Quad-City Times January 25, 2003
Arsenal has key role in war preparations
By Ed Tibbetts
Of the estimated 15,000 people serving in Kuwait, more than a dozen left the base at Arsenal Island to serve overseas. Williams, an Air Force veteran with four decades experience serving around the world, is one of them.
Beginning early in the morning, he monitors ship schedules and the offloading of equipment. There isn't much time to see the country, he says. Most of his time is spent on the base, working elbow to elbow with more than a dozen other people in relatively cramped quarters.
As with most military bases, the Arsenal will play a role if there is a war with Iraq. Already, one of its commands, the Field Support Command, has been a central figure in the buildup in the region. Meanwhile, other agencies on the island have taken on tasks to prepare for hostilities, whether it be the painting of National Guard vehicles with chemically treated materials or developing weapon components that may very well be used by soldiers in the field.
Ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Arsenal has been pressed into action, officials say.
"We've been moving ammunition at warp speed for a year and a half now," Maj. Gen. Wade H. McManus Jr., said last week during a press briefing. "It's ebbed and flowed, but we've always been busy."
McManus is in charge of the newly named Joint Munitions Command, which is in charge of managing conventional ammunition for all branches of the service.
The Arsenal people serving in southwest Asia will be there for six months, and the number will fluctuate. Many of the them work in a logistics capacity, among the major functions on the Quad-City military base.
The Field Support Command based on the island is in charge of prepositioning military stockpiles, a mission military analysts say is critically important in this situation. The equipment includes everything from tanks to fighting vehicles to basic supplies for soldiers.
Strategy changes
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the Army has changed its strategy for prepositioned stock, consolidating it into five regions and another at sea. So instead of taking several months to prepare for conflict, it takes considerably less time. "We can respond not only faster, but much more focused," said Gen. Vincent E. Boles, the commanding general of the Field Support Command.
The buildup in Iraq has raised the profile of the command within the Department of the Army, but Iraq will truly be the first test of the new strategy, which has not only meant consolidation but also lacing it under a single command with one funding stream from the Pentagon.
"I have no reservations at all," Boles said when asked about his confidence level. "These people will not falter at all."
Military analysts say that more sophisticated computerization and preplanning have made a big difference in speeding up deployment times, which took too long during the 1991 Gulf War.
Lots of planning
"There has been a lot, I mean a lot, of time given to planning what they would have to do to ramp up to a conflict," said Patrick Garrett, associate analyst with Globalsecurity.org, an organization that has tracked the buildup in Iraq.
In the end, it's all aimed at making sure that if conflict breaks out, the supplies are ready for the soldier when he or she needs them.
In every conflict over the past decade, whether it was the Persian Gulf in 1991, in Bosnia during the mid-1990s or Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Arsenal workers have played at least some role in the conflicts.
During the Bosnian conflict, workers designed special armor to protect vehicles from land mines. And a little more than a year ago, the Arsenal was asked to design a gun-site mount that could be fitted onto a howitzer, thus allowing it to be used as a direct fire weapon, not just one that lobs shells. Arsenal officials say it was used in Afghanistan, where the enemy hid in caves.
Dave Bailey, director of engineering at the Arsenal, said it took a week to plan and create a half-dozen prototypes.
Arsenal officials don't know whether it will be used in Iraq, but they say it is an example of their ability to quickly take a request, in this case a soldier's rough design, and manufacture it so that it would work in the field. In this case, nearly 60 of the site mounts were made and shipped out in early 2002, and another order for 54 are now being shipped, said Gale Smith, an Arsenal spokesperson.
Most recently, Arsenal employees spent about six weeks from early December to Jan. 3 working around the clock seven days a week to paint 160 National Guard vehicles with a chemical resistant paint. They finished a week before their deadline.
Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.
