Army officials have worried for some time that many of the troops fighting the insurgency in Iraq are losing their edge in conventional warfare areas such as artillery. A large number of the Army’s artillery units have been retrained as military police and truck drivers, so their skills have atrophied. Maj. Gen. David C. Ralston, commander of the Army Field Artillery Center, is said to be alarmed by the fact that artillery units haven’t fired a weapon in three years. In an attempt to try to make artillery relevant again, Ralston convened a group of senior officers this month in Fort Worth, Texas, to discuss how to fix the training gap, and how to preempt potentially devastating funding cuts to artillery programs in upcoming budget drills at the Pentagon.