2005 -- A Look Back

ARNEWS ^ | Dec 30, 2005 | 2005 -- A Look Back

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, December 30, 2005) – As is usual at this time of year, most news organizations take a look back at what made news in the year just ended.

The Army News Service is no different. So what made news for the Army in 2005? You could almost sum it up in three words: war, hurricanes and elections. Almost.

January

The Army started 2005 just as it ends 2005 – as an Army at war. Soldiers were fighting for freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan throughout the year.

It wasn’t just Iraqi insurgents and Taliban remnants that Army men and women battled. The after-effects of the ravages of Nature also kept the Army busy in 2005. As the year began, U.S. Army Soldiers joined their fellow American servicemen and women to help the people of south Asia following the devastating tsunami that struck that region the final week of 2004, killing more than a quarter of a million people.

Among the Army units deployed to assist were mortuary affairs teams, medical and logistics units, Forward Engineering Support Teams, civil affairs teams, and transportation and signal units.

With the nation at war, honoring the men and women of the armed forces was a major feature of the 55th Presidential Inauguration. Two days before he was inaugurated for a second term, President George W. Bush honored the military at a "Saluting Those Who Serve" event held in the MCI Center in Washington, D.C., Jan. 18. Fourteen thousand guests attended the event, including 7,000 military service members, wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, families of fallen soldiers and Medal of Honor recipients.

The U.S. Army Field Band led the first division of the Inaugural Parade Jan. 20, directly following the presidential escort. Other Army units in the parade included elements from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, “the Old Guard,” cadets from the U.S. Military Academy, the Army Reserve’s 5115th Garrison Support Unit from Fort Meade, Md., the U.S. Army Band, “Pershing’s Own,” which led the presidential escort; a 1st Cavalry Division detachment from Fort Hood, Texas; the Commanding General’s Mounted Color Guard from Fort Riley, Kan.; and a number or ROTC detachments, including marching units from Texas A&M, the Citadel and Virginia Military Institute.

Following the parade, many Soldiers who attended one of the 10 sanctioned inaugural balls that evening, including about 2,000 service members who attended the Commander-in-Chief’s Ball designed specifically for junior-grade officers and enlisted veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq theaters of operation.

January came to an end with the successful election in Iraq in which voters elected a national assembly to write the new Iraqi constitution and council members to represent each of the 18 provinces in Iraq. Despite threats from the insurgents and some attacks on polling places, millions of Iraqis cast their votes, a tribute to their courage and desire to move toward freedom as well as a tribute to the vigilance and determination of U.S. and Coalition Soldiers and Iraqi security forces to provide a secure voting environment.

February

In February, the Army released new Strategic Planning Guidance for 2005 that includes three new focus areas: homeland defense, irregular challenges, and stability operations. The Army Strategic Planning Guidance had been approved by Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey Jan 15. The 2005 ASPG can be found online at www.army.mil/references/.

Also in February, the Army Safety Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., was recast as the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center, by order of the Secretary of the Army. Harvey directed the change to advance the principles, understanding, and practice of Composite Risk Management. Combat Risk Management will focus on sustaining readiness and managing all risks – those posed by the enemy, the environment, materiel and systems, and human error – logically shifting from accident-centric to Soldier-centric.

More than 110 years after the 1894 court-martial of Chaplain Capt. Henry Vinton Plummer, the Army redressed a wrong and issued an honorable discharge Plummer, the first African-American chaplain in the Regular Army. In July, the Army presented an honorable discharge to Plummer’s family and dedicated a new memorial marker to him.

Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, commanding general of XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, N.C., took command of Multi-National Corps-Iraq Feb. 10 in a transfer of authority ceremony at Camp Victory’s Al-Faw Palace near Baghdad. Outgoing MNC-I Commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz and his III Corps troops redeployed to Fort Hood, Texas.

Spc. Jeremy Church of the 724th Transportation Company became the first Army Reserve Soldier in the Global War on Terrorism to receive a Silver Star. He was presented the Army’s third-highest medal for valor during a Feb. 27 homecoming ceremony at Fort McCoy, Wis.

March

The new Soldiers Online ( www.army.mil/soldiers) made its debut March 8. Gil High, editor-in-chief for Soldiers Magazine, said the on-line version will augment the popular print version of the magazine.

“It will be the one-stop source for Soldiers information – news, features, what they need to do for their career, their family and anything else they need to know,” High said.

He said the online Soldiers can be accessed through Army Knowledge Online as well as through most Army-related Web sites. He said the on-line Soldiers will be different from the print publication, although the print version and its archives will be available on line.

The Army Reserve created a new program to help reintroduce Army Reserve Soldiers returning from military operations to civilian life: The Welcome Home Warrior-Citizen Program. Army Reserve Soldiers are given an incased, folded, American flag to honor their service while supporting military operations such as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The 1st Infantry Division Detachment Rear Operation Center, an Army Reserve unit located in Bamberg, was the first Army Reserve unit in Europe to receive this prestigious award.

April

President George W. Bush honored Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith by presenting his family the Medal of Honor on April 4, the second anniversary of Smith’s his courageous actions during the Battle of Baghdad Airport.

The president presented the Medal of Honor to David Smith, Smith’s 11-year-old son, in the East Room of the White House. Smith was killed April 4, 2003, as he manned the .50-caliber machine gun on top of an armored personnel carrier in order to defend a courtyard while his men from the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, withdrew and evacuated wounded. Later in the action, he died after being struck by enemy fire.

The president quoted a letter Smith wrote to his parents, but never mailed, saying he was willing to “give all that I am” so that his men would return home.

The next day, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld joined the Smith family in placing Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes.

May

In a Pentagon ceremony May 2, the Army kicked off its Freedom Team Salute campaign designed to recognize those who support Soldiers’ service and veterans who have served the country in the past. The first person to receive the honor was David Rodriguez, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War who currently serves as the commander of the American GI Forum, an organization for Hispanic veterans of the Army.

The Freedom Team Salute package includes an “Army of One” lapel pin, an official Army decal, a letter of appreciation signed by the Army chief of staff and the secretary of the Army, and a letter of thanks signed by the chief of staff and the secretary.

“Our Soldiers could not answer their noble calling of defending the values that have made our country great – this call to duty – without the support of those from whom they draw so much strength; spouses, parents, relatives, teachers friends and employers,” said Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey said.

Major Army installations slated for closure by the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure recommendations announced in May were: Fort Monroe, Va.; Fort McPherson, Ga.; Fort Gillem, Ga.; Fort Monmouth, N.J.; Newport Chemical Depot, Ind.; Kansas Army Ammunition Plant, Kan.; Selfridge Army Activity, Mich.; Mississippi Army Ammunition Plant; Hawthorne Army Depot, Nev.; Umatilla Chemical Depot, Ore.; Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant, Texas; Red River Army Depot, Texas; Deseret Chemical Depot, Utah; Riverbank Army Ammunition Plant, Calif.; and Charles E. Kelly Support Center, Pa.

In addition to closing these installations, the commission recommended closing 176 Army Reserve and 211 Army National Guard facilities. These will be replaced by 125 multi-component Armed Forces Reserve Centers.

On May 24, Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz stepped down as the 17th director of the Army National Guard. He had been in the position since June 1998, making him the Army National Guard’s longest serving director. Maj. Gen. Walter Pudlowski Jr. became the acting director until June 20, when Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, a veteran of more than 30 years of military service, assumed the duties as the 18th director of the Army Guard.

At that same ceremony, Command Sgt. Maj. John Gipe officially stepped into the job as the eighth command sergeant major of the Army Guard. Gipe, formerly the state command sergeant major for Kentucky, succeeded Command Sgt. Maj. A. Frank Lever III from South Carolina who has held the Army Guard’s top enlisted post since January 2001.

June

The Army marked its 230th birthday on June 14 with celebrations and commemoration activities worldwide. The weeklong birthday culminated with the Army Birthday Ball in Washington, DC, attended by Vice President Richard Cheney.

“I’m a great admirer of the United States Army,” Cheney said.

He went on to say that the United States came very close to losing its dream of being an independent country in the dark days of 1776. The Army was on its last legs when Gen. George Washington made a final appeal to what was left of it in December of that year. Somehow those Soldiers found the strength to go on and followed Washington through the ice and snow to victory at Trenton.

“From that day to this,” Cheney said, “our country has always been able to count on the Army to answer the call to duty.”

He spoke of the tough fighting that had been waged by the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We’ve lost some of our finest,” he said. “Their sacrifices have made this nation safer.”

He spoke of one of the Army’s great heroes in this war, Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, and how his courage in April 2003 saved so many of his fellow Soldiers, even though it cost him his own life. For that courage, President George Bush, on behalf of a grateful nation, presented a posthumous Medal of Honor to Smith’s wife, daughter and son on April 4, 2005.

“For as long as citizens step forward to serve in uniform, they’ll remember this man and his courage,” the vice president said.

It speaks well of this Army, Cheney said, that today’s men and women – their dedication, their valor, their commitment – would be so readily recognized by Marshall, Patton and Washington.

“We are ... grateful that the greatest nation on earth is defended by the greatest volunteers on earth. Thank you all for your service ... and happy birthday," Cheney said as he concluded his remarks.

Also on June 14, the Army released a new Field Manual-1 today, providing an updated overview of the Army, its organization and employment. The previous FM-1 had been released in June 2001, just four months before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“Sept. 11, 2001 changed forever the world in which we live,” said Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Army chief of staff. “The change in the strategic environment has forced us to review how we do business – to better counter those evolving threats.”

The new FM-1 reflects the “depth and urgency” of the Army’s involvement in the War on Terrorism, according to Schoomaker.

“FM-1 emphasizes transformation, the warrior ethos, a culture of innovation, and joint interdependence, rather than just joint interoperability,” Schoomaker said. “In short, it contains a true operational concept about how the Army will operate across a spectrum of conflict both at home and abroad.”

FM-1 establishes the fundamental principles of employing land power and the Army’s operational concept, including Army forces in unified action. The field manual begins with a history of the Army, explains how it is changing and where it is headed.

At a June 29 Pentagon ceremony, the Army chief of staff awarded the Army’s new Combat Action Badge for the first time to five Soldiers who engaged in combat with the enemy.

The CAB, approved by Schoomaker in May, was created by the Army's leadership to recognize all Soldiers in combat. Soldiers engaged in the War on Terrorism since Sept. 18, 2001, are retroactively eligible to receive the award.

“Today is an historical day for the Army. These Soldiers, who represent our total Army, know what being a Soldier and a warrior stands for,” Schoomaker said. “The Soldiers standing here have earned the right to be American – they have walked the walk, they stand for nobility and they represent the Warrior Ethos.”

Schoomaker and Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston presented Combat Action Badges to Sgt. Michael Buyas, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division; Sgt. Manuel J. Montano, 21st Military Police Company; Sgt. Sean Steans, 377th Transportation Company, 3rd COSCOM; Army Reserve Sgt. April Pashley, 404th Civil Affairs Battalion; and Army National Guard Sgt. Timothy Gustafson, 1st Battalion, 278th Regimental Combat Team.

July

Retired Gen. William Childs Westmoreland, former Army chief of staff and commanding general of U.S. forces in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, died July 18 at a nursing home in Charleston, S.C. He was 91.

As part of its largest restructuring since World War II, the Army announced its plan July 27 for stationing its active component modular Brigade Combat Teams.

The plan announced at a Pentagon press briefing conducted by Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army Raymond F. DuBois and Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody, includes new organizations being formed and other units being returned from overseas locations. The return of the overseas units adds up to 50,000 Soldiers and 150,000 family members being brought back to bases in the United States.

In the end state, the number of active modular BCTs will increase from 33 to 43, enhancing the active Army’s combat power by 30 percent.

Cody said the Army’s modular force initiative and stationing plan will better posture the Army to meet its strategic commitments, to include ongoing global combat operations, while allowing it to continue transforming to meet the future demands of combatant commanders.

The Army modular force initiative involves the total redesign of the operational Army into a larger, more powerful, more flexible and more rapidly deployable force. It moves away from a division-centric structure to one built around the Army’s new modular combat team.

Additionally, modularity -- in combination with rebalancing the type of units -- will significantly reduce the stress on the force because of a more predictable rotational cycle, coupled with much longer dwell times at home station.

More information on the BCT stationing plan and a printer friendly map is at www.army.mil/modularforces/.

August

On Aug. 8, the Army chief of staff directed that Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes be relieved Aug. 8 from his position as commander of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, based on an investigation into Byrnes’ personal conduct. Byrnes was replaced by the deputy commander of TRADOC, Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones, who served as acting commander until Gen. William Wallace took command in October.

The movie, “The Great Raid,” opened in theaters nationally Aug. 12. The movie depicted the successful 1945 raid by the U.S. Army’s 6th Ranger Battalion to rescue Americans held at the Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan in the Philippines

The next day, Aug. 13, surviving Canadian infantrymen of the First Special Service Force were presented with the U.S. Army’s Combat Infantryman Badge at the First Special Service Force’s 59th annual reunion in Calgary, Canada. The First Special Service Force, an elite World War II unit composed of U.S. and Canadian Army Soldiers, is better known by its nickname, “the Devil’s Brigade.”

September

Hurricane Katrina hit and devastated the Gulf Coast at the end of August. The scenes of a totally-flooded New Orleans will be one of the haunting images of 2005. In September, tens of thousands of active Army and Army National Guard troops deployed to the region to assist the hundreds of thousands of American citizens affected by this tremendous tragedy.

While the fate of our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast was on the minds of all Americans, so, too, did many Americans stop on Sept. 16 during National POW/MIA Recognition Day to remember other Americans held captive or who are still listed as missing.

This year’s observance had a special poignancy for the Army because one of our own Army family is a current captive -- Sgt. Keith “Matt” Maupin of the U.S. Army Reserve’s 724th Transportation Company from Bartonville, Ill. Maupin was captured on April 9, 2004, when his convoy, en route from Balad to Baghdad International Airport, was ambushed in one of the most massive such attacks of the Iraq war. In the ensuing action, the 43 Soldiers in the convoy killed or wounded some 200 insurgents. Two of their fellow Soldiers, Sgt. Elmer C. Krause and Spc. Gregory Goodrich, were killed, as were six civilians. One civilian contract employee, Thomas Hamill, was captured but escaped 24 days later. One Soldier, then-Spc. Maupin, was captured. He remains a captive to this day.

On Sept. 14, Cpl. Tibor Rubin was presented the Medal of Honor in recognition of his actions in Korea from 1950 to 1953. President George W. Bush draped the Medal of Honor around the 76-year-old’s neck in a White House ceremony.

Three weeks after the Gulf Coast was pummeled by Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita hit and again the Army National Guard responded to help their fellow citizens in need.

On Sept. 18, millions of Afghans went to the polls to vote in the country’s historic first parliamentary elections. As with the successful Afghan presidential election in Oct. 2004, these elections took place in large measure due to the combined efforts of the Afghan, U.S. and Coalition security forces as well as the determination of the Afghan people not to be deterred from voting by the terrorists.

October

The NCO and Soldier of the Year winners were announced Oct. 3 during an awards luncheon at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting. Sgt. Jeremy S. Kamphuis from the 127th Military Police Company in Hanau, Germany, and who spent a year with the unit as a team leader in Baghdad was named the Army’s NCO of the Year. Sgt. Chad H. Steuck, from the 10th Mountain Division’s new 4th Brigade at Fort Polk, La., and who received his stripe in September, was named the Soldier of the Year.

Also at the AUSA Annual meeting, the secretary of the Army delivered a state of the Army address. He described how the Army is extremely busy during the fourth year of the war on terror.

"Soldiers from every corner of this country are serving 'we the people,'" he said. "Because of that service, the Army will remain the pre-eminent land force in the world."

Harvey went on to mention how Soldiers are not only fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, but are helping to institute democracy and free elections in both nations.

"For 230 years our nation has thrived because citizens have always answered the call to duty," Harvey said before reciting some of the calls to duty citizens have answered since the Revolution: the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Harvey also lauded the first responders to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the families who support Soldiers. Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith's selfless actions in Iraq that earned him a posthumous Medal of Honor were also cited by the secretary as an example of someone who answered the call to duty.

The month of October also found U.S. forces assisting with rescue, recovery and relief operations in Pakistan following an earthquake that killed between 20,000 and 30,000.

Five CH-47 Chinook and three UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters with U.S. Soldiers and supplies from Afghanistan arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, Oct. 10 to assist with recovery operations in the wake of Saturday’s devastating earthquake. The helicopter crews were from the 3rd Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment and 2nd Battalion, 6th Cavalry Regiment at Bagram Airfield and Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan.

Other units, such as Co. B, 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment, an Army Reserve unit from Olathe, Kan., later deployed to assist the Pakistanis. The 14 Chinooks of Co. B were invaluable in ferrying supplies into mountain villages and evacuating residents who are unable to withstand the austere conditions.

November

November marked the 200th anniversary of a key event in the history of both the nation and the Army — the arrival at the Pacific Ocean of the famed Corps of Discovery. On Nov. 7, 1805, Capt. William Clark’s hastily scrawled journal entry — “Ocean in view! Oh! The joy!” — highlighted the elation felt by all members of the expedition he and Capt. Meriwether Lewis had been leading across North America for more than two years.

On Nov. 6, a powerful F3 tornado ripped through the southern Indiana community of Evansville, killing 23 and injuring more than 200. The Soldiers of the Army Reserve’s 380th Quartermaster Company in Evansville quickly turned their reserve center into a Red Cross shelter. At the Eastbrook Mobile Home Park, where 18 were killed, the company used their 10 ton and 6 ton fork trucks to lift debris so search and rescue workers could look for possible survivors. The 380th also brought pumps and manpower to the location to further assist search and recovery efforts.

The Army announced in November that it was changing the name of the Disabled Soldier Support System, or DS3 – a program that assists severely wounded Soldiers – to the U.S. Army Wounded Warrior Program.

"The name change of this program is indicative of the Warrior spirit that today’s Soldiers so proudly display,” said the Army Chief of Staff. “Medical technology has advanced to the point where Soldiers injured today on the battlefield are much more likely to survive than those injured in previous wars. Soldiers enrolled in the U.S. Army Wounded Warrior Program are also more often able to continue service to their nation in the Army."

Just in time for Veterans Day, the Army launched a new Army Outreach Web site this week designed to help it better connect with the public -– and vice versa. The new Web site ( www.army.mil/outreach) is the latest tool to help achieve Army Outreach’s overall goals of building and sustaining relationships of trust between Soldiers and Americans, said Col. Garrie Dornan, director of the Army Outreach Division, a part of Public Affairs.

He said the site connects Soldiers with the American public to continue telling the Soldier story.

“The American public understands we are a nation at war,” Dornan said, “and that the linchpin to our success is the American Soldier. By placing emphasis on each Soldier’s individual story, citizens across the country have embraced the American Soldier in a show of support not matched since World War II.”

December

Millions of Iraqi citizens flocked to the polls Dec. 15 to vote under the new Iraqi Constitution, giving birth to a Middle East democracy.

Gen. George W. Casey, Multi National Force-Iraq commanding general, said Iraq's transition into democracy "has not come about by accident or coincidence, but by shear will power and the determination of the Iraqi people.”

There was a considerable amount of behind-the scenes will power and determination by the Soldiers of the U.S. Army, along with their fellow American servicemen and women and Coalition partners that enabled this remarkable event to take place.

This then was a brief run-down of some of the events of note for the Army in 2005. As every year is, it was a time of tragedy and triumph, of hardships and achievements, of courage and sorrow. What will happen in 2006 is not in our power to foresee but one thing you can count on is that the men and women of the U.S. Army will meet that unknown future with the same Soldier values and warrior ethos that they met every challenge in 2005.

(Note: This article was derived from Army News Service articles published in 2005 and only scratches the surface of what the Army and Army Soldiers accomplished in 2005. If you want to read more, go to http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/news/.)