Situation
I’m taking command of an Army Reserve battalion this summer. I recently conducted my left-seat ride with the outgoing battalion commander (BC) by shadowing him at drill. The next time I see him in person, we will be passing the battalion flag, and he will ride off into the sunset with his family on his trusty steed. On the other hand, I will be turning to a formation of Soldiers waiting for ME to solve their biggest problems.
Observation
My initial impression of the unit is it is on a positive trajectory, due mostly to outgoing BC’s efforts to clean out some toxic people from the full-timer staff. (A big “thank you” to him!) The now-skeleton full-timer crew is grateful for his efforts, but worn thin. Part-time battalion and company leaders have attempted to take more full-timer tasks onto their plates to compensate. They perceive that no external organization will assist them in the way that they need. They are all looking to me to fix it, and fix it yesterday.
Questions
How do I fix a Big-Army-controlled full-timer program that knowingly maintains 25% to 50% staffing vacancies? If you don’t know, an Army Reserve battalion of 200-400 Soldiers are designed to be run by 8-10 full-timers (called Active Guard & Reserve Soldiers, or AGRs) in between drill weekends, and each of 3-4 companies within that battalion are designed to have 3 full timers (AGRs & Civilian Army Reserve Administrators, or ARAs) to do the same. They run the “current fight” of personnel and security actions, facilities, schools, and finances, as well as supply and maintenance. No one does any computer or phone maintenance full-time at all. So, 200-400 people rely on about 20 people to make all of their individual and group training possible (as well as mobilizations). In my unit, we have a grand total of EIGHT full-timers where we should have TWICE that. According to one more senior Officer connected with the unit, “You have two AGR slots in S-1 and two in S-3. You can expect that they will never be filled at the same time. Ever.” Now that I think about it, it was that way at the last battalion I was in, too; that was five years ago. Can you say, “The Army Reserve is set up for failure”?
How do I ask part-timers to pick up more slack when company leaders say they are working 10-20 hours PER WEEK to keep the unit afloat? Much of that time is unpaid. Army Reservists are given money to work one weekend a month and two weeks a year; even the two weeks a year aren’t guaranteed to be with their own unit. Everything else is sometimes-funded and sometimes-unfunded, according to the decisions of people at higher echelons who do not know or remember the demands of being at the lowest levels of command, shoulder-to-shoulder with troops. Add to that free-labor-based funding plan with the recent 25% budget cut enacted by Congress as a punishment (?) for the Army not meeting its end-strength. You know who lost money? My troops, who were already working for free—that’s who.
How do I manage my own non-Army life, including two civilian jobs, a pretty new marriage, and a young child—not to mention the hope of having another child while in command? My body is already in perimenopause, which means that I am already in my last years of fertility. Getting married close to 40 years old means I need to balance higher levels of responsibility with a younger family. I know it can be done, but I don’t know what it will take to do it well—for my family’s sake first, and the unit’s sake next.
How do I not become bitter and resentful at also being expected to work 10-20 unpaid hours PER WEEK, at all hours of the day and night? One of my peers said, “You will do something for your command every single day for the next two years.” Another said, “My brigade commander called me indiscriminately, day and night, whether I was at work, at home, or on vacation, to discuss not-at-all-urgent, company-level business.” One peer said she was so mad at how the Army expected her to do all this free work that she is never volunteering for command, again. And it’s not just the people I know; check out this 2022 opinion article or this 2022 news release of Department of the Army Executive Order 139-22 dated May 2022, which began to slate Regular Army lieutenant colonels to command Army Reserve battalions. Because all career-related actions are voluntary in the Army Reserve, command shortages have steadily increased as a result of decades and decades of a requiring unpaid labor from the Army Reserve Officer Corps. (In a glimmer of hope, the Department of the Army has finally decided to investigate why people don’t volunteer for battalion command because, well, the lack of volunteers has spread to the company level, as well. I think someone finally realized that calling your Soldiers “lazy” was not going to fix this systemic organizational problem.)
Answers
I have none. Yet.
But I will be praying to receive them!
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