WASHINGTON — Members of a congressionally mandated commission on the future of the US Army will include a former commander of US forces in Korea, a former top enlisted official and a former Pentagon comptroller.
The commission was mandated by the fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) following a public dust-up between the Army National Guard and active component over the active Army's aviation restructure initiative.
The panel is to study the structure of the Army to determine the necessary size; force mixture of the active component and reserve component; missions; and force generation policies, including assumptions behind those policies; and how the structure should be modified to fit mission requirements and available resources.
On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, selected retired Gen. James Thurman. SASC ranking member Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., hode Island, selected recently retired Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond Chandler; Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., ington State and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, selected former DoD Comptroller Robert Hale.
Thurman served as the commander of the United Nations Command for the Republic of Korea, US Combined Forces Command and US Forces Korea from July 2011 until October 2013. He had served as commander of Army Forces Command, and the Army's deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and policy, as well as land component commander in Iraq.
Chandler served as the Army's top enlisted soldier from March 2011 until his retirement in January.
Hale, currently Booz Allen Hamilton's public policy representative, was comptroller and chief financial officer from 2009 to 2014. He had served as assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and the House Armed Services Committee chairman, had not yet announced his selectionselected retired Army Gen. Carter Ham. Ham was most recently Commander of U.S. Africa Command.
President Obama also announced his intent to appoint the following people:
Gen. Larry Ellis, president and CEO of VetConnexx. He served in a number of command and leadership positions in the United States, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, South Korea and Vietnam. Ellis commanded Army Forces Command from 2001 to 2004.
Kathleen Hicks, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former director for policy planning at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
Thomas R. Lamont, former assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs from 2009 to 2013, served as an attorney in private practice and as state staff judge advocate general for the Illinois National Guard.
Reserve Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, a member of the board of the VSE Corp., and chief of the US Army Reserve and Commanding General of the United States Army Reserve Command from 2006 to 2012.
E-mail: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe
Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.
