Photo By Spc. James Wilton | Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Daniel B....... read more read more
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PARWAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – U.S. Air Force and Army assistant secretaries from the offices of Manpower and Reserve Affairs visited and dined with service members, April 25, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan.
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Thomas R. Lamont and Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Daniel B. Ginsberg visited service members throughout Afghanistan to tour facilities, gauge readiness and talk with service members on ground.
“We want to make sure we are sustaining the force,” said Lamont of the purpose of their trip. “We wanted to talk to our commanders and make sure they’re getting the type of people (with the critical) skill sets that they need over here ..... As manpower folks we have an obligation to see the Army and not sit back in a building and have someone send a report.”
Lamont was recently tasked to present a plan to inactivate the Accessions Command, a U.S. Army command established in 2002 that oversees recruiting and initial training of soldiers. The tasking is part of a plan to eventually downsize the military, Lamont said.
While Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has determined the end strength of forces after downsizing, the plan to achieve those results still being worked out, Lamont said. The goal is to make the path gradual so not to put Soldiers at risk of prematurely being moved out of the force.
The Department of Defense is trying to determine how the downsizing would affect the Army Force Generation Model and their boots-on-ground to dwell-time ratio, he said.
“Our intent, and we’re really getting there,” Lamont explained, “is 1-to-2 (years) on the active side (and) 1-to-4 (years) on the reserve component side. In my recent conversation with the new (Army) chief of staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, he says he still expects us to be able to do it.”
Lamont said this will require a balancing act which may require additional drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the DOD will keep an eye on that balance. Additionally, Lamont hopes to see a 9-month boots-on-ground period for all Army forces in the future and said it is tentatively on the books for fiscal year 2015 pending any changes to their force reduction model.
“It’s going to be very complex,” he stated.
However, Lamont made it clear they have soldiers’ welfare in mind.
“We don’t ever want to get to a situation like we had in the 90s, where we told people, ‘Thank you for your service but we no longer need you,’” he said.
Ginsberg said if the budgets continue to tighten, they would take care of service members as well as allow combatant commanders the ability to get their job done.
“That’s what we do,” he said.
“Everybody is an integral part of the fight no matter what (their) job is,” Ginsberg explained. “Whether it’s installation work, whether it’s dropping ordnance on the enemy, everybody is absolutely key to succeeding here in Afghanistan.”
Both assistant secretaries said their trip was productive and worth the long hours of travel.
“I’d say they are doing an absolutely phenomenal job meeting all the needs of the nation and just laying it out on the line every day,” Ginsberg said about the airmen he’s met while in Afghanistan. “Like their counterparts in the Army, Navy, and the Marine Corps, they’re really doing great work.”
| Date Taken: | 04.29.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 04.28.2011 17:38 |
| Story ID: | 69512 |
| Location: | PARWAN PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 103 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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