The Reserve Round-Up 🗞️ August 11 Edition
This week's Reserve Round-Up! From key updates to standout stories across the Army Reserve, we’ve got your weekly intel, all in one spot.
Raven Focus increases warfighting readiness for Total Army
“We are here in support of Raven Focus which is a brigade annual training exercise for the 81st Stryker Brigade, based in Seattle, Washington,” said Lt. Col. Nathan Davis, Commander, 1-357th Brigade Support Battalion, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. “For the National Guard and the Army Reserve, their biggest challenge is access to equipment and the time to train. You cannot replicate the size and scope of the training they can do at the Yakima Training Center during a weekend battle assembly.” Read more
Deploying an expeditionary sustainment command
An expeditionary sustainment command (ESC) performs sustainment operations for field armies and corps. It encompasses 74 military occupational specialties (MOSs) and 40 sections and branches. Preparing such a complex and multifaceted unit for deployment demands a careful strategy that optimizes time, resources, and personnel. This article presents a systematic approach to achieving this objective. Read more
The Army Reserve's Expeditionary Port Opening Capability
Large-scale combat operations (LSCO) differ from counterinsurgency (COIN) in several key ways, one of which is the contested nature of logistics from the homeland to the front line of combat. Commanders can no longer gradually build and deploy materiel with contracted solutions, which has become the norm under COIN. Moreover, a conflict with China would involve vast distances across the Pacific and a much more watery environment than the Army has faced since World War II. At that time, the Army fielded over 600 ships in the Pacific to build the iron mountain of logistics support, a task that the Navy and Marine Corps have not done since then. Read more
Family ties: Siblings strengthen readiness, relationships during African Lion 2025
For many service members, participating in an international military exercise can feel like joining a larger, multinational family. For U.S. Army Maj. Carolyn Vandeventer and her younger brother, U.S. Army Master Sgt. Stuart Vandevick, that sentiment is literal.The siblings were both deployed to Senegal in support of African Lion 2025 (AL25), U.S. Africa Command’s largest annual combined joint exercise. Vandeventer, a logistics officer assigned to the 79th Theater Sustainment Command (Forward), U.S. Army Reserve, based in Vicenza, Italy, and Vandevick, a key member of the exercise’s mayor cell assigned to the 561st Regional Support Group in Elkhorn, Nebraska, are sharing a rare opportunity to serve together while supporting multinational training at Centre d’Entraînement Tactique 2 (CET2) in Dodji. Read more