Soldiers Have to Eat Soup Together for a Long Time

Abstract

The Department of Defense is the authoritative body for unit mobilization by executive order. The events of September 11, 2001 and previous lessons learned drove the Department of Defense to provide a mobilization policy that narrowly defined the Partial Mobilization law. Constrained policy and practices and steady demand for Army forces has forced the Army to provide mitigations in hopes of reducing the frequency of mobilization of its soldiers. Often the required mitigations, such as remobilizing the unit flag, but not remobilizing soldiers, and cross-leveling soldiers out of identified donor units to fill the mobilizing unit, negate the cohesion of units. However, unit cohesion is imperative to achieve success during the Global War on Terror. This project evaluates the consequences of current Department of Defense policy of mobilizing soldiers for not more than 24 cumulative months and the mobilization practices of less than 24 months. The project also depicts how those policy and practices negatively impact unit cohesion. Further, this project will explain why unit cohesion is so essential. Lastly, the case will be supported that successful execution of the Global War on Terror depends on the cohesion of units.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 10, 2007
Accession Number
ADA467295

Entities

People

  • Mary Henry

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Active Duty
  • Artillery
  • Artillery Units
  • Combat Operations
  • Combat Support
  • Department Of Defense
  • Deployment
  • Education
  • Iraqi-War
  • Lessons Learned
  • Military Police
  • Military Science
  • National Guard
  • Training
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Economics
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.