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Army to meet goal, but it’s not enough

The Army will meet its end-strength goal of 547,000 this fiscal year, three years earlier than first planned, but that still won’t be enough to meet operational demands, a senior official said.

The Army needs to grow by at least 30,000 more troops to meet current demand, Army Undersecretary Nelson Ford said Tuesday. An end-strength of close to 580,000 is needed to meet the demand, he said.

As brigade combat teams draw down in Iraq, thousands more “enablers,” or support troops in high-demand, low-density specialties will still be needed to meet missions still underway.

“As the BCTs come down, it means you have more people spread thin and you need more logistics, more aviation, controls and communications,” Ford said. As Army undersecretary, “I don’t do demand, I do supply. The only other option [to growing the force] is lower demand,” he said.

Ford, who will step down in early January, made his comments to military reporters during a trip to Fort Stewart, Ga., where he visited soldiers and cadre at the post’s Warrior Transition Battalion. He was briefed on construction plans for the 3rd Infantry Division’s growth in the next three years.

According to Ford, 695,000 soldiers are on active duty from all three components, including 250,000 at overseas postings, a figure that has remained steady for at least two years.

The Army’s mounting obligations as it struggles to meet its diverse missions is posing an increasing challenge.

“People forget, we’re the executive agent for almost everything. In the medical community,” he said as an example, “33 of 35 executive agencies are Army functions. You can’t do what we’ve been tasked to do with the number of people we have and keep to your doctrinal obligations.”

The active-duty Army was authorized in 2003 to grow the force to 547,000 troops, for a total increase of 65,000 over a period of years. Leaders projected at the time that growth would be complete by 2012. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, who has been on the job since April 2007, pushed for growth to accelerate to 2010. The Army is nearing the goal and as of early December, end-strength was just 4,000 short of the goal at 543,000.

Now the Army needs 30,000 more soldiers beyond the 547,000 target, Ford said.

In a September interview with Army Times, Casey declined to pinpoint a number for an increased end strength, though he said he expected a new administration and Congress would ask him what he thinks the Army needs.

Ford, who has been the second highest-ranking civilian in the Department of the Army in a position previously held by Secretary Pete Geren, said the shortage of soldiers is a matter of mathematics — as the Army takes on more missions, such as the homeland security standby mission being carried out by 1st BCT, 3rd Infantry Division, the percentage of soldiers in “friction” status will rise.

Friction occurs regularly, he said, when units’ missions overlap in theater during a relief in place or when soldiers take time to heal or make up for lost time in their Army education and training programs. The number of soldiers in non-deployable status for reasons other than medical is on the rise and the “high operational tempo is contributing to that,” Ford said.

Soldiers are needed for cadre billets at the Army’s 35 warrior transition units and certain specialties are in need of growth in the areas of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, explosive ordnance disposal and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high explosive contingency missions.

The Army needs to keep replenishing the force, he noted.

“You can run a machine without oil for so long then it seizes. It keeps running because there’s some lubricant in there but you never know when it’s going to stop,” he said.