• To provide combat service support units for the additional combat forces being sent to Southwest Asia from the United States and Europe.
• To increase Army land combat capability against Iraqi forces, the most immediate need being field artillery.
• To provide suitable forces to reinforce Southwest Asia, if the situation required. This would best be done with mechanized or armored ( i.e., heavy ) combat units. The Army only had available parts of two active heavy divisions in the United States. Thus, the Army called up the guard's heavy ground combat brigades and battalions, which are discussed below.
• To provide U.S. and European commands with the critical capabilities and services that had been halted or degraded by the deployment of active forces to Southwest Asia.

          Although expanded mobilization ceilings would have permitted the activation of Capstone units, particularly those large reserve units that had formed the principal pre - war support structure for the Army component of Central Command, the Army primarily activated elements of those units.

          As the Chief of Staff of the Third Army said, introduction of all the Capstone-aligned reserve general officer commands late in the deployment would have severely interrupted a functioning, albeit ad - hoc, mixed active-reserve support command and control structure at a critical point of buildup for the offensive.

Making Units Ready and Measuring Them

          Even as mobilization policy evolved and changed, units were reporting to their mobilization centers making ready for war. The central question was whether they were ready.

          Readiness is measured on a scale of 1 to 4. C - 1 is the top, C-4 the bottom. ( Another category, C - 5, covers units in the midst of reorganization or being re - equipped ).

          The standard the Army set for deploying combat support and combat service support units was C - 3 -- not an exceptionally demanding standard. It meant a unit had to have about 70 percent of authorized people ( number and skills ), 65 percent of authorized equipment ( number and readiness ), and need no more than 5 - 6 weeks of additional training.

          Nonetheless, as the call - up proceed Forces Command, the Army command responsible for providing, training and equipping forces, found it increasingly difficult to provide support units that met this C - 3 rating.

• The pool of critical and unique combat service support units and skills ( e.g., surgeons and nurses, truck drivers and maintenance technicians, water treatment specialists ) was becoming exhausted. By the end of the mobilization period, the Army had called up eight of the nine guard medium truck companies, eight of the nine guard evacuation hospitals, all six guard water purification units and 71 of the 119 military police units. The Army Reserve had comparable call-up rates.

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