TRADOC CG visits CASCOM schools

FORT LEE, Va. - The general who oversees all training for the Army visited U.S. Army Combined Support Command (CASCOM) May 15 to gain an understanding of the sustainment training and proponency mission of the organization.

Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, commanding general, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, spent the day at Fort Lee visiting three sustainment advanced individual training (AIT) schools and Army Logistics University.

"From my time at OIR (Operation Inherent Resolve), I saw the direct link between sustainment and lethality," said the general who took command of TRADOC in March. "I became a believer, we need bullets and troops to be delivered."

During the CASCOM overview briefing, Maj. Gen. Paul C. Hurley Jr., commanding general, CASCOM, discussed the pilot program starting over the summer to create multi-functional lieutenants during the Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) and how the command is working to rebuild the deployment culture in the sustainment community to meet the maneuver community's echelons above brigade doctrine.

During the visit, Townsend visited the Tactical Water Purification System site for the Quartermaster School where he was briefed on by instructors and AIT students training to be water treatment specialists.

He saw the Transportation School's Multi-Modal Training site where Soldiers learned to load equipment and supplies on rail and aircraft.

The general observed Army Logistics University instructors train transportation BOLC lieutenants to conduct a supply transfer at a logistics release point training by focusing on troop leading and securing an area.

"You need to learn how to lead warriors in combat," said the general to the new officers. "Focus your energy on this type of field training so you can lead from the front and when you get to your units your platoon will see you can lead them."

Townsend's last stop was to the Ordnance School Stryker Maintainer AIT training where he observed the phased approach of training from virtual computerized training to actually working on the fighting vehicle.

"This has been very educational for me," said the general. "I've spent my career in operational forces who are customers of sustainment, now I'm the provider of those forces (as the TRADOC CG).

"I will start carrying your message in the halls of the Pentagon," he said. "You've changed my pitch to show that multi-domain operations must show the implications of sustainment."