What has TRADOCs role been in division design and restructuring since the commands establishment?
At the time of TRADOC’s establishment on 1 July 1973, division structure was determined by the ROAD (Reorganization objective, Army Divisions) approved in the early 1960s. In 1976, General William E. DePuy conducted a historically-based study of division design. In September 1978, DePuy’s successor General Donn A. Starry undertook, based in part on DePuy’s work, the first of several major Army 86 reorganization studies, the Division 86 project. Starry’s Division 86 study focused on the heavy division as the element of the fighting Army critical to the prime strategic theater of central Europe. However, in June 1983, Chief of Staff of the Army General John A. Wickham, Jr. directed the TRADOC commander General William R. Richardson to design a new, strategically deployable light infantry division. To accommodate this new division type, Richardson received authority to review and redesign the entire TOE army. The Army of Excellence, so styled, was undertaken by the Combined Arms Center wi
