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Army SFAB enterprise changes leaders as it begins sending smaller teams out globally
The Army’s security force assistance brigades are preparing for more global missions in the coming months, the outgoing commander of the SFAB enterprise, and his successor, said in interviews last week.
Some new missions will dispatch SFAB advisers to more austere and far-flung locations where the U.S. military footprint is less developed. That presents opportunities to work with new foreign militaries, but it can also complicate how advisers are protected and sustained.
A different glance from tradition, but experiencing R-Day is still same beast
Traditionally, when a new class of cadets arrives at West Point, more than 1,200 individuals come through the gates on a Monday during Reception Day and begin the process of their 47-month journey. This year, as seen a month ago with the graduation of the U.S. Military Academy Class of 2020, traditions have taken a backseat to a new practice due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic running rampant through the United States.
Consequently, as the initial 1,238 new cadets’ streamed into the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School to begin their in-processing as the USMA Class of 2024, it also included R-Day being stretched out over three days instead of one. More than 400 new cadets arrived each day Sunday through Tuesday (July 12-14) with the Oath Ceremony taking place on The Plain Wednesday (July 15).
Generally, new cadets would arrive at Eisenhower Hall, however, USMAPS was used this year as an initial entry point. This allowed for screening each new cadet for COVID-19 and also kept a buffer zone from Central Area, the new cadets’ living area, to make sure they were COVID-19 negative before they began receiving their initial equipment issue, getting sized for their uniforms, receiving haircuts and assimilating into their Cadet Basic Training company under the cadet cadre’s guidance.
After spiking through June and July, military COVID-19 cases level off
The last week in July showed a sizeable slowdown in the increase of coronavirus cases among service members, from a peak of more than 4,000 cases in one week earlier in the month.
With a total of 27,536 infections as of Friday morning, Defense Department officials have attributed the rapid rise in cases to increased testing and community transmission in states like California, Arizona, Texas and Florida, which set records for new numbers of cases throughout the month.
“We’ve not seen any widespread evidence that what’s occurring in the 18-to-24 demographic is because they’re not following the rules,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Paul Friedrichs, the Joint Staff surgeon said Thursday, announcing that young people in the military were showing a slightly higher infection rate than American young adults.
Army ready to begin broad review at Fort Hood in wake of Guillen murder
The Army has named the five members of the independent panel that will soon review the command climate and culture at Fort Hood, Texas, in the wake of Spc. Vanessa Guillen’s murder and her family’s claims that she was too intimidated to report allegations of sexual harassment by a fellow soldier.
The five civilians named to the panel are: Chris Swecker, an attorney and former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; Jonathan Harmon, a prominent trial attorney; Carrie Ricci, an associate general counsel at the Department of Agriculture; Queta Rodriguez, a regional director of a nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition into civilian careers, and Jack White, an attorney who has expertise in government investigations.