ARMY AL&T
CLOSING OUT AFGHANISTAN
As the Afghan government collapsed and the U.S. departed, ACC-A came up with novel solutions to pay the Army’s bills.
by Maj. Justin Berry and Maj. Matthew Szarzynski T
he world watched in disbelief as it witnessed the fall of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021. Te government collapsed so quickly that U.S. forces on the ground were racing to evac- uate personnel and equipment to various safe havens. What the world didn’t see were the many second- and third-order effects of the rapid collapse and withdrawal. One
of those was what happened to all the contracts awarded over the past 20 years to enable combat operations in Afghanistan.
Following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Army quickly deployed to Afghanistan to begin combat operations. Tat speed placed a great demand on U.S. military logistics systems to support these deployed combat forces.
Te U.S. Army has a robust and capable logistics system, but there are limitations to what it can provide organically. During contingency operations, there is an urgent need to use contracting capabilities that provide flexible and innovative solutions outside the traditional supply chain to accomplish the mission. Te military relied on government contracting support throughout the war in Afghanistan to help fill capability gaps that the logistics system could not organically provide.
When coalition forces first started operations in Afghanistan, there was a small logistics footprint because of the hostile environment within the country. An immediate and urgent need arose to establish contracts with local vendors to provide support for ongoing military operations. Tese early contracts included necessities such as bottled water, power generation, dining facilities and fuel for both ground and air assets. As these areas became more stable, contracting enabled the establish- ment of base camps that provided robust services.
Each country or area of operations was assigned to a deployed contracting unit. Afghanistan was aligned to Army Contracting Command – Afghanistan (ACC-A), the contracting support brigade
https://asc.ar my.mil 63
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