3ID HQ to deploy to Afghanistan as drawdown, retrograde continues

By David VergunNovember 4, 2014

3ID HQ to deploy to Afghanistan as drawdown, retrograde continues
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3ID HQ to deploy to Afghanistan as drawdown, retrograde continues
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3ID HQ to deploy to Afghanistan as drawdown, retrograde continues
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3ID HQ to deploy to Afghanistan as drawdown, retrograde continues
5 / 8 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan is considered one of the busiest military airports in the world, with aircraft landing and taking off all hours of the day and night. A lot of flights are U.S. bound with equipment that is no longer needed here as the dra... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
3ID HQ to deploy to Afghanistan as drawdown, retrograde continues
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3ID HQ to deploy to Afghanistan as drawdown, retrograde continues
8 / 8 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Soldiers from Company A, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, pose for a picture in Wardak province, Afghanistan, Oct. 10, 2013, while in support of Operation Shaheen II. In November 2014, aro... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Oct. 29, 2014) -- The 3rd Infantry Division Headquarters will deploy to Afghanistan next month to assume their role as the U.S. Forces Afghanistan National Security Element.

The deployment will include a supporting element in Qatar, and a liaison in Kuwait. About 200 Soldiers are scheduled for the 12-month deployment in support of the Resolute Support mission, according to Army leaders at Fort Stewart, Georgia, home of 3rd Infantry Division, known as "Rock of the Marne."

"As the Afghans grow more capable, the support provided by [International Security Assistance Force], soon to be called Resolute Support, will decrease proportionately," said Maj. Gen. Mike Murray, 3rd Infantry Division commander, who will deploy to Afghanistan with his 3ID headquarters.

The International Security Assistance Force is currently in the process of transitioning to the Resolute Support mission.

"The Resolute Support mission will focus on training, advising and assisting at higher echelons. We will no longer be the force conducting patrols at the brigade level for example," Murray said. "We look forward to joining the team in Afghanistan and doing our part to ensure the [Afghan National Security Forces] are left a more capable force, and to solidify the incredible gains of those who have served and sacrificed before us."

The mission focus will also include force generation, resourcing and budgeting, medical and maintenance logistics, and intelligence capabilities; all necessary to sustain a modern Afghan army and police force, according to Murray.

The division headquarters will be part of the mandated 9,800 U.S. troop limit that takes effect Jan. 1, 2015.

TRANSITION TO RESOLUTE SUPPORT

By the time Operation Enduring Freedom ends on Dec. 31, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will have decreased from a high of around 100,000 in 2010, during the so-called "surge," and roughly 24,000 now, to about 9,800 as just mentioned.

Jan. 1 is when Operation Enduring Freedom officially becomes Operation Resolute Support.

That rapid decrease in personnel has resulted in a flurry of activity to retrograde Soldiers' equipment stateside -- tanks, vehicles, helicopters, and heavy equipment.

As part of Operation Drumbeat, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan has tasked 1st Sustainment Command (Theater), known as the 1st TSC, with executing the retrograde of equipment from Afghanistan, and with the closing down of forward operating bases and major installations. 1st TSC calls their portion of Drumbeat "Operation Reliable Tempo."

Equipment in Afghanistan can be sent home, or, if it is impractical to send home, it can be sold, or if security demands it, the Defense Logistics Agency can be asked to dispose of it in theater -- scrap it -- and then they sell the scrap to the Afghans, officials said.

The Pakistan route to bringing things home is Pakistan Ground Lines of Communication, also called PAKGLOC. Political issues have made this unreliable, according to coalition leaders. Instead, they are using the Northern Distribution Network through Kazakhstan and other areas of the Caucasus, and also they are flying the equipment to Kuwait or other locations, and then from those locations, they bring equipment back to the U.S. via container ship.

Also, the retrograde mission is focused on retrograding "theater-provided equipment," or TPE. Units that come to fight in Afghanistan often bring equipment with them to the fight. Those units are typically responsible for getting their own stuff home. They don't typically bring tactical vehicles with them to fight, however.

Incidentally, the first units that came to Afghanistan brought all their heavy equipment with them, and then left it for the next unit. That equipment then became the responsibility of the theater commander.

The retrograde of TPE from Afghanistan competes for aircraft space with the redeployment of equipment that individual units want to bring home, officials said, describing the costliness of a retrograde operation out of the remote, landlocked country.

Also, over the course of the last 13 years of operations in Afghanistan, there has been a lot of gear that has been abandoned or left there.

Equipment that goes home from Afghanistan is returned to the U.S. military inventory. Much goes to Army depots to be reset for later use by Soldiers.

In an interview last year during the first part of the drawdown, Brig. Gen. John G. Ferrari, director, Joint & Futures, Army G-8, said that as a result of the drawdown and retrograde, the Army has ended up with a lot of equipment.

However, a lot of that equipment is either still in Afghanistan or now, mostly in depots getting repaired, refurbished or overhauled, so it may yet be some time before it all gets out to units across the Army. From Afghanistan to an installation stateside after reset at a depot and transit times, totals around three years.

There have been a number of inquiries from allies and coalition partners about excess inventory, Ferrari said. But once those allies figured how much it would cost to bring it out of Afghanistan and fix it up, they came to the same conclusion -- it is not worth the cost.

As for the Afghans, Ferrari said they have their own equipment fleets, and a mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle might not be a worthwhile addition for them, since they don't have the spare parts and maintenance set up for that vehicle. He also said the Afghan mission requirements might not require a mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle.

"We don't want to leave Afghanistan like the Soviets did, with equipment strewn across the battlefield," he said.

Equipment being moved out of Afghanistan now must first be "reset" back in the United States. That means it first goes to a depot to be overhauled or repaired before sending it to a receiving unit. There is a big price tag for that kind of repair, Ferrari said.

"We have to be very efficient and judicious as we move equipment around units, installations and Army components," he said.

Besides Soldiers, an army of civilians and contractors are involved in the retrograde in Afghanistan. According to International Security Assistance Force records from July 2014, there were 51,489 contractors in Afghanistan, 17,213 of who were actually local Afghan citizens. Other contractors came from either the United States -- 17,404 -- or from countries outside of Afghanistan -- 16,872 -- third country nationals.

The work of contractors and Army civilians is the work the American public doesn't often hear about.

(For more ARNEWS stories, visit www.army.mil/ARNEWS, or Facebook at www.facebook.com/ArmyNewsService, or Twitter @ArmyNewsService)

Related Links:

Army News Service

RELEASE: Soldiers from 3rd Inf. Div. Headquarters to deploy from Fort Stewart to Afghanistan

Army.mil: Current Operations News

International Security Assistance Force

3rd Infantry Division on Facebook

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