SANDSTON, Va. –
Instructors from the Fort Leavenworth-based Army Training Network provided command teams in the Virginia National Guard’s Virginia Beach-based 329th Regional Support Group with instruction Sept. 12-14, 2016, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on new training management requirements the U. S. Army will roll out in 2017.
“This training specifically targeted the commanders and first sergeants who make up our company command teams and instills the proper emphasis upon training management,” said Col. K. Weedon Gallagher, commander of the 329th RST. “With the reduction in resources across the Army, it has become critical for command teams to plan four years out to lock in the challenging training that their Soldiers deserve.”
Readiness remains the most critical focus of the U.S. Army, and it is moving away from the Army Force Generation, or ARFORGEN, model to the new Sustainable Readiness Model that promotes sustained readiness by eliminating the reset phase and decreased readiness that every unit experienced post-deployment under ARFORGEN. SRM allows the Army to achieve and maintain readiness at appropriate levels for longer periods of time and emphasizes centralized planning and decentralized execution.
Gallagher said that he and Command Sgt. Maj. Ernest T. Miller, the group’s senior noncommissioned officer, were both favorably impressed by the passion and enthusiasm the command teams brought to the training and how much they challenged their instructors to make the most of the three days of training.
“These are extremely intelligent leaders who are interested to learn what the Army Training Network can do for their formations,” he said. “The Unit Training Management module of ATN offers company command teams the ability to shape and conduct training for their formations in a way unimagined when my peer group was in company command. These young leaders are much more engaged in the strategy of training warfighters.”
As part of the move to SRM, the Army is shifting to a new assessment of collective unit training known as the Objective T-Level Assessment, or Objective-T. This assessment includes demonstrating proficiency on mission essential tasks demonstrated through a command post or field training exercise, individual and crew qualifications and collective live fire proficiency demonstrated through live-fire exercises.
Army leaders say that the Objective-T assessment provides a more quantifiable and objective assessment of a unit’s collective training readiness.