Soldiers of the 8th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), wrestle a CH–47D helicopter into hoisting position so it can be lifted off the USNS Benavidez at Jacksonville, Florida.
ALOG NEWS
SDDC MAKES HISTORIC EQUIPMENT MOVES
During the first 4 months of 2004, the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) carried out the largest move of U.S. military equipment since World War II. Elements of eight Army divisions were moved to or from Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Large quantities of Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps equipment also were moved. The equipment deployment was one-third larger than the original deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom. The surge movements for deployment occurred in late January, and redeployment of equipment continued into the spring.

The moves involved approximately 300 vessel movements through east and gulf coast ports with connections in Kuwait. Military Sealift Command ships and chartered commercial vessels were the principal equipment movers, and approximately 16,000 containers were moved onboard commercial U.S. vessels.
The main domestic ports used for the moves were the ports of Corpus Christi, Texas; Beaumont, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Jacksonville, Florida. The primary port used in the theater was the port of Ash Shuaybah, Kuwait.

Army units returning to home stations included the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) of Fort Campbell, Kentucky; the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) of Fort Hood, Texas; the 1st Armored Division of Wiesbaden, Germany; the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) of Fort Polk, Louisiana; the 2d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, of Fort Bragg, North Carolina; and the 173d Airborne Brigade of Vicenza, Italy.
SDDC deployed elements of the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) of Wurzburg, Germany; the 1st Cavalry Division of Fort Hood, Texas; the 25th Infantry Division (Light) of Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; and a Marine Air-Ground Task Force from the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, California. While most units are going to Iraq, the 25th Infantry Division brigade and a U.S. Marine Corps battalion will succeed elements of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) in Afghanistan.

Among the National Guard units deploying were the 30th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) from North Carolina; the 81st Armor Brigade (Separate) from Washington; and the 39th Infantry Brigade (Light) from Arkansas.
JOINT NATIONAL TRAINING CAPABILITY
COMPLETES INITIAL EXERCISE
The Department of Defense conducted the first exercise under its new Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) concept in January. Over 9,400 service members participated in the exercise, called the Western Range Complex JNTC Horizontal Training Event 04–1, with personnel from the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) providing exercise control. USJFCOM is developing the JNTC to meet the need for the armed services to train as they will fight, which means as components of joint task forces. As Dr. Paul W. Mayberry, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Readiness, explained the rationale behind the JNTC, “We fight as a joint team. We must train routinely in a joint environment.”

The JNTC is designed to provide that joint training environment. The original JNTC concept was to establish a Joint National Training Center, a physical location where the services would train together as joint task forces. However, that concept evolved into the current plan, which is to create a networked joint training environment that brings together live exercises and virtual (manned simulators) and constructive (computer simulations) training events.The JNTC will have four training methods—

• Horizontal, which synchronizes training at the service-to-service level.
• Vertical, which coordinates training of a service branch with a higher component and a lower service branch.
• Integration, in which participants train in a joint context to improve interoperability.
• Functional, which provides a joint training environment for functional and complex warfighting.
The first JNTC exercise integrated an Army rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California; an Air Force Air Warrior exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada; a Marine Corps combined arms exercise at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California; and a Navy surface-launched attack missile exercise (SLAMEX) conducted from ships anchored at San Diego, California. Participants at 12 other locations were linked to the exercise through simulators and simulations.

Other exercises scheduled for this year include an integration event, Combined Joint Task Force Exercise 04–2, in June; another horizontal exercise in August; and a vertical exercise, Unified Endeavor/ Fuertes Defensas 04, in September.JNTC should achieve initial operating capability by October and final operating capability by fiscal year 2009.
ARMY BUDGET SUBMITTED TO CONGRESS
The President is seeking $98.526 billion for the Army in his fiscal year 2005 budget, an increase of about $4.6 billion (or 4.7 percent) over what he sought and $2.7 billion (or 2.8 percent) over what Congress appropriated for fiscal year 2004. (These figures do not include fiscal year 2004 supplemental appropriations of approximately $38.7 billion for the Global War on Terrorism or planned fiscal year 2005 supplemental requests.) The Army request constitutes 24.5 percent of the overall Department of Defense budget of $401.7 billion.

The fiscal year 2005 budget proposal includes $39.408 billion for military personnel; $32.573 billion for operation and maintenance; $10.364 billion for procurement; $10.435 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation; $2.124 billion for military construction; $1.565 billion for family housing; and $1.372 billion for chemical demilitarization.

The budget begins a long-term process of rebalancing types of units within the Active and Reserve components. To reduce the current, war-driven burden on the Reserve components, the Army in fiscal year 2005 will convert 2,184 Active component personnel spaces from units in less demand (such as air defense) to those in greater demand (such as transportation and quartermaster). The Army also will pursue conversion of military spaces to civilian positions where appropriate.

The operation and maintenance request will fund Active component operating tempo at 899 miles of actual and virtual use for each vehicle and 13.1 hours of flying each month for each aircrew. The budget will support 10 brigade rotations (1 Army National Guard) at both the National Training Center and the Joint Readiness Training Center; 5 brigade rotations at the Combat Maneuver Training Center; and 1 corps-level Warfighter exercise and training for 11 division-level command and staff groups in the Battle Command Training Program.
The Depot Maintenance Program will be funded at 72 percent of its requirements, and the Recapitalization Rebuild Program will be fully funded to support the 17 designated systems. The budget request also will support an initiative called “Connect Army Logisticians,” under which existing information systems will be redesigned to provide continuous connectivity from soldiers on the battlefield to the domestic industrial base.
The procurement requests include $1.831 billion for aircraft (down 14.3 percent); $1.305 billion for missiles (down 12.7 percent); $1.640 billion for weapons and tracked combat vehicles (down 15.7 percent); $1.402 billion for ammunition (up 1.7 percent); and $2.283 billion for other procurement (down 21.9 percent). This last category will fund the purchase of 2,425 trucks in the family of medium tactical vehicles—an increase of 630—and 818 uparmored high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicles.

The budget provides for the acquisition of 310 Stryker vehicles to support conversion of the fifth Stryker brigade, the 2d Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Light), at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. It also calls for spending $3.198 billion on research, development, and acquisition for the Future Combat Systems, the keystone of the Army’s Future Force.

The chemical demilitarization program will continue design and construction of planned disposal facilities at Lexington, Kentucky; and Pueblo, Colorado; and environmental monitoring at the closed Johnston Atoll facility, as well as ongoing disposal operations at the facilities at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland; Newport, Indiana; Anniston, Alabama; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Tooele, Utah; and Umatilla, Oregon.
FIELD STUDY IN AFGHANISTAN
FINDS NEED FOR LIGHTER COMBAT LOADS

A study of the combat loads carried by 82d Airborne Division soldiers in Afghanistan found that the loads were too heavy. The study evidently the first study of battlefield combat loads since one conducted by the Marine Corps in 1942— was sponsored by the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and led by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dean, the Army’s liaison to the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Field Manual 21–18, Foot Marches, which was issued in 1990, set the maximum weights that soldiers should carry as combat loads—

The 82d Airborne Division’s Task Force
Pathfinder is using several new vehicles to detect buried mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq. The vehicles are heavily armored and designed to resist the blast of IEDs and mines, freeing the operators to focus on finding the explosive devices. Above, a vehicle operator dismounts an RG–31
armored car that was manufactured in South Africa.

• Fighting load: 48 pounds. (A fighting load includes a weapon, bayonet, clothing, helmet, load-bearing equipment, and ammunition.)
• Approach march load: 72 pounds. (This load adds a lightly loaded rucksack.)
• Emergency approach march load: 120 to 150 pounds. (This load adds a larger rucksack.)
The average soldier in the study carried a fighting load of 63 pounds, or 36 percent of the average soldier’s body weight of 175 pounds, before a rucksack was added. The average approach march load was 96 pounds, or 55 percent of average body weight. The emergency approach march load averaged 127 pounds, or 73 percent of average body weight. The study found that—

• Soldiers have greater capabilities, but the
increase in capabilities has increased the weight soldiers must carry.
• Less essential items now carried by soldiers should be carried in vehicles.
• Body armor should be lighter.
• Load carriage needs to be improved.
• Climate and terrain can exhaust soldiers carrying heavy loads. In Afghanistan, for example, daytime temperatures during the period of the study (springtime) reached 116 degrees Fahrenheit and nighttime temperatures were frigid.
Dean concluded, “I think we can drop 10, 20, 30 pounds off these guys by paring down some items that they are currently carrying, as long as these items are readily available when needed in a hurry. If we can offload some items, then we can work on reducing the weight of the remaining items through technology. The big monkey is to look at logistics and redesign logistics practices to get the weight off soldiers.”
Army Names Its Network Enterprise
In February, the Army announced a new name for its network enterprise. “LandWarNet” is the Army’s share of the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Global Information Grid (GIG). It provides networks to the Active Army, Army National Guard, Army Reserve, and the sustaining base (the people, guidance, systems, money, materiel, and facilities that prepare soldiers for action, take care of their families while they are deployed, and return the soldiers to their installations.) LandWarNet is the Army counterpart to the Air Force’s ConstellationNet and the Navy’s enterprise network of the FORCENet.

LandWarNet combines infostructure (information + infrastructure) and services across the Army. It processes, stores, and transports information over a seamless network. LandWarNet’s network elements consist of—

• Installation connectivity to the GIG. The National Guard’s GuardNET and the Army Reserve’s ARNET are both part of LandWarNet at this level.
• Echelons-above-corps connectivity to the GIG. This element supports combatant commanders, land component commanders, and joint force commanders and is the bridge between the deployed soldier and the GIG.
• Echelons-corps-and-below connectivity to the GIG. This element supports soldiers, units of action or brigade, division, and corps elements located in the deployed theater.
As they are fielded, the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN–T), Joint Tactical Radio System, Transformational Communications System, GIG-bandwidth expansion, and network-centric enterprise services will be integral parts of LandWarNet.

The GIG is the globally interconnected set of information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel that collect, process, store, disseminate, and manage information for warfighters, policy makers, and support personnel. It comprises all DOD-owned and DOD-leased communications and computing systems and services, software, data, security services, and other associated services necessary to achieve information superiority.

The GIG supports all DOD, national security, and related intelligence community missions and functions (strategic, operational, tactical, and business), in war and peace. It provides capabilities from all operating locations (bases, posts, camps, stations, facilities, mobile platforms, and deployed sites) and enables interfaces among coalition, allied, and non-DOD users and system
FLORIDA TECH ANNOUNCES
ALMC FELLOWSHIP
The Florida Institute of Technology (FT), which has a graduate center on the campus of the Army Logistics Management College (ALMC) at Fort Lee, Virginia, has announced the establishment of the ALMC Logistics Executive Development Course (LEDC)/FT Endowed Fellowship. The fellowship was established with a $10,000 anonymous gift in memory of Major Mathew Earl Schram, a graduate of the LEDC/FT cooperative degree program who was killed in Iraq last year.

Under the provisions of the fellowship, tuition assistance will be provided to U.S. military officers in the LEDC/FT cooperative degree program who qualify based on merit and need. The recipient will receive tuition assistance during his final semester in the LEDC/FT program and appropriate recognition on graduation from the program. The first fellowship will be awarded this fall.

For more information on the fellowship or to make a donation to the fund, call FT at (804) 765–4665 or send an email to peter.j.adler/ FIT@lee.army.mil.
ANNUAL SOLE CONFERENCE SCHEDULED
SOLE—The International Society of Logistics, will hold its 39th Annual International Conference and Exhibition 31 August to 2 September at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott in Norfolk, Virginia. This year’s theme is “Future Logistics: The Integrated Enterprise.” For more information, visit the SOLE Web site at www.sole.org/conference.asp or send an email to AnnualConf@sole.org.