There was neither a Pentagon ceremony nor so much as a cake cutting. Instead, as the second anniversary of the total force integration initiative approached, DoD's reserve affairs chief marked the event with his third trip to the Balkans for another firsthand progress report. Charles Cragin said his troop visits Aug. 27-29 in Bosnia, Kosovo and the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia convince him two years of hard work by all the services is paying off.
Cultural barriers are more subtle, but still important.
For example, reserve component members had red ID cards until recently. Today, they carry the same Total Force green ID card as active duty members. The change eliminated a barrier, a practice that treated active and reserve component members differently. Cragin said the integration effort is important because of the increasing reliance on the reserve component in carrying out DoD missions. He said Guard and Reserve units flew more than half of all the air refueling missions during NATO's Operation Allied Force air campaign against Yugoslavia.