Dempsey Urges Alma Mater Grads to ‘Push the Envelope’

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON – Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, returned to his high school alma mater today to encourage the John S. Burke Catholic High School graduating class to embrace new opportunities in a demanding, fast-changing world.

The chairman addressed the graduates of the school, based in Goshen, N.Y., in an auditorium at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., from which he graduated in 1974.

“Push yourself to explore space you haven’t considered before, to lead where leadership is required and to keep options open -- because life will deal you changes and challenges you’ll have to figure out,” Dempsey told the 2012 class.

“The future will find you,” he said. “Be ready.”

Dempsey and his wife Deanie both are Burke High graduates, and he was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 2003. He told the new graduates today he’s never forgotten his roots, and how his own high school experiences prepared him for what was ahead.

Recognizing the many high achievers in this year’s class, the chairman cautioned them not to rest on past accomplishments. “No matter how successful you’ve been up to this point, you need to keep working to be better than you think you can be,” he said.

It’s a lesson he said he learned quickly after arriving at West Point with his solid Burke record. “I realized that I had to keep getting better,” he said. “I realized that never settling for mediocre is one of our enduring national traits. As a nation, we dare to be great.”

Dempsey urged the students to be willing to take the risks as they “push the envelope” and embrace new opportunities.

“Many of you will exceed your wildest imaginations,” he said. But in doing so, he encouraged them to stay true to their moral compasses and never lose sight of their values. “Prioritize what’s most important to you,” and keep those priorities in order, he said.

As they apply the lessons they’ve learned to overcome obstacles they confront, Dempsey urged the class to serve, whether in the military or other endeavors. He congratulated those headed to military academies or ROTC units, and said other graduates may find their calling to serve in other vocations.

Dempsey said he looks forward to seeing the new graduates make a difference and impact society as they help influence the future.

“Your life takes on meaning only as the causes to which you attach yourself have meaning,” the chairman said. “The greatest value of a life is to spend it for something that lives after it. “

“In the end, you become what you are through some cause you have made your own,” he concluded.

Deputy Secretary Discusses Strategy With Academy Faculty

By Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Fincham

U.S. Military Academy

WEST POINT, N.Y.  – Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter sat down with some of the U.S. Military Academy's leading thinkers on military strategy, doctrine and history here this week to gain their insights into the Army's past and future.

Carter visited West Point as the keynote speaker for a cyberdefense conference.

"I realized that since I was going to be at West Point -- and West Point is one of the intellectual centers, as well as training centers of our armed forces -- I wanted to have an opportunity to tap into the expertise and knowledge in the social sciences department and the history department," he explained.

Carter spoke with the U.S. Corps of Cadets Commandant Brig. Gen. Theodore D. Martin and several other faculty members about lessons learned from 10 years of war, and his thoughts on the way forward.

The discussion offered different insights and perspectives from the faculty for Carter to share with other Defense Department and service leaders.

The deputy secretary encouraged the academy’s faculty to help "blaze the trail forward for the Army."

"I wanted to encourage the faculty to help us make this great transition that we're embarked on from the era of a focus on Iraq and Afghanistan to the problems that are going to define the countries' future," Carter said.

"These kinds of turning points in history are the times when you especially need to draw on the kind of depth that you find at a place like West Point," he continued. “Here you have historians who have looked at conflicts over decades and centuries and eons and where you have people who are cutting-edge social scientists who are thinking on behalf of the country and the future."

Regardless of what the future holds, the Army's mission will be to fight and win our nation's wars. Carter said that having conversations like this will undoubtedly pay dividends as the Army will play an essential role in the way forward for the nation's defense strategies.

"The Army is, by its nature and tradition, focused on the human dimensions of conflict and conflict prevention," he said. "The Army and its doctrinal thinking is going to be key in moving the whole national security perspective into this next era. That's why I think their perspective is so valuable.

"I was incredibly impressed by the faculty and the kind of insights that they have. We are so fortunate to have an institution like this working on our behalf at this time," he concluded.

'Lead Your Country,' Biden Tells West Point Grads

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON  – West Point is even more important to the country today than when Gen. George Washington called it “the key to the continent,” Vice President Joe Biden said during graduation exercises at the U.S. Military Academy today.

In 1777, West Point was a fortified area along the Hudson River that stopped the British from splitting the colonies. Today, the home of the military academy produces leaders who shape America and answer every call to duty the country makes, the vice president said.

Biden spoke to the 1,032 cadets who received their diplomas and were commissioned into service. He also spoke to their families and friends gathered under a hot sun at Michie Stadium.

The class represents the best of the 9/11 generation, the vice president said, adding that the cadets “are more than worthy of the proud legacy you inherit today.”

The cadets, like all men and women who joined the military after 9/11, knew they would be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, Biden said. “Hundreds of thousands of you have laced up those combat boots and walked across those barren deserts or snow-capped mountains, where 24 members of this graduating class have already served,” he said.

The graduates will be commissioned officers, but they will also be much more, the vice president said. They will learn the intricacies of tribal politics, they will learn how to run a school system, put in irrigation, train indigenous forces and much more.

These young officers must learn counterinsurgency doctrine and apply it, but they must be ready for changes in the world, too, Biden said. The United States is working to strengthen NATO so it can continue being the most successful alliance in history, he said. And as the war in Iraq has ended and the war in Afghanistan ends, the military can spend time on other priorities including the Asia-Pacific region.

“The United States has long been and will remain a Pacific power, and a critical provider of peace, prosperity and security in this vital region,” Biden told the cadets. “The most critical relationship to get right is that between the United States and China. Every day the affairs of our nations and the livelihoods of our citizens grow more connected. How we manage this relationship between the world’s two largest economies … will help shape the 21st century.”

The United States also is working with other emerging powers like India, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. “All these efforts are helping advance America’s interests at home and around the world,” he said.

The new strategic defense strategy will affect these new officers. The strategy provides “a more agile, flexible force prepared for future challenges, better able to confront the aggressors and project power with strong partners to share the burden and smart investments in cutting edge capabilities,” he said.

America’s unique position in the world requires the finest fighting force, Biden said. “And that’s exactly what this strategy does,” he said.

The U.S. Military Academy has prepared the new officers to face new challenges and lead. They have “the minds to adapt to tomorrow’s horizons, from cyberspace to outer space,” he said.

“West Point is in the business of producing great leaders,” Biden said. “Class of 2012, this is your destiny – to lead your country.”

Defense Secretary Teaches Class at El Paso High School

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

EL PASO, Texas, Jan. 13, 2012 – Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta taught a history class and talked about public service with students at John L. Chapin High School here today as part his visit to nearby Fort Bliss.

Roughly half of the student body of this school comes from military families, and the school honors the men of the 36th Infantry Division’s Company E, 2nd Battalion, 141st Infantry, a local Texas National Guard unit that fought across Europe in World War II.

Panetta taught Kristina Mills’ 11th grade U.S. history class. He spoke about the opportunity that America offered his family when his parents arrived in the United States from Italy in the 1930s.

“My father and mother made clear that my brother and I owed something back to the country that had given us so much,” Panetta said.

He said his parents were his greatest influence in pursuing a life of public service, and his second inspiration was the time he spent as a military intelligence officer in the early 1960s.

“When you are in the military, you understand the importance of working together for a common mission,” he said. “It reinforced to me how important it is to work together.”

Panetta said his third inspiration came from President John F. Kennedy, who called on Americans in January 1961 to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

All this inspired him to service, the secretary said.

Panetta thanked the military family members for their service and their sacrifices. Roughly 45 percent of the school’s 1,900 students come from Fort Bliss or William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

Richard Tellez, a retired soldier, is the school’s military family liaison. He works with parents, post officials and the school district to ensure the needs of military families are met.

Many service members at the post have deployed numerous times, and that brings its own set of problems and challenges, said Carla Gonzales, Chapin’s principal. “But the cooperation between Fort Bliss and the school has been exceptional,” she said.

Many students who graduate from Chapin go into the military, Gonzales said, adding that she is particularly proud of the number of students who go on to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colo.

“We have had one student who went to the Naval Academy prep school, too,” she added.

Dempsey Settles in as Chairman Behind MacArthur’s Desk

Discover some of the best World War Two books written by brave veterans who fought across Europe, Africa, and the Pacific.

By Karen Parrish

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2011 – Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took some time today, his first Monday on the job, to speak with Pentagon reporters.

The session was off the record, but it yielded some insights about the 18th chairman his staff agreed could be made public.

-- Individual military awards and honors are represented by ribbons worn on the left side on the uniform. Dempsey’s official portrait shows eight rows of such awards, but the chairman wears only two rows. These are his joint awards and his highest Army awards, he said. Dempsey will wear his full complement of ribbons for official ceremonial occasions, but otherwise prefers to follow the precedent set by Gen. George C. Marshall, former Army chief of staff, secretary of state and the third secretary of defense. A World War I hero, Marshall helped to run World War II from Washington and wore only one row of ribbons, Dempsey said, as a reminder to look ahead at coming challenges rather than back at past achievements.

-- Speaking of Marshall, Dempsey has an original oil painting of the general -- recovered from “some repository” of historical military art and objects -- in his office. The painting is larger than life-size and hangs so that the chairman can see it clearly from his desk.

-- The desk in Dempsey’s office, which looks to measure at least a hefty 4 by 6 feet, is the same one Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur used in the Philippines during World War Two. In his office at home, the chairman said, he has a desk formerly used by Army Gen. Omar Bradley, the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

-- On MacArthur’s desk is an item distinctly Dempsey’s: a wooden box that holds laminated cards the chairman had made when he commanded 1st Armored Division during its 2003-2004 deployment to Iraq. The cards each bear the photo, personal and family information for a division solider killed in action there. The box has “Make it matter” carved on its lid. This, Dempsey said, was the phrase he used to console grieving troops during the memorial services for their fallen fellow soldiers.

-- Dempsey said that after he was confirmed as chairman but while still serving as the Army chief of staff, he visited the economics department at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He was seeking expert opinions to help him manage effectively in what Pentagon leaders have for more than a year called a “constrained budget environment.” Dempsey heard from senior economics professors, as well as “young majors” with doctorate degrees fresh from the London School of Economics and from Georgetown University here. The visit was interesting and informative, Dempsey said, and each expert had an opinion as to how best to tackle budget issues. As the Defense Department’s budget strategy unfolds, the chairman said, it will, in part, be “art, not science.”

Odierno: Army Must Remain Force of Decisive Action

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2011 – The United States must ensure the Army remains “our national force of decisive action” for the security of the nation, President Barack Obama’s choice to be the next Army chief of staff said during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

If the Senate confirms the nomination, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno would succeed Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, whom Obama has nominated to succeed Navy Adm. Mike Mullen as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Odierno, a 1976 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., is commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command.

Over the past decade, the Army has reinvented itself while facing one of the most difficult combat environments imaginable, Odierno said.

“Our leaders at every level have displayed unparalleled ingenuity, flexibility and adaptability,” he said. “Our soldiers have displayed mental and physical toughness and courage under fire. They have transformed the Army into the most versatile, agile, rapidly deployable and sustainable strategic land force in the world today.”

America faces numerous threats in a world going through historic change, the general told the committee. “We face a multitude of security challenges, such as transnational and regional terrorism in places like Yemen, Somalia, North Africa and Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas,” he said. “We have uncertainty surrounding the Arab Spring and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and we face the challenges of rising powers.”

U.S. financial problems undergird any response, Odierno told the senators.

“I know that, if confirmed, we will face some very difficult resource decisions within the Department of Defense, and as we determine those essential characteristics and capabilities which we need in our joint force to meet our future security challenges,” Odierno said. “I pledge that I will work with everyone to make sure we come up with the right answer and mitigate the risk associated with such.”

Odierno warned the senators not to draw down the Army too fast. Historically, he said, U.S. officials have cut the force too fast and too much. America has not been particularly good at predicting threats or attacks, he added.

“As we make difficult resource decisions,” Odierno said, “we must be thoughtful in understanding the risk we incur to our nation's future security.”

The Army’s priority is providing trained and ready forces to prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan, the general told the panel, but the force needs to do more, such as providing troops in South Korea and Special Forces personnel to work with local people in Africa or South America.

“To do this, we must sustain our all-volunteer Army today and in the future, providing depth and versatility to the joint force,” Odierno said. “An Army that is more efficient in its employment provides greater flexibility for national security decision-makers in defense of our interests at home and abroad.”

But the Army absolutely comes down to soldiers and their families, the general said.

“It’s their dedication and sacrifice that has earned the respect and confidence of the American people as they continue to put their lives in harm’s way for our nation’s security,” he said.

Wars Have Been Catalyst for Army Change, Casey Says

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 24, 2011 – In a recent speech at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the Army has changed the most of all the services.

“There’s no catalyst for change like a war,” said the architect of much of that change, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr.

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey will relieve Casey as Army chief of staff next month, when Casey ends four decades of service. During an interview in his Pentagon office, the outgoing chief of staff spoke about the changes that have happened in the Army since he became the service’s highest-ranking officer in 2007.

“We will have done in seven years what normally would take us 20 years to do,” Casey said. “We’ve done it in the middle of a war, and we are a fundamentally different force and a more versatile and experienced force than we were seven years ago. I’m very pleased with the way that turned out.”

In the months before Casey took over, stories about the Army and its future were common in the media, centering on concern about the pace of operations and its effect on the service.

It was the height of the U.S. surge into Iraq, and soldiers were deployed for 15-month tours and often spending less than a year at their homes before deploying again. Worries surfaced that departures of mid-level officers and noncommissioned officers would “hollow out” the service, and that families weary of the repeated deployments would get their soldiers to vote with their feet and leave the Army.

When he first took office, the general and his wife traveled all over the Army to get their own sense of what was going on. “When we got back we thought our way through it, and it was clear to us that the families were the most brittle part of the force,” Casey said. “We needed to do something immediately to demonstrate to the families that we were going to take a load off.”

An immediate move was to hire and pay family readiness advisers. The service put in place the Family Covenant Program, and doubled funding for family readiness programs.

Dealing with deployments was another priority, Casey said.

“The 15-month tours – on top of everything they had already done – that was choking people,” Casey said. “We had to show them that there was daylight, and that daylight was going to come sooner, rather than later.”

Then-President George W. Bush had authorized an increase in the size of the Army by 2012. Casey told about going into auditoriums full of troops in 2007 and telling them relief would come in 2012. “And they would look at me like, “C’mon, General, get real,’” he said.

He met with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and told him that the Army growth had to be sped up to 2010, “and he agreed,” the general said. The Army met its growth goals in 2009.

Casey also was worried about a hollow force, and instinctively concentrated on the mid-level officers and NCOs. “They were the ones carrying the heaviest loads,” he said.

Casey looked to the Army’s Center of Military History for historical research, and the data showed it really was all about the midlevel leaders. “When the people it takes you a decade to grow leave, it takes you a decade to get [that capability] back,” he said.

The service put in place selective retention bonuses for captains and increased the selective re-enlistment bonuses for mid-level NCOs. “I believe it gave a lot of those captains the ability to look at their spouses and say, ‘We’re going to be OK,” he said.

But people were saying the Army already was hollow because of the readiness level of “next-to-deploy” forces. The service had to strip these forces of soldiers for units already in the combat theater. “We started thinking about generating readiness differently and enhancing the Army force-generating model that we had come up with in 2005 to make it more realistic,” Casey said. Follow-on forces now are fully manned and fully trained as a unit before deploying.

Dwell time – the time troops spend at home between deployments – became an important measurement. The goal is for soldiers to spend twice as much time at home as deployed. Casey said the differences are visible in the soldiers themselves.

“I went out with a unit that was home for 18 months,” he said, “and you could see the difference that time at home meant in their faces, and in the preparation they could do.”

The Army also is changing to meet the demands of 21st century operations. Casey continued the process of changing to a modular brigade system. During World War II, the division was the basic unit for the Army. Today, it is the brigade combat team.

“With everything we had going on, if I had made hard turns, it would have derailed the progress,” he said. “I came in and said, ‘Let’s finish it,’ and we kept on going.”

By the end of the year, the Army will have converted all but a handful of the 300-plus brigades to these modular organizations, “and we will have rebalanced 300,000-plus soldiers out of Cold War skills to those more necessary today,” Casey said. “Together, it’s the largest transformation of the Army since World War II.”

The personal costs and effects of combat also pushed Casey.

“I’d been in Iraq,” he said. “I’d seen the effects of combat on folks and what it did to folks, and I recognized that no matter who you are, everyone is affected by combat in one way or another. I set out to try to reduce the stigma associated with getting treatment for behavioral health issues.”

Post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries are the signature wounds of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there may be no outwardly visible signs of the injuries.

“I started getting the word out then to everyone we could that combat is hard, everyone is affected by it -- we’re human beings,” Casey said. “If you’ve got a problem, get some help.”

The general said he wanted to encourage openness, and knew it was going to be a hard slog.

“We went from where 90 percent of the people wouldn’t get help to now, where about half of the people won’t get help,” he said. “That’s still a lot of people, but it’s a start. We still have to crack the company and platoon levels. It’s gradually getting more traction.”

Concurrently, the Army’s suicide rate began rising.

“It struck me how futile it is to be sitting around a company orderly room – like we’ve all done – with the first sergeant saying, ‘Gosh, Smith was a wonderful guy. I should have seen something, I should have known something, I should have done something.’ And you never can,” Casey said. “It occurred to me that maybe we ought to come up with something that gives them skills on the front end before they get to that dark place that would lead them to suicide to begin with.”

The Army introduced Comprehensive Soldier Fitness to unit operations to avoid some of the stigma that some people associate with a medical program.

“The whole idea was to bring mental fitness up to the same plane as physical fitness,” the general said. “The thrust behind it is [that] part of being a good soldier is knowing when you need a break and when you need to get some help. That doesn’t mean you’re a wimp.”

All this is having results. Army surveys show that family satisfaction with the service has increased steadily since 2007, and this continues to trend upward.

But the Army is not out of the woods yet, Casey said. For the next several years, the United States will continue to send 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers to combat. They are going to have to maintain their edge, but so will the thousands of soldiers who won’t be going to combat. At the same time, the Army has to reconstitute after a decade at war.

“What I worry about is you get these guys back in garrison and you go back to the same bull I went through in the 1970s, and these young guys are going to say, ‘I’m outta here,’” Casey said.

The service also has to concentrate on building resilience in soldiers and their families, Casey said. “We’ve just got to keep at it,” he added.

The Army has learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that the next conflict probably won’t look like anything it is fighting today. “We changed our doctrine in 2008 and said that full-spectrum operations are offense, defense and stability operations,” Casey said. “It’s done simultaneously and in different proportions, depending where you are in the spectrum of conflict.”

He said that when he commanded the 1st Armored Division in 2000 and 2001, he believed that if a unit could do conventional war, it could do anything.

“But after 32 months in Iraq, I don’t believe that any more,” he said. “What we realized was its not going to be either conventional or counterinsurgency. The wars in the 21st century are going to be different than the wars I grew up trying to fight. We’re not going to be fighting corps-on-corps operations, except maybe [in] Korea.

“So we’re working scenarios where we have hybrid threats that are a mix of conventional, irregular, criminal [and] terrorist, and we’ve set up the training centers with these types of [opposing forces]. The 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, went through such a hybrid threat scenario.

“We’re training them for full-spectrum operations, and that includes having to deal with uniformed militaries,” he said.

More work needs to be done, Casey said.

“While we’ve talked about this and thought about it,” he added, “until we start putting brigades out there on the ground and have them do it, we’re not going to crack it.”

Casey said he is worried about the Army’s budget. He wants a balanced force in which the manning, training and equipping is in the right proportion. “The kicker is the wheels are falling off the budget,” he said. The Army will remain its current size through at least 2015.

“People are motivated and focused and trying to do the right thing,” the general said.

Casey commanded his first platoon in April 1971 in Mainz, West Germany. He had nine soldiers in a 36-man mortar platoon, and five of them were pending discharge from the Army. Each company had a duty officer, he said, and that officer had to be armed.

“Drugs were pretty bad, and there were tensions,” he said. “I remember … the first time we went to the field it struck me like a ton of bricks that these guys depended on me, and I resolved at that point to never let my subordinates down. I always tried to make the unit I was in as good as it could be.”

It was just the scale that changed.