RESERVE COMPONENT

Reserve Component Linguist Unit Concept

The U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca (USAIC&FH) recently published the first doctrinal justification and guidance for the use of the Reserve Component (RC) military intelligence (MI) linguist. The MI Relook established the requirement for this structure and determined that the outdated existing RC MI structure and strategy was not capable of supporting post-Cold War requirements.
There is a consensus that RC MI units supporting the Active Component (AC) theater and corps will be unnecessary as a replicate battalion or company structure but needed rather as augmentation elements, accessible to the team level via derivative unit identification code (UIC). Furthermore, recent history indicates that a smaller continental United States (CONUS)-based Army has a need for qualified linguists to support its power projection strategies, maintaining a full range of capabilities during a 24-hour operation. Resource and staffing constraints prevent the AC from fully answering this requirement from within its own force structure.

Mission and Structure

The mission of the RC linguist units will be to provide accessible language-qualified augmentation teams to the AC commanders. The deployable linguist teams, in a single language and military occupational specialty (MOS) configuration, will align with an identified AC corps- or theater-level unit which has responsibility for the area of operations in which the linguist team will function. This relationship is part of the RC MI Force Design Update.
Structurally, the organization of the deployable five-soldier linguist teams maximizes both peacetime training and cohesion and wartime mission accomplishment. The MI RC linguist force is fielding five separate team types:
The basic deployable unit is a five-soldier team. A headquarters element should accompany the deployed linguist unit to provide command and control, liaison to the supported unit, and quality control. Our experience in Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM strongly suggests that linguist teams need a headquarters element to centrally manage them rather than each team working independently under direct and permanent control of the supported unit. Central management ensures proper use, a higher availability rate, and a quicker turn-around to the force as a whole. The size of the linguist support headquarters varies directly with the number of linguist teams deployed. Figure 1 displays the recommended ratio of deployed teams to headquarters element.

CALL FORWARD 1996

Fort Huachuca, Arizona, will be the site for a major mobilization exercise, CALL FORWARD 1996, scheduled for June 1996. Exercise CALL FORWARD 1996 will test the RC and the installation's readiness to support a mobilization. For the exercise, nearly 1000 U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) and Army National Guard (ARNG) soldiers will report to Fort Huachuca over a two-week period. Most of the participants will be members of RC units from the Southwest Region. Another 100 will be MI Inactive Ready Reserve (IRR) soldiers called up for predeployment refresher training.
The 6th Reserve Forces School-Intelligence (RFS-I) will support the USAIC&FH refresher training during Exercise CALL FORWARD 1996. Five RFS-Is are affiliated with the USAIC&FH through WARTRACE. During Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM, the RFS-Is mobilized, in part, to support the MI proponent.

New ARNG Advisor

Major Steve Ponder replaced Lieutenant Colonel David Miner as the ARNG advisor to the USAIC&FH. Lieutenant Colonel Miner is retiring after more than 26 years of distinguished service in both the AC Army and ARNG. He has served as the ARNG's representative to the Intelligence Center since August 1991. He worked the National Guard's portion of the RC MI Force Design Update. The Force Design Update assigns an additional fifteen MI companies and seven MI cadre battalions to the ARNG structure. He was also largely responsible for developing the RC MI Linguist Unit Concept. His replacement, Major Steve Ponder comes to us from the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after having served with ARNG's 35th Infantry Division.

Point of contact: Colonel John Craig, Chief of Reserve Forces Office, USAIC&FH, at DSN 821-1176, commercial (520) 533-1176,or E-mail craigj%hua1@ huachuca-emh11.army.mil.