Life-Cycle Management - Army Logistics University - U.S. Army

The port became a holding area. However, problems
with in-transit visibility and insufficient jingle
trucks to move supplies created a bottleneck at the
port, which caused a backlog of containers. Frozen
food storage was another problem. The refrigerated
containers (reefers) required power to keep the food at
a subfreezing temperature for the journey to Kandahar
Airfield. Yet few generator sets (“gensets”) were available
to provide power, and prime power needed to
operate the reefers at Kandahar Airfield was limited.
As a result, if a reefer arrived at the airfield without a
source of power (either prime power or generator
power), the class I staff had to keep the genset used to
power it during shipment. This slowed down the transportation
process and added to the backlog at the port.
These problems will be alleviated with the new cold
storage facility that was built in 2004 and with
increased prime power. Fresh fruits and vegetables
were shipped twice weekly by commercial air.
Class IIIB (bulk petroleum) was pushed from
refineries near Karachi. It was transported to Kandahar
Airfield in 10,000-gallon jingle fuel tankers. The
biggest concern with fuel delivery was force protection.
Fuel trucks make good targets for terrorists.
However, an extensive inspection of fuel trucks entering
the airfield reduced the IED risks.
Challenges
The FSB encountered several difficulties at the tactical
level. For instance, in-transit visibility of trucks
en route from Kandahar Airfield to the various outlying
FOBs was limited, and the time it took to get to the
different FOBs varied. The FSB had no way of knowing
if the truck arrived until it had returned to Kandahar,
which could be up to 2 weeks later. The jingle
trucks also had no license plates, so they were hard to
differentiate. If a truck was attacked,
there was a report stating that a jingle
truck had been attacked, which was
vague since all trucks in Afghanistan are
referred to as jingle trucks. After the
report came in, it took time to figure out
which truck was hit, which FOB it was
supplying, and what emergency resupply
actions were required. This had a
significant impact on the reliability of
supply deliveries.
Because of the lack of in-transit
visibility and the inherent dangers of a
combat zone, the terms of U.S. military
contracts with the Government officials
were usually generous. The contracts
A tanker prepares to deliver fuel to
forward operating bases.
often made it difficult to enforce the timely arrival of
supplies. For example, by contract, a driver may have
had 4 days to deliver supplies to a designated FOB,
when the trip took only 7 hours. This time difference
was a buffer in anticipation of possible problems, such
as maintenance troubles and attacks by anticoalition
militias along the way.
Another problem was pushing fuel forward. In
Afghanistan, there was no standard method or equipment
for cleaning fuel tankers properly. When a tanker
truck was requested, there was no guarantee that it
could carry fuel without contaminating it. Fuel transported
in the vehicles was often too dirty to be used at
the forward bases. As a result, aviation-grade fuel had
to be slingloaded to the FOBs.
During the 10th Mountain Division’s deployment,
the transportation cell, the CRP, and the MCT quickly
adapted to the constraints imposed by long supply
lines over difficult terrain. This flexibility was evident
in the judicious use of host nation vehicles, attention to
safety details, and the optimization of on-hand organic
assets. Therefore, critical supplies were delivered in
a timely manner, both to the forces at Kandahar Airfield
and at the outlying FOBs. This, in turn, proved
crucial to the success of the mission to support Operation
Enduring Freedom IV ALOG
FIRST LIEUTENANT MARY K. BLANCHFIELD IS THE
ASSISTANT S–3 FOR THE 10TH BRIGADE SUPPORT BAT-
TALION (BSB) AT FORT DRUM, NEW YORK. SHE WAS
THE MOVEMENT CONTROL OFFICER FOR THE 10TH FSB
IN KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN, WHEN SHE WROTE THIS
ARTICLE. SHE HAS A BACHELOR’S DEGREE FROM STETSON
UNIVERSITY IN FLORIDA AND IS A GRADUATE OF OFFICER
CANDIDATE SCHOOL AND THE TRANSPORTATION OFFICER
BASIC COURSE.
ARMY LOGISTICIAN PROFESSIONAL 27