United States Army Reserve Command

United States Army Reserve
USARC Shoulder Sleeve Insignia
Active	1908–present
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army Reserve
Size	205,000
Garrison/HQ	Fort Bragg
Motto(s)	"Twice the Citizen"
Anniversaries	23 April
Commanders
Current commander	Lieutenant General Charles D. Luckey
Insignia
Distinctive unit insignia

United States Army Reserve Command (USARC) commands all United States Army Reserve units. USARC is responsible for the staffing, training, management and deployment of its units to ensure their readiness for Army missions. The Army Reserve which consists of three main categories of units.

U.S. Army Reserve Command (USARC) mission is to provide trained and ready units and individuals to mobilize and deploy in support of the national military strategy. USARC is responsible for all of the operational tasks involved in training, equipping, managing, supporting, mobilizing and retaining Soldiers under its command. USARC has over 20 offices, each with an individual mission and function that contributes to the accomplishment of USARC’s overall mission.

As the evolutionary process continued, there were more congressional hearings and investigations and major reorganizations of the Army, including Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara's failed attempt between 1965 and 1966 to merge units of the Army Reserve into the National Guard. In 1967, Congress passed watershed legislation in the form of the Reserve Forces Bill of Rights and Vitalization Act. In essence that act, among other features, prescribed reserve leadership for reserve units. For the Army, the act created a statutory Chief, Army Reserve (CAR) who served as an advisor to the Chief of Staff on Army Reserve matters. Command and Control of the Army Reserve, however, was under Continental Army Command (CONARC) until 1973 and after that under Forces Command (FORSCOM). The act also virtually eliminated bitter congressional deliberation over reserve component policy--for a while.

In 1988, the House Committee on Appropriations Surveys and Investigation rekindled the debate. The committee uncovered two command and control reporting chains for the Army Reserve: FORSCOM and the CAR. Unlike the Air Force Reserve and the Navy Reserve, the CAR did not have sole command of the Army Reserve. In 1989, Congress directed the Army to design a command and control plan for the Army Reserve. Congress and the Army, with FORSCOM in the lead, began the struggle, at times difficult, to produce a mutually agreeable arrangement for the Army Reserve.

FORSCOM, the Office of the Chief Army Reserve (OCAR), the Department of the Army, and Congress each had its own plan. Command and Control options spanned from the creation of an independent major command to a major subordinate command under FORSCOM.

On 18 January 1990, the CAR and the FORSCOM commander reached an agreement, a major step in the evolution of the new command. The Army's plan called for the command to be organized as a major subordinate command. FORSCOM was to develop overall policy for units of the U.S. Army Reserve (USAR), while the Reserve Command was to prepare implementation procedures, plans, and programs in accordance with FORSCOM guidance. Integration of the active component and reserve component into a total force was the ultimate objective.