Army Alaska wants to recruit cold-weather lovers and have them train with Norwegians, Indians in Himalayas December 15, 2020 Paratroopers participate in U.S. Northern Command s Exercise Arctic Edge at the Donnelly drop zone on Fort Greely, Alaska, Feb. 29, 2020. (Staff Sgt. Diana Cossaboom/Army)
U.S. Army Alaska has struggled to be the service’s proponent for cold weather warfare amid two decades of missions that push it’s units out to far different environments, namely the Middle East, according to Army Alaska commander Maj. Gen. Peter Andrysiak. “The Army went through a massive transformation and it went to a [brigade combat team]-centric Army to standardize the equipment and organizational structure,” Andrysiak said Friday. “So the equipment was largely very similar across the force and we no longer had niche capabilities to operate in very unique environments.”
Widespread Army NCO Shortage a Factor in Leadership Crisis at Fort Hood, General Says
U.S. Army Forces Command’s then-Command Sgt. Maj. Michael A. Grinston, who is now Sergeant Major of the Army, speaks to soldiers of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on May 22, 2018. (Army photo by Sgt. Steven Lopez)
15 Dec 2020
As the Army struggles to comprehend the crisis at Fort Hood, Texas, one four-star general is wrestling with how to prevent those leadership failures from spreading to other combat units across the service.
Gen. Michael Garrett, head of Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), suspects that many young leaders across the service simply don t know how to take care of their soldiers, a discipline that s likely been neglected over the past several years as combat units remain on intense training cycles to prepare for the possibility of a major war with adversaries such as Russia and China.