I am honored and humbled to take the reins as the Army Materiel Command (AMC) commanding general and, in that role, the Army’s senior sustainer. As a career logistician and the previous Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, G-4, and AMC’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, G-3, I know firsthand the criticality of our Army Sustainment Enterprise (ASE) from the joint strategic support area (JSSA) to the tactical point of contact.
Our sustainment mission has evolved exponentially in the last few years. We are synchronizing our efforts with all stakeholders across the ASE to deliver sustainment warfighting capabilities in support of the Army and joint force of 2030 and 2040. The end state of our effort is posturing the Army to provide logistics and sustainment support for the joint force in a contested multidomain operational environment. Most recently, the ASE continues proving its operational value with crucial, time-sensitive support to Ukraine with staging, loading, and transporting materiel halfway around the world. Sustainment and logistics have always been the strategic advantage of our Army, and that continues to be true on the world stage today.
I intend to continue the innovative transformation efforts of my predecessors to operationalize our sustainment support, exploit predictive and precision logistics, and deliver sustainment warfighting function capabilities to achieve the Army of 2030 and design the Army of 2040.
The theme of this issue is Commanding Sustainment Formations. The pages that follow explore the challenges, best practices, concepts, theories, and ideas of those who have led our formations through some of the nation’s most challenging times and those newer to the career field with fresh perspectives. The best sustainment leaders have always been agile, dynamic, and responsive to needs. As we continue transforming the ASE alongside Army modernization efforts, sustainment leaders of the future must be able to understand and employ the knowledge and power of data and information as critical readiness assets to inform future sustainment actions reliably and rapidly as combat multipliers.
The Army is aligning itself as a data-centric organization, and so must our sustainment formations. Transforming our sustainment information systems, processes, and procedures reinforces data as a readiness asset and forms the foundation of predictive logistics (PL) — from the JSSA to setting the theater to the tactical point of contact — by establishing resilient sustainment mission command. We must exploit data to provide sustainment solutions, maintain readiness, and ensure required weapon system availability rates. The core outcome of PL is delivering sustainment before expected shortfalls in any operational environment. This ensures commanders can sustain combat power on the battlefield absent a demand signal.
The ASE’s pivot to data-enabled sustainment and PL will ensure we deliver precisely what’s necessary before it’s needed under limited time constraints and across vast distances. While the future fight will be more complex and challenging than ever before, our sustainment enterprise will ensure the warfighter is postured for decisive victory across all domains.
The future of sustainment will demand both predictability and precision to deliver sustainment capabilities across a contested multidomain operational environment. I am confident our ASE and those who have the distinct honor to command our sustainment formations will rise to the challenge. I look forward to all we will continue to accomplish on behalf of the Total Army and joint force!
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Gen. Charles R. Hamilton currently serves as the commanding general of Army Materiel Command. Hailing from Houston, Texas, Hamilton enlisted in the U.S. Army. Upon completion of basic and individual training, he was assigned to Fort Cavazos, Texas. In February 1988, he graduated from Officer Candidate School as a Distinguished Military Graduate and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Quartermaster Corps. He earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Virginia State University and masters’ degrees in public administration from Central Michigan University and military studies from Marine Corps University. He is also a graduate of a Senior Service College Fellowship — Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows Program.
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This article was published in the Summer 2023 issue of Army Sustainment.
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