Considering a Cadre Augmented Army - RAND Corporation

-339- A Historical Analysis of Cadre
establishing a federal reserve force as a means of expanding the active establishment, but the
cadre concept still seemed to enjoy some popularity.” 237 Westmoreland’s recommendations
were for the most part disregarded, but they show that the cadre idea remained in the minds
of military professionals. 238
In an August 1972 article in Army magazine, General Hamilton H. Howze proposed
what he called a “cadre system” for the reserves. 239 This cadre system was different from
those of Calhoun and Upton. Howze proposed that reserve divisions maintain all their parttime
personnel but replace their leadership with Regular Army personnel. Rather than
arguing for skeletonized units led by Regular Army personnel in replacement of reserve
units, Howze proposed integrating Active Component personnel into Reserve Component
units to increase the readiness of reserve units. Howze was not alone in making this
proposal, Colonel David R. Hampton wrote a similar proposal in 1973. 240
The proposals of Westmoreland, Howze, and Hampton showed that the cadre idea
had not disappeared all together. However, these proposals were given little attention by
those making military policy at the time. The general acceptance of the Uptonian doctrine
that had existed in the War Department in the early 20 th century seemed to have disappeared
in the Department of Defense of the 1970s.
____________
237 Crossland and Currie (1984), p. 216
238 It is also likely that Upton’s history of the Army was part of the curriculum when Westmoreland attended
West Point from 1932-1936.
239 Howze (1972)
240 Hampton (1973)