Chief Executive Officer

CEP circular error probable 

CERP Commander’s Emergency Response Program 
503

Abbreviations

CERT computer emergency response team 

CFC-A Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan 

CFLCC Combined Forces Land Component Command

CFSC Community and Family Support Center 

CHAMPUS Civilian Health and Medical Program of the 

Uniformed Services

CI counterintelligence

CIA Central Intelligence Agency 

CIDC Criminal Investigation Command 

CINC commander in chief

CIS Commonwealth of Independent States 

CJTF Combined Joint Task Force

CMH U.S. Army Center of Military History

CMTC Combat Maneuver Training Center 

CNO computer network operations 

COHORT Cohesion Operational Readiness and Training

COLA cost-of-living allowance 

CONUS continental United States 

CORM Commission on Roles and Missions 

COS Chief of Staff

COSCOM Corps Support Command 

CPA Coalition Provisional Authority 

CPX command post exercise

CRAF Civilian Reserve Airlift Fleet 

CSA Chief of Staff, Army

CSI Combat Studies Institute

CSS combat service support

CYS Child and Youth Services 

DA Department of the Army 

DAS Director of the Army Staff 

DAWMS Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study 

DCA defensive counter air

DCGS Distributed Common Ground System

DCGS-A Distributed Common Ground System–Army

DCSLOG Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics 

DCSOPS Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans 

DCX Division Capstone Exercise 

DeCA Defense Commissary Agency 

DEERS Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System 

DEPTEMPO deployment tempo 

DHS Department of Homeland Security

DIA Defense Intelligence Agency 

DIMHRS Defense Integrated Military Human Resources 

System 

DIS distributed interactive simulations 

DISCOM division support command
Kevlar Legions

504

DIVARTY division artillery 

DMR Defense Management Review

DoD Department of Defense 

DOPMA	 Defense Officer Personnel Management Act

DRB Division Ready Brigade 

DRF division ready force

DRID Defense Reform Initiative Directive

DRU Direct Reporting Unit 

EDRE Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise 

EEO Equal Employment Opportunity 

EFMB Expert Field Medical Badge 

EGRU EPLRS Grid Reference Unit 

EIB Expert Infantryman’s Badge 

ENIAC Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer 

EOD explosive ordnance detachment 

EPLRS Enhanced Position Location Reporting System 

ER/MP extended range/multipurpose

ERP Early Retirement Program 

ESL English as a Second Language 

EU European Union 

EUSA Eighth United States Army 

EW electronic warfare

EXFOR Experimental Force

FAADC2 Forward Area Air Defense Command and 

Control 

FAP Family Advocacy Program 

FARA Federal Acquisition Reform Act 

FBCB2 Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below 

FBCB2-BFT Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below—

Blue Force Tracking 

FCP Forward Compatible Payroll 

FCS future combat system 

FEST forward engineer support team 

Fires R&SV	 fires reconnaissance and surveillance vehicle

FIST	 fire support team

FLOT front line of troops 

FM Field Manual

FOA	 field operating agency

FORSCOM United States Army Forces Command 

FRG Family Readiness Group 

FSA family separation allowance 

FSCL	 fire support coordination line

FSCS Future Scout and Cavalry System 

FSS Fast Sealift Ships 

FY Fiscal Year 
505

Abbreviations

G–3	 operations and training officer 

GAO	 Government Accountability Office

GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 

GDP general defense plan 

GHQx General Headquarters Exercises

GOSC	 General Officer Steering Committee

GOWG	 General Officer Working Group

GPS global positioning system 

GSC General Staff Council 

GSU Garrison Support Unit 

HEMTT heavy expanded mobility tactical truck 

HHC headquarters and headquarters company

HMMWV high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle 

HQDA Headquarters, Department of Army 

HTI Horizontal Technical Integration

HTML hypertext markup language 

HTTP hypertext transfer protocol 

HUMINT human intelligence 

IAF Iraqi Armed Forces 

IAV interim armored vehicle

IBCT Interim Brigade Combat Team 

ICDC Iraqi Civil Defense Corps 

IDA Institute for Defense Analyses 

IED improvised explosive device 

IFF	 identification friend or foe

IFOR Implementation Force 

ILW Institute of Land Warfare 

IMA Individual Mobilization Augmentee 

IMAP Installation Management Action Plan 

IMCOM Installation Management Command 

IMET International Military Education and

Training 

IMETS integrated meteorological system 

INF Treaty Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

ING Iraqi National Guard 

INSCOM Army Intelligence and Security Command 

IO information operations 

IOC initial operating capability 

IRR Individual Ready Reserve 

ISAF International Security and Assistance Force 

ISB intermediate staging base 

ISR intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance

ITMRA Information Technology Management Reform 

Act 

IVIS Inter-Vehicular Information System 
Kevlar Legions

506

J–5 Joint Staff’s director of strategic plans and policy 

J-STARS Joint Surveillance Attack Radar System 

JASSM Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile 

JDAM Joint Direct Attack Munition 

JFLCC Joint Forces Land Component Command(er) 

JIEDDO Joint IED Defeat Organization 

JIM joint interagency multi-national

JLENS Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated 

Netted Sensor System

JOA Joint Operating Area 

JOPES Joint Operations Planning and Execution System 

JRTC Joint Readiness Training Center 

JSOTF Joint Special Operations Task Force 

JTF Joint Task Force 

JTIDS Joint Tactical Information Distribution System 

KDP Kurdistan Democratic Party 

KLA Kosovo Liberation Army 

KTO Kuwaiti Theater of Operations 

LAM Louisiana Maneuvers 

LAN local area network

LAR logistical assistance representative 

LAV Light Armored Vehicle 

LCMC life cycle management command 

LHX light helicopter experimental 

LOGCAP Logistics Civil Augmentation Program

LRS long-range surveillance

LRU line replaceable unit 

LSA Logistics Support Area

M-TADS/PNVS modernized target acquisition and designation 

sight/pilot night-vision sensor 

MAARS Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System 

MACOM major Army command 

MAGTF Marine Air Ground Task Forces 

MDMP military decision-making process 

MDW Military District of Washington 

MEADS Medium Extended Air Defense System 

MEB Marine Expeditionary Brigade 

MEDCOM Medical Command 

METL mission essential task list 

METT mission, enemy, terrain, and troops available 

MFO Multinational Forces of Observers

MHPI Military Housing Privatization Initiative 

MI military intelligence

MILDEC military deception 
507

Abbreviations

MILES Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System 

MILPERCEN United States Army Military Personnel Center 

MILSPEC	 military specification

MLRS Multiple Launch Rocket System 

MMAS Master of Military Arts and Sciences 

MMR multi-mission radar

MOAA	 Military Officers Association of America

MOS military occupational specialty 

MP military police

MPRI Military Professional Resources International 

MPS Maritime Pre-positioning Squadron 

MRAP mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle

MRC major regional contingency 

MRE meal ready to eat 

MSC Major Subordinate Command

MSE mobile subscriber equipment 

MTOE	 modified table of organization and equipment 

MWR morale, welfare, and recreation 

NAF nonappropriated funds 

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

NBC nuclear, biological, and chemical 

NCO	 noncommissioned officer 

NCOES	 Noncommissioned Officer Education System

NCOPD	 noncommissioned officer professional development 

NDU National Defense University

NEO noncombatant evacuation operation

NETCOM Network Enterprise Technology Command 

NGO nongovernmental organization 

NIPRNET Nonsecure Internet Protocol Router Network

NLOS non-line-of-sight 

NSA National Security Agency 

NTC National Training Center 

OC Observer Controller 

OCA offensive counter air 

ODCSOPS	 Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations

and Plans 

ODT overseas deployment training 

OER	 officer evaluation report

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom 

OOTW operations other than war 

OPCON operational control 

OPD	 officer professional development

OPFOR opposing force 

OPLAN operations plan 

OPMS	 Officer Personnel Management System
Kevlar Legions

508

OPSEC operations security 

OPTEMPO operational tempo 

ORHA	 Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian

Assistance 

OSACOM Operational Support Airlift Command 

OSD	 Office of the Secretary of Defense

OVUREP Overseas Unit Replacement System 

PAC Patriot Advanced Capability

PACOM	 Pacific Command

PA&E program analysis and evaluation 

PARP (PfP) Planning and Review Process 

PB pyridostigmine bromide 

PC personal computer 

PCM primary care manager 

PCS permanent change of station 

PEO	 Program Executive Office

PERSTEMPO personnel tempo 

PfP Partnership for Peace 

PGM precision-guided munition 

PIP product improvement 

PLGR precision lightweight GPS receiver 

PLL prescribed load list 

PLS Palletized Load System 

POL petroleum, oil, and lubricants 

POM preparations for overseas movement 

POMCUS	 Pre-positioning of Materiel Configured to Unit Sets 

POW prisoner of war 

PPBES Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution 

System 

PPBS Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System 

PRIMUS Primary Care to Uniformed Services 

PSYOPS psychological operations 

PTSD posttraumatic stress disorder 

QDR Quadrennial Defense Review 

QTB quarterly training brief 

RAID United States Reconnaissance and Interdiction 

Detachment

RAOC Rear Area Operations Center

RC reserve component 

RCI Residential Communities Initiative 

R&D research and development

Ready (Operation) Resources for Educating About Deployment and 

You

REDCON readiness condition 
509

Abbreviations

REFORGER Return of Forces to Germany 

REMBASS	 Remote Battlefield Sensor System

RFF Request for Forces 

RFI Rapid Fielding Initiative 

RFID	 radio frequency identification

RIF reduction in force 

RJ Rivet Joint

RMA revolution in military affairs 

ROAD Reorganization Objective Army Division 

RO/RO roll-on/roll-off 

ROTAPLAN Rotational Plan

ROTC	 Reserve Officers’ Training Corps 

RPG rocket-propelled grenade 

RSO&I reception, staging, onward movement, and 

integration (exercises)

RSTA reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition

S–2	 battalion intelligence officer and staff

SAIC Science Applications International Corporation 

SAMS Standard Army Maintenance System 

SBCT Stryker Brigade Combat Team 

SBP	 survivor benefits program

SDDC Surface Deployment and Distribution Command 

SEAD suppression of enemy air defense

SEAL sea-air-land team (Navy)

SEDRE Sea Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise 

SEP System Enhancement Package 

SERB Selective Early Retirement Board 

SETAF Southern European Task Force 

SFOR Stabilization Force 

SGLI Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance 

SHAPE Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe 

SIDPERS Standard Installation/Division Personnel Reporting 

System 

SIGINT signal intelligence

SIMITAR Simulation in Training for Advanced Readiness 

SINCGARS Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio 

System 

SINCGARS-SIP Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio 

System–System Improvement Program 

SIPRNET Secure Internet Protocol Router Network 

SMDC Space and Missile Defense Command 

SNAP Special Needs Accommodation Process

SOAR Special Operations Aviation Regiment 

SOF Special Operations Forces 

SOLD Spouse Orientation and Leader Development 

SPBS-R standard property book system–redesignated 
Kevlar Legions

510

SPT support

SQT	 skill qualification test 

SSG Senior Steering Group 

S&T science and technology 

STANAG standardization agreement 

TAB target acquisition battery 

TAC Tactical Actions Center 

TACCS Tactical Army Combat Service Support Computer 

System 

TACFIRE Tactical Fire Direction System (Army) 

TACP Tactical Air Control Party (Air Force)

TACWAR Tactical Warfare model 

TAMD theater air and missile defense 

TAP The Army Plan 

TDA table of distribution and allowances 

TEXCOM Test and Experimentation Command 

THAAD Theater High-Altitude Air Defense 

THT tactical HUMINT team

TOC Tactical Operations Center 

TOE table of organization and equipment 

TOW tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided 

TPFDL time-phased force and deployment list 

TRADOC Training and Doctrine Command 

TROA	 The Retired Officers Association

TRS TRICARE Reserve Select 

TSA Transportation Security Agency

TSC Theater Support Command 

TTP tactics, techniques, and procedures 

TUAV tactical unmanned aerial vehicle 

U2R U2 reconnaissance aircraft

UA unit of action 

UAU USARC Augmentation Unit 

UAV unmanned aerial vehicle 

UCMJ Uniformed Code of Military Justice 

UCOFT	 unit conduct-of-fire trainer

UE unit of employment 

UNITAF	 Unified Task Force

UNMIH United Nations Mission in Haiti 

UNOSOM United Nations Operations in Somalia 

UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force 

URL uniform resource locator 

USAA United Services Automobile Association 

USACAPOC United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological 

Operations Command 

USACE United States Army Corps of Engineers 
511

Abbreviations

USAF United States Air Force

USAR United States Army Reserve 

USARC United States Army Reserve Command 

USARCENT United States Army Central Command 

USAREUR United States Army, Europe 

USARNORTH United States Army, North 

USARPAC	 United States Army, Pacific

USARSO United States Army, South 

USASOC United States Army Special Operations Command 

USMA United States Military Academy 

USNORTHCOM United States Northern Command 

USSOCOM United States Special Operations Command 

USSTRATCOM United States Strategic Command 

USTRANSCOM United States Transportation Command 

VA Veterans Affairs 

VBIED vehicle-borne improvised explosive device

VERRP Voluntary Early Release/Retirement Program 

VHA Variable Housing Allowance 

VSIP Voluntary Selective Incentive Program

VTC video teleconference 

WAC Women’s Army Corps 

WEAR wartime executive agency responsibility 

WESTCOM Western Command 

WFX	 Warfighter exercise

WMD weapons of mass destruction 

WORRM Weapon Optimization and Resource Requirements 

Model

513

Map Symbols

and Terms

X X

7

X X X

V

X X

1 CAV

X

Armor

Cavalry (Armored) 

Infantry

Infantry (Airborne)

Infantry (Air Assault)

Infantry (Mechanized)

Marine Corps

V Corps

1st Cavalry Division

7th Infantry Division

Platoon

Battery, Company, or Cavalry Troop

Battalion or Cavalry Squadron

Regiment or Group

Brigade

Division

Corps

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

USMC

Military Units

Function

X X

X X X

V

X X

1 CAV

Armor

Cavalry (Armored) 

Infantry

Infantry (Airborne)

Infantry (Air Assault)

Infantry (Mechanized)

Marine Corps

V Corps

1st Cavalry Division

7h IfDiii

Platoon

Battery, Company, or Cavalry Troop

Battalion or Cavalry Squadron

Regiment or Group

Brigade

Division

Corps

I

III

I I

X X

XXX

X

Size Symbols USMC
Kevlar Legions

514

X X

7

X X X

V

III

3

X X

1 CAV

X

3 101

I I

1 504

1 C/3/504

III

5 S F

I

A 4/6

V Corps

1st Cavalry Division

7th Infantry Division

3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)

3d Armored Cavalry Regiment

1st Battalion, 504th Infantry (Airborne)

Company A, 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry (Mechanized)

1st Platoon, Company C, 3d Battalion, 504th Infantry (Airborne) 

Brigade

Division

Corps

X X

XXX

X

Abbreviations

Br British

CJTF Combined Joint Task Force

Eg Egypt

Fr France

JSOTF-N Joint Special Operations Task Force–North

JSOTF-W Joint Special Operations Task Force–West

Ku Kuwait

MEF Marine Expeditionary Force

MNC-I Multi-National Corps–Iraq

MND-Baghdad Multi-National Division–Baghdad

MND-CS Multi-National Division–Center-South

MND-N Multi-National Division–North

MND-NC Multi-National Division–North Central

MND-NE Multi-National Division–Northeast

MND-NW Multi-National Division–Northwest

MND-SE Multi-National Division–Southeast

MNF-NW Multi-National Force–Northwest

MNF-W Multi-National Force–West

NG National Guard

Rn Ranger

SA Saudi Arabia

SOF Special Operations Forces

Sy Syria

TF Task Force

Examples
515

Abdul Azziz, Fahd bin (king of Saudi Arabia), 

56

Aberdeen Sex Scandal (1996), 480

Able Sentry, 108

Abrams, General Creighton W., Jr., 247

Abrams, General John N., 206

Abu Ghurayb, 420–21

Abu Sayyaf, 211, 223

“Active Defense,” 16

Adnan Division, 407

Advance medical directives, 364

Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System 

(AFATDS), 150, 229

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), 

127

Advanced Technology Demonstrations (ATDs), 

91, 123, 139

Advanced Warfighting Demonstrations

(AWDs), 91

Advanced Warfighting Experiments (AWEs),

91, 123, 128, 139, 145, 455, 482

Aerial ports of embarkation (APOE) and debarkation (APOD), 397

Afghanistan

arms trafficking out of, 54

deployment, paradigm shift in, 250

Information Age and, 266–67, 367–68

Soviet withdrawal from, 46, 53, 218

Taliban, 218–19, 221–23, 228, 400, 422

technical aspects of Army transformation affected by, 265–74

unconventional warfare in, 422–23

U.S. war in, 218–24, 228–30

wounded soldiers, medical treatment of, 

263–65

See also Practical effects of Army 

transformation.

After-action reviews (AARs), 68, 87–88, 414

Aideed, Muhammed, 114

Air defense artillery, 148, 310, 457, 472

Air defense force structure, disappearance of, 

317–18

Air Force

airlift and, 96, 395–97

Army force structure and, 316, 317–18

combined and joint operations, 102

Desert Storm, reputation in aftermath of, 89

fratricide incidents involving, 143

funding of, 20, 164

Information Age expectations of, 147

jointness, Army pursuit of, 296–97

QDR 1997 and, 164, 166

QDR 2005 and, 275, 276

on RMAs, 6

service stereotypes regarding, 164

TACP, 456

USAF Missions Area Relationships 

Sideview, 291–301

Air and Missile Defense Command, 32d, 181, 411

Air Tasking Order (ATO), 102, 228, 316

Airborne troops

XVIII Airborne Corps, 56, 59–60, 63, 208

82d Airborne Division, 56, 97, 98, 114, 116, 

234, 393, 398, 422

101st Airborne Division, 59–60, 116, 208, 

222, 231, 234, 305, 307, 393, 395, 403, 409

173d Airborne Brigade, 232, 306, 398

4-505th Parachute Infantry, 117

introduction of airborne divisions, 22

Aircraft, fixed-wing

AC–130 gunship, 228

B–52 bomber, 219, 410

C–5 cargo plane, 96, 207, 396

C–17 Globemaster III, 96, 97, 170, 206, 

207, 229, 396, 398, 400, 411

C–130 cargo plane, 203–04, 207–09, 396

C–141 cargo plane, 96

E–3 Airborne Warning and Control 

System (AWACS), 59, 213

EF–111A Raven, 59

F–15C fighter, 5

F–16 fighter-bomber, 1, 167, 424

F–22 fighter, 166, 275

F–117A Nighthawk stealth bomber, 59

F/A–18 Hornet, 166, 410

KC–10 tankers, 96

V–22 Osprey, 166–67

“AirLand Battle,” 16, 21, 66, 291, 299, 301

Index
Kevlar Legions

516

Airlift, strategic, 96, 161, 395–97, 470

Akhromeyev, Sergei, 46

Al-Qaeda, 211, 214, 218–19, 221–23, 228, 230, 

422

Albania, 156, 157, 161, 170, 200

Albanian Kosovars, 53, 156–57

All Source Analysis System (ASAS), 150

Allied forces

coordination of, 438–40

historical glacis provided by, 470

Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, NATO, 419

American Revolution, 26, 141

America’s First Battles, 1776–1965, 85–86

AN/PSN–11 precision lightweight GPS receiver 

(PLGR), 145–47

Anaconda, 222, 224, 228, 229, 422

Andreesen, Marc, 55

Angola, 54, 111

ANTAEUS, 73, 162, 453, 462, 466, 478

Arab emirates, 57

Arab-Israeli War of 1973, 16

Ardennes, Battle of, 294

Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 114

Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, 126

Armenia, 153

Armored gun system, 171, 398

Armored troops

1st Armored Division, 396, 429

2d Armored Division, 105, 124, 144

6th Light Armored Division, 59

3d Brigade, 2d Armored Division, 304

194th Separate Armored Brigade, 144

organizational changes involving, 21–22

Task Force 1-63 Armor, 396, 398

Task Force 1-70 Armor, 144

Task Force 2-70 Armor, 398

Arms reduction talks, 46

Arms trafficking, 53–54

Army

funding, service stereotypes regarding, 164

image, need to address, 193–94

reputation in aftermath of Desert Storm, 89

state of, in 1989, 35–41

state of, in 1995, 124–28

state of, in 1999, 178–82

state of, in 2005, 278–82

“weight” of, 171

See also Downsizing of Army.

Army, Eighth United States (EUSA), 313, 325, 

326, 327

Army XXI, 149–50, 169, 197, 282, 478

Army Aeronautical Services Agency, 328

“Army After Next,” 169, 171, 193, 197, 202, 

258, 282, 301, 311, 328

Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), 

4, 346–47, 349–50, 356–57, 379, 380, 382

Army Commander’s Guide to Family Readiness 

Group Operations, 362

Army Community Service (ACS), 342, 354, 

358, 361, 456, 

Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. (USACE). 

See Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of 

(USACE).

Army Digitization Office (ADO), 91, 123, 471

Army Emergency Relief (AER), 342, 358, 460

Army for Empire, 10, 11, 23, 26, 27, 453, 473, 

482

Army of Excellence, 297, 298, 299, 301, 310, 

311, 320

Army Family Action Plan (AFAP), 69, 343, 

344, 347, 348, 353

Army Family Team Building (AFTB), 362–

63, 381

The Army Family White Paper (Wickham), 69, 

341, 351, 361

Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) cycle, 

260–62, 458

Army force structure, 299–309, 332–39, 456 

air defense, disappearance of, 317–18, 457

command hierarchy, proposals to flatten,

290–91

critiques and suggestions, 289–98

engineers, 320–21, 457

external complements to, 316–24

field artillery, diminution of, 318–20, 457

headquarters above brigade, 310–16

institutional Army, 324–31

jointness, pursuit of, 296–97

logistics and, 297–98

sustainability issues, 435–37

unit rotation and unit manning, 251, 253–62, 

295–96, 400–402, 458–59, 472

See also Brigades.

Army Futures Center, Fort Monroe, Virginia, 

325

Army Green Book, 35, 85, 127, 146

Army Knowledge Online (AKO), 325, 375

Army Materiel Command (AMC), 25, 40, 70, 

127, 174, 201, 325, 327, 461, 462, 478, 

479

Army Medical Reserve, 9

Army National Guard (ARNG). See National 

Guard.

Army National Guard Personnel Center, 70

Army/Navy Portable Visual Search (AN/PVS) 

14, 272

“Army of One” slogan, 366, 375

The Army Plan (TAP), 248

Army Recruiting Command, 70

Army Regulation 210–20, Master Planning for 

Army Installations, 94

Army Research Institute (ARI), 330, 357
517

Index

Army Reserve. See Reserve.

Army Reserve Expeditionary Packages 

(AREPs), 377

Army Reserve Personnel Center, 70

Army Retiree Recall Program, 372, 467

Army School Age Services, 351

Army Security Agency, 119

Army Service Component Command (ASCC), 

324, 327–28, 330

Army Spouse Employment Partnership, 357

Army Strategic Planning Guidance, 4, 201

“Army Strong” slogan, 366

Army Tactical Data Systems (ARTADSs), 119

Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), 98, 

166, 175, 440

Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC), 

204, 325

Army Training Battle Simulation System 

(ARTBASS), 41

Army transformation, 28–34, 483–85

abstract versus operations-oriented, 331

administrative changes leading to, 23

Army force structure, 289–339, 456–57

centrally directed and institutionally driven 

nature of, 462–63, 478–79

control over, 6–7

and cultural shifts, 23–24

defining, 3–7

distractions from process of, 479–82

doctrinal change driving, 20–21, 66, 69–70

family support and, 341–91, 459–61

funding, 17, 19–20

future developments in, 473–82

high end of combat spectrum, abandonment 

of, 466–69

historical occurrences of, 7–16, 465–70

institutional players involved in, 24–26, 

71–72

low-intensity conflict, changing involvement

in, 469–70

organizational changes, 21–22

practical effects of, 393–452

as process, 17–27

under Reimer (1995–1999), 139–90

resistance to and controversy over, 18–19 

RMA (revolution in military affairs), concept of, 5–6, 463–64

under Schoomaker (2003–2005), 245–88

under Shinseki (1999–2003), 191–243

success of, 473–74

under Sullivan (1991–1995), 85–137

summary of, 453–65

Tall’ Afar helicopter crash and Black Hawk 

Down incident compared, 1–3

tectonic shift (1989–1991), 35–83

timeline of, 26

trade-offs and compromises, 465–72

training as means of, 9, 22–23, 457–58. 

See also Army force structure; Family support; Practical effects of Army transformation; Reimer, General Dennis 

J., Army transformation under (1995–

1999); Schoomaker, General Peter J., 

Army transformation under (2003–2005); 

Shinseki, General Eric K., Army transformation under (1999–2003); Sullivan, 

General Gordon R., Army transformation under (1991–1995); Tectonic shift 

(1989–1991); Training.

Army Transformation Office, 4–5

Army War College, 9, 22, 25, 68, 198–200, 330

Army War Reserve (AWR) stockpiles, 97–98, 

104–05, 152

Arnhem, Battle of (1944), 208

Aspin, Les, 162

Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation 

Management (ACSIM), 94, 351

Association of the United States Army (AUSA), 

72, 90, 125, 168, 194–95, 249, 258, 370–74, 

461–62. See also Eisenhower Luncheon.

Assured Response, 153

Asymmetrical warfare. See Unconventional 

warfare.

Atomic weapons, 13–14, 19, 26, 27, 43, 

74, 290, 453, 468. See also Nuclear 

weapons.

Attack Helicopter Regiment, 11th, 234, 403

Avenger air defense system, 148, 150, 182

Aviation Group, 11th. See Attack Helicopter 

Regiment, 11th.

Aviation Unit of Action, 307

Bali, Indonesia, terrorist attacks in, 222

Balikatan, 110, 153

Balkans, operations in, 154–57, 171. See also

specific countries and regions.

“Band of brothers” mentality, 262, 264, 312, 

472, 477

Bangladesh, 115

Base Force study, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 162–

63, 164

Base realignment and closures (BRAC), 158

Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), 344, 346

Battle books, 37, 103, 105

Battle command and battle space management, 

121–22

Battle Command Training Program (BCTP), 

41, 177, 207, 231

Battle labs, 90–91, 144, 455, 471

Battlefield Operating System (BOS), 316–17

Battlefield Surveillance Unit of Action, 307,

308–09, 310
Kevlar Legions

518

“Be All You Can Be” slogan, 23, 37, 365, 366, 

375

Belgium, 36, 47, 97, 109

Berlin Wall, fall of, 4, 44, 48

Berners-Lee, Tim, 55

“Big five,” 15, 38–40, 61, 67, 127

Bin Laden, Osama, 211, 218, 221, 422

Bina, Eric, 55

Bir, Cevik, 113

Bismarck, Otto von, 26, 47

Black beret, adoption of, 480

Black Hawk Down incident, 1–2, 114, 281, 

423–24

Blackwater, 177

Blitzkrieg, 5, 6, 12, 21, 198, 396, 464

Blue Force Tracking (BFT), Force XXI Battle 

Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2), 

1, 266, 267, 406–07, 423–24, 428, 429, 

438, 440, 454, 471, 481

Body armor, 1–2, 264, 272, 369

Bosnia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 53, 154–57, 

159, 169, 174, 175, 179, 191, 193, 223, 

250, 416, 419, 432

Bottom-Up Review (BUR), OSD, 162–63, 164, 

165

Bradley, General Omar N., 371, 461–62

Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and troops,

16, 38–40, 68, 98, 105, 120, 128, 150, 

193, 197, 205, 209, 228, 234, 252, 267, 

268, 270, 271, 396, 398, 412, 416–17, 

425, 473

Bradley Stinger Fighting Vehicle–Enhanced 

(BSFV-E), 150

Breaking the Phalanx, 169, 290, 296, 297, 301, 

456

Breech-loading smokeless repeating rifles, 8,

17, 20

Bremer, L. Paul, III, 235, 416, 431, 439

Bretton Woods Conference (1944), 17, 54

Brezhnev Doctrine, 45, 46

Brigade 75, 254

Brigades

advantages and disadvantages of restructuring, 309–10

command hierarchies, proposals to flatten,

290–91

development under Sullivan, Reimer, 

Shinseki, and Schoomaker, 301–03

National Guard enhanced brigades, 127, 

128, 181, 256–57, 259, 291, 302, 456

shift to brigade-based Army, 256–57, 291–

95, 302–10, 435, 456–57, 472

sustainability issues, 435–37

unit rotation and unit manning, 256–57

in USAF Missions Area Relationships 

Sideview, 291–301

Bright Star, 110, 153, 222

Brilliant Anti-armor Technology (BAT), 98

Britain. See United Kingdom.

Brown and Root Services Corporation, 174–75, 

321, 373

Brownlee, Romie L. “Les,” 237, 249–50

Budget. See Funding.

Buford, Major General John, Jr., 204

Building Strong and Ready Families (BSRF), 

359

Bulgaria, 44, 108, 161

Bull Run, Battle of, 8, 141

Bunker Hill, Battle of, 141

Burundi, 114

Bush, George H. W., 50, 57

Bush, George W., 226, 230, 236

Byrnes, General Kevin P., 278–79

C2NVEO, 121

Caldera, Louis, 194, 198

Calhoun, John C., 10, 74, 466

Cambodia, 111

Canada, 10, 204, 205, 214, 222

Canham, Brigadier General Charles, 140

CAPSTONE program, 64, 67, 117

Caribbean Command, 115

Castro, Fidel, 49, 115

Cavalry units

1st Cavalry Division, 104–05, 144, 203, 

222, 231, 393, 396, 421, 427, 430, 431

2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, 104–06

2d Armored Cavalry Regiment, 171, 202, 

302, 397, 398, 403

3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, 393

11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, 209

278th Cavalry, National Guard, 259

3-7 Cavalry, 406

Task Force 1-5 Cavalry, 104, 105

Ceausescu, Nicolae, 44

Cedras, Raoul, 114–15

Center of Army Analysis, 290, 330

Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL), 

Fort Leavenworth, Texas, 88, 414

Center of Military History, 194, 204, 208, 229–

30, 231, 254, 258, 290, 292, 312, 330, 

376, 416, 467

Central Command (CENTCOM), 105, 224, 

231–32, 250–51, 258, 396, 399, 400, 

402, 416, 418–19, 422

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 49, 62, 269, 

322, 400, 422

Chechnya, 53, 222, 407, 442

Cheney, Richard, 74

Child care and youth services, 159, 342, 347–

51, 380. See also Family support.

Child Development Centers, 348
519

Index

Child and Youth Services (CYS), 350, 351

China, 13, 16, 35, 45, 49, 52, 54, 152, 153, 217, 

432, 475–76, 480

Civil Affairs Battalion, 96th, 115

Civil War (U.S.), 7–8, 11, 12, 171, 175, 204, 

292, 466

Civilian authority, military support for, 153–54

Civilian Health and Medical Program of the 

Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS), 326, 

352

Civilian Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF), 96, 470

Civilians, American, in combat zones, 52

Clark, General Wesley K., 170

Class IX repair parts, 63, 398, 434

Clinger-Cohen Act, 176

Clinton, William J., 106, 151, 162, 163

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), 420, 

439

Cobra Gold, 109, 153

Cody, Lieutenant General Richard, 270

Cody, Vicky, 366–67

Cohen, William S., 168

Cohesion Operational Readiness and Training 

(COHORT), 254, 295

Cold War

Army force structure and, 295–96

change and development during, 86–87

collapse of Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, 

44–49, 107–09, 157–58

democracy-promoting activities following, 

107–09, 157–58

family support programs during, 341, 346, 

356

funding of Army transformation and, 20

glacis provided by allies in, 470

historical Army transformation in response 

to, 13–16, 26, 465–66

modern Army transformation following decline of, 3, 4, 7, 18, 26, 88–89, 464–65

Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS), 312

Combat exclusion policy, 278, 279

Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC), 

Germany, 68

Combat pay, 358

Combat support and combat service support, 

100–101, 307–09, 316–24, 438

Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kansas, 70, 325

Combined Arms Combat Developments 

Activity, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 70

Combined-arms live-fire exercise (CALFEX),

103, 105–06, 180

Combined Arms Service Staff School (CAS3), 68

Combined Arms Support Command, Fort Lee, 

Virginia, 70

Combined-arms warfare, concept of, 12

Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan 

(CFC-A), 422

Combined Forces Land Component Command 

(CFLCC), 231, 416, 419

Combined and joint operations, strategic mobility in, 101–04

Combined Joint Task Force–7 (CJTF-7), 419, 422

Combined Joint Task Force–76 (CJTF-76), 422

Combined Joint Task Force–82 (CJTF-82), 422

Combined Joint Task Force–180 (CJTF-180), 422

Combined Joint Task Force Mountain, 422

Command, control, communications, computers, 

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR), 140, 201

Commanders in chief (CINCs) and CINCdoms, 

107, 109

Commander’s critical intelligence requirements 

(CCIR), 144

Commander’s Emergency Response Program 

(CERP), 431, 437

Commercial “off-the-shelf” technology, Army 

use of, 91, 123, 128, 176, 203, 272, 302, 

325, 471, 481

Commissaries and post exchanges, 346–48

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). 

See Russia.

Communism, 13, 16–18, 35, 44–49, 52–55, 107

Community and Family Support Center 

(CFSC), 116, 327, 341, 348, 352, 363

“Commuter containment” of Saddam Hussein, 

151–52

Company/Battalion Administrative System 

(CBAS), 41

Computer emergency response teams (CERTs), 

217

Computer network operations (CNO), 431

Concepts-Based Requirements System (CBRS), 

87, 88

Congo, 110, 114

Conscription

historical Army transformations and, 12–16, 26

process of Army transformation and, 22, 23, 

441

professional bias against, 19

unit rotation and, 257

See also Volunteer Army.

Containment Policy, 45

Contingency operations

Army transformation process affected by, 

479–80

family support and increases in, 116, 158–59

under Reimer (1995–1999), 151–62

See also under Sullivan, General Gordon R., 

Army transformation under (1991–1995).

Contracting, military, 145, 171–78, 282, 373, 

437–38, 462, 467
Kevlar Legions

520

Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, 

Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer 

of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their 

Destruction (1997 Mine Ban Treaty), 432

Conventional combat, Army transformation 

bias toward, 402–12

Cooperation Challenge, 109

Copperhead artillery round, 38

Corps 

III, 144, 432

V, 101, 175, 231, 269, 403, 411, 419

VII, 57, 60, 63, 101

XVIII Airborne Corps, 56, 59–60, 63, 208

Corps Battle Simulation System (CBS), 41

Corps Support Command (COSCOM), 308

Costa Rica, 111

Cougar mine-resistant ambush-protected 

(MRAP) vehicle, 268

Counterinsurgency. See Unconventional 

warfare.

Course of Action 1, 312–13

Criminal Investigation Command (CIDC), 330

Croatia, 53, 154, 161, 174

Crusader self-propelled artillery system, 150, 

171, 229–30, 236, 320

Cuba, 9, 35, 59–60, 115, 153

Cuban refugees, 115, 153

Cultural awareness issues, 277, 471

Cyber-attacks and cybersecurity issues, 217

Cynoscephalae, Battle of (197 BC), 290

Cyprus, 110

Czech Republic, 44–46, 53, 109, 157, 158, 161

Czechoslovakia, 44–46, 53, 107, 108

Decker, Gilbert F., 124, 128, 149

Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study (DAWMS), 

163, 166, 462, 479

Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA), 346–47

Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting 

System (DEERS), 380

Defense Integrated Military Human Resources 

System (DIMHRS), 380

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), 62

Defense Management Review (DMR), OSD, 

162–63

Defense Officer Personnel Management Act

(DOPMA), 178

Defense Reform Initiative Directive 20 (DRID 

20), 173

Demographic change, effects of, 52–53, 475–

76, 477

Demokratizatsiya, 46

Denuclearization, 74–76, 468

Department of the Army (DA)

civilian employees of, 38, 42, 172, 173–74, 

178

defense reorganization affecting, 41–44

See also Quadrennial Defense Reviews 

(QDRs).

Department of Defense (DoD)

Cold War organization of, 13

contracting embraced by, 172, 173, 175, 177

creation of, 25

RMAs, interest in, 5–6

schools run by, 350–51

six goals for Army transformation, 201

United States Military Observers Group set 

up by, 328

See also Quadrennial Defense Reviews 

(QDRs).

Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 

1986 (Goldwater-Nichols Act), 41–42, 

44, 71–72, 87, 107, 123, 162, 289, 296, 

327, 371, 461, 463, 468, 480

Department of Homeland Security, 215

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), 69, 159, 

264, 265, 369–70, 374

Deployment

Afghanistan and Iraq wars leading to paradigm shift in, 250

Desert Shield/Desert Storm revealing issues with, 61–62

family issues arising from recurrent, 354–56

overseas tours, 16, 23, 24, 158–60

practical effects of Army transformation on, 

393–402

Sullivan plan for, 98–99

sustainability issues, 441

Deployment tempo (DEPTEMPO), 159–60, 

180, 227

Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics (DCSLOG), 

26

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans 

(DCSOPS), 26, 70, 149, 463

Depuy, General William E., 249

Derivative unit identification code (UIC), 117

Desert Focus, 152

Desert Fox, 152

Desert Hammer VI, 144

Desert One, 245

Desert Shield/Desert Storm

A-Day versus G-Day commencement, 

408

AARs following, 88

Army force structure and, 295–96

Army transformation and, 67, 68

combat phase of, 58–61

combat service support in, 101

costs of technology used in, 149

downsizing of Army following, 74

family support and, 64, 346–47, 360, 363–

64, 377, 380, 381
521

Index

fratricide in, 61, 62, 120, 410

funding of, 73

GPS during, 145, 146

Gulf War Syndrome, 262, 364

information technology and, 118–22

invasion of Kuwait and formation of coalition in response to, 56–57

length of tours during, 250

logistics and strategic mobility in, 62–63, 

92–93, 96, 101, 297, 470

mobilization of troops during, 64

native truck drivers in, 172

as peace enforcement action, 111

PGM in, 59, 61, 63–64, 148

postwar operations, 64–65

problems revealed by, 61–64

sealift during, 94

service reputations in aftermath of, 89

state of Army in 1995 compared to, 126

tube artillery in, 228

U.S. national security strategy and, 106

See also Practical effects of Army 

transformation.

Desert Strike, 151

Desert Thunder, 152

Detainees and prisoners of war, 420–21

Developmental Test Command, 325

Dick Act of 1903, 9, 20, 22

Digital age. See Information Age.

Digitized Expeditionary Army, transformation 

to. See Army transformation.

Dignity Battalions in Panama, 50

Direct Reporting Units (DRUs), 330

Director of the Army Staff (DAS), 42, 246–48

Disabilities, family members with, 351–52

Disabled and severely wounded soldiers, 264–

65, 369–70

Discipline, cultural shift in, 24

Distant Haven, 115

District Recruiting Commands, 23

Division XXI, 4

Division artillery (DIVARTY) commander, 

295, 303, 307, 309, 310

Division Capstone Exercise I (DCX I), 203

Division Capstone Exercise II (DCX II), 203

Division diminishment in favor of brigade, 

291–95

Division ready forces (DRFs), 102, 104

Division support command (DISCOM), 295, 

299, 308, 310

Doctrinal change

Army transformation driven by, 20–21, 66, 

69–70

technological change and, 455–56, 476

Dodge, Grenville M., 24

Domestic abuse, 364

Domestic Preparedness Training Initiative, 

Defense Authorization Act of 1997, 215

“Dominant knowledge” concept, 140, 147, 209, 

302, 402, 407

Doughty, Robert A., 85

Douhet, Giulio, 13, 19

Downsizing of Army

commissaries and post exchanges affected 

by, 346–47

military contracting and, 172, 174, 176–77

peace dividend, as result of, 73–74, 75, 

466–67

Reimer and QDR, 162–64, 166, 178–79

under Sullivan, 93–94, 124–26

training and, 124–25, 176–77

Draft. See Conscription; Volunteer Army.

Dragon Hammer, 174

Dragon tactical system, 175

Dreadnaught revolution, 26

Drilled musketry, introduction of, 26

Drug trade, military operations to counteract, 

115–16, 154, 214

Dual basing, 470

Dubik, Major General James M., 205, 206

Dynamic Commitment, 163–66, 200, 462, 479

DynCorps, 174, 176, 321

Early Retirement Program (ERP), 125

Eastern Europe after collapse of Warsaw Pact, 

44–49, 107–09, 157–58, 160–61, 176

Education for All Handicapped Children Act, 351

Education of Army children, 339–52

Education levels of soldiers in 1995, 126

Education and socioeconomic opportunities in 

military service, 37

Egypt, 57, 110, 111, 153, 211, 222

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 14, 19, 20

Eisenhower Luncheon, 194–95, 198, 372. See 

also Association of the United States 

Army (AUSA).

El Salvador, 111

Electronic communications. See Information Age.

Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer 

(ENIAC), 55, 119, 471

Electronic warfare (EW), 119, 431, 432, 475

Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises 

(EDREs), 102–03, 457–58

Employment issues

for Reservists, 377–78

for retirees, 372–73

for spouses, 356–59

Enduring Freedom, 219, 306, 399, 400. See 

also Afghanistan.

Engeldrum, Sergeant Christian P., 281

Engineer Research and Development Center, 

Vicksburg, Mississippi, 321
Kevlar Legions

522

Engineers, in Army force structure, 320–21, 

457

Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of (USACE), 94, 

172, 174, 214, 320–21, 330, 438 

English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction, 363

Enhanced brigades, National Guard, 127, 128, 

181, 256–57, 259, 291, 302, 456

Enhanced Position Location Reporting System 

(EPLRS), 121–22, 471

EPLRS Grid Reference Unit (EGRU), 121

Erinys, 177

Eritrea, 114

Estonia, 53, 109, 157, 161

Ethiopia, 54, 114

Ethnicity. See Race/ethnicity.

Europe

Eastern Europe after collapse of Warsaw 

Pact, 44–49, 107–09, 157–58, 160–61, 

176

humanitarian, peacekeeping, and democracypromoting activities in, 107–09

immigration, race, and ethnicity in, 53

race/ethnicity in, 53, 118

Soviet threat in 1989 and, 35–36

See also United States Army, Europe 

(USAREUR); specific countries.

European Union, 47, 156

Exceptional Family Member Program, 351–

52, 460

Executive Outcomes, 177

Expansible Army, concept of, 10–11, 15, 20, 

74, 256, 466

Expeditionary posture, shift to, 126, 161–62, 

466, 469–71

Experimental Force (EXFOR), 124, 144, 151, 

197, 202–03, 455, 479

Family Advocacy Program (FAP), 359–60, 364, 

460

Family Child Care Homes, 348, 350

Family Readiness Groups (FRGs), 343, 362–63, 

364, 366–67, 381–82, 460, 471

Family separation allowance (FSA), 358

Family Supplemental Assistance Allowance, 

358–59

Family support

child care and youth services, 159, 342, 

347–51, 380

Cold War programs, 341, 346, 356

commissaries and post exchanges, 346–48

communications between families and deployed soldiers, 266–67, 367–68

Desert Shield/Desert Storm and, 64, 

346–47, 360, 363–64, 377, 380, 381

for disabled family members, 351–52

for disabled and severely wounded soldiers, 

264–65, 369–70

financial security, 357–59, 367, 377–80

home stationing or homesteading, 158, 260, 

344

homecomings post-deployment, 368–69

housing, 158–59, 344–46

increasing contingency engagements and, 

116, 158–59

initial recognition of importance of, 69

killed or missing in action situations, 364, 369

medical coverage, 159, 352–54

CHAMPUS, 326, 352

PRIMUS, 352

Reservists and National Guard, 380

retirees, 352, 373–75

TRICARE, 159, 326, 353–54, 355, 

374–75, 380, 382, 459, 471

NEO (noncombatant evacuation operation), 

343–44

overseas postings, 341–43

parents of soldiers, 282, 364–70

PCS (permanent change of station), 342–43, 

352, 354, 355, 357, 460

PTSD and, 363–64, 368, 460

recurrent deployment, problems arising 

from, 354–56

for Reserve and National Guard soldiers, 

376–82

single parents, 348, 355, 367

for spouses, 356–64

U.S. postings, 343–44

Volunteer Army, importance for, 341, 342, 

344, 348, 352, 354, 356, 359, 361, 365, 

367

volunteer work, 361–63

See also Retirees.

Family Support Groups, 69, 116, 341, 342, 343, 

360–63, 364, 381, 382

Fast Sealift Ships (FSSs), 95, 470

Fedayeen, 233, 407, 409, 417

Federal Acquisition Reform Act (FARA), 176

Field artillery, diminution of, 318–20, 457

Field Manuals 

1, The Army, 253, 280–81

3–07, Stability Operations and Support 

Operations, 414

25–100, Training the Force, 179

25–101, Battle-Focused Training, 179

31–23, Stability Operations, 413

31–73, Advisor Handbook for Stability 

Operations, 413

100–5, Operations, 1993, 126, 413, 414

100–20, Field Service Regulations—

Counterinsurgency, 413

100–23, Peace Operations, 414
523

Index

Field operating agencies (FOAs), 324–28, 

330

Fiery Vigil, 115

Financial security for Army families, 357–59, 

367, 377–80

Finland, 47

Fire support coordination line (FSCL), 102, 

143, 317, 410, 456

Fires Unit of Action, 307–08, 309, 310

Fisher Houses, 369

“Flexible Response,” 14, 15, 124

Foal Eagle, 152–53

Focus Area Updates, 252

Fog of war, concept of, 62, 67, 147, 164, 209, 

403, 409, 417

Food stamps, 358–59

Force XXI, 4, 456, 463

Army force structure and, 291, 301, 311, 

328

under Reimer, 139, 140, 144, 149–50, 171, 

176, 178, 181–83

under Schoomaker, 249, 266, 269

under Shinseki, 191, 193, 197, 202–03, 235, 

237

under Sullivan, 92, 123–24, 128

Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and 

Below–Blue Force Tracking (FBCB2-

BFT), 1, 266, 267, 406–07, 423–24, 428, 

429, 438, 440, 454, 471, 481

Force mix, concept of, 66–67, 70–72, 87, 124, 

129, 227, 289

Force structure. See Army force structure.

Forward Area Air Defense Command and 

Control (FAADC2) system, 150

Forward Compatible Payroll (FCP), 379

Forward engineer support team (FEST), 321

France, 11, 12, 20, 21, 26, 47, 57, 59, 65, 86, 

109, 156, 464

Franks, General Frederick M., Jr., 89–90, 118, 

121–22, 262, 301, 474

Franks, General Tommy R., 231–32, 245, 264, 

400, 402, 464

Fratricide

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 61, 62, 

120, 410

digitization as means of preventing, 120–22

practical effects of Army transformation on, 

410

“where are my buddies?” problem and, 142–43

French Revolution, 6, 7

Fuel consumption and refueling issues, 62–63, 98

Funding

of Army XXI forces, 149

of Army transformation, 17, 19–20

of commissaries and post exchanges, 346–47

of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 73

as impediment to Army transformation, 

481–82

Information Age technologies, costs of, 148–50

QDR 1997 and, 139, 162–71

QDR 2005 and, 275–76

service stereotypes regarding, 164

Future combat system (FCS), 198, 201–02, 229, 

267, 273–74, 282, 473

Gabel, Christopher R., 90

Garner, Lieutenant General James “Jay,” 235

Garrison commanders, selection of, 94

GBU27 bombs, 59

GBU31 bombs, 1, 424

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 

(GATT), 54

General defense plan (GDP), 35–37, 101, 103, 

105, 327, 343–44, 398, 455, 471

General Dynamics Land Systems, 204

General Headquarters Exercises (GHQx), 91

General Motors, 204

General Officer Working Group (GOWG), 91

Georgia (Republic), 53, 161

Germany

Afghanistan, troops sent to, 222

Berlin Wall, fall of, 4, 44, 48

as Cold War theater of operations, 174, 471

concept of Army transformation and, 10–

12, 23, 24

future war, military preparation for, 86, 87

Hutier tactics, use of, 291

Prussian Army, RMA in, 6, 26

reunification of, 47–48, 108

strategic mobility issues and, 96, 97, 99, 

101–02, 105

in tectonic period (1989–1991), 36, 38, 44, 

46–48, 68

Gingrich, Newt, 164, 166, 290

Glasnost, 46

Global positioning systems (GPSs)

in Afghanistan and Iraq, 219, 229, 266, 270, 

272

Army force structure and, 282, 319, 324

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 62

fratricide prevention techniques involving, 

121

off-the-shelf systems, adaptation of, 128

PGM using, 149

practical effects of Army transformation 

and, 404–08, 410, 411, 425–26, 428, 

439, 440, 442

satellite-based GPS, proliferating use of, 182

success of, 454, 455, 471

unconventional warfare and, 425–26, 428

“where am I?” problem, as solution to, 

145–46
Kevlar Legions

524

Global War on Terrorism. See Terrorism.

Globalization, 49, 52, 54, 56, 106, 475–76

Goldwater-Nichols Act. See Department of 

Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 

(Goldwater-Nichols Act).

Gorbachev, Mikhail, 46–49

Gordon, Master Sergeant Gary T., 1, 281

Grafenwohr, Germany, training area at, 37

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget 

and Emergency Deficit Control Act of

1985, 73

Grant, General Ulysses S., 8

Great Britain. See United Kingdom.

Green Berets, 42, 469

Green Book, 35, 85, 127, 146

Grenada, 1983 intervention in (Urgent Fury), 

43, 245

Guantanamo Bay, Haitian refugees at, 115

Guatemala, 111

Gulf emirates, 57

Gulf War (1990–1991). See Desert Shield/

Desert Storm.

Gulf War Syndrome, 262, 364

Gustav Line, 12

Gyroscope, 254, 295

Hackett, Sir John, 45

Hagenbeck, Major General Franklin “Buster,” 

222, 224, 228

Haiti, 101, 114–15, 116, 126, 153, 169, 174, 245, 

322, 400, 414, 416, 454, 458, 479

Halleck, Henry W., 8

Halliburton, 177, 321, 373

Hammurabi Division, 407

Hart, Gary, 217

Hartzog, General William M., 140, 141, 

144–48

Hassan, General Hussein Kamel and Colonel 

Saddam Kamel, 104

Health care. See Medical care and treatment.

Health Services Command, 326

Heavy expanded mobility tactical truck 

(HEMTT), 2, 63, 424

Helicopters

AH–64 Apache, 16, 38, 42, 50, 58, 98, 120, 

234, 412

AH–64A Apache, 169, 170

AH–64D Apache Longbow, 148, 150, 175, 

273, 410

expansion of use during Vietnam War, 

15–16

LHX (light helicopter experimental) program, 

272

OH–58, 154

OH–58D Kiowa Warrior, 1, 150, 273, 274, 

423, 428

RAH–66 Comanche, 150, 229, 272–73

Tall’ Afar helicopter crash and Black Hawk 

Down incident compared, 1–3

UH–60 Black Hawk, 16, 38, 39, 50

Heller, Charles E., 86

Hester, Sergeant Lee Ann, 278, 281

High end of combat spectrum, Army abandonment of, 466–69

High mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles 

(HMMWVs), 193, 250, 252, 257, 261, 

267–68, 305, 319, 397, 419, 425, 432, 

436, 440

Hohenfels, Germany, training area at, 37, 179

Home stationing or homesteading, 158, 260, 

344, 459

Homecomings post-deployment, 368–69

Homeland Defense, concept of, 212–18, 227–28

Homeland Security Department, 215

Honduras, 111

Horizontal Technical Integration (HTI), 144

Housing for soldiers with families, 158–59, 

344–46

Huertgen Forest, Battle of (1944), 293, 296

Hughes (firm), 120

Human intelligence (HUMINT), 418, 422–23, 433

Humanitarian missions, 107–09, 113, 116

Hungary, 44–46, 108, 154, 157–58, 161, 174

Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), 148, 

269

Hussein, Saddam

capture of, 418

“commuter containment” of, 151–52

Intrinsic Action and, 104–06, 110, 151

See also Desert Shield/Desert Storm;

Iraqi Freedom. 

“Identification friend or foe” (IFF) devices, 120,

122

Illegal drugs, military operations to counteract, 

115–16, 154, 214

Immigration

changes in patterns of, 52–53

interception and detention of illegals, 153

Immigration Act of 1965, 52

Imminent danger pay, 358

Implementation Force (IFOR) in Balkans, 

154–57

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 252, 

267–72, 281, 282, 426, 432–33, 436, 

437, 440, 465, 480

India, 52, 110, 211, 468, 475

Indian Wars, 8, 17, 19, 74, 254, 256

Individual Mobilization Augmentees (IMAs), 

381, 382

Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), 377, 380, 381, 

382
525

Index

Individual replacement versus unit rotation, 

251, 254, 295–96

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 

1997, 352

Indonesia, 200, 222

Infantry units

2d Infantry Division, 21

3d Infantry Division (Mechanized), 230–31, 

232, 234, 257, 259, 266, 281, 303, 304, 

393, 394, 397, 398, 409, 470

4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), 144, 

202–03, 231, 232, 235, 395–96, 402

7th Infantry Division, 181, 302, 306

24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), 60, 61, 

94, 105, 116, 144, 181, 302, 393, 395

25th Infantry Division, 422

42d Infantry Division, National Guard, 259

256th Infantry Division, National Guard, 

259

1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, 202

2d Brigade, 3d Infantry Division 

(Mechanized), 304, 394, 403, 412

2d Brigade, 7th Infantry Division, 306

3d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, 429

3d Brigade, 2d Infantry Division, 202, 205–

09, 302, 304, 431

3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized), 106

172d Infantry Brigade (Separate), 202

502d Infantry Regiment, 108

1-14 Infantry, 429

1-23 Infantry, 429

2-3 Infantry, 429

5-20th Infantry, 1, 423, 429

Task Force 1-41 Infantry (Mechanized), 398

Task Force 2-2 Infantry, 429

See also Mountain Division, 10th.

Infinite Reach, 152

Information Age 

in Afghanistan and Iraq, 266–67, 367–68

Army force structure and, 324–25

concept of Army transformation in, 3, 5, 6, 

7, 18, 27, 454–55, 464, 471–72

costs of technologies, 148–50

cyber-attacks and cybersecurity issues, 217

Desert Shield/Desert Storm and, 62

ENIAC, 55, 119, 471

EXFOR, 124, 144, 151, 197, 202–03, 455

high-end conventional combat, Army transformation bias toward, 402–12

intelligence and counterintelligence, contribution to, 144

Interim Brigade Combat Team under 

Shinseki and, 202–03

Internet, invention and development of, 54–

56, 471

IO, development of, 431

Iraqi Freedom, communications in, 255–56

Louisiana Maneuvers and, 91–92

Sullivan years (1991–1995), digitization 

during, 118–24, 128, 231

tectonic shift (1989–1991) and, 40–41, 55

too much information, problem of, 147

“where am I/where are my buddies/where 

is the enemy” problems, solutions to, 

145–51

See also Force XXI.

Information operations (IO), 431–32

Information Technology Management Reform 

Act (ITMRA), 176

Installation management, 93–94

Installation Management Action Plan (IMAP), 94

Installation Management Agency, 326–27, 330

Installation Management Command (IMCOM), 

327

Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), 166, 177

Institute of Land Warfare (ILW), 72, 371, 461

Institutional Army, 163, 324–31

Institutional players involved in Army transformation, 24–26, 71–72

Institutionally driven and centrally directed nature of Army transformation, 462–63, 

478–79

Integrated meteorological system (IMETS), 150

Intelligence

Desert Shield/Desert Storm revealing issues with, 62

HUMINT, 418, 422–23, 433

Information Age and, 144, 147

unconventional warfare, requirements of, 

417–18

“where is the enemy?” problem and solution, 143–45, 147–51

Intelligence and Security Command 

(INSCOM), 327–28, 330

Inter-Vehicular Information System (IVIS), 

122, 144, 471, 481

Interim armored vehicles (IAVs), 198, 202–04

Interim Force and Interim Brigade Combat 

Team (IBCT), 149, 197–98, 202–09, 

237, 248, 256, 302, 456

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) 

Treaty of 1988, 41, 43–44, 74, 468

Intermediate staging base (ISB), 101, 399–400

Internal combustion engine, military adaptation of, 26

Internal Look, 231

International Bank for Reconstruction and 

Development, 54

International Military Education and Training 

(IMET), 176, 373

International Monetary Fund, 17, 54
Kevlar Legions

526

Internet, invention and development of, 54–

56, 471

Intrinsic Action, 104–06, 110, 151, 394

Iran, 42, 56–57, 65, 98, 110, 111, 245, 416, 

468–69, 482

Iranian hostage crisis, 42, 469, 482

Iraq

“commuter containment” of Saddam 

Hussein, 151–52

Intrinsic Action in Kuwait, 104–06, 110, 

151

Iran, war with, 56

no-fly zones in, 110

post–Desert Storm insurgency in, 65

Provide Comfort in Northern Iraq, 111–

12, 118

Republican Guard, 56, 57, 60, 62, 233, 408, 

409, 418

Shi’a Muslims in, 65, 110–11, 401, 429

Iraqi Freedom

Army transformation and, 235–37, 331

coordination of allied forces in, 438–40

developing problems, insurgency, and unconventional warfare in, 234–35, 249–

50, 413, 416–21, 432–33

Fedayeen in, 233, 407, 409, 417

Information Age and, 266–67, 367–68

initial invasion, 230–34

paradigm shift in deployment patterns due 

to, 250–53

PTSD in, 262–63, 364

Tall’ Afar helicopter crash, 1–3, 423–24, 428

technical aspects of Army transformation affected by, 265–74

unit manning and unit rotation, 253–62

wounded soldiers, medical treatment of, 

263–65

See also Practical effects of Army 

transformation.

Iris Gold, 110

Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Northern 

Ireland, 118, 323

Islam

al-Qaeda and related organizations, views 

of, 211–12

in Balkans, 154, 223

Shi’a Muslims in Iraq, 65, 110–11, 401, 429

tectonic shift period (1989–1991), rise of 

Islamic extremism in, 53

Israel, 16, 64, 96, 110–11, 117, 153, 211, 233, 

410

Ivory Coast, 114

Japan, 23, 24, 56–57, 109, 110, 172, 212, 325, 

416, 475

Johnson, Specialist Shoshana, 278

Joint Chiefs of Staff

on combined and joint operations, 104

defense reorganization reinforcing authority 

of, 41–42, 71–72, 461

QDR, 162–71

Reimer and, 139

Sullivan and, 89, 92

Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), 149, 156, 

182, 219, 228, 270, 319, 324, 408–10, 441, 

454–56, 472

Joint Endeavor, 156

Joint Forces Land Component Command 

(JFLCC), 257–58, 290–91, 294, 296, 314

Joint Forge, 156

Joint Guard, 156

Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), 277–

78, 433

Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense 

Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS), 

182, 216

Joint Operations Planning and Execution 

System (JOPES), 398

Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), Fort 

Chaffee, Arkansas, 37, 68, 181, 207, 398, 

415

Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF), 

Somalia, 114

Joint Special Operations Task Force–West 

(JSOTF-West), Iraq, 410

Joint Strike Fighter, 166

Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar 

System (J-STARS), 64, 148

Joint Tactical Information Distribution System 

(JTIDS) terminals, 5

Joint Task Force 6 (JTF-6), 115–16, 214, 215

Joint Task Force 510, 223

Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense 

Organization, 216

Joint Vision 2010, 163

Joint wartime executive agency responsibility 

(WEAR), 227

Jointness, pursuit of, 296–97, 410–11

Jordan, 57, 104, 151, 410, 428

Just Cause (Panama), 6, 49–52, 74, 85, 93, 

245, 306, 454, 467, 470, 471

Karzai, Hamid, 219, 221

Keane, General Jack, 194, 207–08, 246, 249, 

250, 265, 278

Kevlar body armor, 1–2, 264, 272, 369

Key West Agreement, 20

Khobar Towers terrorist attack, 152

Knox, MacGregor, 6

Kohl, Helmut, 47, 108

Korean War

combined and joint operations in, 102
527

Index

Desert Shield/Desert Storm compared, 

62, 64, 92–93

downsizing prior to, 124

historical Army transformations and, 13

individual replacement rather than unit rotations in, 251, 254, 296

local and civilian support activities during, 

172

as peace enforcement action, 111

process of Army transformation and, 19

Kosovo, 53, 156–57, 169–70, 223, 403, 414, 

416, 419

Kurdistan, 65, 126, 151, 232, 235, 396, 414, 

416

Kurds, 57, 65, 110–12, 118, 126, 151, 153, 232, 

235, 277, 396, 414, 416

Kuwait

American troop presence in, 151

Intrinsic Action, 104–06, 110, 151

Iraq and Afghanistan wars and, 230, 250, 399

See also Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Landmines, 432

Latin America 

Islamic terrorism and, 223

joint exercises involving, 153–54

See also specific countries.

Latvia, 53, 157, 161

Leadership, 17–18. See also Quality leadership 

and soldiers.

Lebanon, 110

Legacy Force, 149, 197, 203, 208, 229, 235, 

248, 249, 328, 456

Liberia, 153, 169

Liberty Ships, 95

Life cycle management commands (LCMCs), 325

Life insurance, 357–58, 364, 367

Light Armored Vehicle III (LAV III), 204, 205, 

207

Lincoln, Abraham, 8

Line replaceable units (LRUs) or “black boxes,” 

40, 63, 67, 440, 442, 455

Linguists, need for, 277, 418

Lithuania, 53, 109, 157, 161

Litton (firm), 120

Lockheed Martin, 278

Logan, General John A., 20

Logistics Civil Augmentation Program 

(LOGCAP), 174, 321, 437

Logistics and strategic mobility

in Afghanistan and Iraq, 234–35, 255, 266–67, 

271–72, 470–71

airlift, strategic, 96, 161, 395–97, 470

Army force structure and, 297–98

combat support and combat service support, 

100–101, 307–09, 316–24, 438

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 62–63, 

92–93, 96, 101, 297, 470

expeditionary posture, shift to, 126, 161–62, 

466, 469–71

lightening of deployable units, 98–99, 103–04, 

126, 397–98, 471

maintenance and repair demands, 261–62, 

440–41

practical effects of Army transformation on, 

393–402

pre-positioning of supplies, 96–98, 394–95, 

398, 470

sealift, strategic, 94–96, 395–96, 470

split-basing, 101, 105, 106, 255, 261, 400, 

459

sustainability issues, 434–37

“weight,” concept of, 171

See also under Deployment; Sullivan, 

General Gordon R., Army transformation under (1991–1995).

Long Thrust, 254

Louisiana Maneuvers and Louisiana 

Maneuvers (LAM) Task Force, 3, 90–

92, 102, 122, 124, 139, 140, 149, 163, 

169, 193, 289, 311, 328, 455, 463, 470, 

471, 478, 479

Low-intensity conflict, changing Army involvement in, 469–70

Luxembourg, 36, 47, 97

Lynch, Private First Class Jessica, 265, 278–79

M88 recovery vehicle, 142

M109 Paladin howitzer, 228

M109A6 Paladin, 412

M113 armored personnel carriers, 40, 51, 120, 

204, 394, 412

M113A3 armored personnel carrier, 204

M551 Sheridan armored reconnaissance airborne assault vehicle, 51, 97, 171, 398

Macedonia, 53, 108, 156, 161, 170, 290

Macgregor, Colonel Douglas A., 169, 290–91, 

294, 295, 298, 301, 312, 314, 323

Magnavox, 121

Mahdi Army, 429

Maintenance Company, 507th, 278–79, 405

Maintenance and repair of equipment, 261–62, 

440–41

Major Army commands (MACOMs), 91, 

324–30

Malaysia/Malaya, 52, 222–23, 413, 415

Maneuver Enhancement Unit of Action, 

307–09

Mao Zedong, 13, 413

Marathon Pacific, 153

Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTF), 

295, 316
Kevlar Legions

528

Marine Corps

I Marine Expeditionary Force, 231, 266

1st Marine Division, 231

7th MEB (Marine Expeditionary Brigade), 

97

combined and joint operations, 102

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 57, 60

force structure and, 316

in Iraqi Freedom, 395

jointness, Army pursuit of, 296–97

operational uniqueness of, 103–04

QDR 1997 and, 165, 166

QDR 2005 and, 276

in unconventional warfare, 413, 425

Maritime Pre-positioning Squadron (MPS) 

ships, 97

Married soldiers. See Family support.

Marshall, Andrew W., 5, 226

Marshall, General George C., 7, 20, 298, 461

McCaffrey, General Barry R., 264

McClellan, General George B., 8

McDonnell Douglas, 121

McDowell, General Irwin, 141

McKiernan, Lieutenant General David D., 231

McNair, Lieutenant General Lesley J., 294

McNamara, Robert S., 87

MEDCOM, 7th, 107

Medical care and treatment

advance medical directives, 364

in Afghanistan and Iraq wars, 263–65

for disabled and severely wounded soldiers, 

264–65, 369–70

preventive medicine, cultural shift toward, 

23–24

PTSD, 262–63, 363–64, 368, 460

for retirees, 352, 373–75

Spanish-American War and, 9–10, 23

See also under Family support.

Medical Command (MEDCOM), 107, 326

Medina Division, 407

Medium Extended Air Defense System 

(MEADS), 216

Meigs, General Montgomery C., 8

Merritt, Wesley, 24

Mexican War, 466

Mexico, 10, 11, 21, 154, 214

Middle East 

escalating contingency operations in, 110, 

151–52

Islamic extremism in tectonic shift period 

(1989–1991) in, 53

state of U.S. Army in 1989 and, 35, 36

See also specific countries.

Miles, General Nelson A., 18–19

Military Child Care Act of 1989, 69, 348

Military Child Education Coalition, 350, 356

Military contracting, 145, 171–78, 282, 373, 

437–38, 462, 467

Military deception (MILDEC), 431

Military decision-making process (MDMP), 

298

Military District of Washington (MDW), 330

Military Housing Privatization Initiative 

(MHPI) Act, 158–59, 173–74, 344

Military-industrial complex, concept of, 14–15, 

16, 108, 171, 172, 195

Military occupational specialties (MOSs), 38, 

67, 96, 272, 441

Military Officers Association of America

(MOAA), 370

Military Police Company, 617th, National 

Guard, 278

Military Professional Resources International 

(MPRI), 176, 373

Military revolution, concept of, 6

Military Spouse Career Center, 357

Military Traffic Management Command

(MTMC), 327

Millennium Challenge 2002, 207

Milosevic, Slobodan, 154

Mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles, 268, 436, 440

Mines, 432

Missile Defense Agency, 215

Missiles

AGM86C cruise missile, 50

AGM88 high-speed anti-radiation missile, 59

antiaircraft-guided missiles, 16

antitank missiles, 16

ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System), 

98, 166, 175, 440

BGM109 Tomahawk missile, 50

Hellfire missile, 38, 58, 98, 166, 175, 440

intermediate-range ballistic missiles, 14

JASSM (Joint Air to Surface Standoff 

Missile), 149

Javelin antitank missile, 98, 171, 175, 398, 

412, 465

JLENS (Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile 

Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System), 

182, 216

Jupiter missile, 14

Lance missile, 43, 74, 468

PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability–3), 

182, 216, 411

Patriot missile system, 16, 38, 39, 59, 96, 150, 

152, 182, 216, 278, 318, 411, 438, 440

Pershing missile, 14, 43, 468

Scud missile, 59, 64, 410, 411

Tomahawk missile, 50, 149, 408

TOW antitank, wire-guided missiles and 

missile vehicles, 60, 206
529

Index

See also Air and Missile Defense Command, 

32d; Joint Theater Air and Missile 

Defense Organization; Space and Missile 

Defense Command (SMDC).

Mission essential task lists (METLs), 37, 179

Mladenov, Petar, 44

Mobile subscriber equipment (MSE), 62, 404, 

434

Mobility, strategic. See Logistics and strategic 

mobility.

Mobilization of troops

contractors, use of, 171–72, 467

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 64

expansible Army, concept of, 10–11, 15, 20, 

74, 256, 466

World War I through Cold War, transformation to mobilization-based Army during, 

10–16, 26

Modernization, concept of, 3–4, 27, 38–40, 67, 

70, 127–28

Modified tables of organization and equipment

(MTOEs), 70

Modular Advanced Armed Robotic Systems 

(MAARSs), 475

Modularization, 256–57, 277, 331

Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down incident in, 1–2, 

114, 281, 423–24

Moldova, 53, 161

Mongolia, Soviet withdrawal from, 46

Montgomery GI Bill, 37

Morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) activities, 346–47, 349, 351, 356, 359, 361–62

Mountain Division, 10th, 112, 114, 116, 221–

22, 224, 422. See also Infantry units.

Moving Mountains, 63

Mozambique, 54, 111, 126

Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) 

Sinai, 111, 117, 153

Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System 

(MILES), 16, 37, 68, 87, 280

Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), 38, 

104, 105, 167, 410, 455

Murray, Williamson, 6

Nagorno-Karabakh, 53

Nagy, Imre, 44

Namibia, 111

National Defense Act of 1916, 11

National Defense Act of 1920, 11

National Defense Act of 1947, 13

National Defense Authorization Act, FY1987, 

41, 42–43, 414, 468

National Defense Authorization Act, FY1993, 

127

National Defense Panel, 139, 163, 168, 173, 

227

National Guard

civilian authority, actions in support of, 154

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 64

downsized soldiers joining, 126, 127

enhanced brigades, 127, 128, 181, 256–57, 

259, 291, 302, 456

family support for, 376–82

historical Army transformations and, 11, 12, 

13, 14, 15

Homeland Defense after 9-11 and, 212–13, 

215, 217–18

increasing deployments of, 117, 250–51, 

256, 257, 259–60, 467

institutional status of, 328–30

in Latin American and NATO exercises, 

153, 160–62

regularization of relationship between Army 

and, 9, 20, 22

state of, in 1989, 38

state of, in 1995, 127

state of, in 1999, 178, 179, 180–81

state of, in 2005, 281–82

training of, 22

National Security Act of 1947, 25

National Security Agency (NSA), 62

National Training Center (NTC), Fort Irwin, 

California, 37, 68, 70, 87–88, 102, 141, 

145–50, 180–81, 207, 415, 481–82

Navy

combined and joint operations, 102

Desert Storm, reputation in aftermath of, 

89

force structure and, 316

funding of, 20, 164

home stationing or homesteading in, 158, 

260

jointness, Army pursuit of, 296–97

QDR 1997 and, 164, 165, 166

QDR 2005 and, 275, 276

on RMAs, 6

SEALs, 42, 396, 469

service stereotypes regarding, 164

strategic sealift and, 94–95, 395–97

Nebuchadnezzer Division, 407

Nelson, Brigadier General Harold W., 90

Netherlands, 36, 47, 97

Network-centric warfare, 5, 41, 248, 280

Network Enterprise Technology Command 

(NETCOM), 324–25, 330

New Deal, 12

New Horizons, 153

“New Look,” 14, 20, 124

Newman, Major General Aubrey S., 371

Nicaragua, 111

Night-vision devices, 50, 55, 58–59, 67, 120, 

272–73, 425, 428, 432, 436
Kevlar Legions

530

Nixon, Richard M., 16

No-fly zones, 110

Noble Eagle, 213, 214

Noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO), 

343–44

Noncommissioned Officer Education System

(NCOES), 22, 38

Noncommissioned Officer professional development (NCOPD), 68

Nonsecure Internet Protocol Router Network 

(NIPRNET), 454

Noriega, Manuel Antonio, 49–51

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

11 September 2001 and, 213

Afghanistan war and, 223, 422

Balkans unrest, involvement in, 154–57, 

416, 419

on combined and joint operations, 102

escalating contingency operations and, 107–09

former Warsaw Pact states admitted to, 158

historical Army transformation and, 13

process of Army transformation and, 18

tectonic shift (1989–1991) and, 36, 45–47, 49

USAREUR commitments to, 160–61

North Korea, 16, 35, 152–53, 468

Northern Ireland and IRA, 118, 323

Northern Watch, 110, 152

NTC Rotation 97–06, 144–50, 176, 203, 

481–82

Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) intelligence command, 310

Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) officers, 21

Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) reconnaissance platoon, 206

Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons 

(NBC), Gulf War sanctions against, 152

Nuclear weapons 

arms reduction talks, 46

denuclearization, 74–76, 468

historical Army transformations and, 14–16

INF Treaty (1988), 41, 43–44

process of Army transformation and, 18–22

in tectonic shift period (1989–1991), 45, 46, 

47, 54, 57, 72

See also Atomic weapons.

Objective Force, 149, 150, 151, 197–98, 201–02, 

208, 229, 235, 249, 267, 328, 463, 479

Observer Controllers (OCs), 37

“Off-the-shelf” technology, Army use of, 91, 

123, 128, 176, 203, 272, 302, 325, 471, 

481

Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation

Management (ACSIM), 94, 351

Office of Congressional Liaison, 194

Office of Management and Budget Circular

A–76, 172

Office of Net Assessment, 5, 226

Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian

Assistance (ORHA), 420

Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)

contracting embraced by, 173

defense reorganization and, 42, 461

Iraqi Freedom, view of, 231–32, 236–37

QDR 1997 and 2001, 162–71, 224–25, 

227–28

Reimer and, 139

Schoomaker and, 246–50

Shinseki and, 229–32, 236–37, 247–48, 479

Sullivan and, 89

Officer evaluation report (OER) system, 178

Officer Personnel Management System XXI

(OPMS XXI), 178

Officer professional development (OPD), 68

Olympics, military deployments in support of, 

153, 214, 215

Oman, 222, 224, 476

Omar, Mohammed, 221

On Site Inspection Agency, 107

Operation Homefront, 358

Operation READY (Resources for Educating 

About Deployment and You), 116, 363

Operational Support Airlift Command 

(OSACOM), 161

Operational Test Command, 325

Operations other than war (OOTW), 66, 93, 98, 

109, 126–27, 129, 179, 198, 277, 301, 

317, 322–23, 331, 414, 456, 458, 465, 469

Operations security (OPSEC), 431

Optical Digital Image Military Personnel 

Records System, 41

Organizational changes, as part of Army transformation, 21–22

Orient Shield, 109

Overseas deployment training (ODT), 38

Overseas tours, 16, 23, 24, 158–60

Overseas Unit Replacement System 

(OVUREP), 254, 295

Packard Commission, 71

PackBots, 475, 476

Pakistan, 110, 112, 219, 221–23, 400, 422, 468, 

475

Palletized Load System (PLS) flatbed truck, 2,

424

Palmer, General Bruce, Jr., 247

Palmer, John McAuley, 11

Panama, Operation Just Cause in, 6, 49–52, 

74, 85, 93, 245, 306, 454, 467, 470, 

471

Panama Canal, 9–10, 154
531

Index

Paratroopers, 61, 92, 99, 103, 208, 307, 395–

96, 398

Parents of soldiers, 282, 364–70

Partnership for Peace (PfP), 109, 157–58, 

160–61, 183, 227

Pashley, Sergeant April, 278

Patton, General George S., 21, 24, 169, 230, 

464

Pay and financial security for Army families,

357–59, 367, 377–80

Peace dividend, 73–75, 85, 93–94, 172, 301, 

344, 349, 481

Peace Operations (Field Manual 100–23), 414

Peacekeeping activities, 107–11, 151

Pentomic Division, 14, 19, 22, 169, 290, 312

Perestroika, 46, 47

Permanent change of station (PCS), 342–43, 

352, 354, 355, 357, 460

Pershing, General John J., 11, 20

Pershing missile, 14, 43, 468

Persian Gulf War (1990–1991). See Desert

Shield/Desert Storm.

Peshmerga, 112, 232, 396

Petraeus, Lieutenant General David H., 469

Philippine-American War, 9, 10, 19, 253, 482

Philippine Constabulary, 26

Philippine Scouts, 9, 21

Philippines, 110, 115, 153, 223

Piestewa, Private First Class Lori, 278

Pinatubo eruption (1991), Philippines, 115

Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and 

Execution System (PPBES), 4, 87, 92, 

200

Planning, Programming, and Budgeting 

System (PPBS), 87, 92

Plattsburg Idea, 11

Pointe de Hoc, Normandy Beach, 141

Poland, 12, 21, 44–45, 47, 108, 109, 158, 161

Post exchanges and commissaries, 346–48

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 262–63, 

363–64, 368, 460

Powell, General Colin L., 162

Power projection and power projection platforms, 93–94, 116, 255, 260, 262, 301, 

326, 459, 471

Practical effects of Army transformation, 

442–52

on deployment and logistics, 393–402

high-end conventional combat, bias toward, 

402–12

sustainability issues, 433–41

unconventional warfare

problems of Army faced with, 

413–23

technological advances affecting, 

423–33

Prague Spring, 45

Pre-positioning of Materiel Configured to Unit

Sets (POMCUS), 36, 37, 97, 125, 171, 

197, 255, 343

Pre-positioning of supplies, 96–98, 394–95, 

398, 470

Precision-guided munitions (PGM), 156, 164

in Afghanistan and Iraq, 269–70, 408–10

concept of Army transformation and promise of, 5

costs of, 148–49

denuclearization and, 74, 468

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 59, 61, 

63–64, 148, 408

potential capabilities of, 55, 74

“where am I/where are my buddies/where 

is the enemy” problems and, 148, 149

Precision lightweight GPS receivers (PLGRs), 

145–47

Preemption doctrine, 230

Preschool child care, 159, 342, 347–49

Prescribed load lists (PLLs), 63

Preventive medicine, cultural shift toward, 

23–24

Primary Care to Uniformed Services 

(PRIMUS), 352

Prisoners of war and detainees, 420–21

Progressivism, 12

Provide Comfort, 111–12, 235

Provide Comfort II, 151–52

Provide Hope, 107–08

Provide Promise, 108

Prussian Army, RMA in, 6, 26

Psychological operations (PSYOPS), 38, 160, 

181, 200, 277, 305, 310, 322, 323, 431

Puerto Rico Regiment, 21

Qatar, 57, 152, 222, 230, 231

Quadrennial Defense Reviews (QDRs), 469, 

479

1-4-2-1 formula, 227

1997, 139, 162–71, 173, 177, 178, 183, 

224–25, 227–28

2001, 193, 198, 200, 224–28, 232, 236–

37, 274

2005, 274–78

Army response to, 462–63

debate engendered by, 371

unconventional warfare and, 413, 414

Quality leadership and soldiers, 457–58

development of leadership, 68–69, 70

in downsizing Army, 125–26

as one of Vuono’s six imperatives, 68–69, 

70

under Reimer, 178–80

under Schoomaker, 278–82
Kevlar Legions

532

Quarterly training briefs (QTBs), 70, 179

QUICKSILVER, 73, 85, 162, 453, 462, 466

Race/ethnicity

Balkans, operations in, 154–57

contingency operations, national sovereignty 

and cultural considerations in, 117–18

in Europe, 53, 118

immigration and, 52–53

integration of Army, 24

Iraq, post–Desert Storm insurgency in, 65

state of U.S. Army in 1989 and, 37

See also specific racial and ethnic groups.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, 434

RAND Corporation, 177

Rangers, 99, 141, 480

Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI), 2, 272, 424, 

481

Raytheon, 120

Ready Reserve Fleet, 470

Reagan Buildup, 73, 482

Reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) squadrons, 205–06

Recruiting Referral Bonus, 375

Recruitment efforts, 23, 179, 252, 281–82, 328, 

365–66, 375, 441

Reenlistment and retention, 16, 20, 23, 38–39, 

126–27, 179, 252, 262, 347, 441

Refugees

after Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 64–65

Cuban, 115, 153

Haitian, 115

worldwide population in 1991, 54

Reimer, General Dennis J., Army transformation under (1995–1999) 

Army XXI, 149–50, 169, 197, 282, 478

Army force structure, 298, 301–02, 311, 328

Balkans, operations in, 154–57, 171

contingency operations during, 151–62

definition of Army transformation, 3–4, 5,

393, 463

downsizing of Army during, 162–64, 166, 

178–79

expeditionary posture, continuing shift to, 

161–62

Force XXI under, 139, 140, 144, 149–50, 

171, 176, 178, 181–83

Information Age and, 471

military contracting revolution during, 145, 

171–78

QDR 1997, 139, 162–71, 173, 177, 178, 

183, 224–25

Shinseki and Reimer, 191, 193, 237, 245

space assets and products, attention paid to, 

181–82

state of U.S. Army in 1999, 178–82

Strike Force concept, 4, 171, 197, 202, 256, 

302, 397, 455, 472

Sullivan and Reimer, 139, 245

“where am I?” problem and solution, 140–

42, 145–46, 471

“where are my buddies?” problem and solution, 142–43, 146–47, 471

“where is the enemy?” problem and solution, 143–45, 147–51, 471

Remote Battlefield Sensor System

(REMBASS), 150

Reorganization of defense departments, 41–44

Reorganization Objective Army Division 

(ROAD), 14, 19, 22, 312

Repair and maintenance of equipment, 261–62, 

440–41

Republican Guard (Iraq), 56, 57, 60, 62, 233, 

408, 409, 418

Request for Forces (RFF) documents, 232

Reserve

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 64

downsized soldiers joining, 126, 127

family support for, 376–82

historical Army transformations and, 9, 13, 

14

Homeland Defense after 9-11 and, 212–13, 

217–18

increasing deployments of, 117, 467

institutional status of, 328

in Latin American and NATO exercises, 

153, 160–62

single parents in, 355

state of, in 1989, 38

state of, in 1995, 126, 127

state of, in 1999, 178, 179, 180–81

state of, in 2005, 281–82

war on terrorism and deployment of, 250–

51, 259–60

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC)

Cadet Command, 70, 328

Residential Communities Initiative (RCI), 344, 

345

Restore Hope, 112, 393

Retention and reenlistment, 16, 20, 23, 38–39, 

126–27, 179, 252, 262, 347, 441

Retired Army Personnel Bulletin (later Army 

Echoes), 370

The Retired Officers Association (TROA), 370

Retirees

AUSA, 72, 90, 125, 168, 194–95, 249, 258, 

370–74, 461–62

commissaries and post exchanges used by, 347

debate on Army issues provided by, 371–

72, 461–62

employment of, 372–73

medical care for, 352, 373–75
533

Index

military funerals for, 375–76

recruitment efforts, involvement in, 375

TROA/MOAA, 370

Return of Forces to Germany (REFORGER) 

exercises, 36, 97, 100, 105, 470

Revolution in military affairs (RMA), concept 

of, 5–6, 463–64

Revolutionary War, 26, 141

Riggs, General John M., 201

“Right seat,” 255

Robotics, 269, 433, 471, 475, 476–78, 481–82

Roche, James G., 236–37, 246–47, 249

Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), 1, 203, 

208–09, 424

Roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO), 95, 470

“Rollover,” 40

Romania, 44, 53, 108, 157, 161

Rommel, Erwin, 21

Root, Elihu, and Root Reforms, 7–10, 18–24, 

195

Rotational Plan (ROTAPLAN), 254, 295

Roundout program, 64, 67

Rudman, Warren B., 217

Rules of engagement in unconventional warfare, 421

Rumsfeld, Donald H., 215–16, 225–26, 229–32, 

236–37, 245–46, 247, 249, 323

Russia 

ethnic separatism in, 53

humanitarian aid to, 107–08

as threat to NATO after 1991, 49

See also Soviet Union.

Rwanda, 114

Sadr, Moqtada al-, 429

Safe Haven, 153

Safe Passage, 115

Safwan Airfield, 62

Saint, General Crosbie E., 35–36, 45, 343

Salomon, General Leon F., 127–28

Sardinia, 174

Satellites, 147, 181–82, 224, 407

Saudi Arabia

al-Qaeda attacks in, 222

American troop presence in, 110, 151–52

Desert Shield/Desert Storm and, 56–57, 

60, 61, 63, 64, 393, 394

Intrinsic Action and, 104

pre-positioning of supplies in, 95–97

Scales, Major General Robert H., Jr., 198

Schofield, John M., 24

School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas, 68

Schools and school age children, 339–52

Schoomaker, General Peter J., Army transformation under (2003–2005), 245, 283–88

Army force structure, 302–03, 311, 312, 

323–24, 327, 456

homesteading under, 260, 344

paradigm shift in deployment pattern, 

250–53

QDR 2005, 274–78

redefinition of Army transformation by,

247–53, 393, 463

state of Army in 2005, 278–82

stress on soldiers, physical and mental, 

262–65

technical aspects of Army transformation, 

Afghanistan and Iraq affecting, 265–74

transition period and OSD relations, management of, 246–50

unit rotation and unit manning, 253–62, 

472

Warrior Ethos of, 279–81, 461

Schwarzkopf, General H. Norman, 62

Science Applications International Corporation 

(SAIC), 176, 177, 373

Sea Angel, 115

Sea Emergency Deployment Readiness 

Exercises (SEDREs), 103, 458

Sea Signal, 115

Sealift, strategic, 94–96, 395–96, 470

SEALs, 42, 396, 469

Secure Internet Protocol Router Network 

(SIPRNET), 128, 454

The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of 

French Army Doctrine, 1919–1939, 85

Seekt, Hans von, 86

Selective Early Retirement Board (SERB), 

125

Senior Officer Review Group, 120, 121

Serbs and Serbia, 53, 108, 154, 156–57, 170

Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI), 

357–58, 364, 367

Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), 269

Sharzai, Gul Agha, 219

Sheridan, General Philip H., 8

Sherman, General William T., 8

Shi’a Muslims in Iraq, 65, 110–11, 401, 429

Shinseki, General Eric K., Army transformation 

under (1999–2003), 191–92, 233–34, 238–

43, 264

11 September 2001, 191, 209–13, 226

Afghanistan, invasion of, 218–24

Army force structure, 298, 302, 311, 328

black beret, adoption of, 480

definition of Army transformation, 4, 5,

194–202, 253, 393, 478

firepower issues, 228–29

Homeland Defense, concept of, 212–18, 

227–28

image of Army, need to address, 193–94
Kevlar Legions

534

Shinseki, General Eric K., Army transformation 

under (1999–2003)—Continued

Interim Force and IBCT (Interim Brigade 

Combat Team), 197–98, 202–09, 237, 

256, 302, 456

Iraq, invasion of, 230–37

Objective Force Task Force, 463

OSD, conflicts with, 229–32, 236–37, 247–48,

479

QDR 2001, 193, 198, 200, 224–28, 232, 236–37

retiree involvement in recruitment efforts, 

375

Special Staff Study Group, 192–93

Strykers and Stryker brigades, 204–05, 207–

09, 229, 235–37, 397, 456, 472

Trident slide, 195–98, 200, 202, 248

unconventional warfare and, 416

“Shock and awe” tactics, 402

Shughart, Sergeant First Class Randall D., 1, 281

Siad Barre, Mohammed, 112

Sierra Leone, 114

Sigman Star, 119

Signal Corps, 119

Simulation in Training for Advanced Readiness 

(SIMITAR), 127

Sinai peacekeeping mission, 111, 117, 153

Sinatra Doctrine, 46

Singapore, 110

Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio 

System (SINCGARS) radios, 2, 150, 424

Single parents, 348, 355, 367

Sixteenth Amendment, 12

Skill qualification tests (SQTs), 38

Slew-to-cue technology, 148, 182

Slovakia, 52, 53, 109, 161

Slovenia, 53, 161

Smith, Sergeant First Class Paul R., 281

Solidarity (Polish political party), 44, 108

Somalia, 1–2, 112–14, 118, 126, 162, 281

South America. See Latin America; specific 

countries.

South Korea, 36, 109, 110, 152

Southern Cross Security, 177

Southern European Task Force (SETAF), 153

Southern Watch, 110, 152, 409

Soviet Union 

Afghanistan, withdrawal from, 46, 53, 218

arms reduction talks, 46

arms trafficking after fall of, 53, 54

China, clashes with, 16

collapse of Warsaw Pact and, 4, 44–49, 

107–09, 157–58

as primary military threat in 1989, 35–36

See also Russia.

Space assets and products, Army interest in, 

181–82, 431

Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), 

182–83, 276, 324, 327, 371

Spanish-American War, 8, 9–10, 19, 23, 96, 

469

Special Forces Group, 10th, 46

Special Needs Accommodation Process 

(SNAP), 351

Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), 

160th, 399

Special Operations Command. See United 

States Special Operations Command 

(USSOCOM).

Special Operations Forces (SOF), 42, 57, 114–

15, 219–21, 232, 245, 249, 277, 309, 

322–23, 396, 400, 410–11, 413, 469

Spiral development, 91, 92, 145, 149, 169, 455

Split-basing, 101, 105, 106, 255, 261, 400, 459

Spouse Orientation and Leader Development 

(SOLD), 363, 381

Spouses, family support for, 356–64

Springfield rifle, 9

Stabilico, 177

Stability operations. See Unconventional 

warfare.

Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Balkans, 155

Standard Army Maintenance System (SAMS), 

41

Standard Installation/Division Personnel 

Reporting System (SIDPERS), 41

Standard Property Book System–Redesignated 

(SPBS-R), 41

Standardization agreements (STANAGs), 102

Stanton, Edwin M., 8

Stimson, Henry L., 461

Stofft, Brigadier General William A., 86

Stone, Michael P. W., 45, 71, 72, 74

Stop-loss policy, 250, 281, 296

Strategic bombardment, concept of, 13, 19

Strategic mobility. See Logistics and strategic 

mobility.

Strategic Studies Institute, Carlisle, 

Pennsylvania, 279

Stress on soldiers, physical and mental, 262–

65, 363–64

Strike Force, 4, 171, 197, 202, 256, 302, 397, 

455, 472

Stryker, Specialist Robert F., 204

Stryker, Private First Class Stuart S., 204

Strykers and Stryker brigades, 1–2, 204–05, 

207–09, 229, 235–37, 248–49, 268, 282, 

302, 397, 423–25, 429, 436, 440, 456–

57, 465, 472

Sudan, 54, 152

Suicides, 364

Sullivan, General Gordon R., Army transformation under (1991–1995), 86, 454
535

Index

Army force structure, 289, 301, 311, 312, 

313, 327

change process, modern Louisiana 

Maneuvers as means of galvanizing, 

86–92

definition of Army transformation, 3, 4, 5,

393

digitization of Army during, 118–24, 128, 

231, 471

downsizing of Army during, 124–26

escalating contingency operations, handling 

of, 106–18

Army transformative effects of, 116–18

counterdrug operations, 115–16

as distractions from Army transformation process, 479

in East Asia, 109–10

in Europe, 107–09

Haiti, 114–16

humanitarian missions, 107–09, 113, 

116

in Middle East, 110

national sovereignty and cultural considerations, 117–18

Northern Iraq, Operation Provide

Comfort in, 111–12, 118

Somalia, 112–14

UN ambitions regarding, 110–11

expeditionary posture, shift to, 126

Force XXI under, 92, 123–24, 128

GOSC (General Officer Steering

Committee) used by, 462, 479

Louisiana Maneuvers and LAM Task Force, 

3, 90–92, 102, 122, 124, 139, 140, 149, 

163, 169, 193, 289, 311, 328, 455, 463, 

470, 471, 478, 479

Reimer and Sullivan, 139, 245

Schoomaker and Sullivan, 258, 312

Shinseki and Sullivan, 193, 195, 237

state of U.S. Army in 1995, 124–28

strategic mobility, pursuit of

airlift, 96

combat service support, 100–101

combined and joint operations, 

101–04

deployment, Sullivan plan for, 98–99

heavy-light divide, 98–99, 103–04

importance of, 92–94

Intrinsic Action in Kuwait as example of, 104–06

pre-positioning of supplies, 96–98

Reimer’s pursuit of, 171

sealift, 94–96

split-basing, 101, 105, 106, 255, 261, 

400, 459

Sullivan’s pursuit of, 92–106

weight reductions, 98

Vuono and Sullivan, 85, 245

Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe 

(SHAPE), 160–61

Surface Deployment and Distribution 

Command (SDDC), 327

Surgical Hospital (Mobile Army), 212th, 109

Surinam, 115

Survival Assistance Officers, 265

Survivor benefits program (SBP), 375

Sustainability issues, 433–41

Sustainment Unit of Action, 307–08, 310

Syria, 57, 110, 416

Table of distribution and allowances (TDA) 

structure, 73, 466

Tables of organization and equipment (TOEs) 

and TOE units, 70, 73, 94, 257, 261, 315, 

434, 436, 466

Tactical Actions Centers (TACs), 403

Tactical Air Control Party (TACP), 456

Tactical Army Combat Service Support 

Computer System (TACCS), 41

Tactical Fire Direction System (Army) 

(TACFIRE), 119

Tactical HUMINT teams (THTs), 418

Tactical Operations Centers (TOCs) and TOC 

officers, 121, 147, 207, 316–18, 403

Tactical unmanned aerial vehicle (TUAV), 150

Tactical Warfare Model (TACWAR) system, 

166

Tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP), 202, 

207, 295, 403, 414, 421, 465

Taiwan Straits, 35

Taliban, 218–19, 221–23, 228, 400, 422

Tall’ Afar helicopter crash, 1–3, 423–24, 428

Tank Table VII, 103

Tank Table VIII, 37, 100, 103

Tank Table IX, 103

Tank Table XII, 103

Tanker troops, 99–100, 103, 105, 128, 141, 206, 

257, 261, 294, 323

Tanks

M1 Abrams, 16, 38–40, 61, 62, 63, 87, 89, 

128, 171, 228, 396, 412, 425, 473

M1A1 Abrams, 40, 42, 60, 67, 87, 98, 103, 

120, 122, 148, 173, 197, 198, 232, 248, 

267, 299, 395, 396, 406

M1A2, 122, 144, 150, 176, 229, 425

M47, 87

M48, 87

M60 series, 87

M60A1, 60, 87

T55, T62, T72, and T80, 87, 299

track shoe production, 271

XM84, 105
Kevlar Legions

536

Target acquisition battery (TAB), 105

Task Forces 

1-5 Cavalry, 104, 105

1-41 Infantry (Mechanized), 398

1-63 Armor, 396, 398

1-70 Armor, 144

2-2 Infantry, 429

2-70 Armor, 398

Baghdad, 431

Hawk, 156, 169–70, 175, 191, 193

Smith, 93, 124, 457

Team Spirit, 109

Technology, role of, 2–3 

Afghanistan and Iraq, Army transformation 

affected by, 265–74

Army force structure and, 324–25

ATDs, 91, 123, 139

in defining Army transformation, 5–6

doctrinal change and, 455–56, 476

future developments in, 473–82

high-end conventional combat, Army transformation bias toward, 402–12

in historical Army transformations, 7–16

“off-the-shelf” technology, Army use of, 91, 

123, 128, 176, 203, 272, 302, 325, 471, 

481

process of Army transformation and, 17, 18

space assets and products, attention paid to, 

181–82

state of U.S. Army in 1989 and, 38–41

timelines of transformation and, 26

unconventional warfare and, 423–33

See also Information Age; specific technological developments.

Tectonic shift (1989–1991), 57–64, 77–83 

change of strategic focus resulting from, 65–72

defense reorganization, effects of, 41–44, 

71–72

denuclearization, 74–76

globalization, rise of, 49, 52, 54, 56

immigration, race, and ethnicity issues, 

52–54

Information Age, effects of, 54–56

Panama, Operation Just Cause in, 49–52, 

74

peace dividend and downsizing, 73–74, 75

state of U.S. Army in 1989, 35–41

Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, collapse of, 

44–49

Yugoslavia, breakup of, 53

See also Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Ten-Year Rule, 86

Terrorism

11 September 2001, 191, 209–13, 226

Afghanistan, as the reason for U.S. invasion 

of, 218–24

al-Qaeda, 211, 214, 218–19, 221–23, 228, 

230, 422

Homeland Defense, concept of, 212–18

paradigm shift initiated by, 250, 393

Vigilant Warriors addressing, 200

Test and Experimentation Command 

(TEXCOM), 325

Thailand, 110, 153

Theater High-Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), 

182

Theater Support Command (TSC), 377th, 437

The Third World War, 45

Tiananmen Square, 45

Tidewater Tri-Service Managed Care Project, 

352–53

Tiger Balm, 110

Time-phased force and deployment lists 

(TPFDLs), 100–101, 232, 234, 398–99

Total Army concept, 19, 38, 160

Total Army Personnel Command, 69, 70, 330

Total asset visibility, 91, 98, 122, 434

Total Force policy, 16

Trade Winds, 153

Training

Army transformation, as means of, 9, 22–

23, 457–58

of downsizing Army, 124–25, 176–77

IMET, 176, 373

NCOES, 22, 38

state of U.S. Army in 1989 regarding, 37, 

38, 40

state of U.S. Army in 1999 regarding, 

179–81

tectonic shift period (1989–1991), change of 

focus during, 67–69

Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)

on Army force structure, 290, 291, 298, 

301–03, 325, 327, 328

Army transformation responsibilities of, 

461, 463, 478, 479

contractors, reliance on, 373

creation of, 25

on low-intensity conflicts, 469

during Reimer years (1995–1999), 144, 149, 

176–77, 181, 471

during Schoomaker years (2003–2005), 256, 

257, 277, 472

during Shinseki years (1999–2003), 198, 

201, 205, 206, 207, 231, 232

during Sullivan years (1991–1995), 89–90, 

91, 93, 127

tectonic shift period (1989–1991), change of 

focus during, 65, 66, 69–70

Transformation of Army. See Army 

transformation.

Transformation Campaign Plan, 4, 201
537

Index

Transportation Command, 143d, 267

Transportation Company, 724th, 281, 438

Transportation Security Agency (TSA), 

214–15

TRICARE, 159, 326, 353–55, 374–75, 380, 

382, 459, 471

TRICARE Reserve Select (TRS), 380

Truman, Harry S., 24, 247

Tube artillery, 14, 166, 228, 318, 320

Turkey, 57, 65, 96, 110, 111, 113, 118, 231–32, 

235, 266, 395–96, 495

Turkmenistan, 161

Two major theater strategy, 162, 165, 227

Two Plus Four Agreement, 47

Ulchi Focus Lens, 109, 152

“Unblinking eye,” 147, 224, 407

Unconventional warfare

in Afghanistan, 422–23

command and control issues, 418–20, 429

detainees and prisoners of war, 420–21

development and dissemination of Army 

doctrine on, 413–15

intelligence requirements of, 417–18

IO (information operations), 431–32

in Iraqi Freedom, 417–21, 423–33

manpower intensivity of, 415–17

problems of Army faced with, 413–23

rules of engagement in, 421

technological advances affecting, 423–33

Unified Command Plan, 218

Unified Task Force (UNITAF) in Somalia, 112,

113

Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 

24, 480

Unit conduct-of-fire trainer (UCOFT), 16, 41,

68, 458

Unit identification code (UIC), derivative, 117

Unit rotation and unit manning, 251, 253–62, 

295–96, 400–402, 458–59, 472

United Defense LP, 204

United Kingdom

1st Armoured Division, 231

Arnhem, Battle of, 208

at Casablanca and other World War II conferences, 478

concept of Army transformation and, 12, 20

in Desert Fox, 152

in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 56, 57, 

62, 65, 119

family support and regimental system, 361

friendly fire deaths, 119

German reunification and, 47

in Iraqi Freedom, 231, 232, 234, 266, 267, 

406, 438

Malaya campaign, 413, 415–16

NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps led by, 

419

Northern Ireland and IRA, 118, 323

Ten-Year Rule, imposition of, 86

United Nations Mission in Haiti (UNMIH), 115

United Nations Operations in Somalia 

(UNOSOM), 112, 113

United Nations Protection Force 

(UNPROFOR), 108–11, 154

United Services Employment and 

Reemployment Act of 1994, 377

United States Army, Europe (USAREUR)

Afghanistan war and, 223

Army force structure and, 313, 326, 327

collapse of Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact 

and, 45, 46

family support in, 341–43

during Reimer era, 158, 160, 161

Shinseki in command of, 191

Soviet threat in 1989 and, 37, 40

during Sullivan era, 93, 96, 108, 109

United States Army, North (USARNORTH), 

326, 327

United States Army, Pacific (USARPAC), 153,

325–27

United States Army, South (USARSO), 326, 

327

United States Army Central Command 

(USARCENT), 326, 327

United States Army Civil Affairs and 

Psychological Operations Command 

(USACAPOC), 181

United States Army Forces Command 

(FORSCOM), 70, 139, 179, 180, 215, 

326, 327, 478

United States Army Reserve Command 

(USARC) Augmentation Unit (UAU), 

381, 382

United States Army Special Operations 

Command (USASOC), 322–23, 327

United States Military Academy, 70, 139, 191, 

330

United States Military Observers Group, 328

United States Northern Command 

(USNORTHCOM), 218

United States Reconnaissance and Interdiction 

Detachments (RAIDs), 154

United States Special Operations Command 

(USSOCOM), 41–44, 46, 181, 245, 322–

23, 327, 399, 413, 422, 468–69

United States Strategic Command 

(USSTRATCOM), 324

United States Transportation Command 

(USTRANSCOM), 94–96, 327, 395

Units of action (UAs), 258–59, 302–09, 311–

12, 321
Kevlar Legions

538

Units of employment (UEs), 258–59, 302, 311–

12, 313–14, 321

Unity of command principle, 100–101

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 1, 148, 150, 

206, 252, 269, 273, 276, 297, 303, 310, 

407–09, 411, 424–26, 433, 440, 454, 

464, 471, 476, 481

Uphold Democracy, 114–15, 116, 153, 245

Upton, Emory, 10–11, 19, 20, 291

Urgent Fury (1983 invasion of Grenada), 43, 

245

Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, 54

The U.S. Army Maneuvers of 1941, 90

U.S. Army Reserve (USAR). See Reserve.

U.S. Commission on National Security/21st 

Century, 217

USA Cares, 358

USAF Missions Area Relationships Sideview, 

291–301

Vandiver, E. B., 330

VANGUARD, 73, 85, 162, 466

Variable Housing Allowance (VHA), 344, 346

Vehicle-borne IEDs (VBIEDs), 433

Veterans Affairs. See Department of Veterans 

Affairs (VA).

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 42, 71

Vice Chief of Staff, 25

Victory Program (1941), 19

Video teleconferencing (VTC), 403, 406

Vietnam War

contractors in, 175

deployment during, 61

helicopters, expanded use of, 15–16

indirect suppressive fire in, 228

individual replacement rather than unit rotations in, 251, 254, 296

PGM prototypes in, 55

process of Army transformation and, 18

PTSD in, 263

unconventional warfare, Army interest in, 413

Vigilant Sentinel, 151

Vigilant Warrior, 151

Vigilant Warrior series, 200

Vinnell (firm), 176

Voluntary Early Release/Retirement Program 

(VERRP), 125

Voluntary Selective Incentive Program (VSIP), 

125

Volunteer Army

family support, importance of, 341, 342, 344, 

348, 352, 354, 356, 359, 361, 365, 367

in state of war, 218, 252, 254, 262, 281, 442

transformation to, 19, 20, 37, 69, 116–17

Volunteer work by Army family members, 

361–63

Vuono, General Carl E.

Army force structure under, 289, 295–96

Army transformation under, 393, 453, 466–

67, 478

downsizing of Army and, 124

Shinseki and, 237

six imperatives of, 66–69, 85, 87, 124, 139

Sullivan and, 85, 245

tectonic shift, 1989–1991, and, 35, 45, 47, 

65–66, 68–74, 466–67

Wagner, General Louis C., Jr., 40, 127

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 101, 265, 

361

Warfighter exercise (WFX), Battle Command

Training Program (BCTP), 207

Warlock, 270

Warner, John, 249

Warrior Ethos, 279–81, 461

Warrior Transition Units, 265, 369

Warsaw Pact, collapse of, 44–49, 107–09, 

157–58

Wartime executive agency responsibility, joint 

(WEAR), 227

WARTRACE program, 117

Weapon Optimization and Resource 

Requirements Model (WORRM), 166

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD). See

Atomic weapons; Nuclear weapons.

Webster, Major General William G., 257

Westphalia, Treaty of (1648), 118

“Where am I?” problem and solutions, 140–42, 

145–46, 209, 235, 407–08, 454, 471

“Where are my buddies?” problem and solutions, 142–43, 146–47, 209, 235, 407–

08, 454, 471

“Where is the enemy?” problem and solutions, 

143–45, 147–51, 209, 407–08, 471

White, Thomas E., 229–32, 236–37, 246, 249

Why They Fight: Combat Motivation in the Iraq 

War, 279

Wickham, General John A., Jr., 69, 341, 351, 

361

Wilson, Woodrow, 11

Wolfowitz, Paul, 232, 236, 418

Women in the Army, 19, 24, 37, 278, 279, 371, 

435, 480

Women’s Army Corps (WAC), 24

Wood, General Leonard, 19, 20

World Bank, 17

World War I

contractors in, 172, 175

glacis provided by allies in, 470

Hutier tactics in, 291

individual replacement rather than unit rotations in, 296
539

Index

as military revolution/RMA, 6, 12

mobilization-based Army, transformation to, 

10–12, 466

organizational change during, 21

process of Army transformation and, 20

PTSD in, 263

World War II

Ardennes, Battle of, 294

Army force structure and, 291, 294, 296

Army Training Program during, 22

Arnhem, IBCT scenario for Battle of, 208

contractors in, 172–73

glacis provided by allies in, 470

Huertgen Forest, Battle of, 293, 296

individual replacement rather than unit rotations in, 254, 296

mobilization-based Army, transformation to, 

10–13, 466

organizational change during, 21–22

process of Army transformation and, 21

PTSD in, 263

spans of control in, 291, 293

“where am I?” problem in, 141

Wounded Warrior program, 265, 369

Y2K, 217

Yellow fever, 9–10

Yeltsin, Boris, 49

Yemen, 476

Yorktown, 468

Your Soldier, Your Army: A Parent’s Guide, 

366–67

Youth services, 349–51

Yugoslavia, breakup of, 53, 107, 108, 111, 154. 

See also specific successor states and 

regions.

Zaire, 476

Zhivkov, Todor, 44

Zimbabwe, 114 
Chart 9—The Army Budget, 1905–2005

(annual percent change)