Los Angeles - October 18, 1996

General Walter Kross
Commander in Chief
U.S. Transportation Command

GLOBAL MOBILITY AS WE APPROACH THE 21ST CENTURY

Thank you, General Shaud. Fellow members, distinguished guests - it's great to be here again. The last time I had the pleasure of addressing this group was in 1993 when I filled in for General Ron Fogleman.

Today I'm just myself; proud to be part of the world's most versatile, agile and capable global transportation team. The strongest feature of both USTRANSCOM and AMC is the people. They always -- repeat always -- get the job done! They think, eat and breathe total force. Included in that total force are airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines, tankers, airlifters, active duty, guard, reserve, our dedicated civilians and just as important, our industry partners. The success of every mission depends on each of these links in the global mobility chain.

No one else -- no nation, no corporation -- can do what we do. But we can't afford to become complacent. We must always be looking ahead and continually improving as a military transportation corporation. That's what I'm going to talk about today and at the end. I'll wrap it up with a review of our Air Mobility Command operations just since Labor Day.

When I took command at TRANSCOM and AMC, we promised to focus on three major themes -- three areas which spell the success or failure of global mobility in the 21st century. Readiness, process improvement and modernization.

Let's look at the first one -- readiness -- maintaining our ability to do what we do -- and what we do, boiled down to its most essential element, is deliver goods and people on time for the warfighting CINCs. And we do it anywhere -- repeat anywhere. Almost always, regardless of the operation, mobility forces are the first to move. Our people and assets are usually the first in and the last out of any theater of operations. But, no matter what, our core mission remains to support the warfighting CINCs.

Here are the regional CINCs we support. They, along with the other functional CINCs, are TRANSCOM and AMC'S most important customers. None of them have all the resources in place to accomplish their mission, so it is up to us to see to it the rlan. arly simultaneous MRCs. This is anrements of one MRC, that rolls to support the second MRC while sustaining the first. And we've got to continue supporting most of our daily customers worldwide -- passengers from somewhere to CONUS, fresh vegetables to Al Kharj, MREs to a humanitarian situation that won't wait, support to the aftermath of a hurricane or flood.

We can't plan to do only the big ones. Since no one else has our global transportation capabilities, we've got to respond to lesser regional contingencies like Bosnia and Haiti, we will support exercises in places like Korea, and we will react quickly to crisis in places like Burundi.

But to meet these readiness requirements, we must lead the transportation team -- through efficient and effective processes.

That's the second main theme -- continually improving the key processes which are so important to the effective operation of the Defense Transportation System. For example, we can't get the Army out of Dodge unless the customer produces -- in the top of the first inning -- the time phased deployment list for TRANSCOM. If he doesn't, I don't know how many airplanes to send to Fort Whatever and at what time. It may look like you can do it on the back of an envelope, and you can for small operations, but it's really a highly synchronized process.

To ensure readiness, we focus on many key processes. I'm just going to talk about five very critical processes today: force deployment, intermodalism, global command and control, air mobility and our partnership with industry. Let's look at force deployment.

This gives you an idea of some of what is involved in the force deployment process. The one thing that is not depicted is the element of time. We have prepo ships loaded with tanks, Humvees and munitions positioned at Diego Garcia which can get to the Persian Gulf in seven days, but if for some reason it takes us ten days to get the troops there, we really haven't accotransportation business timing is everything. Each of these red arrows depicts a mode of transportation. Each yellow dot is a seam between those modes. To become truly efficient at force deployment, we've got to become truly intermodal. That means eliminating the seams and all their manifestations -- by synthesizing and flowing multiple forces, schedules, commands, information systems, rates, bills, and so forth.

We've got to smooth the seams between the modes from the fort in CONUS to the foxhole in the theater. Moving efficiently from one mode to another is critical to providing Sergeant Snuffy and his commander with all the tools he needs. When he needs them. Where he needs them.

At the very heart of true intermodalism is a set of procedures and protocols, rules of engagement, that everybody uses, all supported by the same set of information systems -- just like when you send a package via UPS.

These are pictures of the Mobility Control Center at TRANSCOM, the Tanker Airlift Control Center at AMC and the Prince Sultan Tanker/Airlift Control Element in the desert at Al Kharj -- all key elements in global air mobility command and control. The key to agile logistics is total asset visibility (TAV) and the key to successful deployment and sustainment is complete, user friendly intransit visibility. TAV allows efficient and effective logistics support to military operations by providing integrated procurement, materiel management, maintenance, supply and transportation information. We are going to achieve TAV in a number of ways.

One is the Global Command and Control System -- or GCCS -- which replaces the Worldwide Military Command and Control System -- the dreaded WWMCCS. Some of you probably remember WWMCCS. August 30th we went to GCCS. GTN -- the Global Transportation Network -- is the primary feed of transportation information to GCCS. For the first time, the Defense Transportation System customer has timely, accurate and multimode intransit visibility through GTN. And it's working now -- with easy user access from GTN's world wide web interface. Sergeant Snuffy can query GTN to see where the part he ordered is -- in peace and war -- so he doesn't order three more and clog the logistics system. The challenge is for all of us to use GTN well. Graded lesson number one is here now -- we're using GTN in the Bosnia redeployment.

So let's talk about air mobility process. We need a seamless strategic-to-theater air mobility system. So what does that mean? In a contingency, we want to ensure that our soldiers get off their 141 at Prince Sultan airport and march smartly aboard the awaiting 130 for a quick flight to their tactical assembly area. Right now, that doesn't happen very often. We have a seam. We are smoothing out that seam. Through teamwork and process improvement -- with all organizations using the same C² systems and the same procedures. The theater CINCs identify one belly button in each CINCdom who directs, integrates, synthesizes strategic and tactical airlift capabilities to support the theater CINC's transportation requirements. This belly button is the Director, Mobility Forces -- the DIRMOBFOR -- the flowmaster for the Joint Force Air Component Commander.

We all realized a long time ago the secret to success in most ventures small or large is teamwork. Teaming with industry is absolutely essential if we are to accomplish our mission.

During war, industry provides up to 50 percent of our planned combined passenger and cargo airlift capability, almost 90 percent of surface lift, and approximately 40 percent of sealift support. The teamwork between Air Mobility Command and its industry partners is an important, NOT so secret, weapon, very much like our total force and our superior NCO corps. No other nation really has this industry partnership -- or uses it so well, so often. Our relationship goes well beyond just contracts. It is built on trust and respect for each other's strengths and capabilities. There is a tremendous synergism generated by teaming with the cutting-edge thinkers in our commercial transportation sector. It's really a win-win situation for America.

While focusing on readiness and improving the processes, we also have to modernize our ships, planes, railcars and support equipment -- as well as the smarts we put inside them -- to interface with evolving transportation environments required for any global air mobility organization to operate around the globe.

Thus our third major theme -- modernization -- correlates very much to the theme of this symposium: "Preparing to operate in the 21st century." Here are our AMC priorities for preparing now to operate effectively in the 21st century.

The C-17 fleet is only 24 percent delivered. It's still our number one priority. We now have 29 aircraft. Twenty-two of those are at Charleston. But watch the numbers carefully. Replacing 256 C-141s with 120 C-17s has some interesting arithmetic along the way and at the end. On 1 January 2000, we'll have only 52 C-17s and because of 141 retirements one year from now, AMC will have 24 fewer strategic airlift aircraft to support customers than we do today. The number of aircraft talks directly to flexibility and responsiveness.

Material handling equipment is critical to our mission. The backbone of our current MHE fleet is the 40K loader which is old and unreliable. We are replacing the 40Ks with new 60K loaders. We're going to need 318 60Ks. Congress zeroed the 60K procurement for FY97. We've got to have this program. It's as important as the other modernization projects we've got going. New loaders are our number two priority. Collectively, they are the weakest link in our hardware bag, averaging only ten hours mean time between failure.

We also need to replace 264 of the oldest, 1960-vintage 25K loaders. We're doing that with the Next Generation Small Cargo Loader. They will provide wide body capable small loaders at forward locations, enabling support to all military and commercial aircraft with fewer pieces of MHE.

These are the two off shore off-the-shelf candidates we are evaluating. Actually this isn't very exciting stuff like General Shali talking to you about why he needs trucks. He needs trucks because he's got to get to the fight. We in AMC need loaders because we've got to get the force providers to the fight. It might not be real interesting to you, but it's pretty interesting to us in AMC. We pay a lot of attention to them.

Preparing now to operate in the 21st century is already upon us. Global air traffic management -- GATM -- is our rally banner for making all the needed improvements to operate along oceanic routes, in key terminal areas, and into contingency airfields in adverse weather. This shows an area of concern that will impact us starting next March. That's when the first stage of reduced vertical separation will go into effect in the North Atlantic. Separation will be decreased from 2000 to 1000 feet. We are working intensely with FAA to certify our aircraft to operate in this environment. Even with that, some of our aircraft will require new equipment as they kick in. As these new operating requirements accumulate our aircraft may require extensive modification. It is a choice between Global Reach and restricted Global Reach.

We're making great strides improving the information handling end of our business with the Global Transportation Network. GTN will enable us to not only screen transportation requirements at TRANSCOM -- providing enhanced centralized command and control -- but we'll also have the intransit visibility of on-going movements. Both DoD and commercial systems will eventually feed into GTN. We have identified legacy systems which will not interface and we're shooting them through the heart. So far, 87 legacy systems have been identified. With each one we fight the tendency to fund just one more upgrade. But most importantly, we have to become an Air Force that places equal or greater priority on the timely movement and synthesis of information as we do on launching aircraft or weapons.

This state-of-the-art C² system will direct some of the Air Force's oldest airplanes in today's inventory -- the 602 KC-135s, which we also continue to modernize. Tankers are the leading edge of every operation. Keeping them in a high state of readiness is one of our major challenges. Right now they're reliable. The KC-135s provide 90 percent of our air refueling capability. But we're having some corrosion problems with them. And that's only the outside. The innards of the entire fleet must be upgraded -- first with an upgraded radar, glass cockpit, and GPS. Then improved radios, antennas and avionics to operate effectively anywhere, whether in the tanker or the cargo express mode.

Now that I've told you where we're going in the future, let me tell you about some of the things that have kept us occupied of late.

In late June terrorists bombed the Khobar Towers in Dhahran. Within minutes of the blast, AMC aircraft were diverted and positioned to help if we were needed. We airlifted medical teams, an FBI team and HC-130 crews into the area. We transported the remains of those killed to Dover and we air-evaced 152 patients out of the region for additional medical treatment. In connection with that bombing, we've flown more than 600 missions moving personnel who were assigned in Dhahran to the new facilities at Al Kharj.

Then came September. As always, it began with the Labor Day weekend. Some folks barbecued, others went to ball games. For TRANSCOM and AMC it was also a typical three day weekend -- we worked. At 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon most folks turned off the lights and went home, but out at Scott the lights continued to burn through the night.

In fact, they burned 24 hours a day -- a lot of pizzas were delivered to TRANSCOM and AMC that weekend.

It started when Saddam Hussein once again began to behave out of the box. As a result, we were directed to prepare to support a deployment of bombers and fighters. The planners worked all night. Some of you probably saw the film of the B-52 deployment on CNN. But here's what you didn't see.

Within the first twenty-four hours, around the world, 100 Air Mobility Command tankers and airlifters started to move in support of the deployment. We positioned C-5s and C-141s at the pickup bases, loaded them, and put even more aircrews on alert -- within 24 hours, we had everything ready to go. As the bombers launched from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana for a flight one-third of the way around the world to Guam, AMC KC-10 and KC-135 tankers were in the skies supporting them. AMC KC-10 tankers refueled the bombers off the west coast, refueled them out of Hawaii, and proceeded in front of them to Guam. AMC tankers themselves were refueled on the ground in Guam and then launched out to Diego Garcia and to Thailand, readying for the mission. And when the bombers got the go-ahead, AMC tankers were there with more fuel.

During that operation, one KC-10 lost an engine so we diverted two KC-10s that were flying another operation in the Arabian Gulf area for the final refueling before the bomb run.

In addition to these aircrews and airplanes, we had other tankers positioned in Spain ready to support a pending AEF. We also had support personnel and equipment in Germany and other countries, ready to support our en route operations.

While all that was going on, our tankers and our airlift airplanes were still flying missions in support of Joint Endeavor in Bosnia. Tankers were refueling the fighters and the AWACS airplanes that were on patrol and we also flew airlift missions into places like Tazar, Hungary and Tuzla in Bosnia. We were also involved in redeploying early units out of Bosnia and R&R -- rest and relaxation -- trips getting some of our soldiers out of the area for a few days. For these R&R missions, we contracted with commercial airlines.

We learned a lot from the deployment phase of Joint Endeavor and we're applying those lessons to the re-deployment. For the first time in history, we're rehearsing a mobility operation. C-17s to C-130s and all the right players with our best C2 systems. We've had one rehearsal in September and another is coming up next week. We're learning lots of lessons and we'll be ready.

On the other side of the globe, we were supporting the small but significant evacuation of more than 3,000 Kurds to Guam in an operation called PACIFIC HAVEN. It was a small mission, but one that is likely to continue.

In just the last two months, we've flown more than 200 military and commercial missions in support of JCS exercises worldwide.

Since Labor Day we have had to deal with two visits from Mother Nature -- Hurricanes Eduardo and Fran. Over the Labor Day weekend, we were evacuating the entire C-5 Wing from Dover Air Force Base moving airplanes out of the path of Hurricane Edouardo. We were also evacuating our largest air mobility wing on the east coast -- at McGuire Air Force Base -- sending all the KC-10s and C-141s inland to avoid the storm.

No sooner had Eduardo waved good-bye than we met Hurricane Fran and she demanded as much or more attention. We evacuated Charleston Air Force Base and all of our C-17s and the twenty 141s that were there. But we didn't just evacuate them somewhere to sit out the storm. We took them to places like Toledo, Ohio, and Denton, Texas, -- to about a dozen locations -- where the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, had disaster response teams standing by. And as Fran made landfall on Thursday evening and FEMA began to standup its locations in the Carolinas, our director of mobility forces and his 50-man tanker/airlift control element was at McGuire ready to oversee our disaster response operations. As Fran passed, our missions were alerted and we flew right in behind -- before the lights were even back on our airplanes were landing at Shaw Air Force Base and at Ft Bragg and Charleston Air Force Base, bringing in FEMA personnel and equipment.

Those are just a few of the activities which have kept the lights burning and the pizza delivery people busy out at Scott since September first.

Are taxpayers getting their money's worth with Air Mobility Command and United States Transportation Command? We think so. There is no one -- there is no Federal Express -- there is no United Airlines -- that can do all the things I have just described to you. No other military has these capabilities. It is this dimension that provides global reach and facilitates global power for all of us. And by all of us, I'm not just talking about American taxpayers, or just our American allies, it's all of humanity.

Day-to-day our country relies on us to support its national interests worldwide. But as I said earlier, we can't afford to become complacent. We must hasten to improve under the three main signposts that are our rallying themes. We must maintain our readiness, refine our processes and continually modernize. When I last spoke here in 1993 I said that Air Mobility Command is a lean, mean, global moving machine. That's still the case. And we've got to ensure that it stays that way as we move into the 21st century.

Thank you. I'm ready to answer any questions.

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