The typical end state for any U.S. overseas conflict involves the withdrawal and reposturing of forces to sustain gains made during the campaigns and to allow for the growth of local security forces. As sustainers, we focus much of our effort on surging combat power forward and removing broken equipment from the forward line of troops. For good reason, most of our professional military education culminates with this drill, but the ability to effectively retrograde full mission-capable (FMC) equipment and reposture forces is a necessity in real-world operations where objectives and policies change quickly.
Over the past year, this was the exact problem set that was given to my team while deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. As commander of the forward support company and the Special Operations Task Force–Levant support center (SUPCEN), I was directly responsible for the retrograde of multiple positions as they transitioned to a new footprint. These outposts also contained warfighting materiel going back years with varying degrees of usefulness. With the Afghanistan withdrawal fresh on the minds of my NCOs and senior leaders, everyone knew we needed a deliberate plan and to focus on reposturing efforts to avoid the property loss seen in previous retrogrades.
While this is a Special Operation Forces (SOF) element’s retrograding, the lessons learned can greatly benefit logisticians in all units. Our logistical challenges mimic those seen in our conventional counterparts, except that we experience a lower quantity of supply and a higher tempo and diversity in the type of supplies the Special Forces Operational Detachment Alphas (SFODAs) need. This is by design. Army Doctrine Publication 3-05, Army Special Operations, states, “The Army special operations sustainment infrastructure is deliberately limited when compared to a conventional force infrastructure of similar echelon.” This forces a reliance on external support. Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-05.40, Special Operations Sustainment, notes that Army SOF “sustainment is not self-sufficient and that it is reliant upon regional or combatant command theater of operations infrastructure for virtually all support above organic unit capabilities.” Understanding this dependency was critical to our process, from which any unit can benefit during retrograde operations.
As we began retrograde discussions, it was important to clearly define terms and expectations from higher elements. Constant communication with the battalion executive officer and battalion commander, to ensure our outcomes were always in line with their end state, was essential to completing the mission. It was important to define what retrograde meant in this operation. The answer depended on whom you asked. SFODAs would claim it was when the equipment leaves the outstation. Accountable property officers might claim it was when equipment was on the retrograde unit identification code (UIC). Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) would not consider it retrograded until it was turned in. The definition of retrograde was eventually agreed upon, based on our battalion commander’s end state, as equipment fully accounted for at the SUPCEN.
This led to a discussion about the priorities during the retrograde. Our battalion commander was presented with options to prioritize accountability, turn-ins, or speed of movement. Each priority comes with its own drawbacks and benefits; an accountability focus allows for the least risk of avoidable financial investigation of property loss but slows the speed of the withdrawal and disposition process. A focus on turn-ins allows for the quick clearing of property but puts more pressure on the teams’ enablers to conduct technical inspections at the outstations and requires equipment to be left on the team UICs even at the SUPCEN awaiting turn-in. This caused delays with the movement of equipment and accountability since the primary hand receipt holder for the SFODA had equipment no longer in their control across the area of responsibility (AOR). Lastly, prioritizing movement can lead to the rapid closure of sites but can also cause chaos for accountability and inventories, thus creating long delays in the turn-in process. It should be noted that all options were affected by the operational environment and were ever-changing. As threat levels, timelines, and force posture guidance changed from higher, we were left to adjust our process to meet the desired end state.
Creating a shared understanding of priorities, definitions, and analyses of courses of action (COAs) allowed us to approach this unique problem set with a foundation of the same assumptions and facts. Next came the execution of our COA, and this dictated how we remembered the retrograde. Our planning was guided by the principle of achieving unity of effort, which ATP 3-05.40 describes as “the most critical of all logistics outcomes.” To achieve this “shared awareness across the logistics domain,” we pulled the entire property book by serialized item and exported it to an Excel sheet. This became our retrograde bible and was used to track every piece of property being retrograded from the outstations.
Taking the time to set up this Excel sheet saved hours of work in reporting requirements since we had auto-calculated formulas for progress reports. We mapped out a location column, technical inspection column, disposition instructions, and complete column (removed from the property book). As the primary hand receipt holder for the retrograde UIC, I owned the location column. I used the updates from this column to cut lateral transfers to the retrograde UIC. Maintenance personnel were responsible for the technical inspections. Supply coordinated disposition instructions and finally marked the items as complete. This was a common fighting product, shared with the J-4, SOCCENT, and command teams, allowing everyone to see the retrograde effort in real time.
Following the flow of equipment, we started at the outstation. Some of these outstations had been operating for decades and had seen a buildup in equipment. We can all relate to equipment assigned to our unit that is never used and passed from platoon to platoon. This was one of those instances. SFODAs were bogged down with broken, old, or obsolete equipment from years of fighting the enemy in each location. Now all this equipment had to move. Retrogrades like this are only possible with buy-in at the lowest level. For us, this was the teams. They did a fantastic job of maintaining their property book, inventorying their equipment, packing containers, and completing DD Form 1750s, Packing Lists, accurately. Without proper documentation when the equipment arrived at our SUPCEN, we would have had no idea what some of the equipment was. Oversight from the team leaders and team sergeants led to nearly perfect DD Form 1750s and passed the pressure of accountability to the SUPCEN.
The equipment was then sent on a five-day journey to the SUPCEN and dropped off at the centralized receiving and shipping point yard. Within 24 hours, my team moved the retrograded equipment to our camp and began inventories off the submitted DD Form 1750s. After this inventory, I updated the location column on our tracker to show the inventoried items that arrived. At this point, the equipment was considered retrograded and reported as such due to our established definition of the word.
To keep accountability, we labeled containers and receiving yards with letters while simultaneously marking letters next to each item on the tracker. This allowed us to filter the Excel sheet by container to see everything inside or to use the find function to instantly pull the location of any property book item. Our supply team went one step further and created storage locations (SLOCs) within the property book for each container and yard. Following the lateral transfers to the retrograde UIC, the supply team then moved the equipment to the SLOC corresponding with the container letter. When we were eventually replaced, this made inventories a breeze. With equipment already separated by container on the property book, we just had to lay out one container at a time until complete.
This organizational system was also vital during the technical inspections and turn-ins. With accountability still being the priority, we established draw and return times when the supply teams issued new items to the mechanics so they could conduct technical inspections of the equipment. Adding this structure caused delays to the inspection progress but created controls for the supply team to ensure equipment returned to the same container, keeping the integrity of the tracker.
Requesting dispositions was often the longest wait during the retrograde process. Waiting for approval from either SOCCENT or U.S. Army Materiel Command took time, and during this time the equipment just sat in a container. The period after technical inspections also presented an opportunity to fill gaps in capabilities with retrograded FMC equipment across the AOR. Boosting enduring locations with fresh supplies both alleviated our bottleneck with disposition instructions and gave SFODAs more combat power. Teams were still required to operate until the last moment, causing them to keep the best equipment until the end. As the retrograde was ending, our motor pool and weapons racks became full of much-needed FMC combat power to be used in developing locations.
The NCOs and senior officers often spoke about their fears of this retrograde given the experiences they had in Afghanistan, but they were all surprised by the success our SUPCEN had in this operation. Following this flow of equipment, we were able to close outstations within weeks, an AOR in a month, and move over 2,600 line items out of the AOR in a combat zone. With over $90 million worth of equipment accounted for, we successfully retrograded from a country while not abandoning or losing any equipment. This was a truly remarkable feat in an Army that struggles with change of command inventories in the continental U.S.
Finally, this would not have been possible without conventional forces and the excellent support we received during our rotation. Without the great work from the rotational support operations officer coordinating the transportation of over 600 20-foot equivalent units of SOF equipment, we would not have made our timeline and maintained strict accountability of our property book.
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CPT Hunter Everett is currently assigned to 277th Aviation Support Battalion out of Fort Drum, New York. His previous assignments include distribution platoon leader and executive officer of the Forward Support Company, 20th Engineer Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas, before becoming the executive officer and commander of the Forward Support Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He is a graduate of the Logistics Captains Career Course and the Basic Officer Leaders Course, and has completed a deployment to the Middle East in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. He has a Master of Business Administration degree from the Texas A&M University–Central Texas.
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This article was published in the summer 2026 edition of Army Sustainment Professional Bulletin.
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