Comprehensive Soldier Fitness and Building Resilience for the Future Clockwise from right: Winter live-fire exercises on Fort Drum, N.Y., help build resilience in 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) soldiers; LTC(P) Daniel S. Morgan, commander, 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment (1-87 IN) (Task Force Summit) receives the Battalion Army Safety Streamer Award in recognition of junior leadership s enforcement of standards and discipline, as well as soldiers pride and resilience; Summit medics ensure soldiers retain their physical resilience in Afghanistan; unit leaders developed the Summit Resiliency Tool (SRT) to monitor soldiers wellbeing and continued to use it during deployment. The past 13 years of war boosted U.S. Army soldier end strength to meet demands for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, in order to meet this requirement in a short time period, many soldiers who were not necessarily best-suited for multiple long-term deployments in combat were admitted to the ranks. Regardless of an individual soldier s traits, however, leaders have the responsibility to develop soldiers potential and build competent, confident and cohesive teams to do battle in support of our nation. Photographs courtesy of the authors 50 ARMY January 2014
Talent Management: By LTC(P) Daniel S. Morgan and 1SG Vincent Simonetti Today, as our Army downsizes, leaders need to make difficult talent management decisions to retain the most resilient soldiers with the greatest potential for future service. At the same time, we have an obligation to care for those soldiers who must leave the Army despite the characterization of their service. The best management tool currently available for meeting this challenge is the Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) program. When applied thoughtfully, CSF2 allows leaders to manage talent for the future with an emphasis on sustaining the all-volunteer force. The need for consistent monitoring of soldiers well-being and resilience training is apparent in the combat arms community, particularly among soldiers and units repeatedly tasked with difficult and dangerous deployments over the past 13 years. The 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division (1-87 IN) is a prime example of a unit that developed an efficacious resilience program despite the challenges and demonstrated the possibilities for enhanced soldier performance through the implementation of meaningful assessment and training. The 1-87 IN deployed as the first forces into Afghanistan in 2001 and is one of January 2014 ARMY 51
The SRT allows the commander to export data and risk priorities by soldier into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The essential components of the SRT (screens clockwise from right) consist of the soldier s personal data; the inventory scores of the U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) Soldier Risk Tool; questions 1-87 IN leaders developed through consultation with behavioral health experts and University of Pennsylvania Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) program founders; and the commander s refined risk level of the soldier, including space for comments. the last units leaving the country. Some of us have five or six 12-month deployments under our belts, with less than 18 months at home before deploying again. Our experience allowed us to observe soldiers behaviors. Doing so prompted us to develop an innovative, consistent and enduring approach toward the well-being of soldiers and units that enforced standards and discipline. We had to improve our ability to recognize soldiers in need and integrate resources to measurably improve their collective well-being. Soon, we grew frustrated with the limitations of the CSF2 program, particularly with the Master Resilience Trainer (MRT) program. We assessed the MRT program, and it did not fully attain our objectives within the unit. It became just an additional duty. First, the MRT was not a billeted position. The first battalion MRT held the position for three weeks, and then the Army LTC(P) Daniel S. Morgan is the former commander of 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, and currently serves as the division chief of staff (REAR) for the 10th Mountain Division. He deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan five times with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) and recently redeployed from Afghanistan as the 1-87 IN battalion commander. 1SG Vincent Simonetti currently serves as the first sergeant of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment. He has been assigned to light, air assault and airborne Infantry units with additional duties as a recruiter and drill sergeant. He has been deployed three times: once to Operation Iraqi Freedom and twice to Operation Enduring Freedom. put him on orders for recruiter duty. Second, battalion leaders believed MRTs and resilience training assistants (RTA) were doing what squad leaders should be doing in the first place. We directed every team and squad leader to receive certification as an RTA. When applied through scheduled counseling, this training helped first-line supervisors get to know their soldiers better. As a result, we grasped that the problem was not the MRT program but an issue of how to assess, counsel and prioritize resources for the soldiers most in need of help. Risk management of soldiers demands better counseling and integration of the CSF2 program using the U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) Soldier Risk Tool. Many soldiers were being incorrectly identified as high-risk. The FORSCOM tool objectively defines soldier risk and does not consider risk associated with a subjective assessment of the soldier and his or her squad, command climate and family. The FORSCOM tool falls short of achieving comprehensive risk assessment and does not adequately guide first-line supervisors to understand soldiers well-being beyond the specific items covered. For example, based on the FORSCOM Soldier Risk Tool, I [LTC(P) Morgan] was one of the most at-risk soldiers in the unit when I commanded 1-87 IN due to five combat tours, multiple combat-related incidents and having retrieved remains of our fallen heroes. Many soldiers have undergone these experiences, but some have strong families, great friendships, professional mentorship and other social advantages that help them cope better than others. We scrutinized our soldiers past risk-taking behaviors and compared them to their findings from the FORSCOM tool. We ascertained that high- 52 ARMY January 2014
1-87 IN scouts and fire-support advisors work closely with Afghan security forces in remote locations, environments that demand that soldiers maintain all five pillars of comprehensive soldier fitness emotional, social, spiritual, family and physical. risk soldiers, according to the tool, were not the ones consistently engaged in poor decisions and risk-taking behaviors. Our real high-risk soldiers were discovered only after a negatively triggered event occurred. This is unacceptable. Basic counseling and minimal resilience training do not suffice to properly identify, prioritize and resource veritable high-risk soldiers. This lack of education and training diminished our ability to connect those highrisk soldiers to resources such as behavioral health care and Army community services. Leaders require a comprehensive counseling approach with active empathic skills to assess a soldier s well-being. The combination of the Army CSF2 program and the FORSCOM Soldier Risk Tool allows leaders to empathize with their soldiers needs and develop plans based on a soldier s risk, but we need to further cultivate coaching skills in order to be truly useful. We designed an outward-looking assessment to assist squad leaders identification of soldiers coping strengths and optimism that went beyond the raw analysis of FORSCOM s tool and past behaviors. We spoke with experts from the University of Pennsylvania about some deficits of the CSF2 program and the FORSCOM tool. This discussion resulted in a series of questions focused on optimism and coping that we incorporated into what is known as the Summit Resiliency Tool (SRT), which elevated our organization, leaders and soldiers to peak performance. This tool identifies soldiers for transition from the Army and guides the decision-making processes to help retain the best. Although the SRT is an important adjunct available for talent management, it is not a stand-alone tool. This method assesses a soldier s responses to questions regarding coping and optimism and determines a scale of risk based upon a rating of low, medium, high or extremely high. These ratings allow a commander-refined risk, which incorporates measurements from the global assessment tool, FORSCOM risk assessment, digital leader s book, and soldier counseling to minimize positive correlations between objective and subjective elements. Now, leaders can better scrutinize risk, more accurately prioritize resources, and maintain or improve a soldier s well-being. The SRT provided 1-87 IN s leaders with awareness of our soldiers respective risk levels as we prepared for a deployment to Afghanistan. Our battalion deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013, from January to October, as a security forces advisory battalion. We had to identify advisor teams and maneuver security units that displayed the resilience to make ethical and moral decisions in a complex environment among increased insider threats and a challenging cultural environment. The SRT process allowed commanders to identify soldiers who might present signs of increased risk during an advisory deployment, and it also helped identify collective resilient maneuver platoons and companies that provided us with the strongest deployable force. This talent management practice organized the battalion into the most capable force while si- One section of the SRT provides detailed information that the first-line superior uses during monthly or opportunity-driven counseling. The data allows the leader to know more about each soldier than only military performance. Between the FORSCOM risk assessment, the CSF2 global assessment scores and the SRT, the leader can maintain a dialogue with a soldier by tying aspects of his or her well-being together with job performance. January 2014 ARMY 53
Talent management expands into advisory operations as 1-87 IN soldiers train Afghan forces on new 60 mm mortar systems. Given the ever-present threats, a nine-month deployment takes a toll, but solid relationships and strong rapport across cultures build resilience in Afghan and U.S. soldiers. multaneously helping us develop a plan to promote wellbeing for soldiers and units remaining at home station. Talent management success became more evident as we prepared to deploy. There was a 62 percent reduction in risk-taking behavior from June 2011 through December 2012. Although we cannot directly attribute this reduction to the CSF2 program or the SRT, we can confidently say that our soldiers have a more positive outlook on life. Our leaders know their soldiers and their families better. We identified the right soldiers to deploy, remain in garrison or leave the Army. Our leaders better understand how to invest in our soldiers through a more progressive, comprehensive counseling approach using the CSF2 program and our accompanying resilience tools. These effects reflect the battalion s success over a period of high operational tempo that culminated with a mission rehearsal exercise at the National Training Center and a deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Over the previous two years, the battalion completed reset from a previous deployment, individual training, squad and platoon situational training exercises, squad and platoon live-fire exercises, close quarters marksmanship and live-fire exercises, global readiness force assumption, and Joint Readiness Training Center trainer and mentor augmentation. This operational tempo challenges any unit because soldier welfare is embedded in our mission accomplishment. This balance mandated change in soldier management. Leaders were required to have a working understanding of a soldier s environment, coping skills and his or her goals. We feel that this process educated leaders to counsel beyond normal expectations, reduced risk-taking behavior and trained us for deployment to Afghanistan. During the deployment and with the help of our brigade mental health provider, CPT Stacey Krauss, we measured the battalion s well-being with a unit needs behavioral assessment to determine the usefulness of the SRT and current unit well-being across a variety of domains. This measure, developed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, was selected in order to survey soldiers perceptions of a number of leadership issues, optimism and family well-being to substantiate consistency with our SRT. Analysis of our data revealed significantly lower rates of depression, posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, high-risk behaviors, leadership concerns and other issues than observed in comparative groups. This unit assessment validated our resilience model. Genuine efforts to ensure the well-being of soldiers versus basic performance-oriented counseling achieves higher personal and unit morale, training completion rates, confidence to aid soldiers in need, less behavioral health stigma, and higher ability to complete missions. As leaders, we must treasure the well-being of each soldier. We cannot allow leaders to alienate soldiers who are not suited for work in combat zones or who make poor decisions. In the Army, we track progress and speak in terms of red, amber and green. Imagine soldiers in an assessment process whereby the output requires a decision to separate or retain a soldier in the military. Regardless of the decision to separate or retain, we owe it to our soldiers to make their well-being as green as possible, so they can remain in the Army or return to the civilian workforce with the best-developed overall well-being, coping skills and resilience. The CSF2 program provided our battalion the opportunity to build resilience through a subjective and objective process to best suit the individual soldier and the unit. It is not only a function of combat readiness. It is the right thing to do for soldiers. 1-87 IN Summit soldiers, pictured here near the end of their deployment, consistently executed routeclearance patrols, served as a quickreaction force and as mobile training teams, and advised as necessary. 54 ARMY January 2014