Some DLA Support Teams have WSRs within them, but most WSRs work on their own, such as the one embedded with 5th Fleet in Bahrain. Others, such as the WSR at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, cover multiple units – Special Operations Command, Army Materiel Command, the Air Force, and so on.

DLA Central has only 300 personnel – 200 of those in Afghanistan – all volunteers from across the DLA enterprise. In fact, when the command had a shortfall as demand for its services in theater skyrocketed, more than 900 DLA civilians volunteered to fill billets in the combat zone.

“Those civilian volunteers are the strength of the organization. In the 10 years we’ve been prosecuting the war, some people have done four or five six-month deployments in theater as part of the DSTs – and they continue to volunteer to go back,” Bird said. “Having been in the AOR quite a bit myself, prior to DLA, I can tell you that is a very austere, non-hospitable place to work, especially considering they work around the clock, always knowing there is an enemy everywhere trying to hurt them.”

As with the other two regional commands, DLA Central is headquartered with the primary unified command it serves – in this case, CENTCOM in Tampa, Fla. It is embedded as a component to CENTCOM’s logistics commander (J-4), supporting his staff and going wherever they go, including CENTCOM’s forward headquarters at Al Udeid.

“Our second focus is the command and control of DSTs, which are the eyes and ears of the director, with a reach-back ability based on their understanding of the warfighter and his needs. There are eight supply chains they can tap at any time for an immediate response to a battlefield requirement,” Bird explained. “Those DSTs, while small, are the strength of DLA Central, providing us the ability to work actions forward.

“They also are tailorable, in size and function. In Iraq today, for example, the DST is disposition-oriented, although they also perform a myriad of missions related to the drawdown of forces, assuring the State Department transition smoothly takes over from DoD, working with the training mission of Iraqi forces and dealing with the bad guys, who are still there. But the biggest piece is disposition.”

As U.S. forces have been withdrawing from Iraq, a simultaneous surge in Afghanistan has required a DLA change of focus to more land and aviation requirements. At the top of that list is spare parts for Army and Marine Corps MRAPs (mine resistant ambush-protected vehicles), which he terms “a huge responsibility for DLA in Afghanistan.”

“The DST in Afghanistan is much larger than what remains in Iraq. Due to the sheer size of the effort and the decentralized nature of the country, we have set up detachments outside the main effort at the capital of Kabul, including Bagram [in heavily contested Helmand province], Kandahar [the country’s second-largest city], and Leatherneck/Bastion [Camp Leatherneck, where the Marines are headquartered in the south, adjoins Camp Bastion, the main British military base]. We’re also beginning to develop a theater-consolidated shipping point in the north, so DLA has covered Afghanistan quite well,” he said.

“Our strength is with the forward DSTs, where people rotate in and out all the time, while the other two regional commands have people permanently assigned. That is probably my biggest challenge as a commander, assuring continuity as we rotate people. Due to the harsh conditions, we really don’t want to leave anyone there more than six months. But because we’ve been doing this for 10 years, we have a lot of people who have been there many times and can jump right in on their next voluntary rotation because they know what kind of conditions they will experience, day in and day out, with no breaks.”

Bird also attributes DLA Central’s success, in part, to close communications and sharing of lessons learned with the other two regional commands.

“I get a lot of support out of DLA Europe because of their proximity to the CENTCOM AOR; we even get volunteers from there. I also talk with DLA Pacific a lot and share notes,” he said. “DLA doesn’t want the warfighter to have to think about logistics, but just focus on their job without wondering where things come from.

“We try to stay ahead of the curve, but there are always new requirements and the sooner we can deal with those the better. However, while we can be innovative, we can’t create more time, which is why we have set up the disposition yards, DSTs, and depots forward in theater.”

 

Indispensable Assets

In striving to meet the ever-changing and expanding needs of their warfighter customers, each regional commander tries to seek out and incorporate new and improved technologies in their day-to-day operations and share information on those implementations, especially what does and does not work, with their colleagues.

Despite their small size – especially when viewed in the context of the expanse and complexity of their AORs – the regional commands have become an indispensable asset to U.S. warfighters.

“I like to call it support from the factory to the foxhole – procure, receive, store, and issue. And pretty much the same coming back; we are an integral part of the reset process of each service, which basically is the same process in reverse. All of which is supply chain management,” Arnold said, which also means keeping a watchful eye on the budget process at home and a fast-changing geopolitical environment abroad.

“We all are living in a world of fiscal constraints and limited resources, but, for now, I don’t see any drastic changes on the immediate horizon. What I do see is looking at ways to maximize efficiencies, which, in my mind, also could very well mean reductions. But I don’t see any drastic reductions coming in the near future.”

For such a critical component of the American military, DLA – both in name and structure – is a relatively new part of DoD. The regional commands, while in some cases tracing roots at least as far back as World War II, are even younger and still face a question-filled future.

“We have evolved a phenomenal amount in the last 10 years, getting down there with the warfighters, not just sitting back in air-conditioned offices in the states and sending stuff out,” Bird concluded. “And while the first 40 years of DLA were incredible, in my opinion, nothing compares to the last 10.”