The business we're in … is a team sport!!!

Translog: Journal of Military Transportation Management, Spring, 2004 by Ann E. Dunwoody

Here we are ... winding up the largest force deployment and redeployment since World War II ... moving cargo out of multiple strategic seaports both stateside and overseas and offloading at one primary seaport in Kuwait. Imagine the synchronization and coordination required to choreograph this operation! As many of you know, the first round of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was primarily a one-way operation--the deployment of forces in support of OIF I. The current rotation in support of OIF II is much more complex--synchronizing the deployment and redeployment simultaneously, with considerations like 365 day Boots-on-the-Ground and stay-behind equipment factored into the equation.

It is hard to envision the massive amounts of cargo and troops moving at one time. Over a quarter-million American service members, tens of thousands of members from the Coalition nations and million of tons of equipment moving through the two-way pipeline with a well coordinated battle handover in Kuwait.

The way I try to visualize it: We have moved about 1,200 football fields of equipment and 452 miles of containers stretched end-to-end. The length of containers alone would stretch from Alexandria, Va., to Boston along Interstate 95.

The fact that we haven't read about this huge undertaking in the news ... is most noteworthy. It was kind of like Y2K: A nonevent. But we know it did not happen by accident. We know it happened as the result of a lot of hard work, coordination and teamwork--you've heard me say it before THE BUSINESS WE'RE IN IS A TEAM SPORT! The business we're in is a business where there are no independent operators, a business where people's lives depend on what we do.

Let me introduce the Team: At center-of-mass of our team is U.S. Transportation Command, led by Gen. John Handy at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. our team coach and our component commands--our Navy partners, the Military Sealift Command, and our Air Force partners, the Air Mobility Command. Our partners go beyond our immediate combatant command. Our partners, a critical part of the team ... include the Army Staff, Joint Staff, Forces Command, Defense Logistics Agency, the Army Materiel Command, Army and Air Force Exchange Service, Navy Exchange Service-and so many others. Our industry partners did the heavy lifting moving tons of cargo by rail carrier and sea. Supporting organizations like the National Defense Transportation Association, Association of the U.S. Army, and the American Trucking Association contributed to the over all success. Our maritime community ... made the feat humanly possible. Our deploying organizations were filled with heroes that helped make the vision a reality.

Probably, nowhere is this teamwork more evident than the U.S. Central Command Deployment and Distribution Operations Center, or CDDOC, which has operated in Kuwait since Jan. 2. The CDDOC is a symbol of our teamwork. It is an inherently joint organization ... comprised of subject-matter experts from Transportation Command, all three component commands, along with our strategic suppliers and distributors. The center's single-source of coordination makes it easy for war fighters to track shipments. Center staffers, now numbering 63, working under the direction of Army Brig. Gen. John Levasseur, identify and manage all of the movement requirements in-and-out of the theater. Conversely, with all movement information immediately available, center staffers are able to make timely decisions on all modes of transportation. The CDDOC works under the tactical command of U.S. Central Command's director of logistics.

This new capability--the Deployment and Distribution Operations Center--is directly related to Transportation Command's new role as the Department of Defense's Distribution Process Owner and demonstrates the significance of making a single combatant commander the distribution process owner.

The CDDOC now operating for Central Command in Operation Iraqi Freedom is just a starting point for transporters and logisticians. Planning is also underway to develop Deployment and Distribution Operation Centers to support U.S. European Command and U.S. Pacific Command.

To date, the metrics of the deployment and distribution involved in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom are absolutely fantastic. Our commercial carriers have moved equipment on 17,000 rail cars. They have conducted 108,500 truck shipments to Continental United States ports. In the process, we have loaded and discharged ships in 330 different voyages--involving an incredible 227 different vessels. In both deployment and sustainment, we have managed the move of 48,000 shipping containers.

During the buildup to Operation Iraqi Freedom in late 2002 and early 2003, we took only 60 days to move 15-million-square feet of cargo. We moved the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), of Fort Campbell, Ky., in brigade combat teams aboard five Large, Medium-Speed, Roll-on/Roll-off vessels. The ships closed in a Kuwaiti port in an incredible 12 days.