The role of civilians during the first gulf war: Operation Desert Storm foreshadowed today's reliance on civilian logisticians on the battlefield

Army Logistician, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Craig A. Simonds

For the United States, Operation Desert Storm was a showcase for the technical wizardry of modern weapon systems. Although much has been said and written about the soldiers who manned these critical systems, less attention has been paid to the civilians who played a major role in delivering, provisioning, and maintaining them. This is unfortunate because those civilians were the beginning of a trend: the increasing role of civilians in providing logistics on the battlefield.

During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, thousands of logisticians were in the Persian Gulf, at every level of military command. Over 1,600 were civilians, each one proficient in the logistics field he supported. More than 1,000 civilians from the Depot System Command set up major depot operations, while other Army Materiel Command (AMC) civilians purchased, transported, and maintained personal supplies, combat materiel, and spare parts; set up water purification and distribution systems; and provided technical assistance on the operation of weapons and equipment. [Reorganizations of AMC since 1991 have eliminated some of the subordinate commands mentioned in this article.]

Why were civilians in a combat area? Their presence was a response to the Army's doctrine of that time--AirLand Battle--which called for highintensity, high-speed combat; the logistics effort had to keep pace. The logistics support in this concept was intimately connected to the battle plan, with logistics factored in as an integral component of combat power.

How Has Warfare Changed?

Operation Desert Storm demonstrated that the logistics battle was far more complex than the tactical battle, requiring a better understanding of the whole battlefield. Army civilians now play a major role in providing this type of understanding in a combat situation. Logistics in the ground war involves more than having enough materiel; it entails having the right item at the right time and then delivering it or moving it to the right place. These trends in warfare, logistics, and the need for civilians to provide support have only accelerated since Desert Storm.

To say that a division fights with tactics is a dramatic understatement of reality. A division's ability to fight is based on its ability to sustain and replenish itself. An active and versatile division with dynamic tactics has a high rate of consumption. To aid the forward march of logistics in Desert Storm, civilians constituted a complex network of support systems that provided direct logistics assistance to divisions, brigades, battalions, and companies.

A battlefield is no longer confined to well-defined lines laid out on a grid that indicate forward lines of troops or rear operations. The battlefield has both width and depth, and lines of operation can become fluid, frequently making it difficult for the force to connect with its base support for needed resources. Because the size of the battlefield changes as combat progresses, time and distance factors must be considered when planning support operations.

How Were Civilians Used?

To address the fluid battlefield situation during Desert Storm, commanders took a calculated risk and established supply bases far forward in the main battle area during defensive operations before they initiated the opening attack. Personnel at these forward bases included select civilian logisticians, known as logistics assistance representatives (LARs), who provided technical expertise in sustaining force readiness. LARs are emergency-essential civilians who support the Army in maintaining equipment. About 250 LARs served with Army units in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel during Desert Storm.

The Communications-Electronics Command first established intelligence and electronic warfare special repair activities (SRAs) to provide depot-level repair for military intelligence units and expedite movement of critical spare and repair parts into the theater. The SRAs sent equipment that could not be repaired in country back to the United States. SRA contact field teams visited units at the front so equipment would not have to be sent to the rear support area for repair. Civilian LARs and contractors were deployed along with military personnel to accomplish this mission.

When an AH-64 Apache helicopter fired the first shot in the air war, the Aviation Systems Command's theater aviation maintenance point (TAMP) was ready to provide any support that Army aviators needed. The TAMP's missions included helping units with port offloading operations, performing limited depot-level aircraft repair, providing depot-level maintenance support for sensitive electronics, cleaning and repairing helicopter engines eroded by sand, and operating a national inventory control point for aviation parts. The Aviation Systems Command was able to use an existing civilian field team to quickly bring technicians from Germany and establish the TAME When it became apparent that the theater would require additional aviation logistics support, many technicians were brought directly from the United States.