From the Introduction: At the end of the Vietnam War and the end of selective service, the United States Army was forced to rebuild itself into an all-volunteer force. The Army of the late 1970s and early 1980s was untested in combat and faced a crisis in confidence, a reduction in size, and the need to reorganize and restructure. Army leaders, doctrine, and the primary potential military mission: the defense of Western Europe. Equipment and manpower were geared toward this mission. In October 1983, the U.S. Army was unexpectedly thrown into a "no-notice" joint force contingency operation on the little island of Grenada. Confronted with a deteriorating political situation on Grenada after the deposing and execution of the leader of the government by its own military, the perceived need to deal firmly with Soviet and Cuban influence in the Caribbean, and the potential for several hundred U.S. citizens becoming hostages, the Ronald W. Reagan administration launched an invasion of the island with only a few days for the military to plan operations. While the military's capabilities were never in doubt, the unexpectedly strong Cuban and Grenadian resistance in the first two days of the operation and the host of the U.S. military errors in planning, intelligence, communications, and logistics highlighted the dangers of even small contingency operations. As the joint operation attempted since the end of the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada also underscored the problems the U.S. Army faced in trying to work in a joint environment with its Air Force, Navy, and Marine counterparts.