Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, commander of Marine Forces Reserve, doesn't intend to let the close of a ground war lead to the atrophy of the reservists in his charge.
With combat in Afghanistan all but ended, MARFORRES finds itself at its lowest operational tempo in 13 years. From a peak of more than 21,000 Marine active reservists at the start of the Iraq war in 2003, now just about 500 reservists are active for training and operations worldwide.
Mills, who spoke with Marine Corps Times Sept. 11, said the Reserve its on its way to cutting about 1,000 troops, in keeping with force restructuring needs. With a total of about 38,600 expected to stay steady over the next few years, Mills said his priority was getting the most out of a strapped budget to maintain readiness and keep the Reserve engaged. To that end, he said, the coming years will likely see Reserve units participating in infantry rotational deployments to Japan, continuing global theater security cooperation and training missions, and possibly even helping to populate a new crisis response force in U.S. Southern Command.
Dwell time and missions
Reserve units deploy for training or operations about once every five years, said Mills. That tempo is the standard he wants to maintain, even if missions shrink across the Marine Corps.
"What we don't want to happen is, the Reserve goes through an extensive training package, gets to the end of it, and you start all over again," he said. "I think that's a demotivator. To keep our Marines sharp, to keep them motivated, there has to be a point to what they're doing."
Mills said he expected the Reserve to play a role in a new 200-man SP-MAGTF in U.S. Southern Command focused on humanitarian missions when it stands up as early as next year. As opposed to the soon-to-be activated Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Cent in the Middle East, which will be manned year-round, SOUTHCOM's unit will only be active during hurricane season, roughly 6 to 8 months.
"It's a natural fit for us; it would be smaller," Mills said. "It's one that we could rotate forces into so that we wouldn't have to mobilize folks for a whole year — we could kind of feed forces in on a rotational basis. So I think we're kind of keeping our eye on that."
What the Reserve likely won't see, Mills said, is a move to completely regionalized mission sets. In keeping with the new EF-21 concept, Marines with 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina will likely support U.S. European and Africa commands while Marines with 1st MEB out of Camp Pendleton, California, will support the Middle East.
"We're better served to be kind of generalists; we're better served to be ready to go wherever the commandant wants to send us," Mills said. "So I don't see us being specialists the way the East Coast and West Coast Marines might be."
Training innovations
To stay ready for varying missions amid a budget crunch, Mills said he and his staff were working on new strategies and protocols to trim the fat and get the most out of weekend and summer drilling periods.
The Reserve has historically relied on contractors to provide upkeep for vehicles and equipment, rather than burn up a Marine's two days of drilling time. While Mills said the Reserve has been fortunate, it's not clear that its contracting needs will continue to receive full funding.
"I'm working hard with the Reserve units to ensure we figure out what maintenance is absolutely critical to us, what do we have to supply through contracted maintenance, and how do we best apply that to ensure that the majority of our force is ready to go," he said.
In the interest of keeping Reserve Marines ready to deploy, Mills said he has sent requests up to Marine Corps Headquarters and Combat Development and Integration asking for exceptions to certain Corps-wide training requirements. He's asking, among other things, that officials look at removing the annual swim qualification requirement, permission to complete annual weapons qualification at non-Defense Department certified ranges, and that reservists get exceptions from mandatory seminars on topics like tobacco cessation and alcohol abuse.
Of equal importance, he said, he's asking officials to consider exceptions for reservists when devising future training requirements.
"The best intention is giving the commander on the ground more white space in his training schedule so he can focus on those mission sets he needs to win when he goes to fight," Mills said.
