Plan in motion to bring support troops home

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Rick Burnham
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  When the Air Force deployed its fighting forces for Operation Iraqi Freedom, a substantial portion of that contingent, about 65 percent, came from the installations and logistics community. This included civil engineers, services, supply, transportation and maintenance troops and airmen from the computer and communications career fields.

Now, with Saddam Hussein’s regime deposed and key elements being either captured or on the run, there is less of a requirement to keep large numbers of support troops in the area of responsibility.

For many in the installations and logistics community, however, OIF continues. Fewer than 9,000 of the 35,000 people deployed have returned to their home station.

The disparity is a constant source of concern for many in the Pentagon, particularly Lt. Gen. Michael E. Zettler, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for installations and logistics. Noting that there is still much work to be done in Southwest Asia, the general said a plan is in place to get everyone back home safe and sound.

“There is a plan to bring everyone home, and it is being executed very well,” Zettler said. “The plan will really start to spin up and generate more speed as we move later into June, July and August.”

Essentially, the general said, the plan is based on two premises: leaving every place in better shape than it was before U.S. forces arrived, and withdrawing in a manner that allows the air and space expeditionary force concept to go back into a normal rhythm.

“We will have used about 45 days from the ending of hostilities in late April to build the kind of bases we want to have over there, take care of our international agreements, and pick up our equipment and do the maintenance that is necessary on it to reconstitute it,” he said. “We also have to commit the resources necessary to get the AEF, in the long term, back to a normal 90-day rhythm.”

The general said mission support and construction projects continue in remote areas of the region, including inside Iraq.

“We have some construction sites that we need to finish before coming home,” he said. “So if you are finishing construction projects, you still need services people for dining and lodging, and transportation and supply people to provide the few things that you need to sustain yourself. You need the planners to plan it. It is just a logical flow.

“We have a great plan to make that happen,” he said. “It is driven at leaving places better than we found them, supporting our international agreements and our allies who supported us in the war and getting the AEF back into a 90-day rhythm. It is a solid plan, and I have every confidence that it will bring our folks home.”