FORT HOOD, Texas -- Soldiers consisting of the active duty, Army Reserve and National Guard came together at the Phantom Warrior Center here, June 22, to build cohesion between the forces.
More than 135 Soldiers from 20 installations, representing 15 different states, gathered at the Active Component/Reserve Component Training and Partnership Summit to build partnerships and work out training schedules in order to train as a total force.
"The purpose of the Active Component/Reserve Component Training and Partnership Summit is to strengthen relationships, increase integration of training and increase mutual understanding of training opportunities and resources available across all of III Corps' area of operations," said Col. James Markert, III Corps operations officer.
Markert said the focus areas of the summit include partnership unit alignments, training calendars, and support for exportable combat training center exercises, combat support training exercise and multi-echelon integrated brigade training.
"It's training we execute as a team," he said. "What you see is the multi-component Army really getting after it."
Army Directive 2012-08, the Army Total Force Policy, requires the military departments to organize, man, train and equip their active and reserve components as an integrated operational force to provide predictable, recurring and sustainable capabilities.
"This is very important to III Corps, very important to Fort Hood and it's important to the Army," said Markert. "We're coming together into the force that the Army has to be in order to succeed. The Army that deploys has to be the total Army. Or we're not going to successfully execute our missions as an Army that is serving as part of the joint force."
The initiative is designed for active and reserve components to train side-by-side, as they have been on deployments for the past 12 years.
Col. Tim Bush, operations officer for First Army, which operates the policy, said that the training is necessary in order for a relevant and ready Army.
"It builds the partnership and teamwork that we're going to fight with in the future," Bush said. "It ensures that as we train together, we'll be more effective as a fighting force in the future."
During the summit, Soldiers were afforded the opportunity to meet face-to-face with each other and had the opportunity to draw up their training plans in break-out sessions.
The biggest challenge facing the program is the synchronization of the days the Soldiers can train together.
"They don't align and they won't align. We have to do what we can in conferences like this to work on maximizing that alignment," Markert said. "The length of the training events that the active component likes to dream up doesn't always match the length of the training that reserve component or a National Guard unit can support."
A primary purpose for the conference was to get the different components to get together to build their relationships and set training goals for the future.
"We really want to go from a paper policy to a true partnership," he added. "We want to take it from concept to training calendars, because once it's on the training calendars, we're in much better shape."
Markert said III Corps will continue to host summits in the future in order to keep those partnerships standing strong.
"It's something we haven't done before," he said, "but it is something we're going to do in the future."
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