The Army is standing up a new Western Hemisphere Command effective Friday, consolidating three major commands under a single headquarters as part of the sweeping restructuring of the force.
The new command, headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will combine U.S. Army North, U.S. Army South and Army Forces Command, according to a Tuesday memo from Dan Driscoll, the Secretary of the Army. The memo further dictated that those subordinate commands will be formally inactivated Oct. 15 of next year.
The Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, Air Traffic Services Command and the 1st Army will also henceforth fall under the “regionally focused” Western Hemisphere Command.
The restructure also pulls the Army Reserve Command under Headquarters, Department of the Army, as a direct reporting unit to the Chief of Army Reserve and moves I Corps under U.S. Army Pacific and III Corps under U.S. Army Europe-Africa. The 4th Infantry Division has also been reassigned to I Corps, making it now effectively part of the Army’s Pacific-focused force structure.
The changes follow October’s disestablishment of the Army Training and Doctrine Command and Army Futures Command, which were discontinued and their functions reorganized under the new Transformation and Training Command.
In a May letter to the force, Driscoll and Randy A. George, the Army’s Chief of Staff, said restructuring is part of the Army Transformation Initiative, intended to “deliver critical warfighting capabilities, optimize our force structure, and eliminate waste and obsolete programs.”
The initiative will also do away with 1,000 Pentagon staff positions.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in April ordered an Army overhaul “to build a leaner, more lethal force,” by fielding new capabilities, slashing programs and equipment deemed redundant or outdated, and restructuring the command structure.
Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
Read the full article here
