There are two armies: a "Functional Army" and an "Operational Army." The Functional Army acquires, trains, distributes, educates, deploys, sustains and retires military assets. The Operational Army uses those assets to combat an enemy. Referring to the Functional Army in a 1998 speech, CoS General Dennis Reimer said, "This is the 'Other Army' whose story is seldom told in song or rhyme but without whose efforts there would be no Operational Army to be the sword and shield of the nation."
