Airborne School, and de-mystify the military by presenting itself as a professional and academic branch,
fully accessible and rewarding to those with specialized skill sets. Standards must be raised, allowing for
a natural reduction in end-strength to offset the costs
of expanded training and expertise. ARFORGEN validation must be tracked at the team level in order to
provide a more organic rewards-based readiness system with incentives to adhere to both Army and Civil
Affairs developmental requirements. This highly proficient cadre of CA personnel could then be further
augmented by previously identified DoD specialists
(engineers, data managers) to support additional skill
training and rapid expansion in the case of future
contingencies.
Conclusion
Civil Affairs finds itself with time to reflect on
the lessons learned in the post 9/11 era of conflict.
For more than a decade Reserve and Active CA have
deployed at a pace that has burned out the force and
resulted in a demand for other personnel, units, and
agencies to become involved in CAO and CMO. The
outgoing commander of USACAPOC acknowledged
our need to deliver a better product to the supported
commanders, or risk becoming marginalized. Budgets
and end-strength are decreasing and will continue to
do so into the near future, but the need to be ready
to deploy at short notice to help address a stunningly
diverse array of issues is not decreasing. Active Component CA can benefit from the unit skills and capabilities Reserve Component CA have available, but
they will likely only do so if the RC can improve the
consistency, preparedness, and specialized skill sets
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