Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

119th Agribusiness Development Team? I'm dumbfounded by the strategic brilliance of this, the name just kicks ass. More importantly, who in the rigid structure of the Army had the stones to go out on this limb and form this unit? Really a heartening sign.

One has to wonder why it's taken fifty years to figure this one out . .

"The Coming of Thomas P.M. Barnett" perhaps . . ?

Apparently someone's listening, Tom . . .

Interesting to see this get legs in the media. This has actually been the Extension mission for the past 100 years; except Extension usually doesn't include gun-toters:)

Chad Laux
Asst. Prof. of Industrial and Ag. Technology
Purdue University

Actually, the 1-19 ADT is not a permanent unit, but a purpose-built unit created "out-of-hide" for this mission (Soldiers are taken from other units in-state). Once it's mission is over, and the 2-19 ADT takes over, 1-19 ADT demobilizes and ceases to exist. In fact, it technically is not a unit, but a detachment of the Joint Forces Headquarters of the Indiana Guard. Same with all ADTs. This will eventually change if the DoD/big Army decides to create permanent Civil Affairs units for this mission set.

In reality, the US Army has been decidedly flexible in wartime, creating provisional "units" to perform certain non-standard (to the unit or to the Army as a whole) missions. My first mission was as part of a field artillery battalion stood up as a SECFOR (Security Force) Company, trained similar to how Military Police are trained, whose duty was to train Iraqi police. We had 3 civilian officers in our unit, plus contracted US LEOs to assist. My last mission was to run a large base in Iraq. Our battalion headquarters ran both base defense and base support missions.