1st Cavalry Division Wins War on Excess

Efficient and prudent logistics management is more than getting the right equipment to the right place at the right time; it also includes eliminating redundant or excess equipment stocks. Annually, the Army spends an enormous amount of time, labor, and money maintaining and storing excess equipment. These expenses are avoidable and totally incompatible with today's move to "right-size" the Army and efficiently deploy its equipment and personnel around the globe.

Since being deployed to Bosnia from Fort Hood, Texas, the 1st Cavalry Division has successfully waged and won a "war on excess," thanks to the division G4 and a host of other "First Team" players. To achieve victory, several major challenges had to be overcome, including complex operational requirements and extremely adverse weather conditions. But initiative, tenacity, hard work, and selfless dedication to duty by all soldiers involved ensured that the mission was accomplished in true 1st Cavalry Division style.

The war on excess started in earnest when the 1st Cavalry Division assumed peacekeeping operations in Bosnia from the 1st Armored Division in October 1998. Major General Kevin P. Byrnes, the 1st Cavalry Division Commander, identified the war on excess as one of the top five priority tasks that he wanted to accomplish. His intent was to retrograde excess equipment from Task Force Eagle (TFE) to the Central Region in Germany so it could be put back into the supply system rather than sit idle at TFE. It quickly became clear that successfully fighting this "war" would require more than a part-time effort.

The Task Force Eagle property book officer and a unit commander scrub the deployment equipment list to determine mission-essential equipment.

The scope of the war on excess could be gauged by the volume of hand receipts maintained by the 1st Cavalry Division's property book officer (PBO). He was responsible for several organizational, installation, TFE, and nondivisional property books, as well as ongoing property requisitions, distributions, and retrogrades. The question that comes to mind immediately is, "How did so much excess equipment accumulate in the first place?"

The first, and perhaps most obvious, source of excess equipment was the right-sizing of the TFE force structure from 8,500 to 6,900 soldiers. This generated surplus military property that had sustained a larger force than the mission now requires. Other, not so obvious factors also played a major role in the growing TFE stockpile. Base camp closures, table of distribution and allowances (TDA) reductions, and inventories made at transfers of authority all resulted in additions to the extensive list of military equipment no longer needed to support the 1st Cavalry Division's peacekeeping role.

After the "battle" plans had been prepared, the division G4 planner, Major Carl Bird, was tasked with managing and coordinating the entire operation. Ultimately, the key players in the war on excess were the division PBO, the division transportation office (DTO), Logistics Task Force 115, and Brown & Root Services Corporation (BRSC), the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program combat service support contractor.

Soldiers of 1st Cavalry Division set up a logistics support area at the Lukavac railhead.

This war on excess team focused their efforts on establishing a realistic timeline to complete the mission. The target date selected was 1 March 1999. The only constraint identified during the planning process was that transportation movements could be restricted if the TFE threat level increased or the weather became bad.

The first major step in waging the war on excess was identifying excess organizational equipment within TFE. Organizational property was a natural starting point, because the units had visibility of their equipment on a daily basis. Thus, all TFE units were proactive in identifying their excess equipment. This would help save money for units deploying to Bosnia by allowing them to use TFE equipment that was already in the theater. An abundance of TDA property in TFE originally came from Combat Equipment Group Europe (CEGE) stocks, which are available to any deploying unit.

In fact, much of the excess in TFE came from different units that had drawn equipment from CEGE stocks. However, when these units rotated back to home station, their equipment remained in the theater. Thus the division PBO became the custodian of excess equipment left over from multiple rotations.

The second step in the war on excess involved what affectionately became known as the "CSM's [command sergeant major's] hit team." This team, headed by Command Sergeant Major Paul Inman, 1st Cavalry Division CSM, and Sergeant Major (SGM) Hayward Williams, the division G4 SGM, consisted of noncommissioned officers and enlisted personnel who toured every base camp and facility in TFE during November 1998 and provided units with technical assistance in eliminating excess. Their involvement was essential to pulling together the team effort required to accomplish General Byrnes' intent.

After the CSM's hit team identified excess equipment, the TFE PBO sat down with each TFE unit commander and scrubbed his unit's deployment equipment list (DEL) to determine mission-essential equipment. The PBO designed a unique DEL tracker system to monitor equipment retrograde status. The tracker system is an Excel spreadsheet that is used to track deployable equipment coming from the continental United States. It contains the receiving unit's name, the date the DEL was issued to the unit, the date a response is required from the unit, and a "Bring from CONUS [continental United States]" line. The PBO merged modification table of organization and equipment organizational property with the TDA on the spreadsheet. The results showed all of the equipment a unit should have when it arrived at TFE. After reviewing the DEL, unit commanders decided what equipment they wanted to delete from the TDA equipment list.

Excess items are packed into MILVAN's for retrograde from Bosnia to the Central Region in Germany.

This PBO initiative contributed immensely to the overall success of the mission. "The DEL tracker has worked very well for us," said Captain Steven Halverson, division PBO. "The tracker makes it easy to determine if the unit has any excess equipment and to see if the TDA is sufficient for deployment."

The goal was to minimize the deployment of prime mover materiel—the big equipment—that didn't need to be deployed to TFE. "Smaller items, the type that fit into MILVAN's [military-owned demountable containers], weren't really the problem we faced," said Halvorson. However, MILVAN's full of excess equipment did represent a battle in the war on excess.

Consolidating the equipment and preparing it for shipment to the Central Region was the next major challenge in the war on excess. This required the DTO to coordinate extensively with customs and railway officials. It also meant endless hours of planning, risk assessments, and safety briefings.

The division PBO had 20 empty MILVAN's staged at Eagle Base. He then scheduled units to turn in their excess nonrolling stock that had not been transferred laterally within TFE, and this equipment was loaded into the MILVAN's.

Moving the excess rolling stock was a bit more complex. It called for units to convoy 127 vehicles from five different base camps and stage them in serial order along the road to the Eagle Base east gate for convoy to the Lukavac railhead. This time-consuming process was minimized by detailed planning and teamwork and the flexibility and professionalism exhibited by all units involved.

Rolling stock is washed at the Lukavac washrack before it is staged for loading onto a railcar. At right, a soldier attaches a radio frequency tag to a vehicle being shipped to the Central Region.

A logistics support area (LSA) was established at the Lukavac railhead to support the equipment retrograde to the Central Region. The LSA consisted of four tents—two dining tents and two warming tents—a 292-foot radio antenna, a 27-point washrack, a MILVAN that served as a command and control center, a 40-ton loading ramp, and concertina wire strung to limit access to the area.

The LSA was operational for 3 days while vehicles and MILVAN's were loaded onto flatcars. Excess rolling stock was convoyed from Eagle Base and staged for final movement onto the railcars. The MILVAN's were brought by palletized loading system trucks to the Lukavac railhead, where they would be loaded by crane onto the flatcars.

All rolling stock was washed thoroughly at the Lukavac railhead washrack. Then they were driven to the LSA area, where they were lined up in front of the loading ramp according to the train manifest. All vehicle silhouettes were reduced to meet customs and transportation requirements. Bumper numbers were removed from each vehicle and a radio frequency tag attached that would provide intransit visibility of the vehicle while it was en route from Lukavac to the Central Region.

At the railhead, soldiers were required to shovel snow off flatcars and apply salt before loading the vehicles. Following a final safety inspection and a driver safety briefing that outlined truck commander responsibilities, the vehicles were loaded onto the train. All of the safety briefings given throughout the operation were important, but the briefing given to the truck commanders during the ramp-loading operations was extremely important. The truck commander's primary job was to guide the huge 5-ton tractors, trucks, and other rolling stock onto the railhead ramp safely. Drivers in these vehicles sat so high in the cab that they could not see the ramp or the flatcar as they rolled onto the train; drivers could see only the hands of the truck commander guiding their movement onto the railcar and down the entire length of the train. This was without question the most dangerous part of the retrograde operation.

Once the equipment arrived in the Central Region, the 200th Theater Army Materiel Management Center (TAMMC) used a relational data base to process the equipment for redistribution. The equipment was segregated by commodity and matched with corresponding theater shortages and repair programs. Unit shortages were prioritized so they could be filled according to urgency. The remaining equipment was entered in the theater Standard Army Retail Supply System.

Ultimately, winning the war on excess was a battalion-level operation. In total, 127 pieces of rolling stock and 20 MILVAN's containing over 2,000 items valued at more than $12 million were retrograded to the Central Region from the Lukavac railhead—12 days ahead of schedule. Because of well-orchestrated planning and safety-conscious leadership, this mission was accomplished successfully without accidents, injuries, or property damage.

Above, a truck commander guides a driver onto a flatcar the most dangerous part of the retrograde operation. At right, excess equipment sits on a railcar headed for the Central Region in Germany.

Eliminating excess equipment is a monumental undertaking. It requires extensive planning and coordination throughout all staff sections. Other logistics organizations can benefit from the lessons learned by the 1st Cavalry Division during its war on excess—

The 1st Cavalry Division's successful war on excess was possible only by having a clear vision of what needed to be accomplished and dedicated soldiers willing to do what it took to get the mission accomplished safely. It was a superbly executed job, accomplished by a truly great team-the First Team! ALOG

Major Burt D. Moore, USAR, is the Division Support Command Support Operations Officer for the 1st Cavalry Division and the Multinational Division (North). He has B.A. degree in criminal justice from the University of South Florida, a juris doctor degree from Stetson University College of Law in Florida; a master's degree in public administration from Century University in New Mexico, and a master's degree in business administration from California Coast University.

Captain Douglas H. Stubbe, USAR, is a member of the 644th Area Support Group at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. He serves as the Division Support Command/G4 Current Operations Officer, 1st Cavalry Division. He is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic Course, the Ordnance Officer Advanced Course, and the Army Airborne School. Captain Stubbe is the Coordinator of Residential Life at Minnesota Life College.

1st Cavalry Division Wins War on Excess

by Major Burt D. Moore, USAR, and Captain Douglas H. Stubbe, USAR