When Army Maj. Gen. John B. Sylvester returned last year
from Bosnia, where he served as assistant chief of staff in the NATO peacekeeping
force, he found himself in the midst of sweeping changes triggered by new priorities
and by the need to adapt to the information age.
Sylvester's new assignment was as deputy chief of staff for training in the
Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), headquartered at historic Fort
Monroe, a pre-Civil War-era installation on Virginia's Chesapeake Bay.
Sylvester took on his new job just as incoming Army Chief of Staff Eric K.
Shinseki was finalizing his plan to "transform the entire Army" into
a force that is lighter, easier to deploy and more lethal. Shinseki's announced
goal is to deploy a combat brigade anywhere in the world within 96 hours, a
division within 120 hours and five divisions within 30 days.
To achieve this goal will require major changes in Army operations, especially
training, officials admit. "We say we are in a training revolution,"
Sylvester said in a recent interview with National Defense. Dressed casually,
in a starched, green camouflage battle-dress uniform (BDU) and spit-shined combat
boots, Sylvester sat down in his wood-paneled office to discuss the changes
that are taking place in Army training.
"What we are really talking about is an evolution," Sylvester explained.
It may take five to 10 years, he said, for changes to begin to percolate through
the entire Army.
Already, however, the Army is working to field two prototype, medium-weight
brigades at Fort Lewis, Wash. At Fort Knox, Ky., the Army is testing lightweight
armored vehicles (LAVs)-already utilized by the Marines and allied military
services-for possible use with the new units.
"We're building a force that can operate in small-scale contingencies,"
Sylvester said. "It has to be infantry-centric, able to operate in urban
terrain and complex situations. It's clearly a work in progress, but it's going
to happen. We're working our butts off."
The Army plans, over time, to increase its reaction speed by reducing the number
of systems that it deploys, using more lethal, high-tech weaponry and improved
communications and information equipment to shrink the number of personnel needed
in combat areas.
Training soldiers to use this increasingly sophisticated technology is TRADOC's
job. TRADOC includes 16 major installations across the United States, with 27
schools and about 10,000 instructors.
Every year, TRADOC trains more than 240,000 active, Guard or reserve component
soldiers, Sylvester explained. Also attending TRADOC schools are 20,000 members
of other U.S. services, 4,000 international students and 90,000 civilians from
the Defense and State Departments. On any given day, there are more than 325,000
students of one type or another enrolled in a TRADOC program.
The Largest University
"We operate the largest university in the world," Sylvester said.
Training programs include everything from boot camp, through technical and professional
development to the Command and General Staff College.
To make it easier for soldiers to receive training during their regular assignments,
the Army has begun introducing a service-wide distance learning program. Under
this program, students will be able to use computers-typically about 16 per
classroom-linked to a TRADOC school to take courses without leaving their unit's
home base.
In fiscal year 1999, 144 such classrooms were fielded to Army, Guard and reserve
units throughout the United States, Europe and the Pacific region. By 2010,
when the program is scheduled to be fully operational, TRADOC plans to have
more than 700 classrooms at more than 200 facilities linked to the distance
learning system.
"We're working distance learning to use the evident capability that's
out there,' said Sylvester. "The objective is to deliver information to
wherever the heck the soldiers are."
The distance learning concept has tremendous promise, Sylvester said. "It
offers you the whole world. You can cruise the World Wide Web and assemble an
incredible amount of information."
Sylvester has his doubts about the ability to deploy distance learning systems
to the field. As he was preparing to leave Bosnia for his new assignment, Sylvester
had lunch with five sergeants major and asked for their concerns.
"We discussed distance learning," he said. "They said it would
be nice to have access to all of that information, but when stumbling about
in a muddy foxhole, they'd just as soon have a good book. It won't melt in the
rain, and you can stick it in your pocket."
While some systems may not work in a foxhole, Sylvester said, "in a headquarters
tent, where people know how to take care of them, they may work just fine."
The Army is making increasing use of simulation equipment in its training programs,
Sylvester said, and it is more and more realistic. The Armor Center at Fort
Knox, for example, has a very lifelike tank-driving simulator, he said.
"The fidelity inside the tank is very high-almost as if it were real."
So impressed with the simulator was Sylvester that he recently told officials
at Fort Knox that "we've got to stop driving real tanks in training classes."
The driving force, so to speak, is cost, he said. Real tanks cost $75 per mile,
compared to $2.50 for the same distance in a simulator.
The tank trainers, however, objected. "They said that, as good as it is,
the simulator experience isn't enough," Sylvester said. "In some cases,
they said, you absolutely have to place the kids in a live environment.
"And I had to agree. The higher up the risk ladder the troops go, the
closer to reality I want their training to be."
Another group for which live training makes sense, Sylvester said, is snipers.
"Why would you give simulation training to a sniper? There's only a small
number of snipers. Why not just give each one 500 rounds and access to a rifle
range?
"I'm sure somebody out there could write specs for a sniper simulator,
Sylvester said, "but how much is it going to cost?"
Despite the increasing sophistication of Army technology, Sylvester is confident
about the ability of today's recruits to learn the necessary skills. "I
think our kids are just as smart today as they were when we were their age,"
Sylvester said. "In fact, I think that a kid used to a modern video arcade
environment will adapt more easily than we did."
The Army's new GED Plus program-offering high-school dropouts the chance to
earn the equivalent of a high-school diploma in exchange for a minimum two years
of service-"is going to pose a challenge," Sylvester said. It is not
clear yet, he suggested, how easy it will be for those youngsters to succeed
in the Army. "We're just going to have to work harder to get those kids'
skill levels up," he said.
Dropouts are being courted in order to boost the Army's lagging efforts to
attract recruits in today's booming economy.
Among the factors driving away recruits are recurring reports of sexual harassment
of female soldiers and attacks upon homosexual troopers.
Following the murder of a soldier thought to be homosexual in Fort Campbell,
Ky., Defense Secretary William S. Cohen ordered all of the services to incorporate
into all of their training programs stronger language against any kind of sexual
harassment.
Since October 1998, TRADOC has added 54 hours of anti-harassment training to
its courses, according to Sylvester. The Army, he said, is determined to resolve
the problem, because it must.
"We are a cohesive organization. We're made up of men and women of every
description in close and personal contact with each other. You can't get much
closer than you get in a foxhole."
The training, Sylvester argued, will eventually pay off. "The longer it
goes on, the more it becomes a part of regular business."
Sylvester said that his experience in Bosnia-which began in 1995-has taught
him that, in peacekeeping operations, soldiers at all levels, from the highest
general to non-commissioned officers need more than traditional combat skills.
"I know how to fight," Sylvester said. "I have been trained
to do all of that." A self-described "Army brat" and a 1968 graduate
of infantry officer training school at Fort Benning, Ga., Sylvester commanded
a tank company in Vietnam and a brigade in the Persian Gulf War. Along the way,
he earned a cluster of medals, including the Silver and Bronze Stars.
In the Balkans and similar places, however, traditional combat skills are not
enough, Sylvester argued. Soldiers need to be trained to cope with local politics,
he said.
"In Bosnia, a police chief could be a Serbian Orthodox. The mayor might
be Muslim. Both might be controlled by their own political parties or the local
Mafia. The paramilitary is connected to the Mafia.
"Battalion and company commanders who go to Bosnia have to understand
this."
Sylvester said he asked a lieutenant moving troops over the Sava River what
his job was. "He told me his military mission. When I asked him what he
had been doing all morning, he said he had been meeting with the police chief,
the local gang leaders, ironing out disputes and identifying mine fields."
An Army commander cannot spend all of his time "focused on that end of
the spectrum," Sylvester said. Commanders "have to focus on fighting
and winning. That's where the threat facing our nation is real."
Sylvester said that a major goal of his new assignment is "to figure out
the right blend of skills needed to handle the Army's new role" in this
complex post-Cold War world.