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Dunwoody praises Fort Lewis logistics support

Apr 10

By Don Kramer

FORT LEWIS, Wash. -- Handshakes and pats on the back were the minimum requirements that brought a senior logistician to Fort Lewis last week - the commanding general of Army Materiel Command and the first woman to earn four stars in the history of the U.S. Army.

Letters and e-mails weren't enough to carry Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody's message from the Beltway.

Dunwoody said she felt compelled to make her first trip from Fort Belvoir, Va., to Fort Lewis last week to say thank-you first-hand to her subordinates and logistics associates for their efforts and dedication.

"They're really doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes and we don't get out there often enough just to say thanks," Dunwoody said at the end of her packed itinerary April 3.

She began her day at the installation's Logistics Center at 404th Army Field Support Brigade headquarters, after which she chaired a roundtable discussion to listen to the challenges of brigade support battalion commanders, brigade executive officers and other local sustainment leaders.

She made rapid-fire stops across the post in the afternoon, receiving briefings on Stryker maintenance, retrofit operations and Land Warrior fielding. She toured the Directorate of Logistics, the Regional Aviation Sustainment Maintenance Facility, the Command Post System and Integration tactical operations center and the Communications Electronics Command/Command, Control, Communications and Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Install facility.

"They have facilities across the installation, yet they manage to synchronize and support this great reset effort," Dunwoody said at the end of the duty day. "Their care and concern for the war fighter is unprecedented. The passion of each and every one of the employees with which they're doing this work, knowing what the impact is of what they're doing for our deployed men and women, is priceless."

Along with her demonstration of appreciation for sustainers, Dunwoody said the "other piece" of her visit was to gain a better understanding of their needs. As impressed as she was by the people doing the logistics missions, she found things she might help in future.

"We have a lot of work to do here on the facilities that our great people are working on, to give them quality facilities to do this reset capability," she said.

The operations tempo of the current conflicts has outpaced the development and improvement of facilities, she said.

"As we've grown our operational arm of AMC to support the modular force, we didn't accommodate the (military construction) requirements at the same time," Dunwoody said. "We've grown the capabilities faster than we've grown the facilities to support them. That said, they've done a remarkable job leveraging the infrastructure and facilities here, and somehow they're managing to get it all done. That's just amazing to me - very, very impressive."

Dunwoody said upon reflection on all the briefings she received at Fort Lewis, the diverse organizations' abilities to work together to accomplish common goals stood out.

"The synchronization, the complexity of reset (is most impressive) to me when you get out here where the rubber meets the road," she said. "It's easy when you see (symbols) go across the map to say 'we're resetting this brigade combat team,' but out here where they're really synchronizing the little units, the big units, the capabilities that are really responsible for doing reset ... a team of teams has to come together willingly and cooperatively to get this done. It is just very impressive."

Dunwoody said she sees AMC's part in the reset effort as directly affecting the success of the voluntary force, with important implications for Soldier morale.

"We're trying to ensure we can protect their dwell time when they are home," she said. "AMC has a huge role in that, the organization of reset, the delivery of equipment and the training that takes place. We try to protect them when they first come home so they have an integration time. They have to know that we're going to do everything we can on their way out giving them the time with their families. And so when they go off, their families are set. And if their families are set, they can focus on the mission at hand. We have a big responsibility."

Don Kramer is a reporter with Fort Lewis' Northwest Guardian.