General Dennis J. Reimer - Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Atlanta, Georgia 23 April 1996- It's particularly good to have a little bit of time to talk about what the Army's doing. This is an important conference and I'm delighted to see we have so many people here. I want to thank everybody that had a part in this, the people, the leaders, industry, the American Defense Preparedness Association, and the Army Materiel Command. It's important to the United States Army, and it's important to our nation.

I looked at the survey that was presented earlier, and noted that it was not quite a year old. The Army came in second place to the Air Force in acquisition reform. That's not good enough for us. When we come back next year, we'll be in first place. We're serious about acquisition reform. I challenge all the people here in green suits and the civilians in the department that we've got to continue to do better.

There's an old Chinese proverb that goes "may you live in interesting times." Somebody told me that's not really a proverb, it's a curse, and I think it is probably applicable to the times that we're living in right now.

Every time I think about that, I'm reminded of Paul Harvey who said that "In times like this, it's helpful to remember there have always been times like this."

Art Buchwald also had something to say. He said that "I don't know if these are the best of times or these are the worst of times, but I do know that these are the only times we've had."

When you think about the latter two sayings, it kind of puts it in perspective. We have probably always lived in interesting times, and our fate right now is to live in a very interesting time, in which we have a great opportunity, and I think a great challenge. So I'd like to talk about the opportunities and challenges that face the United States Army.

In Orlando in February how many of you would have predicted Liberia? It's been a very small scale operation. It could have turned in to a very large operation. Overnight about 180 soldiers came out of SETAF and evacuated almost 2,000 civilians out of Monrovia to safety. We did that because we were trained and ready. That could have blown up on us. It could have been a big problem, but it didn't.

While the group out of SETAF was evacuating civilians in Liberia; they were also recovering another company from Bosnia, going through a battle command training program at their headquarters, and getting ready to send the rest of the task force to train at Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels. That is one good example of why the United States Army has to remain trained and ready today. You never know where it's going to come from. You never know how it's going to come at you, but we do know it's going to come. That's why we put so much emphasis on being trained and ready.

The second example I think is in Bosnia. If you just look at what's happening over there, almost 20,000 soldiers are over there doing something we didn't prepare for five years ago. They really started preparing for it in November and December of this year through a tough training program at Hohenfels. They got ready for this mission, they went over there, and they're executing this mission magnificently.

I watch the press reports. They're trying to find something that's wrong out there. They talk about boredom. They talk about the fact that we keep our soldiers in uniform, that we expect them to be prepared for whatever happens, but they really can't find a seam. What you see are trained and ready soldiers, doing their jobs.

It's more than that, though, it's a combination of high quality soldiers and high technology. That's an unbeatable combination. You all saw it when we put the bridge in on the Sava River. I referred to it as the biggest ARTEP ever seen on national TV. You saw soldiers who went over there to do their job, to cross a river that was at a 100 year high flood point, braving the elements and fighting ice, sleet, snow, rain, and mud. They didn't let anybody rush them. They built the bridge on time and on schedule and they did it with zero injuries. That's what you get when you combine high quality soldiers and high technology.

I visited soldiers in Bosnia, talking to them about the mission to establish the zone of separation. They were tasked to separate the warring factions and were negotiating to move a tank from the zone of separation. They would produce a picture that was taken from the gun camera of an Apache helicopter and say here is that tank, here are the coordinates, and if you don't have it out of there by ten tomorrow morning, we will destroy it. The tank gone the next morning. That's the type of thing we're asking those soldiers to do. That's the type of technology we're providing them, and they're doing a magnificent job. It's truly a remarkable accomplishment.

We must have that foundation-high quality soldiers, high technology. We do today, and we must maintain it in the future. I think we have that combination because we've had balanced programs across the Army and across the military. If you look at what's happened to us, it's not been easy to pull it together, to keep it balanced. We've reduced the resources by 40 percent while reducing infrastructure by 35 percent. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that if you do that type of thing you can't stay with the status quo and expect to keep the equation balanced. So we've had to do some things that are different in order to maintain balance.

I'm often asked as I travel around, where is the Army today and where is it headed? Let me talk to you a little bit about the Army today.

First of all, I think we're a much more versatile Army than we have been in the last six years. I say we're versatile because we've done things that have been different, much different for us. We've done Somalia and Haiti. We're doing Bosnia, Liberia, and Peru/Ecuador. We've learned a lot from all of those different operations. Each one of those operations has been different, but we've learned from each other and incorporated that into our training program. I would say we're a much more versatile Army than we've ever been in our history.

I would also tell you that the combat training center program that we have across the Army is in top notch shape. All you have to do is go to the National Training Center and you see the forces that John Tilleli commands here at Forces Command, operating over there against the best opposing force in the world. They're going out there and they're going through a learning experience, they do 12 rotations a year, a great training experience for us. That's the way you maintain the capability for the high intensity conflict that is so important that we don't lose. The Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk has soldiers training differently than they've ever trained before. Trained to deal with the environment we find ourselves in. Civilians on the battlefield, media on the battlefield, peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations.

When the 2nd ACR deployed to Haiti, we gave them a couple of weeks of intensive training to get them ready to do that specific program. The 1st Armored Division trained to go into Bosnia at the CMTC in Europe. Talking to the soldiers in Bosnia, I asked them if there was anything that they hadn't been trained for. They said absolutely not. They said everything that they were trained for they've experienced in Bosnia. There wasn't anything in Bosnia they hadn't been trained for. In fact they went on to say that they were glad they came to Bosnia because if they hadn't come, they'd have probably run them through another training program and it would have been tougher than going to Bosnia. That is a good accolade to give any training program, and that's why I'm so proud of what we're doing in training.

We've taken the other part of the combat training center program, the battle command training program, and adapted it for different uses. We've used the battle command training program to prepare the forces going into Haiti. We took UN forces, sent them through our training program, the first time they'd ever done that. I was in the UN the other day and they said it was a great team building experience. They got an awful lot out of that. We also took the battle command training program, and again prepared soldiers getting ready to go to Bosnia. That is terribly important, and that's why I think the Army continues to be trained and ready today.

I would say if there's been some slippage, and there probably is, the slippage has occurred in a couple of areas. One is in home station training. Basically we've had a tough challenge over there to try and balance the home station training with providing the quality of life that's so important to our soldiers and families, so consequently, we're still adjusting. We'll have to come up with new and better techniques; cross training and simulations. We can do that. We'll figure out how to do that. The other area is in modernization. If you look at the way we built that program, we knew we were facing a reshaping challenge in the last six years so we mortgaged the modernization account to take care of the people. Now it's time to rebalance that equation. That's where we are today. We're trained and ready, versatile, with the best training in the world.

What about the future? Let me talk to you just a little bit about the vision of the United States for the future. Many of you have heard that, but I want to take you through it again because it's important to remind you where we're headed. We talk about the world's best Army, trained and ready. A total force of quality soldiers and civilians. A value-based organization. An integral part of the joint team, equipped with the most modern weapons and equipment the country can provide. Able to respond to our nation's needs, and changing to meet the challenges of today, tomorrow, and the 21st Century. Let me take you back through each of those because it's important that you understand the meaning behind them.

The world's best Army. We truly are the world's best Army right now. We must maintain that. We must take that to the 21st century. It's not pre-ordained that we will be the world's best Army in the 21st century. The decisions we make today will impact upon how well we do in the 21st century.

Trained and ready for victory, and never forget that. That's the most important thing we do during peacetime. That's why what we're doing at NTC, JRTC, and CMTC is so important to us.

A total force of quality soldiers and civilians. We've always known that we have quality soldiers. It has truly been the case since I've been in the Army. What I haven't always realized is the great quality we have in the civilian work force. I saw it during OPERATION DESERT SHIELD in the desert, working with us, rolling up their sleeves, basically upgrading the tanks that we were sending over there from M-1s to A-1s. I see them throughout the Army. It's a great strength. We've got to leverage that tremendous strength that we have.

Value-based organization. It's truly important that we continue to keep that tremendous asset, those values that have been so important to us in the past as part of the present day Army and the Army of the future. Again, it's not pre-ordained. We are a reflection of society. When the values of society change, they'll change in the military. We have to make sure we keep the emphasis on those values that have been so good for us in the past.

An integral part of the joint team simply means we fight together. There's an awful lot of controversy, controversy in terms of jointness while we compete for resources. Yes, we're going to compete for resources, but we will be joint at the very end. What we must do is make the decisions that are best for the nation. That's what we're all pledged to do and I think we have the right forums in which to do that. But it is really in our own interest, our best interest, to assure that we become even more joint, particularly as we're becoming smaller.

The next part of that vision is really the challenge to have the most modern weapons and equipment the country can provide. As I've mentioned, we mortgaged the modernization account in order to take care of our people. I would do the same thing again if I was making that decision. I participated in that decision in 1991. It was important to take care of the people. The Army without people is nothing. But now we know we have to make sure that they have the modern weapons and equipment that they need in the 21st century.

Able to respond to the nation's needs. That's an interesting little phrase that we throw out there. We find ourselves often talking amongst ourselves as to whether we should be saving ourselves for the big one, or whether we can do the Somalias and the Haitis and the Bosnias. My point is that if we're not going to be willing to do the Somalias and the Haitis and the Bosnias, we're going to find ourselves very small. You can argue the policy that gets us in there all you want, but once the decision is made, the United States Army supports the decision and we go in there and do the job, which is what's happening in Bosnia right now.

Then I guess the last part of that simply reflects the fact that we are changing. The world is changing. We have to meet the challenges of that changing world. We're adjusting to change. I think people feel a lot more comfortable with change because they have dealt with it for the last six years.

When I look at the near term, what I see is a world that we've got to deal with that's out there today. It's often called the "new world order". That term isn't used as much as it used to be, but I think it's descriptive of what we find out there. The new world order is long on new and short on order. If you look out there, what you see is a world that consists of a very unpredictable Korea. What's going to happen in Korea? Gary Luck has said they're going to implode or explode, one of the two. We don't know when, don't know how, but something's going to happen over there, and I believe he's absolutely correct, so we watch that very carefully.

We still have Saddam Hussein in Iraq and he's still a very important player. Just this week I was talking to a high ranking Jordanian officer and I said what's your evaluation of Saddam Hussein? That's their next door neighbor. He said they just don't know. I said why did his son-in-law go back to Iraq? He said because Saddam Hussein convinced him nothing would happen. Well, you know the story. He is a very unpredictable person and you can't rule anything out.

All of you know the issues associated with weapons of mass destruction. They're out there. Are we going to be able to control them, are they going to proliferate? These are concerns that we have. These are things that we continue to monitor.

We have the former Warsaw Pact countries struggling to embrace democracy, struggling to understand the principles of democracy. I would tell you that that hasn't been institutionalized yet and I would also tell you that I don't think it's past the point of no return. So it's something that we have to be very concerned about as we look at the future.

As I mentioned, I was at the UN last week and discussed the twin pillars of globalization and of fractionalization. What they're really talking about is that the world has become a global village. We're all dependent upon each other much more. At the same time, the way we used to subdivide the global village and the nation states-that is fractionalizing-and those lines that define the nation state mean less and less. What we've done is we've given rise to ethnic and religious tensions that have been suppressed for so many years by the Cold War, and now they're cropping up and we have to deal with it.

What all that means is it's still a dangerous and unpredictable world we live in, and that's why I think it's important for the Army to remain trained and ready.

I've had the opportunity as the Chief to travel a little bit, and I just was in Russia and Ukraine. It's an interesting feeling to be sitting across the table from former enemies and talking about joint training, joint opportunities, and how you deal with civilian control over the military. They're struggling with this because they don't understand it. It's healthy that they're willing to talk and they're willing to discuss those in very real terms. But I would also tell you there's still a lot of work to do, and I'm not sure what the outcome is going to be.

For the United States Army it really means a couple of things. The mission that we have remains the same. It can be summarized in four words. We are there to support, reassure, deter, and defend. And let me just talk to you a little bit about what I mean in that area.

Support, for communities ravaged by Hurricane Andrew that occurred in Florida a few years back; support with missions like Task Force LA when there was unrest and a problem in Los Angeles. That's what we talked about in terms of support.

Reassure. Putting our troops in Macedonia to make sure that we keep peace in that particular area. Putting our troops in the Sinai with the MFO to make sure that both Israel and Egypt are satisfied with that particular peace treaty.

Deter. Like we did with Saddam Hussein in September of '94 when we sent a brigade task force over to Kuwait, got there in less than seven days; whereas it took us over 30 days to do it earlier in OPERATION DESERT SHIELD.

Compel. OPERATION DESERT STORM, when we basically sent the United States Army and the United States military over to Kuwait and were able to kick out Saddam Hussein.

Those are the four major missions that the United States Army has to do. We are able to accomplish those missions today, but I think the fact that we have to do them underscores a couple of paints. First of all, the world that I described means that we must remain trained and ready. We have to be trained and ready because we never know what's going to happen.

I think the two major regional conflicts, nearly simultaneously, is a good sizing mechanism. That's what we've sized our Army against. That's what we've sized our military against. I think they will stand us in good stead, and we've got to stay the course.

I also think the other thing that's important is we have to realize that the resources are not there for the status quo. We can't continue to do business as we've always done. When your resources come down 40 percent and your infrastructure comes down 35 percent, if you're counting on the BRAC savings to get you through, and they're not there, then you've got to rebalance that equation.

So we turn to a term that you all use in civilian industry called reengineering. Reengineering has a lot of connotations, but I don't necessarily think it's bad. It's not bad because I think it can help us through some of these tough problems that we face. When I talk about reengineering I'm talking about the need to reshape and renew the Army.

If you look at what we've done, we've tried to hold our headquarters constant as we went through this reshaping exercise. The downsizing is almost over. Now it's time to tackle the reorganization headquarters and those other elements that are out there.

We're in the process of doing that with a functional area analysis that is ongoing, led by the Vice Chief of Staff. We're going to streamline the headquarters, we're going to use technology, we'll leverage technology to help us through those particular tough areas that exist out there. But we are very serious about reinventing ourselves and renewing ourselves so that we can balance the equation and put more money into modernization.

We're serious about efficiencies. There is a tremendous effort being led by the Army Materiel Command. We're talking about order to ship time, administrative leave, production lead times, improved contracting, military and commercial specifications, reducing O&S costs. All of these are important initiatives to allow us to put more money into modernization.

We're also meeting, and I am particularly, with the leaders of industry. I found those sessions very, very helpful and very meaningful to me and I think to the Army. First of all, the leaders that I've talked to have all talked to me about the need to develop a feeling of trust and teaming throughout the organization. I think we have that, but we want to strengthen that.

We've talked about the leadership commitment, the fact that you've got to stay the course, that you've got to be willing to make the tough decisions. I will tell you that we have the structure in place and we are going to make the tough decisions that have to be done. We're going to hold this Army together.

We also talked about why going slow is high risk. I think that's very true. It's a difficult thing for all of us in the Army to get over because this is a very conservative organization, but I will tell you that we understand the risk of not doing something is greater than the risk of doing something, so we're doing them. It's not easy, but we're determined to do it and I think we're going to make it happen.

As we go through this exercise, we've focused on our core competency. I would tell you quite simply, as Johnny mentioned in the introduction, the core competency of the United States Army is the American soldier. All we do is based upon taking care of them, equipping them, training them, sustaining them. It's that simple. When you keep it in those terms, all the tough decisions kind of boil down to relatively easy decisions from that standpoint.

The sole purpose of what we're trying to do right now, what we see happening out there, is designed to make that soldier better in the 21st Century. That's why we're going through a series of advanced warfighting experiments. We've been doing that for about three years. We've learned from each of those. We know where we want to put our money in terms of some technologies that will bring us along and bring us to the 21st Century, the information age. That's why we're running about the third or fourth Prairie Warrior at Leavenworth where we're training our officers to fight organizations that do not exist, so that when they learn how to fight those, as we bring that technology in, the two coincide. Bringing them together in a very meaningful way.

We're learning and adapting from each of these operations that I mentioned earlier. Each operation requires an after-action review. We've taken the lessons learned and incorporated them in our structure and our institution. As a result, we become a better Army.

We must ensure that the Army of the 21st century has that right combination that I talked about earlier-high quality soldiers, high technologies. To do that, we've got to rebalance the equation. All of you know, I think, particularly in this conference, that the Army within DoD is about 13 percent of the modernization budget. The modernization account in the Army only gets about 18 percent. Those figures are too low. We've got to change those by one or two percentage points, and we're dedicated to do that. But I'll tell you, it's not easy, so we're having to make some tough decisions to make that happen.

We need your help. We need your help in terms of partnership. We need your help in terms of best value contracting. And we need your help in supporting some of the tough decisions that we have to make. Some of you have done that in a very meaningful way, and I want you to know how much I appreciate that.

Let me conclude by saying that recently I was at a ceremony that I think illustrates very well what I was trying to say this afternoon. About ten days ago, I was in San Diego for the commissioning ceremony of the U.S. Navy ship Shughart. The Shughart is a very special ship. It's a special ship to me and for the United States Army. What the Shughart represents is the first of 19 large medium-speed Roll-On/Roll-Off ships. It is designed to help us implement the new national military strategy of power projection. It is very important.

Equally important, I think, is that it's named after Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart. Sergeant First Class Shughart lost his life in Mogadishu trying to save some buddies that were in danger. For his actions he received a Medal of Honor. His family, his parents, his widow Stephanie were there. Stephanie Shughart, a very gracious lady, said that it takes a remarkable person not only to memorize a creed and to say a creed, but to live a creed. Randy Shughart was that remarkable person. I would tell you that the U.S. Navy ship Shughart, if it has the dedication and the personality of Randy or Stephanie Shughart, it will be a great ship for the nation. It will be a great ship for the U.S. Army.

But for me that simple ceremony brought together high technology able to move our equipment and high quality soldiers rapidly to the point of need. It was a great ceremony, and I think it illustrates what the United States Army is trying to do. We'll keep that combination of high technology and quality soldiers. It's unbeatable.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

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