Team,
Happy new year and welcome 2015! I hope you've enjoyed some much-deserved time off and were able to spend it with family and friends. I'm glad to have spent Christmas visiting our troops in Kosovo and Turkey. These missions, where we serve alongside our Allies, may not be in the news regularly but they are vital to the collective defense and assurance of Europe and deterrence of potential enemies.
This year we're going to keep up our pace moving forward with Operation Atlantic Resolve. Elements from our own 2nd Cavalry Regiment and, later, 3rd Infantry Division from Ft. Stewart, Ga., will be the first two rotational forces this year. The 4th Infantry Division's headquarters from Fort Carson, Colo., will send personnel to take over OAR mission command, a role that USAREUR personnel filled in 2014.
In December, I introduced the Strong Europe framework. It aims to create beneficial opportunities for the U.S. and our Allies, improve interoperability and capacity with Allies and Partners, and facilitate U.S. and NATO logistical infrastructure to ease movement between member nations.
This year we need to think about being NATO Ready. I'm challenging Army Europe to determine how we can be NATO Ready as the Alliance transitions away from operations in Afghanistan and faces new, and some reemerging, global threats and challenges.
The first step is to work regularly with all levels of the NATO command including headquarters, simulation centers, and other agencies. My end goal is to ensure we support and enable the Allied Land Command, the current NATO Response Force Corps, and NATO Centers of Excellence.
Second, Army Forces -- both those assigned to Europe and those here as part of the Regionally Aligned Force -- must be capable of conducting operations with the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) and the NATO Response Force.
Finally, our leaders need to be trained or educated in NATO policies, procedures, standards, and doctrine to help ensure seamless integration with our Allies.
Of course, achieving NATO Ready requires time in the field and on the range, but it doesn't all happen there. We have to talk to our counterparts in our Allied land forces regularly. We need to sit next to them at conferences, seminars and classes. We need to know their culture and show them a bit of ours.
As always, thank you for all that you are doing here every day in support of our mission and in support of our Allies. I am proud to serve by your side as this new year begins.
Army Strong! Strong Europe!
LTG Ben Hodges
Freedom 6
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