THE LESSON THEY JUST REFUSE TO LEARN

A Logistician's lament.

After action reports from the 3d Infantry Division's involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom includes the following critique:

Combat service support units intended to resupply units on the battlefield were unprepared for security requirements, and lacked machine gun mounts and adequate communications equipment. Because the supply units could not secure themselves during convoys, combat units had to divert assets to secure them.

This critique comes from OIF but could just as well have come from Desert Storm, Vietnam, Korea or World War II.

Because the Army cuts corners on logistics. And all the lip service that will inevitably follow this report will do zilch to change anything...as it will be exactly and only that...lip service.

The problem is this: The battlefield is a complex place and increasingly no longer resembles the extended fronts of WW I and WW II. The 3d ID raced willy nilly from Kuwait to Baghdad virtually non stop.

Logistics units that provide the "beans and bullets" (not to mention the fuel, the repair parts, the water...) have to keep pace with the "killers" (Infantry, Armor, Artillery). But inevitably these same logistics units are understaffed as a result of deliberate decisions made by the Army leadership...and the predictable, but apparently unlearnable result of this is...well, exactly the complaints listed above.

Let me use this real world example from recent history to explain:

You have read or heard about the new Stryker brigades that will be deploying in the near future. I worked very closely with the guys at Fort Lee, Virginia, home to the Army's Quartermaster Corps - the heart of Army logistics, as they designed the logistics package that would support the Stryker brigade.

The Quartermaster guys, working closely with the Transporation and Ordnance guys, undertook a tactical and operational analysis of support that would be required given the size of the fighting force in the Stryker brigade, and the equipment within it.

They presented the results of their analysis to the Army leadership...saying we need X Quartermaster Soldiers of these various specialties...Y truckers, etc., in order to do the job you are tasking us to do.

The response of the leadership was at once inconceivable and routine.

No...they said. That is too many people. You will cut that number by over half.

Grasp that. The professionals who know what it takes to support the pointy end of the spear analysed the needs based upon the capabilities required to develop the number of troops needed.

But the leadership picked a number out of thin air and told the Logisticians to figure out how to make that number of soldiers do the required mission. (Actually the number isn't plucked from thin air...the number is arrived at this way: X equals the notional number of troops we will put in this new Stryker brigade. Y is the number of "Killer" soldiers required based upon the operational analysis of the Killers. Z is the number of spaces left over to be doled out for the Logisticians and other Combat Support and Combat Service Support troops. It isn't picking it out of the air, but it might as well be)

Imagine this: You tell me our mission is to drive the 243 miles between Charlotte and Atlanta and ask how much fuel we will need. I calculate the requirements based upon the actual miles per gallon performace of our vehicle. I return to tell you it will require 8 gallons of gas to make the trip.

You then shout "No! No! You only get three gallons of gas...now go drive us to Atlanta".

And then you are shocked, surprised and more than a little annoyed when we coast to a halt somewhere about Anderson.

This is exactly what happened in the design of the Stryker brigade. I was there.

Historically, every commander wants to reduce the number of logistics soldiers on the battlefield. They call it "improving the tooth to tail ratio" (with the loggies being the "tail" naturally).

And the so-called Killers always "win" this battle of the design of the force. Why? Because the most senior leader in the Army...the Chief of Staff of the Army is always, always a "Killer".

And when the battle comes, and those who were there for the design fight are long gone, the Killers say the same thing...the logisticians can't keep up, they can't protect themselves, and they don't provide us the right stuff at the right time.

And, ironically, right now...right bleeding now...Secretary Rumsfeld is looking for a way to reduce the number of logistics soldiers in the force even further, seeking to farm these functions out to civilian contractors.

Well, slap me and call me stupid, but I want to see the contractor that is willing and able to take the place of the 507th Maintenance company.

Guys...in the end, you get what you pay for. You want it on the cheap...you get it on the cheap.