By Maryjane Porter

For The Globe-Times

MARYSVILLE – It used to be that U.S. Army Reserves had a long time when called up to get ready to be deployed. It could take them up to a year to be trained.

Not anymore.

The soldiers in Marysville are working to build a force that can respond to global contingencies in a very short timeframe. Their effort is called Ready Force X (RFX).

“The global threat, the threat around the world, has changed,” said Brig. Gen. Gregory Mosser of the 364th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), headquartered at the Marysville Armed Forces Reserve Center.

“In the past we have been able to notify units of missions at least a year in advance. We were able to get them additional people, get them all their required equipment and send them to a mobilization station where they might prepare for weeks or months.

“However, readiness is no longer a long-term process, and RFX changes that,” Mosser said.

The RFX is a pool of units tasked with maintaining higher levels of peacetime readiness. They will prepare to mobilize and deploy on compressed timelines. Some RFX units will provide critical early entry and set-the-theater capabilities, while others will provide operational depth.

We are building the most-capable, combat-ready, and lethal federal reserve force in the history of the nation, Mosser said. The reserve must be capable of mobilizing rapidly and deploying with the survivability, connectivity and lethality needed to win on the battlefield, he added.

For the past decade, the reserve has built readiness over time, in a progressive and rotational manner. Mosser pointed out that “no longer do we have years to prepare for an upcoming mission. Things could happen tonight, things could happen next month that would all of the sudden need large amounts of forces and probably on an incredibly short timeframe.

“Many of our soldiers have only been in the Army during a time where readiness meant, ‘When I get notified, that’s when things start.’ “The mindset we have to change to now is we have to do as much as possible before we’re notified.”