Preparing the Air Force for challenges ahead.

Remarks at the Logistics Officers Association conference, Las Vegas, Oct. 14, 2004

From my days with the Navy to my time in industry with Northrop Grumman to the present, I've had the opportunity to interact with and speak to a number of organizations. Many have been national organizations much like the LOA with membership across the country. In most cases it is not unusual to see only a small fraction of the overall organization membership at a convention. In your case, though, over 40 percent of you are here. This is quite an accomplishment and an attestment to the importance you place in the LOA and on logistics. You also scare the heck out of me since I'm wondering who's fixing things.

So tonight when there is the big fly-off for Red Flag, who's there making sure they get off the ground?

This is a level of involvement on your part that I appreciate and given that Columbus Day made this a holiday week it's impressive to see how many of you are here and it's very good.

I understand the week started out well with Monday's golf tournament. Hopefully it made up for missing the holiday. I, on the other hand, spent the weekend in the company of my family in the Chesapeake Bay, which I am wont to do.

You had a busy week built around your theme of sustaining America's combat edge. Conferences like this offer great opportunities for the services and industry to get together, exchange information, ideas, innovative concepts, hopefully to find solutions to today's and tomorrow's challenges. Sharing ideas is essential to continue being the world's greatest air and space power and the world's greatest military.

Throughout history logistics have been critical to winning both battles and wars. From ancient Rome, which was interconnected with roads across what is now called Europe, to Robert E. Lee's outrunning his logistics in his forays into Maryland, to modern day operations in places like the Balkans, Asia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, logistics have been an integral part of operations. It's not easy. It's not always easy to do nor is it easy to define.

Most of you know that I trace my service routes to the United States Navy, so I'll take the liberty to quote Admiral Ernest King who, in 1942, said, "I don't know what this logistics is that General Marshall is talking about, but I want some of it." You can tell he was one of our leading naval elites. He not only wanted some of it, he needed it. Admiral King was waging a two-ocean war in desperate and traumatic times.

Today we are waging another global war in difficult and traumatic times. King recognized, as we do today, that logisticians represent the backbone and the infrastructure of the greatest military in the world, and in our current environment, our global war on terrorism, we need to understand that we depend on you. I do not say that to be patronizing. I say it as a matter of fact.

Your gathering here is a reinforcement of the vital importance of your specialty. It's the acknowledgement of the synergy developed among logistics professionals as a critical component of our national defense. I know that in the promotional material for Las Vegas they are fond of saying, 'What goes on here, stays here." That, whether you like it or not, does not apply to you.

This week you heard from some of the leading lights in the logistics field. They have covered developments from a joint perspective on topics ranging from strategic transformation and web development to the joint and total force logistics. They have addressed how you will be pivotal to our future combat success.

So I challenge you to take what you have learned with you. Don't let it stay here. Take it with you to the broader logistics community and share it. We need you to be the haft of the spear that is our military.

In this regard let me address an area that I believe is very important and one that you have discussed in these past days, the development of our logistics force. If you will grant me that logistics is vital, and I'm sure that you will; and if you will grant me that logistics in all forms will only become more critical over time, then you must grant me one additional factor--the development of our logistics force is of the utmost importance to our future.

We need well-educated, well-trained professionals to carry out our worldwide mission. I know you've heard from senior leaders about this so I want to reinforce that the officer professional development and training of our logisticians across the force is terribly important, not only to the Air Force's continued success but in fact the success of our entire military force. Logistics does not exist in a vacuum. To truly support our forces we need to understand our battle strategy. We cannot afford to be blinded or stovepiped by a specialty function or a specific area. The entire total force benefits from what you make happen--refueling, fixing of combat aircraft, arranging for an airlift mission, planning a sealift offload These activities directly support our combat forces. Only through professional development and training can we continue educating our young logisticians on understanding their part in the fight and the significant strategic contribution they make to joint and coalition operations.

So I look to you, our more seasoned and senior leaders, to lead, change, and implement change with all the facets of logistics. Whether you're a maintainer, a logistics readiness officer, in munitions or at an air logistics center, we need you to constantly lead. Whether you are a civil engineer, firefighter, in explosive ordnance disposal or in fuels, we need you to constantly lead. Whether you are in installations, combat support, vehicles or services, we need you to constantly lead.

Many of you heard General Wetekam speak earlier today about how the Air Force is encouraging leaders to transform the way we do business in the logistics world. I'm immensely proud of our progress in process engineering and getting the most bang for the logistics buck, and I'm most proud of General Wetekam for his leadership in this area.

We are making great strides in using lean manufacturing methodology in our eLOG 21 initiative. We are eliminating excess by using state of the art methodologies. And as the General mentioned earlier, the Air Force won the Army's Best Company for Convoy Service in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Who would imagine that?

This is only the start of our logistics improvement story. In concert with the Defense Logistics Agency, the Air Mobility Command has been steadily improving our processes for packaging and moving cargo. This past summer we started processing shipments at their originating points to flow directly through the distribution process. General Reno made this clear yesterday when he said, "The truck will drive up to the back door, material will flow right out to the aircraft and will not have to be rebuilt, retagged, rebagged, recapped or reloaded. The goal is for our aerial ports to not be seen as storage facilities but as efficient transfer points."

He also mentioned the success of our Logistics Readiness Centers. In Operation Iraqi Freedom the LRC is the single point of contact for logistics issues. It gives the Combined Forces Air Component Commander a logistics command center that's the equivalent of an Air Operation Center. Last year this resulted in pumping an average of one million gallons of jet fuel per day, assured the availability of almost 100,000 chemical warfare suits, positioned nearly three million Meals Ready to Eat, and accounted for nearly 5.3 million pounds of explosives.

Beyond the supply-related items, our LRC folks also track the status of not only Air Force aircraft but also the maintenance status of Marine, Army, and Navy aircraft as well. That coordination, as of last week, has resulted in a 98 percent mission capable rate and well over 125,000 sorties. I congratulate you.

While these numbers are impressive, do not let the numbers belie a fact. The success of our supply and maintenance operations means success in protecting and supporting our troops on the ground. Without this logistics success, we cannot gain overall success. We cannot support our troops, we cannot support the Iraqi or Afghan people or others in need, and we cannot accomplish our missions.

I'm also very proud of our depot maintenance transformation. It is something that is very close to my heart, something that I got involved in within my first ten days as Secretary, and I'm one of the few people alive privileged enough to see the results of initiatives of my own tenure. We have streamlined our depot maintenance and this is a big contributor to our projected ten percent reduction in the annual operating support costs to be achieved no later than fiscal year 2011. And in fact, our ALCs are now used by companies as a benchmark. That's remarkable, just remarkable.

It's a tribute to the leaders of the ALCs. It's a tribute to the many

wonderful civilians who took upon themselves the challenge to make our ALCs world class, and they are now world class. We should all congratulate them.

So I invite our compatriots from our sister services to look at some of our accomplishments and ask them to offer candid comments and advice, and we won't mind some admiration. Best solutions are usually found in open critique. At the same time, we all learn from each other. We must be a joint team. We just see constant improvement and synergy.

As my wonderful partner John Jumper points out, we will never fight alone. By the way, he's not here tonight because he was at Wright-Patterson earlier. He was there to do some activities with the Air Force Museum, but he was also there to tell everyone in AFMC how terribly proud we are of General Greg Martin who is really a class act.

One of the most difficult things I've had to do in this job is to have to call Speedy (Gen. Martin) and talk to him about his desire to withdraw his nomination as Pacific Forces Commander. I understood, I supported him, and we will continue to support him. He is one of our finest leaders, and may God keep him healthy and well and keep him as lively as he is.

You know well that we are engaged in a global war on terrorism. It's being waged in far-flung and desolate places and also here at home. It's being waged with every fiber and resource of our forces. Victory will be ours, but victory is not possible without the expertise to tend to the buildings, fuel, maintain the aircraft, fix the roads, and in general sustain the infrastructure that makes the greatest military in the history of the world possible. In short, victory depends on you. Logistics professionals win wars and provide an untold amount of good for the people around the world.

So you can look in the mirror and be very, very proud, and not many professionals can say that.

I recently read a quote by an American officer who said, "Logistics is the stuff that, if you don't have enough of, the war will not be won."

I did indeed recently read that quote, but it was uttered by General Nathaniel Greene, a former quartermaster of the American Army during the American Revolution. Despite time, distance and technology, you see that your task is timeless and honorable over time.

Soon we will recognize a few of our individuals with awards. These award winners are here because of their contributions to logistics and because of their great potential. They have excelled in a year of great demand, but in doing so they have helped prepare an Air Force for the challenges ahead.

Tonight I challenge each of you to continue the effort to bring the work of this organization to the entire military and to seek out and develop all of our talented airmen. They need it, General Jumper and I expect it of you, and the American people deserve no less.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's been my great privilege to speak with you this evening and to join you. God bless you, and may He continue to bless this great nation. Thank you for your time and for your service.