![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8824681_4f4457.jpg\")
Army Spc. Elijah Sims uses a virtual reality headset at Rose Barracks, Army Garrison Bavaria, Vilseck, Germany. Army photo by Pfc. Jolene Cintron.<\/p>\nSoldiers will travel less for training and do more virtually, Army leaders said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The Army is planning to have soldiers \u201ctrain differently\u201d with more remote learning and other more innovative courses that use augmented reality and virtual reality, called AR and VR, respectively. The programs would work in lieu of having soldiers travel to schoolhouses and training centers across the United States, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said at a virtual town hall at Fort Drum, New York.<\/p>\n
The Army\u2019s goal is to cut down on temporary duty assignments, TDY, or short-term moves where soldiers leave their permanent duty station for training that can last from several days to months. Instead, the Army wants them to do courses and trainings \u201cat your local home station,\u201d George said at the town hall, which covered topics affecting soldiers, from quality of life to training.<\/p>\n
The Army is looking at revamping \u201ceverything from individual training when you first come in through your specialized technical training\u201d for enlisted soldiers and junior officers, \u201call the way through the most senior courses that we have for our general officers,\u201d David Dworak, provost of Army University, told Task & Purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Army is looking at a range of courses and lessons, like those available at civilian universities. At the same time, the service will not outsource skilled training on weapon systems or battlefield tactics, officials told Task & Purpose.<\/p>\n
Army Spc. Elijah Sims uses a virtual reality headset at Rose Barracks, Army Garrison Bavaria, Vilseck, Germany. Army photo by Pfc. Jolene Cintron.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat can be done in a virtual setting that really replicates the environment that you\u2019re gonna be working in and what needs personal interaction?\u201d Dworak asked. \u201cI really have a hard time seeing the future where we get rid of all in-person interaction because there\u2019s a professional element to it that requires human interaction. But that\u2019s not to say that there isn\u2019t a role for the online element.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond simple courses that soldiers can do by watching videos or learning in a remote classroom, the Army is also exploring VR and AR courses that universities already use, such as training in virtual medical cadaver labs<\/a>, which could be useful for combat medics and those in similar fields.\u00a0<\/p>\n The education overhaul comes as the service is trying to move faster and make its training system more flexible \u2014 a critique of military education that others have noted<\/a> in reference to how fast the battlefield is evolving in places like Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dworak said that Army training has been \u201ckind of stagnant\u201d and \u201ctakes a long time to change,\u201d but now the service is looking into new authorities that allow course directors and school commandants to make more decisions about the types of training that soldiers need.<\/p>\n \u201cYou really lose credibility with the students when something happens out there in the operating environment and the schools don\u2019t react to it,\u201d Dworak said. \u201cDrones is a great example of that. Autonomous warfare, where is that going? What does it mean? We can\u2019t have a system that takes one year or two years to get a curriculum approved and get it back out to the field and then you\u2019re delivering it three years after you\u2019ve realized that there\u2019s a change that\u2019s just not gonna work anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\tTop Stories This Week\t\t<\/p>\n Leaders also said that the slashes to TDY and moves to remote training would also help reduce the stress put on soldiers to move frequently \u2014 a quality of life issue long flagged by troops and identified by the Pentagon last year as a major policy initiative<\/a> for the military services.<\/p>\n In addition to more virtual training that keeps soldiers at home, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll acknowledged that the service is trying to improve deployment-to-dwell<\/a> ratios. Driscoll said that the \u201cworld is a dynamic place\u201d and acknowledged that the military\u2019s major operations, like the Pentagon\u2019s mission at the U.S.-Mexico border<\/a>, can have an impact on soldiers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor every month you are gone, we want to try to give you three months back at home,\u201d Driscoll said, adding that this balance during Middle East combat rotations in the early 2000s was \u201cnot what was achieved,\u201d but that leaders are aiming for it.<\/p>\n \t\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Task & Purpose Video<\/p>\n Each week on Tuesdays and Fridays our team will bring you analysis of military tech, tactics, and doctrine.<\/p>\n \t\u00a0<\/p>\n Patty is a senior reporter for Task & Purpose. She\u2019s reported on the military for five years, embedding with the National Guard during a hurricane and covering Guantanamo Bay legal proceedings for an alleged al Qaeda commander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soldiers will travel less for training and do more virtually, Army leaders said Tuesday. The Army is planning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":514251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[158,67,132,68,729,730],"class_list":{"0":"post-514250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-virtual-reality","13":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/250319-N-ML799-1660K.jpeg\")
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