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operational planning process, despite the ongoing requirements for contracting support.


Te need for contracting support is likely to persist or to grow, given the Army’s current and expanding logistical needs for a wide variety of operations worldwide in different geopolitical environments. For instance, deployed troops continue to receive support through contractual requirements such as the Logis- tics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), a program that uses civilian contractors to augment the Army force structure. LOGCAP is currently on its fourth contract, awarded in 2007.


Tis contracting support is so necessary to operational units that troops actually train to use it. When units go to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, to prepare for a deploy- ment, a LOGCAP contractor is part of the training rotation, replicating the numerous services contractors will provide to the unit in theater. Tis reliance will continue for as long the mili- tary maintains a high operations tempo, allowing little time for planning and increasing the reliance on contractors. Tis under- scores the need to incorporate OCS into the planning community.


LOGISTICS MULTIPLIER Military OCS planners are the Army’s best-equipped personnel, based on their training and experience in contracting operations, to identify how to fill gaps between the Army’s logistical require- ments for products and services and what its supply system can provide. Consequently, it falls to OCS planners to initiate, coor- dinate and execute the contracts needed to sustain the warfighter.


Typically, they are integrated with the Army’s traditional logistics personnel and units, working directly with units in the field to help organize and fill logistical requirements through all phases of an operation. Contracting support personnel do not replace logis- tics planners; rather, their skills are complementary, and OCS personnel help to streamline the procurement of capabilities from outside the military supply system—like the portable toilets for a joint exercise, in the example above. As a part of the acquisition community, OCS planners are well-versed in compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and Defense Federal Acquisi- tion Regulation Supplement regardless of the operational location.


As critical as contracting is to the success of an operation, OCS planners would logically seem to require the same level of train- ing in the art of operational planning as those service members assigned to other operational branches, such as infantry, armor or logistics. But they are not afforded the same level of training as their operational counterparts.


STOVEPIPED TRAINING Post-command officers, senior captains and noncommissioned officers E-7 or higher in most of the combat arms and combat support branches have a solid understanding of support to current operations and can identify needs and capabilities based on their experiences. In addition, they receive education to develop their abilities to plan at the operational and strategic levels.


Te Army schools that officers attend—the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, Air University’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, and Marine Corps University’s School of Advanced Warfighting, for example—bring together service members from diverse backgrounds within a narrow array of job fields, to provide them with a broad base of planning knowledge, including new processes and how to integrate the perspectives of various military occupational specialties and branches.


CONTRACTING ON THE GROUND


An OCS Soldier in civilian clothes provides final payment to a first-time local Philippine vendor. (Photo by the author)


Te School of Advanced Military Studies, part of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, provides a 10-month course that prepares officers to lead a plans team. Te school aims to build innovative, adaptive


HTTPS: / /ASC.ARMY.MIL 91


CONTRACTING


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