FORT STEWART, Ga. -- Army Reserve formations around the world are charged with building and maintaining individual and collective readiness.
“Individual Soldier readiness is the foundation upon which we build deployable capability of America’s Army Reserve,” Lt. Gen. Charles Luckey, commanding general for U.S. Army Reserve Command, emphasized in his recent command training guidance issued to the field on Nov. 30, 2018.
Beyond being skilled in the fundamentals of physical and mental fitness, being qualified with assigned weapons, equipment maintenance and other Soldier tasks, Soldiers and units must focus on refining their job skillsets, and team processes and procedures for their go-to-war missions.
For Army Reserve Medical Command units, this means focusing on medical capabilities. Not just maintaining individual medical readiness and Military Occupational Specialties, but medical readiness for the total force.
ARMEDCOM is at the forefront of this process, fully responsible for providing the medical professionals needed for Soldier Readiness Processing and Troop Medical Clinic operations at Mobilization Force Generation Installations located throughout the United States.
“Soldier Readiness Processing operations are what our Medical Support Units and Troop Medical Clinics are constructed to support as their mobilization or go-to-war mission,” said Maj. Gen. Mary Link, ARMEDCOM commanding general.
Functionally aligned to U.S. Army Medical Command, ARMEDCOM is a force multiplier which is uniquely capable of simultaneously providing military hospital and clinic expansion, augmentation, blood donor services, dental and veterinary services. When activated, medical SRP sites are capable of processing hundreds of Soldiers per day to ensure they are quickly ready for their follow-on mission.
“Our folks have to be ready to leave their homes between 5 to 10 days after notification. They have to be trained and ready to start right away,” said Link.
These missions also require a strong network of capabilities and resources beyond the medical professionals that ARMEDCOM provides, explained Capt. Daniel Johnson, Fort Stewart Soldier Readiness Processing officer-in-charge, assigned to Winn Army Community Hospital.
“It’s been a big coordination effort in preparation for the Army Reserve medical units to be equipped to execute their mission – not just for the hospital, but also for Fort Stewart garrison as well, to make the improvements to the site,” said Johnson.
“We had subject matter experts from the hospital to help establish different areas, and the coordination effort continues as the Medical Support Units work here, and we continue to identify areas we can refine to ensure we can care for every Soldier that comes through this site,” Johnson added.
Three separate MSU’s, the 7201st based out of Gainesville, Florida; the 7225th based out of Greenville, South Carolina; and the 7226th based out of Fort Jackson, South Carolina; as well as the 7406th TMC based out Columbia, Missouri, began phased annual training rotations in mid-November in support of the Fort Stewart mission, and have already made a strong impact on total force readiness.
“Having these Army Reserve units here supporting the Soldier Readiness Processing mission has been crucial. We couldn’t have managed processing the more than 2,000 personnel through the medical area without them. They’ve been running late nights, and have been dedicated to the mission,” Johnson said.
Lt. Col. Felicia Robinson, commander for the 7226th MSU, shared why supporting this mission is important for her unit as well.
“It’s been very beneficial to do our annual training here at Fort Stewart with Winn Army Community Hospital. It helps us to learn the ins and outs of the mission and allows us to get to know the people in place here, the systems being used, and it helps us to be more independent more quickly in the future.
“If we can be ready to start seeing Soldiers 48 hours after we get to a location versus a week, that makes a big difference for how we can support the mission,” said Robinson.
Beyond growing the individual skillsets and refining processes, building relationships has been important for the success of the mission.
“Without the awesome support we’ve received from Winn Army Community Hospital, we wouldn’t be able to complete our mission. They’ve been in contact with us to ensure we have all of our paperwork and certifications in order, the facility is all set up to allow us to come in and do our jobs, they were ready for us to help train us and answer all of our questions,” said Staff Sgt. Mary McDaniel, the 7226th MSU non-commissioned-officer-in-charge.
“We have civilians and military personnel from Winn Army Community Hospital here working with our team, but we also have active duty medical personnel from 3rd Infantry Division who are here to help support the mission. We wouldn’t be able to support the large number of personnel coming through the medical SRP without all of them,” concluded McDaniel.