Two years ago an article in the Army Times made waves when announced that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was assigned to homeland security duty. Talk of martial law was buzzing all over the internet. But think about it you can’t police a whole country with just one brigade. No you would need a much larger force than that. You know, I know, and you can better believe they know it. Let’s try an army.
You see the US Army is broken down by command levels. Brigades are down towards the bottom. An army is the top command level, and can consist of several divisions.
Army – 50,000 + soliders. Typically commanded by a lieutenant general or higher, an army combines two or more corps. A theater army is the ranking Army component in a unified command, and it has operational and support responsibilities that are assigned by the theater commander in chief. The commander in chief and theater army commander may order formation of a field army to direct operations of assigned corps and divisions. An army group plans and directs campaigns in a theater, and is composed of two or more field armies under a designated commander. Army groups have not been employed by the Army since World War II.
5th Army is now US Army North. It’ assigned to NorthCom in support of Homeland Defense duty. The military is broken down in to theater commands. SouthCom would be a potential combat theater in South America, CentCom is the the theater in the Middle East, etc. And well NorthCom’s theater of command is yeap, you guessed it, North America. NorthCom was not simply a renamed NORAD, It’s joint command of the US Army and Air Force.
An army assigned to a theater, you have to get them from point A to point B. Well there are Military Airlift Wings assigned to NorthCom for that sole purpose. And they just finished the first homeland defense operational readiness inspection. And there mission, well that’s simple “For the very first time, the U.S. Air Force has created a WARTIME Army group to defend the homeland on U.S. soil.
WW III is just around the Corner Folks...
