AThe 3rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) is a headquarters organization with several sustainment
brigades assigned to it. It coordinates sustainment operations throughout the country. Once a truck or convoy delivering fuel, water, or other supplies crosses any border into
Afghanistan, it becomes our responsibility to manage it and
to get it to the warfighter. We provide all the food, ammo,
and other supplies as well as the maintenance, transportation, and other requirements to sustain our forces.
QSo it’s like a big city in difficult and challenging terrain?
AAbsolutely. We like to say that we support a city about he size of Fayetteville, North Carolina, or Richmond,
Virginia.
QHow many people are in your command?
AWe have multiple supporting organizations that have both
military and civilian personnel
assigned to them—government
civilians and also civilian contractors. We have up to 5,000 military
soldiers working under the command, as well as thousands of civilians and contractors—up to 20,000
is a good round number for the
civilians who fall under our control.
So, about 25,000 people is a reasonable estimate for the 3rd ESC’s
logistics operation here in
Afghanistan.
QHow much freight are you moving on any given day?
AThe day-to-day numbers vary due to the weather and the
requirements, but what I can do is
paint a picture. Right now, we have 91,000 service members
serving in Afghanistan. Take that number and add on the
contract support and the civilians who are here from the
government plus the DOD civilians, and it’s a big number.
If you do the math, it’s about 200,000 personnel that we
feed on a daily basis, three meals a day. That is a lot of food.
We also provide them with all the fuel they need, all the
ammunition they need, and again all the other supplies.
Generally, in a day, we’ll move over 2,000 personnel across
the battlespace.
QYou have been deployed since April. What has sur- prised you?
AWell, I had the opportunity to come into Afghanistan on several visits before I deployed my units here. I got to see
a lot of the terrain with some senior DOD leaders, so I knew
what to expect. I will tell you that I really wasn’t surprised at
the Afghanistan environment, but I
am humbled at the challenges we
have due to the terrain here.
We have the Hindu Kush mountains in the north. We have a lot of
snow forming on the tops of the
mountains even today in the middle
of June. Then, you go down south
and you have the prevailing winds
that cause dust storms in the low
terrain. You have high humidity up
in the northern part of Afghanistan.
On the border with Iran, you again
have high humidity.
The terrain and the conditions are
very difficult, very inhospitable, but
we still have to do our job.
QAs we’ve previously noted in this magazine, there are only
three basic ways in and out of
Afghanistan on the ground. Last November, Pakistan
abruptly closed its two border crossings. Yet the U.S. military, together with its commercial partners, hasn’t missed a
beat. How are you managing to support both sustainment
and retrograde in the face of such a disruptive event?
ASeveral years ago, our strategic planners looked at ways to get supplies in and out of Afghanistan. They
found multiple options and multiple courses of action if
one of our sustainment routes was disrupted. They had the
foresight to look at the northern distribution network and
