Bridging the Engineer Gap from Tactical to Strategic.

摘要

Many times, engineers are thrown into an exercise regardless of their training. The result is the placement of tactical engineers at an operational level for which they don t have the appropriate skill set. Engineers who can bridge this gap are the Heroes of the Exercise, providing engineer planning and reachback to consistently stay ahead of the commander s decision cycle. In 2009, the first joint force engineer command (JFEC) was activated in Afghanistan, centralizing engineer efforts and assets across the theater to facilitate and coordinate engineer operations. In 2011, U.S. forces saw another first for the JFEC concept; the integration of this team of engineers from all services in support of U.S. European Command (USEUCOM). With help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the U.S. Army Reserve 416th Theater Engineer Command, USEUCOM tested the JFEC ability to coordinate engineer assets outside the war zone during a training exercise. A deployable command post (DCP) (Figure 1) was established that required modifying the joint manning document to incorporate field force engineering and service component engineers to become a JFEC.