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FORT BELVOIR, Va. -- The Defense Logistics Agency’s Marine Corps stakeholders in U.S. Pacific Command are pleased with the agency’s support to their missions and would like additional logistics solutions, the deputy director of logistics for Marine Forces Pacific said, Sept. 14.
During an office call with DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Alan Thompson and MARFORPAC Deputy Commander Marine Brig. Gen. Ronald Baczkowski at the service component’s Camp Smith, Hawaii, headquarters, Larry Johnson told the leaders that his team relies on DLA’s capabilities to lighten the logistics burden they’ve traditionally managed.
“During Operation Tomodachi and the follow-on support mission, we’d have been in a crack if DLA team members hadn’t stepped forward with us. We have been able to relieve ourselves of some of the historical logistics mission because of DLA support, and that has enabled us to be more efficient,” Johnson said.
“I have seen the trust relationship build with DLA to where we’re coming to your folks and asking what more they can take on,” he said.
Thompson and his Pacific-based leadership team visited U.S. Pacific Command headquarters and its service components this week on the island of Oahu to gauge the agency’s support in the U.S. military’s largest operating area.
While much of the world’s focus has been on Southwest and Central Asia over the past 10 years, Thompson said, the Pacific theater is only going to become more important as forces are reduced in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“DLA is a global enterprise, and many people discuss the U.S. Central Command operating area in Southwest and Central Asia when referring to contingency operations. But as we’re drawing down in Iraq and beginning to do so in Afghanistan, we’re continuing to look at the entire world, and USPACOM is going to become more visible in the coming years,” he said.
Maintaining strong connections with DLA will be important for the Marine Corps as it repositions forces in the Pacific due to force structure changes and requirements to relocate certain units from Okinawa, Japan, to Guam.
“As the drawdown concludes for Iraq and is executed in Afghanistan, I think we’re going to see reposturing in the Pacific and our experts plug into DLA so we can anticipate for the changing requirements,” Baczkowski said. "We’ll probably also be looking at a total review of pre-positioned stocks over the next two years.”
Thompson visited Okinawa in February and said it was helpful to see the agency’s footprint there. DLA provides the full range of its capabilities on Okinawa, including troop support, fuel and distribution. Like the Marine Corps, DLA is repositioning on the island and moving some operations to Guam.
Also like its Marine Corps partners, DLA is working off a timetable that is no longer concrete because of economic and natural disaster-related challenges in Japan, Thompson said, so DLA’s presence there is key to staying connected with USPACOM and changes occurring throughout the entire theater.
A key piece of DLA’s strategy for responding to Marine Corps needs for exercises and humanitarian support is the agency’s Pacific Logistics Operations Center, which is colocated with MARFORPAC at Camp Smith and led by Marine Lt. Col. John Turner.
The center can increase operations and go 24/7 when called upon, officials said.
“We have a great relationship with DLA and appreciate the team here in Hawaii. They will be a great value as we change the Marine Corps’ Pacific footprint, where we’ll likely start to see expeditionary bases in different strategic locations,” Baczkowski said.
Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief are core Marine Corps capabilities, he said, and his team has to work with DLA get the full picture of what material and infrastructure is available in the Pacific, where missions can arise with little notice.
“Sustainment will be a challenge with a force footprint dispersed from where we’ve traditionally provided support, so DLA will likely have to look at our global facility lay-down to ensure it meets warfighters’ needs,” Thompson said.
DLA’s team is in the process of conducting a global assessment of fuel and distribution facilities and pre-positioned stocks, and officials said they are paying particular attention to the Pacific area of operations.
The goal is to match the set up of facilities, material and capabilities with the services’ requirements to ensure the right facilities are in the right places and stocking the right products to meet customers’ needs, Thompson said.
“I spoke with the folks at USPACOM about, ‘Do we have the right humanitarian-assistance/disaster-relief material positioned in the right places?’ When you’re operating an HADR mission in the Pacific, you have to move large volumes of material over great distances quickly, and it’s not easy,” Thompson said.
DLA uses its existing network of vendors and internal support teams extensively to provide support on battlefields in USCENTCOM’s area of responsibility, but they’re also used in USPACOM. There, the DSTs augment combatant commanders’ and service components’ logistics staffs for exercises and humanitarian relief efforts.
“Beneath our three regional commands that face the geographic commands in USCENTCOM, USPACOM and the European and African theaters, we have these support teams made up of DLA military and civilian members who serve as a forward-deployed presence,” Thompson said.
“We can send them forward in the event of operations, exercises and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief as we did in Japan and previously in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. They’re part of our strategy for being agile and going where the warfighters need us,” he said.
Looking forward, officials said DLA is continuing to work alongside the services as they innovate in response to intensifying budget pressures.
The Marine Corps is working to reduce fuel consumption so it can be more agile in its battle space, Baczkowski said.
DLA supports the military services’ ventures into alternative energy through its DLA Energy business unit, helmed in the Pacific by Navy Capt. Kevin Henderson.
“As the military explores moving from fossil fuels to non-petroleum based fuels, DLA Energy is serving as a clearing house for contracting and ensuring there’s knowledge sharing across the branches, so each can take advantage of what’s been learned so far,” Thompson said.
The key is the cost perspective, because it’s still very costly to fuel a vehicle, aircraft or ship with synthetic or biofuel because industry hasn’t yet made the investment in infrastructure required to mass produce those fuels, he said.
Concluding the discussion, Thompson said he believes DLA and the Marine Corps have the right engagement on Oahu and around the Pacific to provide successful logistics solutions.
| Date Taken: | 09.16.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 09.20.2011 11:33 |
| Story ID: | 77314 |
| Location: | FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 89 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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