WASHINGTON: On purpose or otherwise, the administration is building a truly interesting team at the top of the Army. Call them Mister Pentagon, Mister Hill, and General Trenches: Mr. Pentagon is Eric Fanning, not yet formally nominated for Army Secretary but the nigh-certain candidate. Fanning served as acting Air Force Secretary, Deputy Undersecretary of the… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: It’s not every day you hear a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff asking Congress to undo part of the administration’s budget proposal. But National Guard Bureau director Gen. Frank Grass is in a unique position, the only chief caught between the Pentagon and the states. So this morning, Gen. Grass explicitly… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: After 15 months of bitter public debate between regular Army leadership and National Guard advocates, the commission Congress created to settle the matter met for the first time Friday and chose its chair and vice-chair, announced today. Heading the commission will be Gen. Carter Ham, a retired regular officer, while his No. 2 will… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: $473 million. That’s the amount the 2016 budget request would boost spending over 2015 to modernize the Army’s aging helicopter fleet.That’s a nine percent increase in a time of shrinking budgets, swelling aviation to more than the next two modernization accounts (ground vehicles and networks) combined. But the Army’s aircraft request may be dead on arrival.… Keep reading →

The regular Army and the National Guard are increasingly at loggerheads — not because they don’t respect each other, but because both want to protect their funding, their mission, and their people from zero-sum budget cuts. We asked the chiefs of the two leading advocacy groups involved to present their very different views for the way… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: A major battle is brewing between the regular Army and National Guard. While Congress has frozen the planned transfer of the Guard’s Apache gunships to active-duty units, the Army is already taking steps that may make it much harder to keep the helicopters in the Guard. The Aviation Restructure Initiative calls for all Apaches to be moved from the Guard… Keep reading →