How can the Army's three components work more closely together?

I served with a NG unit for a couple years and noticed the unit was often committed to administrative and mandatory briefs. There was really not much training being conducted.

Make annual mandatory training requirements occur every 5 years. Currently there are more hours of mandatory training than available in 40 days of drill/AT. Why are we surprised when readiness falls or it takes forever to train up past team-level skills?

Make all schools the same -- if a box of books or a two-week DL course can make an officer CCC qualified in the Reserves, then why are we wasting funds sending AC officers away for 4+ months? (This is a little tongue in cheek -- I believe the answer is the opposite, and we won't find satisfactory training in this method ... And will need all personnel to attend in residence.)

Acknowledge and ensure all Soldiers understand the purpose of each component and what it is designed to do. When AC folks get in a bunch bc the RC has train up time, they demonstrate lack of understanding for their own organization.

1. Senior leadership buy in. No matter what comes down, when the troops see their superiors arguing and bickering publicly it undermines whatever policy they could put in place. Make one unified team and run with it. Keep your differences to yourself and away from the congressmen and news reporters.
2. Top down mindset change. Even with a unified front, if those who will put ideals to the pavement (COL-CSM) are still of the old mindset, they'll do it because they have to; not because they want to. We need to make them do it, but make it so they want to do it.
3. Enforce the regulations throughout the service. Too many time I've seen what the AC does gets knocked down because that's not how the NG, RC troops do it, and vice versa. If it's a AR, DA PAM, FM or whatever the AC Army leadership provides, it's the law of the services, and not to be interpreted by the state leadership in any manner that is inconsistent with what Army leadership provides. But in the same breath, the AC leadership needs to understand how the states regulations can affect the desires and directives of AC leadership.
4. This might not be fun to some, but I think promotions should be the same as the AC. No more of the eternal SPC's that are 50 years old and their date of rank was before I was born with no breaks in service. The AC promotion schools should be attended by all components. Same standards, same levels of instruction. The attendee's can test out in certain cases based upon experience, but SGM Academy, First Sergeants School, and officers mandatory schools should be mando attendance. Build the team with one set of schooling that mirrors each other. The time the NG/RC troops are attending these schools could count towards their weekend/AT time, so it could help rather than hinder.
5. Stop using the NG/RC as the dumping grounds for outdated AC equipment. This I've seen personally, and that's not right. If we expect them to fight alongside us on equal terms, how can they do that with M-1's and we're using M-4's? Or using Shermans and we're using Abrams? (example not reality) If the AC cannot use it, there is a reason why. That shouldn't be an instant reason to dump crap equipment on anyone else with upgrading the equipment to serviceable standards or DRMO'ing the equipment.

A few months ago a few things were mentioned, but one that stuck out to me was:

1) Align every state with a "contingency zone" or region of the world. Train like you'll fight.

2) Everyone becomes Army Reserve or National Guard. No exceptions. You might be on "Reserve orders" or "Active Duty orders" but no more "Regular Army." It's a heck of a lot easier to inflate/deflate reservists than active duty folks. It will also get us back to the Constitutional "intent" of the Army Clause.

3) National Guard is CA, Reserve is CS/CSS.

4) During initial commitment, you are on Active Duty orders (unless you specifically join as a "reservist"). From there on out, you get augmented for the remainder of your career.

Somewhat fractured? SOMEWHAT?? How about broke, sir! Commissions like this remind me of elephants mating - lots of noise, little gets done

Sir, I encourage you to look up Operation Carolina Thunder. It is a joint exercise that has gone on two years now and this last iteration was at Ft Bragg and included the 82nd ABN, Special Operations forces, NCARNG artillery and aviation units, SCARNG aviation units, and Alabama aviation units. I have not seen a better example of common multi-component training to date, and I say that even after a rotation to JRTC in 2014.

I'd like to combine the ARFORGEN Models with the old War Trace cycle.

Basically USARC ceases to be a commanding unit and their subordinate units fall under an active duty war trace HQ. Each active duty unit will have a Reserve HQ element to provide Command and separate budget from the AC, (those Reserve slots for the Active Brigades + would come from the USARC TDA. The Battalion's and Companies under the Brigades will have either one AC unit or two RC units separated by opposing ARFORGEN cycles. USARC or USARB would plan training for the ARFORGEN 1-3 units while the AC units planning combined training for their AC units and RC ARFORGEN 4-6 units.

The biggest benefit to me is your HQ would actually be interested in the RC units' ability to perform it's mission as currently USARC only cares about mobilization metrics (there is no tracking other than canned USR reports to track CATS performance)

The allocations could be on a tiered system with Tier 1 being complete AC units structured for rapid response like the 82nd, rangers, and rapid deployment units. Tier 2 would be combined AC/RC units with a 3 month mobilization lead time. Then Tier 3 units consisting of all RC used primarily as augmentation forces (medical units, contract support) and units like the National Guard BCT's for wartime emergencies.

The major benefits is you have your designed HQ who would be the same unit you deploy with. The sistered RC units would naturally bolster deployment strengths and could even share equipment in storage.

Combined annual exercises. Think NTC but with all components represented.

It's difficult to ease the tensions that are between the components. Not sure why it's there but it is. As for the second half of the post it's not an easy answer but EDRE exercises will do the trick. My old unit always had two units on standby we could get a unit out the door with in 36 hours so it can be done it's just getting started the funding for the training .

I think that we have proven we can work well, after all the RC/NG components have taken a chunk out of the operation of these wars since 2003. We have all been called up numerous times.