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Battle Ready Brigade Focuses on Command Supply Discipline

By Capt. Kurt Van Slooten

FORT STEWART, Ga. - Col. Robert A. Warburg, commander of the 188th Infantry Brigade, First Army Division East, hosted several high-level Army logisticians to conduct a logistics seminar for all 188th Brigade personnel not currently engaged in a mission. The seminar provided insight on the Army's logistics systems and introduced the new Global Combat Support System - Army.

"Periodically commanders will have shutdowns to focus the unit on critical actions," said Warburg. "Today we are focusing the unit on logistics and supply systems; where we are now and where we are moving to in the future."

Karen Ortiz, a contractor with XO Tech under lead system integrator Northrop Grumman explained the how new GCSS-Army would be integrated into the force.

GCSS-Army, currently being field tested at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., takes advantage of the existing Defense Forces and Public Security System that provides integrated logistics and resource management for the armed forces and other public and private agencies. It provides financial management capability with enhanced visibility and materiel management using one system.

GCSS-Army will take the place of 10 logistic systems currently being used and provide a complete end-to-end system. The system is scheduled for wider release in July 2012 to tactical units.

U.S. Army Materiel Command Logistics Support Activity sent Geoffrey Embrey, deputy to the commander of LOGSA, to inform the Soldiers about the automated logistic systems the support activity manages.

He explained that LOGSA takes logistics data from the Army, houses it in the Logistics Information Warehouse, and arrays it in tools, applications and reports, which may be used to create actionable intelligence for commanders. He also provided guidance to commanders and logisticians to help them account for assigned assets and to check for accurate reporting to the Department of the Army.

U.S. Forces Command, First Army Division East's higher headquarters, provided a representative for the seminar to give clarification on FORSCOM standards. William T. Avery, FORSCOM logistics officer stressed that Soldiers must be good stewards of American taxpayers' dollars. He said that in the near future property accountability training would be integrated in some form into all noncommissioned officer and officer schools.

"Property accountability is everyone's responsibility," emphasized Avery. "We have to get our Soldiers back to the basics on supply discipline."

Col. Martin Pitts, Department of the Army supply directorate deputy director, participated in the seminar through video conferencing from the Pentagon. He discussed the current Army-wide property accountability campaign as a whole.

He emphasized to the group that the Army is accountable to the American people. Pitts said that during the current quarter the Army accounted for more than $1.3 billion in supplies and equipment placed back on property books or turned in as excess.

"The goal is to reset Army culture to property accountability and good stewardship," said Pitts. "We have to re-establish a culture of supply discipline and property accountability."

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Paul M. Thurston, 188th Infantry Brigade property book officer, explained that the Chief of Staff of the Army directed the Department of the Army logistics branch to develop an enduring property accountability campaign to account for all property and to recover and reintegrate excess equipment back into the Army supply system. First Army Division East instituted "Operation Clean Sweep" as part of the initiative.

Under "Operation Clean Sweep," the 188th Infantry Brigade has already identified and added more than $60,000 in equipment to the property books and turned in more than $250,000 in excess equipment.

Equipment is deemed excess when the Army determines it is obsolete; the equipment becomes unserviceable; or with changes in a unit's table of distribution and allowances or its authorized equipment list based on evolving mission requirements. Excess property is either redistributed to other units to meet shortages or turned in to the Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services (formerly Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office), which coordinates the reuse, transfer, donation, sale or disposal of excess property.

"The campaign also includes initiatives to mentor leaders at every level on good command supply discipline, and this seminar was a part of that mentoring process," said Thurston.

The 188th Infantry Brigade, along with the other training support brigades in First Army Division East, provides and facilitates theater-focused training for deploying National Guard and Reserve units and assists with redeployment and demobilizing following deployment. Based out of Fort Stewart, the 188th "Battle Ready" Brigade has been training Reserve Component units for deployments continuously since 2003.