C . TOPIC . Army Reserve Engagement Cell Civil Affairs Exercise Planner ( 2571 )
Observation .
An Army Reserve Engagement Cell ( AREC ) Civil Affairs ( CA ) planner must get involved as early as possible in the exercise planning process .
Discussion .
Establishing Civil Affairs ( CA ) support to exercises is a challenge . Overcoming preconceived notions of what CA does and convincing the lead exercise planners of the value of CA in an exercise is the first step in establishing effective support .
After establishing a positive value to CA support , getting the administrative work complete to build and validate a requirement is also a challenge . Finding , formatting and typing the requirements so the lead planners can cut and paste into the Joint Training Information Management System ( JTIMS ) and the Army Training Information Management System ( ARTIMS ) databases is the easiest way to ensure the submission of proper information .
Following the establishment of the requirement , participation in the Initial Planning Conference and Mid Planning Conference is important to establish proper utilization of the CA forces during the exercise . Without the CA planner , CA focused injects into the exercise will be unlikely to produce the desired response in the training audience .
United Accord 2017 , a U . S . Army Africa ( USARAF ) exercise in Ghana , has a process to ensure training requirements and other Combatant Command ( COCOM ) objectives are met . This process involves an annual planning meeting at the COCOM to identify initial requirements and input them into the JTIMS data base . Involvement in this process is essential to ensure CA interests are properly articulated to the lead exercise planners . The lead planners for each exercise usually do not have much experience with Civil Affairs , so they appreciate assistance writing up the proper description of capabilities needed for the exercise .
Finally , another helpful tool is to create a power point packet for the participating Army Reserve Soldiers to give them enough information to be successful when they execute .
Recommendation .
1 . Prepare the JTIMS and ARTIMS data to describe exactly what is needed for US Forces Command ( FORSCOM ) to source Army Reserve Civil Affairs units to
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