The KMI Media Group staff recently returned from the Association of the United States Army Winter Symposium in Fort Lauderdale—a nice escape from the D.C. area in late February! The show itself was slightly smaller than in years past, but the quality was not at all disappointing. The Thursday morning speaker’s list included General Ann Dunwoody, commander of Army Materiel Command; General Martin Dempsey, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command; and General Duncan McNabb—and that was just the first morning session. General Dunwoody gave a great presentation that started with an impressive list of the amount of people, supplies and equipment that move through the system on a weekly basis—the numbers are astounding. Among numerous points, she reinforced that equipment needs to be lighter today and made still lighter tomorrow, saying that, “Equipment that is too heavy will not get used—even if it’s available.”

Quoting from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” General Dempsey said that’s what we need to be doing to stay ahead of our adversaries—run faster.

General McNabb stressed the monumental task performed by logisticians every day in delivering support to warriors around the globe. 900 sorties a day with a take-off or landing every 90 seconds and moving 35 million pounds of fuel by air per week are just a few of the facts that are part of an impressive resume.

All three officers, and those that followed them to the podium, were in sync with the new strategy for Iraq and Afghanistan. They delivered the message that those who keep the system moving, fed and supplied were also working from a collaborative yet single sheet of music.