First Army to Add More Trainers to Guard, Reserve Units

In the coming months, First Army will put more trainers in Army National Guard and Army Reserve units as part of a sweeping effort to increase readiness across the force, the command's top officer said.

The partnerships will enable First Army observer/controller/trainers to better support the reserve component with the goal of reducing the amount of time units spend preparing to deploy once they've been mobilized, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Twitty, commanding general of First Army, during an interview at AUSA.

"If you want a good product at post-mob, you have to start at pre-mob," he said. "We have to do it. The Army, the active Army at 450,000 soldiers, we can't do it alone, so we must depend on each [component] to accomplish this mission."

First Army is responsible for advising, assisting and training reserve component formations both before and after they're mobilized. During the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the command focused almost solely on training soldiers who were preparing to go to war, training more than 90,000 troops a year at 20 mobilization stations across the country.

Today, while it still trains deploying soldiers – more than 20,000 in 2016 - First Army OCTs also work with Guard and Reserve units at home station. In 2016, the command trained about 115,000 soldiers, Twitty said.

For full AUSA 2016 coverage: www.defensenews.com/ausa

Twitty credited his predecessor, now-retired Lt. Gen. Michael Tucker, with reorganizing First Army to enable it to better partner with Guard and Reserve units.

"We're able to fall in on brigade combat teams and other units having the same capability to be able to provide that subject matter expert," Twitty said. "Because of that partnership, my observer-controllers, they attend battle assemblies, they do coaching and mentoring throughout the year."

To build on those relationships, Twitty is preparing to dedicate more OCTs to units across the reserve component. This includes 54 OCTs who typically support rotations at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

"Come 1 January, we’re going to stop OCing our active component forces," Twitty said. "I’m going to take those 54, and we’re going to put them into other units where we don’t have the coverage that I’d like."

Soldiers assigned to 1st Battalion, 194th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, move to engage the enemy in a M1A1 Abrams tank during Decisive Action Rotation 16-07 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif. First Army is working to reduce how much time National Guard units spend at mobilization stations.

Photo Credit: Spc. Daniel Parrott/Army

Twitty also plans to pull back OCTs assigned to units that are participating in the Army’s Associated Units pilot program, which pairs active Army units with those in the reserve component.

Under the pilot, the gaining headquarters unit, for example the 3rd Infantry Division, which is partnered with the Georgia Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, is responsible for their subordinate Associated Unit’s training, Twitty said.

"What I’m going to do there, the OCs that we would normally have aligned with them, I’m pulling those back, take those forces, and I’m going to put them on others, particularly in the reserve component," he said. "I think where we have not gotten it right … is in the Army Reserve side. I’m putting more effort in the Reserve with those forces now where we have Associated Units because I can take a little bit of risk there."

The Army Reserve has a large footprint across the country, and "we’ve partnered with them, but we have not partnered to my liking," Twitty said.

"I need to put more there, because they have a lot of capabilities that are non-existent in the active Army that I need to put more focus on," he said.

Partnerships between First Army trainers and their Guard or Reserve units are long-term commitments, Twitty said.

"Every single thing you do in terms of training, we’re there to assist you along the way," he said. "We’re constantly engaged with you to ensure you’re meeting your readiness needs. I have nine brigades, and each of my nine brigades, they’re partnered with units."

His trainers regularly visit with their partnered units and work with them to develop training plans, Twitty said.

"It’s a relationship that assists a National Guard or Army Reserve unit meet their training objectives, focused on individual training first and then collective training," he said.

Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Glenn (left), a First Army observer coach/trainer, observes the movement of soldiers from the Iowa Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, during an exportable combat training capability exercise at Fort McCoy, Wis. First Army has nearly 200 observer coach/trainers supporting the three-week exercise.

Photo Credit: Master Sgt. Gail Braymen/Army

First Army also is working to help its Guard and Reserve partners conduct individual training at their home stations, Twitty said.

"When units showed up for post-mob prior to deploying, we took them through individual training," he said. "We’re no longer going to do that."

Post-mobilization training should be focused on collective training, Twitty said, adding that this is another way to reduce the amount of time units spend at their mobilization stations.

On average, it takes about 100 days to get a brigade combat team through their post-mobilization training, Twitty said.

"One hundred days is a non-starter in my view," he said. "Seventy-five days to get a brigade combat team out the door is a non-starter. With the amount of active-duty BCTs that we have in our Army today, we have to have our National Guard BCTs ready to deploy."

First Army continues to work with the Army Guard to "come up with the right number," Twitty said.

"I don’t know what that’s going to be, but we’re coming together to talk about it," he said.

The goal, under a four-year model, is to have two Guard brigades ready to go if needed, Twitty said.

"Two brigades is a lot, that’s almost 10,000 soldiers in addition to the Army’s capability that we can deploy when needed," he said.

As the First Army OCTs continue to work with Guard and Reserve, the units are most often asking for subject matter experts, Twitty said.

"For the past 15 years, they have been fighting a counter-insurgency fight as well," he said. "They know very little about decisive action training. We’ve had to train our OCs on decisive action, so our OCs can train them on decisive action."

The units also are seeking training on their core warfighting skills, such as gunnery, Twitty said.

The challenge going forward will be balancing the soldiers’ military and civilian lives, he said.

"There’s no doubt that we can train our National Guard brigades to be ready and deploy, but these soldiers didn’t sign up to be full-time soldiers, so we’ve got to make sure that as we take a hard look at this, we also balance their jobs and their families," Twitty said.

More In AUSA

Lockheed to supply Australia with air battle management system

Overhauling Australia’s overhead defenses is expected to generate hundreds of local jobs as well as open the door to a multibillion-dollar export market.

Defense Innovation Unit prepares to execute $800 million funding boost

DIU Director Doug Beck said he doesn’t foresee any issues with quickly putting to work the $983 million in FY-24 funding Congress provided in March.

Army may swap AI bill of materials for simpler ‘baseball cards’

"We know innovation's happening in the open-source environment," said the Army's Bharat Patel. "We also know who's contributing to the open source."

How L3Harris is shoring up its small satellite supply chain

The president of L3Harris’ space systems sector, recently sat down with C4ISRNET to discuss the challenges of developing a diverse yet mature supply base.

From customer to sanctioned ‘proliferator,’ drones extend Iran’s reach

Iranian contractors and government officials have picked up on market demand, frequenting arms expos and other events in Russia, Iraq, Qatar and more.