Should the Army increase the amount of Drill Days (MUTA's) for NG Units?

1LT Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 08:59:54 -0500

I'm not a "huge" fan of Army Times but a friend of mine from OCS sent me this article and it certainly sparked a discussion :

WASHINGTON — The US Army chief of staff is looking at how the service might quickly regenerate the force when needed at a time when it is rapidly reducing its size.

The Army has already shrunk the force by 180,000 troops since withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, and it plans to further reduce its end strength in the coming years. The service is scheduled to reach an end strength of 450,000 troops by the end of fiscal 2017. If the Army continues to get hit with budget cuts, it could see a deeper cut down to 420,000.

On Monday at a Center for a New American Security conference in Washington, Gen. Mark Milley took pains to dispel the myth that it’s easy to regenerate an Army.

“So there are a lot of myths out there about the size of the force, training the force, that you can bring an Army down very, very small and then in a time of crisis, add water, circle the wagons there, and stir it up and we’ll have an Army,” Milley said. “It’s not quite that simple.”

For instance, units can take three to four years to reach the standard level of combat readiness, according to Milley.

The chief said he’d prefer to keep as many troops as possible for as long as he is able, but reductions are moving forward. Therefore, he’s left to think about how the Army might be able to more effectively build up the force if necessary.

To do that, Milley said: “I’m going to lean heavily on the [US Army National Guard].”

The Army, he said, is the only service with 50 percent of its capabilities in the reserve component, “so what I need to do is not only maintain the readiness in the regular Army ... but I’ve got to increase the readiness of the National Guard.”

If the active force is a certain size, according to Milley, it will most likely get consumed “pretty quickly” in any larger contingencies. “So we have to lean on the Guard,” he said, “but that means I have to get the readiness levels up to a level that is combat capable.”

It takes 100 to 120 days to mobilize a Guard unit, he noted.

The service has kept its policy of requiring 39 annual days of training for guardsmen since 1915, Milley said.

“It’s a century old and I sit there and I go, ‘What is so magic about 39 days?’ Maybe we need to look at changing that,” he said.

One of the options Milley is examining is increasing the number of training days for some — not all — guardsmen to 60 or even 100 days a year “so it reduces the response time on the back end.”

Quick mobilization is becoming more and more critical given the speed of communication and the technology available today, Milley said.

“I suspect that any future conflict will unfold more rapidly than it has in the past,” he said.

The US Army National Guard director said last month that he planned to deliver in the coming weeks recommendations to Milley on maintaining Guard readiness and training that better fits with a 21st century Army force.

DEFENSE NEWS

Army Guard Director To Send Readiness, Training Recs to Chief

The Army is also exploring a concept to round out brigades using National Guard troops, which worked well in the past, but Milley is considering taking that a step further where active troops would round out a Guard unit.

“I don’t foresee any problem with an active unit — battalion or brigade — say, being a part of the 28th Division Pennsylvania Guard and they wear that patch,” he said.

Milley said the Army continues to examine the effective partnership programs with the Guard and foreign countries along with a wide variety of other initiatives.

The partnership program is proving vital for the US Army as it looks to strengthen its support to countries in Eastern Europe that are nervous about Russia's aggression in the region. The National Guard Bureau chief and the US Army Europe commander have both said the Guard could play an important role in Eastern Europe in the coming years and are looking at how to grow that role.

DEFENSE NEWS

Bureau Chief Looks To Greater National Guard Role In Europe

Milley's laser focus to ensure the Guard's readiness and capability is maintained in equal measure is likely seen as encouraging to those in the National Guard who have been fighting some decisions the Army has made in recent years to reduce the Guard's end strength and take away some of its equipment.

At the center of the skirmish is the tug of war over the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. The Army decided to take all of the Guard's Apaches and move them into the active component to fill a gap left open upon the retirement of the OH-58 Kiowa Warrior. A commission tasked to study the Army's future force structure is expected to make recommendations on the way ahead at the beginning of February.

Also under consideration is maintaining a high number of leaders on active duty, Milley said. One concept is to build train-and-advise units for overseas deployment that consist of just brigade or battalion leadership.

The Army already uses train-and-advise units, but that involves ripping the leadership out of a unit to use them overseas in that capacity, which “destroys the force structure of those units,” Milley said. This time the service would look at building train-and-advise teams that consist solely of unit leaders and then in times of emergency, soldiers could fill in to complete the unit, Milley explained.

While the service is looking at a wide variety of options to rapidly rebuild a force, “a regeneration of the force significant enough to fight a war is not that easy,” Milley said. “There is no magic bullet out there.”

*Personally I would support an increase in drill days for a number of reasons:

1. An extra drill day would be extremely helpful for leadership to have a whole day dedicated to planning & administrative work.

2. More training days = well...more training! I can't believe that there would be one unit out there that wouldn't want do have more days that allows them to train doing there job...especially in the field. More importantly, my soldiers are happy when they are doing there jobs...not sitting around in the drill hall with one hand in the pockets and the other playing clash of clans.

Those are the big ones I can think. What're your thoughts? Good / bad?

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 9:24 AM

SPC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 09:24:35 -0500

I really don't see an issue with it. An employer cannot discriminate because a solider has drill. Even though I know it is done because it has happened to me. Not mention that employers get a tax break for hiring veterans.

Yes the argument could be made that soldiers with demanding jobs such as first responders might be a little bit more difficult. But at the same time you cannot be fired simply because you have drill. It's against the law.

Now me personally think it's a great idea. I look forward to the opportunity to train doing my job more. Because maybe then we could get away from basic level and just sitting in a classroom watchi.g a sharp power point.

But after all its not my decision if I'm told to do so whether I like it or not. I have to along for the ride.

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 9:28 AM

PO3 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 09:28:18 -0500

first of all ... It is the the National Guard of each state. They are not "belong" to the Federal. They are not part of the Regular Army. The more we believe and think National Guard is part of the regular army ... the more we destroy the nature of NG, and so will the recruitment of the NG.

If we have a recruitment problem for the regular army now, it will be the same for NG if we start putting weight on NG.

Response by PO1 Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 10:14 AM

PO1 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 10:14:45 -0500

I can only speak from the Navy Reservist point of view.
Many, many units for us have gone to a 4-2-0/quarter arrangement.
Drill 4 days with your gaining command, 2 days at your home Reserve Center (NOSC), then skip a month. While it is nice to do a 4-day (better/more training options), it is a lot harder scheduling off work from our civilian jobs and more strain on the family. Sticking to that "weekend a month" schedule is so much easier and a lot more predictable.
(What can I say, I like my rut.)

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 10:31 AM

1SG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 10:31:37 -0500

I think smart money would be to give units flexibility with RMAs and ATAs.
If the unit had the ability to bring in leaders/ select personnel for planning and preparation, the main body of Soldiers would get a lot more out of their weekends. We see an awfully high percentage of good training time circle the drain while leaders are cooped up in meetings.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 1:14 PM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 13:14:18 -0500

I think smart money would be to spend more time during BA actually training and less time on "mandatory" class like SHARP, ASAP, resilience, etc. I swear we spend at least half of BA sitting through mandatory crap briefings.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 1:42 PM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 13:42:47 -0500

I feel like the solution is in the article. You are at 490,000 and need to get to 450,000 without affecting readiness. You have 50,000 non-deployable Soldiers in your formation. Kick out 80% of them and you will hit your number. Plan to activate NG/RC Soldiers as needed to fill in on rear-D. I bet you could meet your needs on an almost fully voluntary basis. I know that there would not be a 1-to-1 match on MOSs, but I think you could come close.

Many Reserve Soldiers cannot support even a 20% increase in training days (7-8 additional days). I can't. I am maxed out. I have a full-time job that needs full-time attention and it represents 80% of my income. I am a mom and my kids need and deserve my time and attention. Some of my fellow officers have both of these obligations, plus school, plus family members with medical conditions, plus a social life they need to maintain for their own mental health, and on and on.

There are things I would agree could work for additional drilling time. We do waste too much drill time on mandatory training and clerical tasks. If all of the mandatory training was put online and you got MUTA pay for however many hours of it you complete, it would get done and we wouldn’t have to deal with it during drill. Same should be true for schooling that has online components. There could be an additional MUTA (which is ½ a day) preceding drill where Soldiers could come in on a rotational basis to complete company/battalion tasks. I could even see the argument someone else made for putting leadership meetings into that time frame too.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 2:02 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 14:02:05 -0500

Im on the fence with this. IF they want to do something like this make our AT's longer, and leave drill weekends alone. I could see the standard 48 UTA's for drill and maybe a 3-4 week AT. AT is where we get the most "bang for the buck" everyone is away from homestation and can focus on training. With what we currently try to get into a 2 week AT is rough. By the time you get equipment drawn set up and moved out to the field, spend 5-7 days in feiled then have to move back in for recovery your time is shot.

Thats why a majority of AT's are scheduled during the summer months. Any Soldier that is in college is usually out on summer break. Down side to that is school age kids are out on summer break and thats when families take summer vacations.

Additional MUTA 6's are really starting to take a toll on the motivation of the Soldiers that have good jobs, and are in college. Plus the fact that deployments for the Guard are waning not much light at the end of the tunnel for the younger Soldiers. Def a leadership challenge keeping Soldiers focused towards keeping proficiency for the "what if".

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 6:52 PM

1SG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 18:52:37 -0500

This is a duplicate post LT so don't forget to do a search and check out the replies on the original thread...

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 6:56 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 18:56:45 -0500

In the two years that I've been with my company we've completed an XCTC evolution and the MIBT evolution, both of which are supposed to emulate a rotation at NTC/JRTC. The battalion's Operation temp has been fairly high with MUTA 8's and 6's becoming the norm, without adding any additional training days. For several months out of the year we don't have a drill, and were either at a range or conducting support operations for an infantry battalion nearly every drill. We do on average one home station a year.

Another thing that I've seen is that we annually do a majority of our briefs when we do our PHA's since we don't have any support missions going on allowing for more administrative tasks to be accomplished.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not the number of MUTA's that we have but rather what we do with them. Do we use them to maximize the training opportunities or do we do as little as possible on the weekend. While I would like to seem additional training days maybe that money could be better served sending soldiers from the National Guard to schools so that they could in turn help train their commands on what they just learned.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 15 at 2015 11:01 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 23:01:25 -0500

The largest issue I have with this would be, where is the extra funding coming from? As a current member we are always being told that the funding is not there. If they are talking of doubling or tripling our days, in my mind , you would have to do the same to the budget.

Response by SSG Raymond Whitener made Dec 16 at 2015 9:33 PM

SSG Raymond Whitener — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 21:33:27 -0500

It is my understanding that the National Guard is funded by the State they are in, not by the federal government. The Reserves are a federally funded force, and can be reorganized by the federal military leadership

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Dec 18 at 2015 10:33 AM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 10:33:24 -0500

Much of the augmentation training for the next war will depend on the nature of the war and scope.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 21 at 2015 4:08 PM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 16:08:35 -0500

I already do more than the "minimum" number of drill days. I have well over 100 points for this year and looking at the same for next year. My "2 week" ATs almost always are 21-29 days and I am regularly asked if I would like to "come in for a couple of days" to work on some project or instruct at some seminar on ADOS orders.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 10 at 2017 10:19 AM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 10:19:29 -0400

Aweful idea! Empower subordinate leaders to adjust MUTA's and pay out 1380's for RMA's. If we slowly start turning the Reserves into a full-time position, your ability to retain talent goes out the window. You'll keep the folks who cannot find good civilian jobs. I think it is absolutely flawed thinking that you will increase readiness with more MUTA's. A MUTA 6 occasionally is not bad. But, lets stop turning the Army Reserves into a full-time job. Make it active.