What the Army Needs Now, Most of All, is to Develop Leaders
What the Army Needs Now, Most of All, is to Develop Leaders by Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, U.S. Army at Tom Ricks' Best Defense.
I recently had the opportunity to speak to approximately 1,400 majors attending the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Ninety-eight percent of the U.S. Army majors at CGSC are combat veterans. Over 80 percent have more than one combat deployment, and nearly 40 percent have deployed three or more times.
But for all the hardships they've endured over the past decade, the next few years will be still be challenging, but in a different way. Our active-duty Army will trim nearly 70,000 soldiers from its ranks, with over 24,000 being involuntarily separated. Those who make up our formations may become frustrated as training resources dwindle, and as soldiers spend more time at stateside bases performing duties that just a few years ago none of them would have even had time to do, like picking up trash and mowing the grass…