Victory Starts Here

This new edition of Victory Starts Here is a short history of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) as it is completing four decades of organizational existence. Established in July 1973 to solve the cumbersome command and control issues of the old US Continental Army Command (CONARC), TRADOC's mission was to oversee Army schools, training, doctrine, and combat developments. Through time those missions have evolved, and TRADOC also has become responsible for preparing the Army for war and functioning as the Army's "architect of the future." General William E. DePuy, TRADOC's first commander, understood that the Army required sound training, coherent organization, modem weapon systems, and relevant doctrine. His successors built on that foundation and addressed the need for future planning. Readers will learn that TRADOC's story is generally one of success. Still, as this monograph is published in spring 2013, the full effects of about a dozen years of conflict in Southwest Asia as part of the Global War on Terrorism, the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure effort that largely concluded in 2011, and now the fiscal uncertainty caused by the budgetary process known colloquially as "sequestration" altogether are presenting TRADOC with a set of "postwar'' challenges that bear useful comparison to those the nation and the Army faced when the command was established in the wake of Vietnam. Where these trials will take TRADOC in the years to come cannot, of course, be determined with certainty right now. Assuming that the past is a reliable guide to the future (which is one of the compelling justifications for the study of history in the first place), then the Army is likely to continue to need an organization to train and educate Soldiers, to formulate and promulgate doctrine, to devise and determine weapons and organizations, and to puzzle out tomorrow's Army. TRADOC's future survival, therefore, seems to be imperative to a successful US Army. This latest version of Victory Starts Here provides an overview of 40 years of TRADOC's service to the Army and the nation.