Addressing Policy Constraints
On September 11, 2001, 96% of the CA force was
in the USAR; the remainder comprised of one Active
Component (AC) CA battalion. In post-9/11 operations, the USAR portion of the CA force was activated
on a rotational basis under the partial mobilization
authority of 10 U.S. Code 12302, which allowed for involuntary activation of Reserve Component (RC) forces for up to 24 consecutive months. Early Army policy
dictated that AC and RC units would have standard
theater deployment tour lengths of 12 months (known
as “Boots on the Ground” time, or BOG). To achieve
this, RC units generally mobilized for 16-18 months
to allow for post-mobilization train-up periods and
post-deployment leave time. DoD policy, however,
dissolved the Army’s ability to build, deploy, and redeploy multi-component units on synchronized timelines, first by interpreting 24 consecutive months to
mean 24 cumulative months, then by limiting total mobilization time for RC units to 12 months – reducing
BOG to about 9 months and imposing a policy goal
of five-year “dwell” periods between deployments for
RC units and individuals.22
Meanwhile, AC units continued to deploy to a
theater for 12 (and sometimes 15) months BOG with
a dwell goal of two years. While the dwell goals were
never fully realized during Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) or Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the differing BOG
times effectively guaranteed that AC maneuver commands and their supporting USAR CA units would be
on different training and deployment schedules, making the development of pre-deployment relationships
difficult, if not impossible.
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