"Ruck It Up!"

In the years following the end of the Cold War, substantial debates about the proper size, organization, composition, and techniques of command of the United States Army spurred the service to reorganize. During this time, such discussions and alterations also affected the Army's forward deployed units in Germany-the United States Army, Europe, and its principal tactical formation, V Corps. In "Ruck It Up!" The Post-Cold War Transformation of V Corps, 1990- 2001, Charles E. Kirkpatrick outlines a decade of change for V Corps, and the physical and intellectual tools it evolved to accomplish its changing missions. The transformation was impressive. It began with reorienting V Corps from its traditional mission of the defense of Western Europe to becoming a force readily deployable within the U.S. European Command area of operations. Organizational, technical, and tactical developments influenced by lessons V Corps learned during missions to Africa and the Balkans spanned the decade between 1990 and 2000. Among the many and occasionally surprising lessons of the V Corps experience between 1998 and 2001 was how flexible, durable, and functional conventional general-purpose forces were in coping with a range of missions from humanitarian relief to combat operations. The author lays the essential groundwork to understand the successes of V Corps when the corps rapidly deployed to Southwest Asia, and then conducted U.S. Central Command's main attack during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. For those who continue to refine the U.S. Army's organization, roles, and missions, a careful review of this microcosm of change within the service offers useful counsel. This volume is recommended not only to those engaged in such demanding and important tasks on behalf of the Army, but also to the general reader who wishes to gain some understanding of the complexity of U.S. Army, Europe, operations after the end of the Cold War.