Photo By Spc. Kelly McDowell | Sgt. Major of the Army Ken Preston speaks to the Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 502nd...... read more read more
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Master Sgt. Eric Lobsinger
4th Inf. Div. PAO
CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth Preston kicked off a four-day whirlwind tour of Iraq Saturday when he visited the Soldiers of Multi-National Division - Baghdad.
The goal of his trip, he said, was to simply sit down, talk with Soldiers and to hear what concerns they had on their minds.
"I am very proud of all of our Soldiers," said Preston. "I am very proud of what they're doing each and every day. My message to the Soldiers is I want them to be proud of what they have accomplished and what they've done during their deployment. Every Soldier over here has a mission " they have a key role to play in every operation. Everybody over here has a key role that they play in the success of the units here on the ground and the success of America's Army in the global war on terror."
His travels provided him the opportunity to visit with Soldiers at some of the more remote sites most visitors normally don't get a chance to go to, such as Camp Taji and Forward Operating Bases Mahmudiyah, Kalsu and Iskandariyah.
"I think it's a good morale booster," said Spc. Joshua Raven, an air defense early warning specialist with Headquarters, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, based in Camp Taji. "I thought it was a good morale booster to have the Sgt. Maj. of the Army going all the way over here just to talk to us."
"It really meant a lot," added Staff Sgt. Michael Williams Jr., a petroleum specialist with Company A, 404th Aviation Support Battalion, Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Inf. Div. "It shows that he's looking after the Soldiers. He went and broke everything down on what Soldiers are looking for " the way the Army is going and which direction. It meant a lot to me. I think it was a very good visit."
Following a brief visit at the MND-B division headquarters at Camp Liberty, he and MND-B's Command Sgt. Maj. Ronald Riling spent the next eight hours hopping from base to base aboard Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Inf. Div. helicopters, meeting and talking to MND-B Soldiers.
He kicked off his visit at the Eagle Ministries Center in Camp Taji. The scene was eerily quiet as he entered the building. Some Soldiers seemed to look on in awe as if a rock star had entered the building, only to erupt into booming Hoooo-Aaaahs and he led eight groups of Soldiers in a competition to see which group was the loudest. Ultimately, group four literally blew their competition out the door.
Perhaps foremost on the mind of the Soldiers he visited at each base was how much longer Soldiers would be in Iraq and when they could expect to see more stability in their lives.
Oft-repeated questions were "How long are we going to be in Iraq?" and "Will the length of the deployment decrease?"
The truth is, he said, he and his fellow Army leaders truly do not know.
Perhaps his analogy said it best while talking to Soldiers at Camp Taji: "I don't know," he said. "I have a little crystal ball on my desk about the size of a marble. So far it hasn't lit up and told me anything yet."
In all seriousness, he added, the mission itself will dictate how much longer Soldiers will be here and in what strength they will be here. With the current missions Soldiers are facing around the world, there are only so many resources to draw from.
The task the Army faces is perhaps a daunting one when one considers there are currently approximately 502,000 Soldiers on active duty, with an additional 98,000 United States Army Reserve and National Guard Soldiers mobilized, for a current troop strength of approximately 600,000 Soldiers on active duty.
Of those, said Preston, approximately 237,000 Soldiers are deployed to 120 countries around the world.
To meet the challenges facing the Army with the current deployments, the Army undertook the daunting mission of expanding from 33 brigade combat teams to 42, in addition to growing the active-duty Army by 30,000 Soldiers, from 482,000 Soldiers to 512,400.
"As we go through this process, we're adding nine additional brigade combat teams," he said.
Currently, the Army is up to 38 fully equipped and manned BCTs.
As for the challenges faced in creating the BCTs, he said: "It's people; it's equipment; it's time. Right now, if you look at the BCTs we're building, we're putting in additional infantry, additional reconnaissance and more military intelligence assets " embedding all those battlefield operating systems within each of those brigades " it is an increase in a lot of those low-density, high-demand types of career fields."
And, he said, it's not just the active-duty forces that are experiencing the changes but the National Guard units as well as they convert to modularity versus their legacy configurations. In addition to manning the brigades, the Army is embedding new technologies into the units as they transition from theater back to their home bases.
"When you redeploy a unit back after the rotation, be it a National Guard, Reserve or active-duty BCTs to home station, you have to take those units through reset " reset their equipment and get them postured for future missions. We're using the tempo and the momentum that we have from deploying units over here into combat as we're bringing them back to reset them into modular configuration."
To meet the ever-changing requirement involved in the new technology, the Army is also in the process of adapting its personnel to meet the new missions.
"It's a rebalance of the force " getting the right tools in the tool box," said Preston.
To do this, he said 120,000 Soldiers in high-density, low-demand military occupational specialties are being moved to low-density, high-demand jobs. It is a challenge he said he felt today's Soldiers will easily meet.
Ultimately, the restructuring of the Army, in addition to the Army "working itself out of a job" in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, will pay dividends and will eventually help reduce deployment time as leaders and Soldiers continue their quest to train up, and turn over, more of the missions to the Iraq army, the Iraqi police and the governance of Iraq, said Preston.
The additional brigade combat teams should prove to be a huge benefit for Soldiers, he said, because they will help provide more predictability and more dwell time at home for Soldiers in the long run.
"We're asking Soldiers here to do some pretty tough things," said Preston. "This is the first time we've fought a long-term fight with an all-volunteer Army."
He said he is confident in Soldiers" ability to continue to adapt as the Army continues to grow and change.
"We are the best Army that we've ever been," said Preston. "We continue to grow and improve every day. I firmly believe the Soldiers coming out of basic (training) today are far better than those from even just a couple of years ago. All of you represent the cream of our society."
As far as the questions pertaining to deployment time reductions, Preston said, "If we could go to something less than a year, we would do that. As we reduce the troop strength here, we may be able to reduce the deployment time."
He said he would like to see the deployments eventually reduced to nine months in length, and perhaps even eventually to six or seven months. If that is done though, there is also a possibility it would cut down on the Soldiers dwell time in the states with their families.
"With the number of Soldiers we have," said Preston, "we cannot reduce the length of the deployment right now."
As the Army continues to transform, he said it is vital Soldiers continue to concentrate on being the best Soldiers they can be.
"I had a specialist ask me one day, "Sergeant Major of the Army, I want to be Sergeant Major of the Army one day, what do I have to do to be the Sergeant Major of the Army?"
"I said, "first of all, as a Soldier, you concentrate as an individual because as an individual you want to be the best Soldier you can be. Whatever your career field, you want to be a subject-matter expert in that career field. If you're an infantry Soldier, an armor Soldier or a scout, you want to be the best scout, armor or infantry Soldier you can be - Be an expert in your profession!""
Once Soldiers are promoted and become sergeants, he added, they can no longer just look out for themselves as individuals.
"Now you're responsible for a little piece of the Army," said Preston. "There are two or three Soldiers that you're responsible for. So now, as a sergeant, it goes beyond just what do I want to do as an individual. It's what can I do to make my little piece of the Army as good as it can possibly be."
As Soldiers progress to the rank of staff sergeant and become the squad leaders, their responsibility increases as well to nine, ten, eleven or twelve Soldiers.
"You take that little piece of the Army and make it as good as you possibly can make it," he said. "You do that at each level of command as you move up. That's the difference as you make that transition from being a Soldier to being a noncommissioned officer. You make a shift from being focused on you, as an individual, to being focused on your unit."
Preston said he truly appreciates all of the support provided by families as their loved ones are deployed. In truth, he said, merely saying 'thank you" to the families is not enough.
"All the families out there are making some significant sacrifices," he said. "If you look at the role the families play, our families are why we do what we do as Soldiers. The families back there, in many cases; those spouses are doing double duty. They're the husband or wife as well as the father or mother. I'm very proud of the contributions, sacrifices, and commitment of the families out there that continue to support their Soldiers while they're deployed."
MND-B Soldiers said they appreciated the fact the Sergeant Major of the Army visited with them and the fact he was so forthcoming.
"He listened to all the Soldiers on what their concerns are so the Army can improve on the topics Soldiers who have been here for quite some time feel are very important," said Sgt. Charles Schreck, a military police sergeant with Battle Team Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, based in Mahmudiyah. "He's taking consideration to topics that everybody is thinking about all of the time. It shows us that higher-ups are actually considering those topics."
The visit was a motivating one for the Soldiers as well, chimed in Sgt. Frank Aldaco, a truck driver with Company F, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Inf. Div., following Preston's visit to FOB Iskandariyah.
"The Soldiers have a lot on their minds, and they just wanted to ask somebody who knows," he said. "I know a lot of guys who had a lot on their minds got the answers they were looking for."
| Date Taken: | 07.11.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 07.11.2006 10:14 |
| Story ID: | 7115 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 170 |
| Downloads: | 44 |
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