A view from the FA49 foxhole: Operational research and systems analysis

Chief of Staff of the US Army, General Peter J. Schoomaker has set the Army on course to ‘be a more relevant and ready force, a campaign-quality Army with a Joint and Expeditionary Mindset’. To accomplish this transformation, the Army is examining changes made over the past 20 years, including the officer functional areas the Officer Personnel Management System (OPMS) III put into place during the late 1990s. OPMS III's emphasis on specialization and multiple career paths promotes longer tours of duty and efforts to stabilize units and eliminate unnecessary personnel turbulence. From the perspective of the Functional Area 49 (FA49) ‘foxhole’, the Operations Research Systems Analyst (ORSA) career field is changing to align with the Army's core competencies of training and equipping soldiers, growing leaders, and providing combatant commanders a relevant and ready landpower capability as part of a joint team. Every organization must adapt or perish. ORSAs are no exception. Since World War II, the military operations research analyst has been critical to the military's operational and institutional success. During the past decade, however, changes to the ORSA career field and a migration of the specialty from the operational Army to the institutional Army have reduced ORSAs' opportunities to directly support the operational commander. Recognizing this shortcoming, FA49 is making changes inernally and seeking changes on operational Army and joint staffs.