Army Chief: Just 2 Brigades Combat-Ready
Photo Credit: REUTERSArmy Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno revealed this week that just two Army brigades are combat-ready, with budget cuts hampering the military’s ability to train its own troops.
The startling comments were made Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army conference. Odierno and Army Secretary John McHugh both addressed the fallout from the budget cuts, as well as the recent partial government shutdown, and appealed to lawmakers to restore some stability to military funding.
“Functioning like this is just dysfunctional,” Odierno said.
He said that after the sequester kicked in, “we had to stop training basically” in the last six months of the year. He said the recently passed stopgap funding bill has further reduced the Army’s ability to train, and warned that the recurring budget battles in Washington could have serious consequences for America’s fighting force.
“So the worst-case scenario is you ask me deploy thousands of soldiers somewhere, and we have not properly trained them to go, because we simply don’t have the dollars and money,” he said.
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