Army 2020: Top Four Logistics Priorities W · 2017-06-20 · —GEN Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Vice Chief of Staff In 11 years of war, the Army has fielded an unprece - dented amount

October 2012 � ARMY 177

With the Afghanistan drawdown under wayand the combat mission in Iraq over, I gath-ered the G-4 leadership team earlier thisyear and asked, “How can logisticians—andthe DA G-4 specifically—help the Army pre-

pare for the challenges of an uncertain strategic andoperational environment while at the same time lever-age the opportunities of the coming decade?” Army lo-gisticians, along with our superb joint partners, per-formed magnificently over these past 11 years ofsustained combat, helping create the best-fed, best-

equipped, best-main-tained Army we have everhad since 1775. We cannotrest on our laurels, how-ever. We must focus ourefforts on helping shapean Army for 2020; this isespecially critical in an eraof diminishing resources.

Army 2020: Top Four Logistics Priorities

By LTG Raymond V. MasonDeputy Chief of Staff, G-4

178 ARMY � October 2012

During this session, we reviewedChief of Staff of the Army GEN Ray-mond T. Odierno’s vision of an Armythat has three vital capabilities: preventwarfare, shape conditions and, mostimportant, win. As we looked into thisuncertain future, we viewed it throughthe lens of the President’s new strate-gic guidance; the Secretary of theArmy’s priorities; the Army CampaignPlan; shrinking defense budgets andreduced force structures, which histori-cally occur following wars; and cut-ting-edge technology that can trulyrevolutionize logistics to help create amore agile and versatile Army.

We developed four top logistics priorities. They willhelp guide the Army-wide Log Nation this year and in theyears to come.

First, although the drawdown in Operation EnduringFreedom has started, we are still fully engaged inAfghanistan, so our primary focus remains sustaining oursoldiers in the fight while continuing to plan for the end ofcombat operations in 2014. The close-out of OperationNew Dawn was hugely successful, thanks in large part tothe superb planning and execution of the drawdown, andwe want to ensure the same success in the Afghanistandrawdown/retrograde.

Second, we must continue to improve property account-ability so that all records are complete, accurate and au-ditable, and assets are redistributed to where they are mostneeded. As I travel around the Army, I’m encouraged to seecommanders and soldiers truly getting after property ac-countability.

Third, the Global Combat Support System, better knownas GCSS-Army, which will revolutionize Army logistics,will be fielded this year. It is a technology 10 years in themaking and has the potential to change Army logistics justas Facebook changed the way the world socializes.

Fourth, we are going to field operational energy capabili-ties more rapidly, which will help reduce our logistics foot-print in the theater, cut costs, save energy and, most impor-tant, put soldiers at less risk.

Now let’s take a closer look at these four priorities.

Afghanistan: Responsible Drawdown And Retrograde

“Afghanistan is orders of magnitude more challenging for … [withdrawal] than was Iraq.”

—Ashton B. Carter, Deputy Secretary of Defense

We have more than 1.6 million pieces of equipment inAfghanistan, valued at $29 billion. That is about half asmuch equipment as we had in Iraq when we started thedrawdown there, but it is still a significant percentage oftotal Army resources. Imagine giving every person livingin Manhattan a piece of equipment—an M-ATV, a cargotruck or a Humvee. That’s how much equipment our sol-diers will need to move out. In addition, we’ll need to ret-rograde ammunition, shut down supply support activities,close bases and bring the troops home.

It would be convenient if we could just replicate thedrawdown/retrograde process we so successfully exe-cuted in Iraq and apply it to Afghanistan, but Afghanistanhas many unique challenges. The road network is limited;there are no viable railways and no seaports; there aremany political constraints to the external routes out ofAfghanistan; there is currently no staging base like we hadin Kuwait; the Afghanistan forces do not have the ability orneed to absorb as much equipment as the Iraq Army did;and our coalition partners must also draw down. Conse-quently, the Afghanistan drawdown will likely be five to10 times more challenging than that in Iraq. With the in-credible adaptability of the Army team, however (alongwith that of our outstanding U.S. Transportation Com-mand partners), I am confident we are up to the task.

Of course, there are lessons we learned in Iraq that willhelp us meet these challenges. Among those is to maketimely decisions on equipment disposition so that we canplan where everything should go and get it to the right

LTG Raymond V. Mason is the DeputyChief of Staff, G-4. Previously he served asthe G-4, U.S. Army Forces Command. Hehas also served as commanding general of8th Theater Sustainment Command, FortShafter, Hawaii; 19th Support Command(Expeditionary), Daegu, Republic of Korea;Defense Supply Center Philadelphia, De-fense Logistics Agency; and Army Materiel

Command (Theater) Southwest Asia. In addition, he was C-4, Op-erational Sustainment, Coalition Forces Land Component Com-mand, Central Command, providing logistics support to U.S.forces operating in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Djibouti and acrossthe U.S. Army Central area of responsibility. LTG Mason receivedmaster’s degrees in procurement/contract management fromFlorida Institute of Technology and in national resource strategyfrom the National Defense University.

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place economically. To maximize the effectiveness of theretrograde process, we will need two to three years aftercessation of hostilities to reset and ready the equipment forwhatever the next mission the nation asks of the Army.U.S. Army Materiel Command, as the Army’s lead ma-teriel integrator, is playing a central role in this effort, in-cluding total equipment visibility and rapid redistribution.

We plan to retain about 67 percent of the equipment,whether it is to return to the United States to fill Armyshortages, redistribute into Army prepositioned stocks,provide to the State Department, or other uses. The re-maining 33 percent will be divested, either through foreignmilitary sales or transfers to our allies, provided to state orlocal governments, or disposed of with the help of our De-fense Logistics Agency partners.

Through it all, we want to bring a decade of war to a suc-cessful end, to a state in which Afghans can take full respon-sibility for the security of their nation and in our shared goalof defeating al Qaeda and its extremist surrogates.

Property Accountability: Personal and Leader Responsibility

“Supply discipline and property accountability is everyone’s responsibility.”

—GEN Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Vice Chief of Staff

In 11 years of war, the Army has fielded an unprece-dented amount of new, complex equipment and posi-tioned it around the world with incredible speed. To dothis, however, we have to sometimes cut corners, and basi-cally it’s as if we have been running a car rental company,whose units didn’t necessarily own equipment but just“borrowed it.” It was the right thing to do at the time, butit also created unintended consequences in the areas of re-sponsibility and accountability.

Consequently, in 2010 the Chief of Staff of the Army di-rected the establishment of the Campaign on Army Prop-erty Accountability to reinvigorate supply discipline. Thegood news is that leaders and soldiers are actively pursu-ing the accountability mission. Units across the active, Re-serve and National Guard components have used the cam-paign to reaccount, redistribute or turn in excess property.As a result, we’ve reallocated $57 billion worth of equip-ment across the force in the last two years. There have been6,000 property accountability training and mentoringevents and 30,000 unit-level command supply disciplineprogram inspections across the Army. The bottom line isthat commanders and NCOs are serious about property ac-countability.

Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement.This spring, MG Timothy McHale led a Vice Chief of Staffof the Army-directed Army property accountability review

and identified a number of friction points and gaps. As aresult of this review, we have made process and policychanges and are using new leading indicator metrics tobetter measure property record accuracy.

All leaders, upon taking command of a battalion orbrigade, must sign a statement acknowledging their re-sponsibilities for the property under their charge. At theHeadquarters, Department of the Army level, we are spot-lighting different accountability areas and metrics everyquarter, gathering reports from every unit in the Army totrack progress, and reporting trends to the senior Armyleadership. It is paramount that we do this right and begood stewards of our precious resources to ensure that weare both effective and efficient. The CSA-directed goal is tohave all property brought to record, with all records com-plete and accurate, by December 2013, well ahead of Con-gress’ requirement to be auditable by 2017.

Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-A)

“GCSS-Army gives leaders and operators transparencyand a common operating picture at all levels of logistics.”—CW3 Gregory W. Besaw, Army Logistics University

As we’ve been fighting two wars, logistics informationtechnology that can help shape Army 2020 has not stoodstill. GCSS-A has been under development, and beginninglater this year it will be fielded to tactical and installationsupply warehouses. This will produce a huge leap in theArmy’s ability to see ourselves and especially “lean out”our processes.

GCSS-A, the largest enterprise resource planning systemin worldwide production, will replace 40,000 local data-bases with one common master logistics database. Embed-ded in it is a financial function, so for the first time logisticsand financial actions will be linked. This is critical toachieving clean audits, as mandated by Congress.

We successfully tested it at the National Training Centerand at Fort Bliss, Texas, and soldiers are already seeing thebenefits. WO2 Romulo Santos, a battalion maintenance tech-nician, said his “aha” moment was when he simply pusheda button and got his equipment status report, something heused to spend five hours researching parts to produce.

A soldier from 1st (IRONHORSE) Brigade Combat Team, 1stCavalry Division, works through hand receipts during equip-ment draw operations at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in January.

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Clerks, who used to perform just onetask at a time, can now work on multi-ple screens to open and close dis-patches and order parts, greatly in-creasing their productivity.

The first fieldings will begin this fallat Fort Lee, Va., with Army NationalGuard units in Virginia and Army Re-serve units at Fort Bragg, N.C. Field-ings will expand each quarter; withinfive years more than 160,000 logisti-cians worldwide will be using GCSS-A daily. It will touch every companythroughout the Army.

We have created a GCSS-A trainingprogram, and we are ramping up a help desk to assistusers. The key to success is that all soldiers are GCSS-A-ready before the program shows up on their screens.

Like all technologies, there is a new look, all-new termi-nology and new feel to it, so productivity could initiallydip before users are fully up to speed and see the hugebenefits. So 180 days before GCSS-A is turned on, com-manders need to aggressively clean up their data and en-sure that every soldier conducts online training. WithGCSS-A we will truly have a 21st-century combat log in-formation and management tool.

Operational Energy

“As we deploy, we have to develop ways where we save energy and reduce the cost.”

—GEN Raymond T. Odierno, Army Chief of Staff

In the last decade we have seen the Army’s energy needsskyrocket. Today soldiers on a 72-hour mission in Afghan-istan must carry 70 batteries of seven different types,weighing 16 pounds, to power up their night-vision gog-gles, optics, communication gear, flashlights and global po-sitioning systems. Right now, to sup-port one soldier on the battlefieldrequires 22 gallons of fuel per day;during World War II it was only onegallon per soldier.

This increased energy consumptionis a burden on the unit as well as ahuge funding and resource require-ment, and most strikingly it is an op-portunity for the enemy to interruptour combat operations. Every time aconvoy moves fuel, soldiers are ex-

posed to enemy fire and improvisedexplosive devices. The more fuel that isneeded, the more storage is required,so our forward operating bases mustbe bigger, and therefore more securityis needed. Second- and third-order ef-fects of the huge demand for fuel onthe battlefield create friction and risk;thus it is imperative that we reduce ouroperational energy needs as we exe-cute effective combat operations.

This year, the DoD is investingmore than $1 billion in operational en-ergy improvements. The challenge isto understand how we use energy to

get the most out of this precious resource. To do this, weare fielding more fuel-efficient generators, solar panels,water recycling and micro grids, and finding ways to givesoldiers lighter and rechargeable batteries, so that they canlighten their combat loads.

As an institution, the Army must change, but so, too,must the culture. It’s like changing one’s diet: There are lotsof ways to eat healthier, but it starts with the right mind-set.The individual’s and the unit’s will to incorporate energychanges into their lives and functions is essential to success.It’s all about executing energy-informed operations.

Army 2020Having met every challenge we’ve faced in the last

decade, I’m certain logisticians will continue to lead positivechange to ensure that we remain the best-fed, equipped andsustained Army in the world. By focusing on supporting thefight in Afghanistan while we execute a responsible draw-down, improving property accountability, fielding GCSS-A,and incorporating operational energy technologies, we willhelp build an even more agile and effective Army in thisdecade and into the decades to come.

Logisticians are Army Strong! �

Soldiers with the 1st Brigade CombatTeam, 82nd Airborne Division, conduct

hands-on training with the RucksackEnhanced Portable Power System inAfghanistan. The 10-pound battery-

recharging kit runs on renewable energy using a solar panel.