 From
Iraq to the Horn of Africa, USJFCOM provides global force
sourcing to meet the needs of combatant commanders
In support of national military strategy and disaster
relief efforts worldwide, U.S. Joint Forces Command collaborates
with a variety of partners and continues to refine its
joint force provider processes to ensure the most ready
and able forces are available to support combatant commanders.
By Jennifer Colaizzi
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(NORFOLK, Va. - Jan. 6, 2006) -- When natural disaster
strikes and emergency relief efforts emerge, how are U.S.
troops sourced to perform humanitarian assistance?
From Iraq to the Horn of Africa, U.S. Joint Forces Command
(USJFCOM) provides global force sourcing to meet the needs
of combatant commanders in support of disaster relief efforts,
homeland defense, and the Global War on Terrorism.
As joint force provider, USJFCOM's role is to identify
and nominate the most ready and able forces to support
the combatant commander, according to Army
Brig. Gen. Michael Ferriter, USJFCOM director for operations,
plans, logistics and engineering.
"The supported commander identifies the needs" and
we make the force recommendations, Ferriter said yesterday,
during a tour of the command's Joint Operations Center.
The command's role as the Department of Defense's primary
joint force provider was approved as recently as March
2004 and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed the
official memorandum on June 25, 2005.
The
decision was a major milestone, according to Ferriter,
who explained that prior to the decision "there was
no process to manage forces."
A force
may have had been "sitting in Hawaii for
twenty years and have never been employed" but was
ready to go, while "a force in the (continental) U.S.
was rotating going back and forth," said Ferriter. "The
rotational forces for the services were done without looking
at who was working the hardest."
While the main goal is to identify the right capability,
which includes active duty, reserve, and National Guard
troops, an added benefit of global force visibility, according
to Ferriter is the capacity to facilitate longer chunks
of time between deployments and provide more preparation
time with earlier deployment notifications.
"Now we can say, 'next July, you're going' instead
of coming in on Monday and being notified you're going," said
Ferriter.
The goal is to move from one year off to two years off.
What
we have now is "a year of boots on ground, a
year of bog, and a year of dwell; we want a year of bog
and two years of dwell," the general said. It provides
people a chance to "recover, go to school and work
on professional development" and "a year to train
with a mission focus."
According to Ferriter, this will have a positive impact
on troops and their families.
"Troops employed in a noble way have high morale,
but troops have families and families need moms and dads" so
time at home is good, he said.
With
the added responsibility of worldwide readiness monitoring,
planning, directing and tracking deployment of conventional
joint forces, USJFCOM's operations, plans, logistics, and
engineering directorate recently increased its staff by
64 personnel to help meet mission requirements.
Additionally
the command is planning for a new combined USJFCOM/Fleet
Forces Command Joint Deployment Center, scheduled for
construction in early fiscal year 2007. The $15 million
facility will
modernize the operations center and help facilitate force
flow visibility and rapid response to customers.
With the responsibility to support everything from firefighting
efforts in Texas to troop deployment into theater and humanitarian
assistance for catastrophic events such as the tsunami
and hurricane Katrina, the new facility will facilitate
information technology growth and broader situational awareness
and flexibility in crisis response cell capabilities.
Presently, the crisis response cells and operational command
center have connectivity to the services and other force
suppliers via e-mail, phone lines, and video teleconferencing.
The new facility will improve already existing capabilities.
The joint operations center is responsible for ensuring
communication, coordination and deployment of forces will
be as smooth as possible.
According to Air Force Lt Col. Mark Warack, who worked
in the crisis response cell during Hurricane Katrina and
is responsible for writing orders to send troops in support
of combatant commanders' requests, the process is labor
intensive and the position must be staffed 24/7.
He said that it's one of the justifications for increasing
the staff.
"Normally, you may have a month to sort something
out or six months to find troops to go to Iraq, but in
a compressed nature in which an emergency like Katrina
happens, you may only have a day to coordinate and reach
out to all the different agencies to get the answers," said
Warack.
He
went on to say "if you need nurses and doctors,
you're medical point of contact might be busy trying to
track down mosquito netting for his guys in theater. It's
tough to keep track of things."
In
response to how he felt about being in the joint force
provider role, he said, "obviously you'd like to be
filling sand bags and pulling people out, but someone has
to do this too, and it's important. It's nice to see it
in the papers and be able to say, 'hey, I knew those guys
were going - I helped them get there.'"
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