FORT HOOD, TX — From World War 1 to Vietnam the U.S. Army proficiently fought against fierce enemies on a massive scale.
That style of warfare changed after terrorists attacked America in 2001.
"You know, after 9/11, our country asked those young soldiers and great Americans to do something different. It was a different environment, where we fought in a counter-insurgency environment,” said BG Ronald R. Ragin, Commanding General of 13th Expeditionary Sustainment Command. “We basically fought from these main operating bases where we were relatively protected.”
Now that the battlefield is changing again and relatively safe bases aren’t an option, the Army needs to get back to field craft basics.
”Basics as they relate to security, basics as they relate to the maintenance of equipment, basics as they relate to basic field craft,” said COL. Marchant Callis. Chief of Staff for 13th ESC. “Do you know how to live in the field? As in your own habits and what you do to maintain yourself in a field setting.”
Basic field craft greatly relies on their ability to stay hidden in the field through things like well-camouflaged structures. But as technology advances, that’s not the only thing they have to worry about.
”We’ve incorporated the battle drills that we’ve used over the past 20 years and updated those to meet the current hypersonic threats,” said COL Mike Iannuccilli, Support Operations Officer for 13th ESC. “We've looked at the way we admit signatures to make sure that we’re minimizing our signature and reducing our threat.”
Those who have served in the Army since the ’90s were taught the basics that young soldiers didn’t need in Afghanistan and Iraq.
”Sometimes I think, as senior leaders, we go around ad we talk about the basics but we assume that those young soldiers know what those basics are. But, in some cases, they don’t,” said COL Callis.
The Army now is not the Army of the 90s and that is a good thing, according to the commanding general of the 13th Expeditionary Sustainment Command.
”I want them to be better than I was when I was a young officer,” said BG Ragin. “I want them to be more lethal than was as a young officer in the Army of the 90s, and then I want them to implement technologies that are really going to be game-changing technologies in the battlefield of the future.”
