thoughtleaders
BY STEVE GEARY, EDITOR AT LARGE
Into the wild Into the wild
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE U.S. ARMY
INTERVIEW WITH BRIG. GEN. KRISTIN FRENCH
Brigadier General
Kristin French may face
the ultimate supply
chain challenge:
getting fuel, food,
water, and ammo
to every warfighter in
Afghanistan—no
matter how remote
the location.
You may not have given much thought to how military supplies get to remote
corners of Afghanistan, but it’s an all-consuming subject for Brig. Gen. Kristin
French. As commanding general of the 3rd Sustainment Command
(Expeditionary), which recently deployed to Afghanistan, she and her organization are responsible for seeing that any goods for U.S. and allied forces moving
through that troubled country get to where they’re needed on time and intact.
A 26-year Army veteran, French received her commission in 1986 after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. She served in command positions at the company, battalion, and brigade levels prior to taking command of the
3rd ESC. She deployed to Croatia, Kuwait, and Iraq before this tour in Afghanistan.
Most recently, she served as the executive officer to the director, Defense
Logistics Agency, and military adviser to the assistant secretary of defense for
logistics and material readiness at the Department of Defense (DOD). She spoke
to DC VELOCITY Editor at Large Steve Geary in June at her office on Kandahar
Air Field in southern Afghanistan.
QThe 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) provides “theater logis- tics command and control for the theater commander.” What does that
mean in layman’s terms?
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