It's in the TMs. Anywhere the TM talks about removing the fan (including for other unrelated reasons, like during an engine swap), it has a note that says something about discarding the old fan and clutch, and using the new part numbers. You have to change them both, by the way, as the new fan does not fit the old clutch.
I disagree with Coffey's assertion that it needs to be changed immediately just because it could "fail at any time". That's technically true of everything, and there are a lot of "several hundred dollar" projects that each of our trucks needs, and making this too high a priority could deprioritize something else that could have even worse consequences... you'll have to decide for yourself. I've only seen a couple posts about it failing - it's not like we're seeing them with any frequency. It's all a matter of whether your rubber ring is in good shape, or has deteriorated. If it's good, you'll get years of use out of it. To replace the clutch and fan costs several hundred dollars, and potentially saves you replacing a radiator (also several hundred dollars). Checking the ring for deterioration and slop is quick and free, and significantly reduces the [already small] risk.
We don't know what the long term ramifications are of the suggestion to just remove the rubber ring and bolt the fan to the clutch. The engineers put the rubber ring in there for a reason, and completely switched both the fan and clutch to new models several years later. Never did they make the suggestion to Army mechanics to just remove the rubber ring, so either they just didn't think of it, or they did think of it and there was a good reason to not do it that way and swap to totally different fan and clutch. Taking that suggestion could be just as much of a gamble than leaving the rubber ring in there. Maybe they had to switch the clutch because the original clutch couldn't handle the vibration without the ring in there? A better idea, than just removing it, would be to make a replacement rubber ring, which could be done several different ways (e.g. cut a ring from a heavy rubber horse stall mat, make a mold and cast one, etc.).