Army Reserve seeks to toughen up training for part-time soldiers.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: Transforming Training

As reservists encounter tough fighting in Iraq, the Army is revamping training programs to better prepare these troops for combat, according to Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly.

Helmly serves both as head of the Army Reserve Command, headquartered at Fort McPherson, Ga., and as principal advisor to the Army chief of staff on reserve matters.

The planned reorganization, he said, is geared not only to producing more proficient warriors but also to lend a greater degree of stability in the unit rotation process.

Traditionally, the primary role of the reserve's 205,000 members is to support the Army's combat units, Helmly told a recent gathering of defense writers. If the Army needs additional combat soldiers, it usually gets them from the National Guard.

Reservists have been used to serving well behind the battle lines, Helmly explained. They were not trained for the kinds of assignments they have found in Iraq, where there are no front lines, but plenty of ambushes, roadside bombs and kidnappings.

"This is a hard war, and frankly, we inside the Army Reserve have not been properly prepared for it," Helmly conceded.

The Army Reserve resembles, in some ways, the National Guard, noted Col. William Hamilton, the reserve's deputy chief of staff for training. The difference is that Guard units are commanded ordinarily by state governors, while the reserve is a completely federal force, Hamilton told National Defense.

Like guardsmen, however, most reservists traditionally have expected to spend most of their enlistments performing non-combat duties near home, Helmly said. Their training has reinforced that expectation.

As active-duty soldiers, reservists receive their initial training during the Army's standard nine-week boot camp, where they learn the basics of military life, such as marching, introduction to weapons and physical fitness. They then go on to advanced individual training where they learn one of the 120 job skills available to reservists.

Once they are assigned to their units, reservists are required to attend one weekend of drills each month and two weeks of training each year. Traditionally, they have spent that time mostly on administrative matters and polishing military job skills, not combat techniques.

That began to change when Helmly took command of the Army Reserve in 2002 in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. As a veteran of nearly four decades of military service, including two tours in Vietnam with the 101st...