USARAK focuses on Ready and Resilient Campaign

by Jim Hart
JBER Public Affairs

11/21/2013 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Akaska -- The class

The stories seemed to be from horror films rather than war movies. Guts falling off stretchers, maimed bodies and ghastly images of remains frozen in their last moments of life; many screaming in agony, now silent.

He recounted all their names.

The brief was part of the 725th Brigade Support Battalion (Airborne)'s resiliency training. The stories were recollections from Army Lt. Col. Andrew DeKever's tour in Afghanistan several years ago with the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry).

They were not fun "there I was" stories to share down at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall; not even good ones to share with the family. Sadly, as he would find out, stories not terribly fun for anyone to listen to.

DeKever told the class of how isolated he felt, even ostracized.

At that time, he was a mortuary affairs officer. He didn't fall under the dark spell of combat stress in the traditionally understood way, so several in his command dismissed his plight.
He explained how he and his staff saw the gruesome results over and over again, month after month, searing horrible memories into their very being.

"This has to end," DeKever concluded. "Even if it ends badly, it has to end."

As the brief continued, he explained his experiences, and a parallel story of a Soldier, Spc. Jacob Andrews, who did not survive his post-traumatic stress disorder.

In DeKever's words, Jake looked a little too far over the edge.

In both cases, the stories illustrated shortfalls in each person's command and social situation; each of the stories were drawing a road map for those in the class to know how serious even little things can be.

The turning point for DeKever was a specialist in his section who recognized the signs and told a behavioral health practitioner. It's something DeKever admits was very gutsy, but also something that saved his life.

The discussion was very frank, even by military standards.

DeKever's story, and scores like his, are what the Army's Ready and Resilient Campaign is meant to address. To incorporate resiliency training into the very fabric of the training matrix, rather than inserting it haphazardly between ranges and during crisis periods; to synchronize the various agencies and programs into a tool commanders can more readily use.

"It's been effective for me and my family," said Sgt. 1st Class John Ripple, master resiliency trainer with the 725th BSB. "Over the last couple years I've been faced with a lot of challenges - from my wife and son's health to all kinds of different stuff in the Army. I try to apply some of this Comprehensive Soldier Fitness to my own situations, and it's helped me."

The command

Several weeks earlier, in the planning phase for 1st Squadron (Airborne), 40th Cavalry's iteration of the Ready and Resilient Campaign, squadron commander Army Lt. Col. Richard Scott was looking at a monthly brief in which he and his staff pored over the Risk Working Group List.

From this report, he saw trends and numbers, but he also saw names and the troubles vexing them - he saw souls attached to the statistics. He also saw a list of any program or assistance the individual troops have received or been referred to.

The list includes everything from alcohol-related problems to suicide. Anything the command is aware of which is, even potentially, related to resiliency is there. He's able to track trends all the way down to the platoon level in a unit of 575 Soldiers.

It is from these stats and reports he was able to target specific areas he would like to remedy. While the list of individual effects would be long, his has a longer-term goal than just the one week of R2C - for him, it's a matter of unit effectiveness, and one that will take much more time.

While his squadron may be well-trained in their combat roles, many of his Soldiers are suffering from resilience-related issues.

The way Scott sees it, the statistics show one-third of his unit is combat ineffective - something no commander wants.

"Our focus is to reduce this number and get more Soldiers to perform optimally and therefore increase unit readiness," Scott said. "We are leveraging all our available resources on JBER to help us meet this goal. We are teaching and showing our Soldiers and leaders the tools and resources available to them.

"One of the things that's interesting is we spend 12 months to prepare for combat," Scott said. "But if you look at it conversely, we spend just a fraction of that time preparing our Soldiers and families to come back from combat. That is causing a lot of issues."

Scott also said his battalion has been leaning forward on resiliency over the last year or so, incorporating much of what R2C is advocating into their normal training and policy.
It's this kind of high-fidelity awareness that makes it advantageous for battalion and company commanders to select tailor-made training plans for their specific unit challenges.

And that's what U.S. Army Alaska did - but it didn't happen in a vacuum.

This kind of training program requires tremendous resources, and without coordination and planning it can become impracticable.

The support and planning

In mid-summer, USARAK started planning how to best train their Soldiers during R2C week.

During phase one of R2C, they conducted an outreach to senior leaders to get an idea of what leadership was seeing. They also surveyed 2,000 leaders and 2,700 Soldiers about alcohol and indiscipline.

The planning then continued with a "ready and resilient" team who then put together a concept of operations - essentially a course catalog.

From this list of ready-made training modules, the commanders could then assemble a training staffing horsepower and services of several entities from the 673d Air Base Wing to flesh out the training.

To herd such a gathering of resources might present a monumental task - if they weren't already working together, as the Joint Installation Prevention Team.

The JIPT comprises representatives from Army Community Service, the Health and Wellness Center, the JBER hospital, Family Advocacy and many others.

It's this team Petersen turned to for resources.

"Julia Petersen brought this challenge (R2C)," said Air Force Lt. Col. Dan Knight, JIPT team leader. "The (JIPT) was the perfect forum to introduce that, with all the key players there, which is what the prevention team is about. They were able to tap into all that expertise and help build that program, working with the USARAK-unique requirements
and tailor programs to meet them."

"Even though services and service providers are known and try to get their information out, it's hard to connect with (customers) and provide services that meet the needs and don't conflict with training schedules already in place," said Tamera Randolf, 673d Air Base Wing customer service officer.

Randolf also said the training had a dual role - one was to get the training in, but also to introduce leaders to the services and providers so they know what tools they have available.

Looking ahead

The Army's Ready and Resilient Campaign integrates and synchronizes multiple efforts and programs to improve the readiness and resilience of the Army, including families, Soldiers and civilians. It's a broad program that aims at problems ranging from sexual harassment to suicide. It is meant to start long-term solutions, and the lessons learned from this week will be watched by both USARAK and the air base wing.

In the third phase, USARAK will review data and results, and commanders will adjust training accordingly.

In all, the goal is to help people cope with the kind of soul-searing experiences DeKever spoke about - but in the healthiest way possible