Army called it CAS3). Though it was begun as a pilot in 1983, the school wasn't fully operational until it moved into a new, specially designed classroom building built in the fall of 1986. CAS3 was to be attended by all Army captains sometime during their sixth to tenth year of service. Seminar groups of twelve to fifteen students from all disciplines in the Army were led through an intense nine-week course by an ex-battalion commander. There they learned how to solve tactical problems and how to manage a variety of tactical communications, including writing orders. CAS3 immediately produced results in significantly improved staff skills for the student graduates (and for the faculty as well — many of whom went on to senior-level command).
As CAS3 was getting off the ground, it became apparent that a second-year course was needed at Fort Leavenworth for selected students to study the complexities of the operational level of war with much more intellectual rigor than had been possible in the Army's educational system before. This need turned into the School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). Begun in a small converted gymnasium, the school opened with twelve students in 1983-84, and expanded to its current level of fifty-two students by 1985-86. SAMS was, and is, a highly selective operation, with an intensive entrance examination, including interviews. It initially drew only Army student volunteers from the graduates of the one-year Command and General Staff College course, but eventually USAF and USMC students also came out of that course. The curriculum is as rigorous as any graduate-level program in the United States (SAMS is certified to grant master's degrees in military arts and sciences by the Middle States Accreditation Board), and its graduates have gone on to distinguish themselves as operational-level planners in every major U.S. contingency operation from the late 1980s until today. Some of these gained publicity in Desert Storm as the 'Jedi Knights,' who crafted the basic CENTCOM plan used to liberate Kuwait.
This explosion of energy at Fort Leavenworth transformed the Army's Command and General Staff College. Long a training ground for future commanders and staff officers, CAS3, SAMS, and pre-command courses made it truly a university for the tactical and operational level of land warfare.
The entire atmosphere was transformed: Officers from captain to lieutenant general now came to study at Leavenworth, while officers from almost 100 different countries attended the regular course. Authority to grant the MMAS injected a graduate-school rigor into the second-year program. Creation of a combat studies institute attracted civilian faculty with broad academic credentials in the history of military art. Army leadership now looked to Fort Leavenworth for studies of future scenarios, which were then taken to senior-level leader seminars. The Battle Command Training Program also brought division and corps commanders and their staffs to Fort Leavenworth, and a Center for Lessons Learned was created to capture valuable training and war insights. In time, Fort Leavenworth became the symbol of the intellectual heart and soul of the tactical field army. Guest speakers and other visitors enriched the quality of the intellectual environment. Leaders from Congress, media, academia, and militaries around the world came for discussions and exchanges. Just as Fort Leavenworth had once been a frontier to the future of the American West on the banks of the Missouri, so now had it become a frontier to the Army's future.
RUNNING HARD
By the middle 1980s, the Army had more than turned the corner. It was running hard. The Grenada invasion, for instance, though demonstrating some difficulties in joint operations, was a success for the Army, and it showed how far it had come from the doldrums of the 1970s. The Army had reason to feel good about itself, and could point to an operational success as proof.
Meanwhile, the Army came to realize it might have to face situations where armor/mechanized forces (what it calls 'heavy' forces) might not be as effective as 'lighter,' pure infantry forces. And so Army Secretary Jack Marsh and Army Chief John Wickham directed the creation of two light infantry divisions, to add to its sixteen current divisions. In order to do this without increasing the manpower authorizations of the active force, it turned again to the 'round-out' concept, where National Guard brigades were folded into active-duty divisions, to 'round' them out to full strength.
These divisions were to be truly 'light' — in the spirit of the 'light' troops who had stormed the redoubts at Yorktown in our Revolution. They would depend not so much on firepower as on stealth, infiltration, speed of movement through difficult terrain, tough physical conditioning, field craft, and relentless drills on the fundamentals of small-unit soldiering. It was in the latter where they excelled.
The Army also upgraded its special operating forces (SOF), expanding the Rangers to a regiment of three battalions. These would be the elite among elites — fit volunteers, trained to a razor's edge and beyond, to operate in small units behind the lines. As an elite force, they were given ample training budgets, stable personnel policies (less rotation in and out than normal units), their pick of volunteers, and leaders and commanders who were already experienced company commanders.
The Army's ambitious fielding of two light infantry divisions was a success. Schools for 'light fighters' were established. Bold commanders such as Major General Ed Burba in the 7th Division at Fort Ord, California, would seize on the light fighter concept and transform their new divisions to operational reality in short order. Because light infantry soldiers drilled and trained hard on fundamentals of fitness and basic infantry close-combat skill, it wasn't long before they became a world-class fighting force. Their proficiency and zeal for combat fundamentals soon infected the Army — an unexpected bonus that has lasted. Convinced that light fighters needed an NTC-like facility to train to realistic battlefield conditions, General Richardson successfully pushed hard for a Joint Readiness Training Center. The JRTC was opened in 1986 in temporary facilities at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. Later it was moved permanently to Fort Polk, Louisiana.
At Fort Hood, Texas, General Bob Shoemaker, then Lieutenant General Dick Cavazos after him, as III Corps Commander, formed training units to teach the Army how to employ the new Apache to attack deep and en masse. Resisting those who would parcel the Apaches out in small units throughout the tactical Army (reminiscent of the 'penny packaging' of tanks in the 1920s), they became strong advocates of aviation brigades to add a new maneuver and deep firepower dimension to the tactical Army.
At Fort Hood, in 1985, a young Lieutenant General Crosbie 'Butch' Saint assumed command of III Corps. Saint had previously commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry in Fulda, Germany, had been deputy commandant of the CGSC during the formulation of AirLand Battle, had recently commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany, and was soon to become well known in the Army as an advocate of mobile armored warfare. III Corps's new mission in Northern Army Group in NATO was to attack to restore the territorial integrity of Germany after an initial Warsaw Pact attack. In order to accomplish this mission, Saint set out to utilize the corps's significant additional combat power and to create what he called a 'mobile armored corps.' III Corps drilled and practiced attacks, made long unit moves and attacked from the march, worked on the logistics of refueling on the move, and even published a tactical handbook to supplement the existing doctrine and further lay out the tactics. By now, they had Apaches in the brigade organization and employed them deep and massed.
Saint's ideas influenced a generation. In 1990, as the commander of U.S. forces in Germany at the end of the Cold War, he put the whole of U.S. Army Europe on the same tactical training regimen he'd started with III Corps.
GOLDWATER-NICHOLS
Never has national security legislation brought such sweeping — and wise — changes to the U.S. military as the Goldwater-Nichols National Security Act of 1986. It transformed the relationship of the service departments to the Joint Staff; it promoted operational 'jointness' by legislating service for officers on joint assignments; and it streamlined the command authority from the President and Secretary of Defense to the Unified Commanders worldwide.
Goldwater-Nichols essentially removed the service departments from operational matters. Under the law, they still had their budget authorities, but now, under Title 10, their sole responsibility was to man, equip, and train forces, which would then be provided to the unified CINCs (commanders in chief) worldwide for employment in missions assigned by the President and the Secretary of Defense. The Joint Staff now no longer answered to the
