Army Values, Standards Keep Army Profession Strong Army Family ...
America's Army Engaged, Ready Now While Planning for the Future By Lt. Gen. John F. Campbell Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations This week the Army celebrates its service to the nation and our strength for the future. Operating in a dynamic and uncertain environment, we face the simultaneous challenges of completing the missions currently under way and optimizing our Army for a broader range of missions for the future. With the support of a grateful nation, your soldiers have been able to succeed in many corners of the world under austere circumstances. Our soldiers and families sacrifice every day to achieve this end and they are well supported by you, the American people. For that, we are deeply grateful. While America’s Army remains at war and focused on the current needs of the nation, we must also focus on future strategy. History has proven that we cannot predict with certainty where or how the nation may call us to serve; what I do know is that we are prepared now and will continue to be in the future to provide a ready and responsive Army as part of the Joint Force wherever and whenever asked. We have proven over the past decade that investment in our readiness is a strategic necessity, and adapting to the always-changing strategic environment requires continued focus on leadership development, training, materiel solutions, improved equipment and properly organized formations. Additionally, we are improving the way we sustain readiness to conduct unified land operations through decisive action, training soldiers for operational adaptability, uncertainty and complexity, and creating integrated training environments at their home stations. These efforts are critical to providing the greatest array of options to advance American security interests and achieve national security objectives. Our Army must also be globally engaged and employed strategically to build and maintain global relationships, to increase partner capacity and enhance regional security all over the world in ways that will be advantageous to our allies and the American people. This includes reinforcing our already robust presence and deep involvement with friends in the Asia-Pacific region. The relationships our soldiers have and will develop with allies and partners are key
to developing the trust and confidence necessary to form multinational coalitions that will deter conflict and respond to future contingencies. To this end, we are aligning United States-based formations with our Geographic Combatant Commander’s Areas of Responsibility around the world to provide a ready force organized and trained to a specific region of the world. This will allow us to better support their security cooperation campaigns with scalable and tailorable force for the specific mission and region. In so doing, we will strengthen relationships and interoperability with our allies and partners. Key to sustaining this posture will be use of a progressive readiness p From left, Pfc. Michael Weymouth and Sgt. Christopher Ouzts, engineers with the 569th Engineer Company, Fort Carson, Colo., provide dismounted security for Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael Myers while clearing a hill of IED threats in the district methodology. We will continue to of Takhteh Pol, Kandahar province, Afghanistan. The location is the future site of an Afghan Uniformed Police substation. cycle forces through periods of time dedicated to training and building will be connected to real-time data and imagery and will possess immediate readiness, availability to deploy and operate, and then reset to recover from connectivity to the Joint Force. This capability will allow us to rapidly scale and operations and prepare to train for the next. This will provide the Army with a tailor capabilities to deploy quickly and meet the full scope of mission demands steady stream of trained and ready forces for planned deployment and use by in all environments. combatant commanders around the world as well as ensure forces are always We must make these improvements and reorganize while simultaneously ready to respond to any contingency that may arise. Both active component becoming smaller. We are confident that our improvements in materiel, and reserve component formations will use this methodology and continue to capabilities, training methodology and systems will ensure that the Army be employed around the world. remains ready always. We will not only meet these challenges but thrive as we We are also focused on a modernization strategy that enables the soldier shift from a period of high operational tempo to one that is more sustainable and the squad by providing the best possible protection, network operability, and predictable, while always being ready to answer the call wherever it rings mobility and lethality to our land forces. These empowered soldiers and squads and to advance the cause of freedom.
Firefighter-Soldier Battles on Two Fronts
Army Values, Standards Keep Army Profession Strong By Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond Chandler III Our soldiers and Department of the Army civilians have performed magnificently well over these last 11 years. Whether manning a tower at a combat outpost, training with a partner nation, or responding to a natural disaster, our professionals are the reason the Army is one of the most trusted and respected professions in the United States and throughout the world. Over the last 18 months, the Army has looked to build upon its strengths and set the conditions for success in the future through the outcomes of the Army Profession Campaign. This introspective campaign looks at the impacts of the last decade of war on our institution and its members. The campaign has helped us examine our values, policies, programs, school systems, and doctrine, as well as facilitate an Army-wide dialog to understand what it means to be a member of the Army Profession.
This understanding, coupled with decisive action aimed at the professional improvement of the total force, will ensure we will always have an Army prepared to meet any future challenge. Part of this campaign includes internalizing the five essential characteristics that define the Army Profession. The loss or compromise of any one of these characteristics means we lose our status as a profession. Trust is earned through our ability to maintain the other four characteristics in everything we do and everywhere we serve. Our soldiers’ military expertise ensures we are able to fight and win our nation’s wars. Esprit de corps helps foster fortitude, pride and cohesion among soldiers. Soldiers with honorable service embody the Army ethic and our values. Finally, our continued stewardship of the Army Profession ensures resources are well managed and our soldiers and civilians continue being the professionals our nation expects them to be. ARMY VALUES CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
Army Family Serves Others, Community Together By Air National Guard Master Sgt. Cheresa D. Theiral Colorado National Guard Public Affairs Last summer, a dozen soldiers from the Colorado Army National Guard’s 1157th Engineer Firefighter Company engaged in the attack against the High Park wildfire in Larimer County, Colo. Among them was Sgt. 1st Class John Schreiber, 1157th fire chief and first sergeant, and lieutenant in the Colorado Springs Fire Department. It was the first time he and his unit, who also served in Iraq, were called to support a domestic emergency. Fully integrated and under the tactical control of civilian fire chiefs, Schreiber led his team of soldiers to help protect the Glacier View subdivision. "The lives have been evacuated, and now we're saving property, because we can imagine how devastating it would be to come home and find that everything we care about is gone," said a sweaty, ashcovered Schreiber in the midst of operations June 21. Unfortunately, on June 22, winds took a turn for the worse, and despite all the firefighters' efforts, several homes in the subdivision succumbed to the flames. "On large-scale fires like High Park and Waldo Canyon, you can only do so much, and then nature has its way," said Schreiber. "Weather, fuel, moisture and terrain can overcome even the best efforts of firefighters. When so many homes are lost in such a short time, you're left kind of numb. It's not like there's much you can do against 60 to 80 foot flames and 50 mph winds. It's a terrible feeling." Though this was the first time Schreiber led his soldiers in fighting a wildland fire, he hopes it won’t be his only opportunity to support his community as a Citizen-Soldier.
p Colorado Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class John
Schreiber, 1157th Engineer Firefighting Company, is also a lieutenant in the Colorado Springs Fire Department. (Army National Guard photo by 2nd Lt. Skye Robinson)
"This is our mission: to protect and defend our country and our community. For us, these are our neighbors’ and fellow soldiers’ homes and families we were trying to protect." Schreiber joined the Arizona National Guard in 1989 as a firefighter and went to basic training in 1990. He liked the Army and his firefighting mission so much that in 1990 he transferred to the active duty Army. Though he loved the military, his duties through the years often called him away from his wife and children, including one child with special needs. He yearned to spend more time with his family, but he didn't want to lose his Army ties, either. The National Guard seemed to be a perfect answer to his dilemma, he said. So in 1998, Schreiber decided to join both the National Guard and the civilian ranks. "All the military training and certifications I received as a firefighter for the Army enabled me to become a civilian firefighter," he said. Schreiber describes the fire service as a paramilitary organization. “They have ranks of lieutenant and captain, and they follow a chain of command. They like to use terms like ‘troops’ and ‘combat.’ I sometimes laugh about that. Combat is not like firefighting. A fire has never shot at me or hid on the side of the road to ambush me. “In Iraq, there were times it was like the movie ‘Groundhog Day,’ where days and weeks and months almost ran together. Complacency becomes as dangerous as anything else. On High Park, there were times when it seemed we had the fire about under control. Then the weather changed,” Schreiber said. “You have to be prepared mentally and physically in both arenas, because when things go bad, there is almost no time to recover. You have to have that muscle memory from all the hours of training to ensure you and your crew or soldiers come out OK.”
Through hours of volunteer work, Capt. William Mendelsohn and his wife, Debra, have labored to instill in their children the same kind of passion for service that led Mendelsohn to join the Army National Guard. “I’m hoping that does wear off on them and gets them inspired in whatever they do to give back,” Debra Mendelsohn said. The Mendelsohns, along with teenagers Emelie, 17, and Douglas, 15, have been recognized as AUSA’s 2012 Volunteer Family of the Year. Capt. Mendelsohn is a fulltime medical logistics officer for the California Army National Guard. As so often happens with the Mendelsohns, events in their own family life turned into an opportunity to help others when Bill was deployed for a year. “When my husband first deployed back in 2005, we were very new to the National Guard and had never experienced a deployment. I knew nothing” about insurance, benefits for military families, and approaches for helping the children cope with the temporary loss of their father, Debra said. Other National Guard families have additional problems related to the soldier’s leaving a civilian job to deploy, she added. By the end of her husband’s year away from home, Debra had become involved with the unit’s Family Readiness Group, an organization of family members, volunteers, soldiers and civilian employees that supports the families. She now is a lead volunteer for the entire Army component of the California National Guard and her whole family regularly attends FRG events. “I decided I didn’t want anybody else to go through what I went through,” she said. That first deployment also led to an ongoing volunteer project honoring troops and veterans in the Mendelsohn’s hometown of Claremont, Calif. While they were still in elementary school, the kids were named City of Claremont Community Heroes for 2005 for the creation, with their mother, of the Claremont Heroes military appreciation program. Douglas said he and his sister saw that other
neighboring communities had banners thanking members of the military for their service. “We were just wondering why ours didn’t,” he said. Typically, Debra saw no reason their community couldn’t, so long as their family took steps to make it happen. “It was surprisingly controversial,” she recalled. As a college town, Claremont included residents who did not want to indicate any approval of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I used it as an opportunity to teach my children about freedom of expression and freedom of speech and attacking problems,” she said. “We asserted, as we continue to assert, that this was a program of gratitude, that this was a program to say thank you not just to those serving but to all who have served, and their families.” Without official support from the city, the Mendelsohns forged ahead anyway. They raised $4,000 of private money to create lawn signs, which did not require city council approval. “We strategically distributed them and asked people to put them on their front lawns on Memorial Day. Claremont’s population is about 35,000 people, so when 800 signs appeared on Memorial Day, it made quite a visual impact,” Debra said. “The next week we got a call from the city saying, ‘How about that banner program,’” she remembered. The Mendelsohns raised another $40,000 through their grassroots organization to cover the initial production cost of the banners. Over time the city council came to understand that the program is about people, not politics, and the entire community now supports the effort, Debra said. Claremont Heroes administers the program with the help of the local American Legion post, while the city hangs, takes down and cares for the banners. This year 150 heroes banners will hang in Claremont from Veterans Day to New Years Day. “We don’t do this for recognition or awards. We do this because it’s the right thing to do,” Debra said. “It makes life worth living.”
to developing the trust and confidence necessary to form multinational coalitions that will deter conflict and respond to future contingencies. To this end, we are aligning United States-based formations with our Geographic Combatant Commander’s Areas of Responsibility around the world to provide a ready force organized and trained to a specific region of the world. This will allow us to better support their security cooperation campaigns with scalable and tailorable force for the specific mission and region. In so doing, we will strengthen relationships and interoperability with our allies and partners. Key to sustaining this posture will be use of a progressive readiness p From left, Pfc. Michael Weymouth and Sgt. Christopher Ouzts, engineers with the 569th Engineer Company, Fort Carson, Colo., provide dismounted security for Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael Myers while clearing a hill of IED threats in the district methodology. We will continue to of Takhteh Pol, Kandahar province, Afghanistan. The location is the future site of an Afghan Uniformed Police substation. cycle forces through periods of time dedicated to training and building will be connected to real-time data and imagery and will possess immediate readiness, availability to deploy and operate, and then reset to recover from connectivity to the Joint Force. This capability will allow us to rapidly scale and operations and prepare to train for the next. This will provide the Army with a tailor capabilities to deploy quickly and meet the full scope of mission demands steady stream of trained and ready forces for planned deployment and use by in all environments. combatant commanders around the world as well as ensure forces are always We must make these improvements and reorganize while simultaneously ready to respond to any contingency that may arise. Both active component becoming smaller. We are confident that our improvements in materiel, and reserve component formations will use this methodology and continue to capabilities, training methodology and systems will ensure that the Army be employed around the world. remains ready always. We will not only meet these challenges but thrive as we We are also focused on a modernization strategy that enables the soldier shift from a period of high operational tempo to one that is more sustainable and the squad by providing the best possible protection, network operability, and predictable, while always being ready to answer the call wherever it rings mobility and lethality to our land forces. These empowered soldiers and squads and to advance the cause of freedom.
Firefighter-Soldier Battles on Two Fronts
Army Values, Standards Keep Army Profession Strong By Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond Chandler III Our soldiers and Department of the Army civilians have performed magnificently well over these last 11 years. Whether manning a tower at a combat outpost, training with a partner nation, or responding to a natural disaster, our professionals are the reason the Army is one of the most trusted and respected professions in the United States and throughout the world. Over the last 18 months, the Army has looked to build upon its strengths and set the conditions for success in the future through the outcomes of the Army Profession Campaign. This introspective campaign looks at the impacts of the last decade of war on our institution and its members. The campaign has helped us examine our values, policies, programs, school systems, and doctrine, as well as facilitate an Army-wide dialog to understand what it means to be a member of the Army Profession.
This understanding, coupled with decisive action aimed at the professional improvement of the total force, will ensure we will always have an Army prepared to meet any future challenge. Part of this campaign includes internalizing the five essential characteristics that define the Army Profession. The loss or compromise of any one of these characteristics means we lose our status as a profession. Trust is earned through our ability to maintain the other four characteristics in everything we do and everywhere we serve. Our soldiers’ military expertise ensures we are able to fight and win our nation’s wars. Esprit de corps helps foster fortitude, pride and cohesion among soldiers. Soldiers with honorable service embody the Army ethic and our values. Finally, our continued stewardship of the Army Profession ensures resources are well managed and our soldiers and civilians continue being the professionals our nation expects them to be. ARMY VALUES CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
Army Family Serves Others, Community Together By Air National Guard Master Sgt. Cheresa D. Theiral Colorado National Guard Public Affairs Last summer, a dozen soldiers from the Colorado Army National Guard’s 1157th Engineer Firefighter Company engaged in the attack against the High Park wildfire in Larimer County, Colo. Among them was Sgt. 1st Class John Schreiber, 1157th fire chief and first sergeant, and lieutenant in the Colorado Springs Fire Department. It was the first time he and his unit, who also served in Iraq, were called to support a domestic emergency. Fully integrated and under the tactical control of civilian fire chiefs, Schreiber led his team of soldiers to help protect the Glacier View subdivision. "The lives have been evacuated, and now we're saving property, because we can imagine how devastating it would be to come home and find that everything we care about is gone," said a sweaty, ashcovered Schreiber in the midst of operations June 21. Unfortunately, on June 22, winds took a turn for the worse, and despite all the firefighters' efforts, several homes in the subdivision succumbed to the flames. "On large-scale fires like High Park and Waldo Canyon, you can only do so much, and then nature has its way," said Schreiber. "Weather, fuel, moisture and terrain can overcome even the best efforts of firefighters. When so many homes are lost in such a short time, you're left kind of numb. It's not like there's much you can do against 60 to 80 foot flames and 50 mph winds. It's a terrible feeling." Though this was the first time Schreiber led his soldiers in fighting a wildland fire, he hopes it won’t be his only opportunity to support his community as a Citizen-Soldier.
p Colorado Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class John
Schreiber, 1157th Engineer Firefighting Company, is also a lieutenant in the Colorado Springs Fire Department. (Army National Guard photo by 2nd Lt. Skye Robinson)
"This is our mission: to protect and defend our country and our community. For us, these are our neighbors’ and fellow soldiers’ homes and families we were trying to protect." Schreiber joined the Arizona National Guard in 1989 as a firefighter and went to basic training in 1990. He liked the Army and his firefighting mission so much that in 1990 he transferred to the active duty Army. Though he loved the military, his duties through the years often called him away from his wife and children, including one child with special needs. He yearned to spend more time with his family, but he didn't want to lose his Army ties, either. The National Guard seemed to be a perfect answer to his dilemma, he said. So in 1998, Schreiber decided to join both the National Guard and the civilian ranks. "All the military training and certifications I received as a firefighter for the Army enabled me to become a civilian firefighter," he said. Schreiber describes the fire service as a paramilitary organization. “They have ranks of lieutenant and captain, and they follow a chain of command. They like to use terms like ‘troops’ and ‘combat.’ I sometimes laugh about that. Combat is not like firefighting. A fire has never shot at me or hid on the side of the road to ambush me. “In Iraq, there were times it was like the movie ‘Groundhog Day,’ where days and weeks and months almost ran together. Complacency becomes as dangerous as anything else. On High Park, there were times when it seemed we had the fire about under control. Then the weather changed,” Schreiber said. “You have to be prepared mentally and physically in both arenas, because when things go bad, there is almost no time to recover. You have to have that muscle memory from all the hours of training to ensure you and your crew or soldiers come out OK.”
Through hours of volunteer work, Capt. William Mendelsohn and his wife, Debra, have labored to instill in their children the same kind of passion for service that led Mendelsohn to join the Army National Guard. “I’m hoping that does wear off on them and gets them inspired in whatever they do to give back,” Debra Mendelsohn said. The Mendelsohns, along with teenagers Emelie, 17, and Douglas, 15, have been recognized as AUSA’s 2012 Volunteer Family of the Year. Capt. Mendelsohn is a fulltime medical logistics officer for the California Army National Guard. As so often happens with the Mendelsohns, events in their own family life turned into an opportunity to help others when Bill was deployed for a year. “When my husband first deployed back in 2005, we were very new to the National Guard and had never experienced a deployment. I knew nothing” about insurance, benefits for military families, and approaches for helping the children cope with the temporary loss of their father, Debra said. Other National Guard families have additional problems related to the soldier’s leaving a civilian job to deploy, she added. By the end of her husband’s year away from home, Debra had become involved with the unit’s Family Readiness Group, an organization of family members, volunteers, soldiers and civilian employees that supports the families. She now is a lead volunteer for the entire Army component of the California National Guard and her whole family regularly attends FRG events. “I decided I didn’t want anybody else to go through what I went through,” she said. That first deployment also led to an ongoing volunteer project honoring troops and veterans in the Mendelsohn’s hometown of Claremont, Calif. While they were still in elementary school, the kids were named City of Claremont Community Heroes for 2005 for the creation, with their mother, of the Claremont Heroes military appreciation program. Douglas said he and his sister saw that other
neighboring communities had banners thanking members of the military for their service. “We were just wondering why ours didn’t,” he said. Typically, Debra saw no reason their community couldn’t, so long as their family took steps to make it happen. “It was surprisingly controversial,” she recalled. As a college town, Claremont included residents who did not want to indicate any approval of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I used it as an opportunity to teach my children about freedom of expression and freedom of speech and attacking problems,” she said. “We asserted, as we continue to assert, that this was a program of gratitude, that this was a program to say thank you not just to those serving but to all who have served, and their families.” Without official support from the city, the Mendelsohns forged ahead anyway. They raised $4,000 of private money to create lawn signs, which did not require city council approval. “We strategically distributed them and asked people to put them on their front lawns on Memorial Day. Claremont’s population is about 35,000 people, so when 800 signs appeared on Memorial Day, it made quite a visual impact,” Debra said. “The next week we got a call from the city saying, ‘How about that banner program,’” she remembered. The Mendelsohns raised another $40,000 through their grassroots organization to cover the initial production cost of the banners. Over time the city council came to understand that the program is about people, not politics, and the entire community now supports the effort, Debra said. Claremont Heroes administers the program with the help of the local American Legion post, while the city hangs, takes down and cares for the banners. This year 150 heroes banners will hang in Claremont from Veterans Day to New Years Day. “We don’t do this for recognition or awards. We do this because it’s the right thing to do,” Debra said. “It makes life worth living.”
