It is reported that the greatest fear of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno is combat readiness.
This is of great concern when he says that there are only two combat-ready brigades right now.
Does it take away his faith that we don’t have the greatest fighting force? Probably not.
So what is the cause and what can be done?
Money! That is what he says the military needs.
They have been faced with continued budget cuts over the last few years, and future defense spending doesn’t look all too good either. (It takes too long to get funding!)
Our military continues to work with dated equipment. Is it proven? Yes. Does that mean that it is fully mission capable? Not entirely.
With aging equipment we see more failures. Something our troops don’t need!
Here’s what Odierno says they need:
“We need to make sure our soldiers have the best equipment possible,” Odierno said. “We need to make sure our individual soldiers have protective equipment, they have the right sights, they have the right weapons. … We need something to replace the Humvee, we need to replace the Bradley. We need to invest in our aviation systems — our UH-60s, our Apaches, our CH-47s. We need to make sure that in the complex environments we are going to operate in that we have a network that enables us to pass information very quickly down to the lowest element. We need all of it. The bottom line is we can’t afford all of it. So we’re going to have to make some tough decisions.” – via The Blaze