A lot, according to Lt. Col. Michael Snow.
And he should know.
Snow is the 1st Cavalry Division’s assistant chief of staff for G-4 responsible for logistics and sustainment.
“In this last move, we moved somewhere between 24,000 and 25,000 soldiers,” he said.
Snow, and the rest of the division, have only just returned from their latest 15-month rotation to Iraq.
And while most units would be looking at a little down time, Snow and his staff have already begun planning for the next deployment to Iraq.
“There is not a break, not anymore,” Snow said. “It’s a process that is continuous. We have units that are coming in and units that are going out, so we are in a constant state of planning and execution.”
Snow joked that because of the ever-changing mission requirements the United States faces in Iraq, he may not get a rest until he gets back to Baghdad.
While the number of troops within the division remains pretty solid, the number of personnel needed to ship them and their equipment anywhere is innumerable.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you,” Snow said. “Every soldier in that division will do something to support the mission, whether it is loading a rail head, or help load or unload trucks or just going physically down with their bags and going through customs inspection.”
Identifying the mission: equipment side
When the division deployed more than 18 months ago, it took more than 10,000 pieces of equipment with it, but that was what the mission called for.
The next deployment for the division, which is expected sometime within the next year, may call for a drastically different mission than the one performed during its 2006-07 deployment.
The task of moving a U.S. Army division from Fort Hood to Camp Liberty, Iraq, can’t even begin to take shape until the mission is identified.
“That generates the requirements to whether I am going to take combat vehicles,” Snow said.
Once the mission is identified, then the task of matching up with a unit with a similar mission begins, which Snow said is the catalyst for effective planning through dialog with the unit still on the ground.
“You start a negotiation process and that helps you identify what the requirement truly is,” Snow said.
The information obtained, such as whether or not the division ships 200 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, or takes over those already in theater, helps the division better understand what their shipping and transportation requirements will be.
Once the information is finally obtained, it is stored in a database that will help the logistics team determine the number of planes, trains, trucks or ships the division may need later on.
Identifying the mission: personnel side
When it comes to the deployment of soldiers, the questions are relatively simple: How many personnel are there in the division?
How many of them are deployable?
“Everybody who is capable of deploying will deploy,” Snow said.
That can equate to as many as 4,000 troops in one brigade.
As the planning process moves forward, one of the most vital aspects to consider is the ride - what type and how many aircraft will be needed to ship those troops nearly 10,000 miles away.
Of course, where the troops go, their luggage must follow.
The average soldier carries about four bags when they deploy and that can add up to several tons of personal and combat items that most never take into account, Snow said.
“A soldier deploying to combat weighs a whole lot more than what is originally planned,” Snow said. “You can’t fill up a 300-passenger plane with 300 passengers.”
When soldiers arrive in-country, usually in Kuwait, they are subjected to a limited amount of training that helps them acclimate to their mission, so those immediate equipment needs also come into play.
“You’ve got to have the right people on the ground to do the right task,” Snow said.
The right people
The brigades within a division have mobility officers who are trained in transportation and work closely with the division mobility officers.
Maj. James Smith, the division transportation officer, and Sgt. 1st Class Eduardo Martinez, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the division transportation office, both work directly for Snow, and know what it takes to get everything to its place in a timely manner.
In fact, both men have been doing logistics operations for so long that keeping track of thousands of pieces of equipment seems routine.
“It’s fairly easy because each brigade has a mobility officer and a mobility NCO that you deal with on a regular basis,” Smith said.
The process becomes easier because the division deals with the individual brigades, which then communicate with the lower echelons of the division.
It’s the way a division operates within the chain of command, Smith said.
“They work real closely with us,” Smith said.
As a result of that relationship, Smith and Martinez are only dealing with a few personnel within the chain of command, which helps streamline the process.
Right now, the division, although just returning from Iraq, is already preparing for the training phase of the next Iraq mission.
“We are ramping up for the NTC (National Training Center) and JRTC (Joint Readiness Training Center),” Smith said. “We’re back in the saddle.”
With the constant training and shipment of troops to stateside locations, simultaneously planning for a full division deployment can become a daunting task, especially when it comes to the amount of shipping equipment.
And just like with the airlines, sometimes equipment can end up in a different location.
“There is always going to be one or two pieces of equipment that end up somewhere else, and not in the place it needed to go. It happens,” Martinez said.
However, Martinez and Smith said even when that happens, the troops are able to adjust and continue with their training.
“We are very fortunate because we have a pretty good idea of where everything goes,” Smith said. “This post is always on the go.”
Even though the division uses a lot of its own personnel, they also rely on the expertise of the post’s director of logistics, known as DOL.
The DOL is the deployment operations cell for the post staffed entirely by civilians.
Smith worked for the DOL during his first tour to Fort Hood several years earlier and credits that experience with helping become successful at what he does.
Be prepared for anything
The division has deployed to Iraq three times and that kind of experience has honed its ability to do exactly that: Be prepared for anything.
“We’ve gotten pretty flexible in our thought process,” Snow said.
Because of the political climate, Snow said the mission tends to evolve rather quickly and that means when movement is involved, the troops have to be prepared for anything.
“Who knows what the environment will be like six months from now, as the decisions are made and as we transform what Iraq looks like,” he said. “It really is hard to gauge what it will look like over time. There are a lot of decisions that have to be made. We are planning to deploy the division and that’s all we know.”
