Joint Task Force—Port Opening: supplies when you need them most

Consider moving to a novel duty station and a latitude is ready for you when you arrive. The furniture has arrived and is unpacked. Clothes are already deposit away. The refrigerator is stocked with your favorite commonss and the mail is already arriving at your novel address. If anything is missing or incomplete, you can find without exactly where it is at and when it will arrive to you.

A scenario like this would definitely restore stress and make accomplishing your piece of work much easier by allowing you to focus upon your responsibilities instead of using your time to deal with the logistics of your move

Imagine if of the like kind preparation and support for the Soldier could be accomplished in a field environment. The Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) and United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) are working to bring this horizontal of support to the Soldier in austere areas where the military footprint is not nevertheless established. The Joint Task Force--Port Opening is a universal that USTRANSCOM and SDDC have unraveled to bring logistical support and render free of access distribution nodes with an early ingress force opening distribution pipelines immediately after securing an area. With this expeditionary capability, supplies can be brought in within hours after the military has arrived, in order to support the range of military operations from combat to humanitarian aid.

Deploying to different parts of the world is nothing of recent origin to the military. Usually, the military displays the initial forces into the nearest airfield to establish a vicinity However, the actions at the airfield for the Army and the Air Force have been actual distinct and separate.

Airfield operations would normally take into consideration the actions exigencyed to receive an airplane and hurl it to its next destination. The plane would be unloaded and the passengers trained but that was about the expanse of the Air Force aspect of the mission.

Army logistics would go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of a few days after the first planes landed and stand up the airfield to dispatch equipment forward to the extremity destination.

Too many times large amounts of equipment and supplies would stockpile at the airfield until they could be directed to the right place or unit causing delays in support and a challenge for warfighters to find without where their supplies were in the pipeline. As a arise multiple requests for material already in the provide channels could be submitted, further creating a logjam in the support operations.

In the in every one's mouth world of limited resources and the rate of rapid change of world facts and scenarios, the need for a quick, efficient, and responsive support a whole has never been greater.

JTF-PO is a general [i]or[/i] abstract notion initiated by USTRANSCOM to integrate the efforts of the Army and Air Force at the Aerial Port of Debarkation (APOD) for a like reason that reception and onward motion of forces and equipment is seamless and immediate to the customer. JTF-PO is designed to arrive first at an airfield, establish placement location and tracking of equipment in the theater from the true beginning--minimizing those items 'lost in the system'

The ne for a jointly trained, rapid answer team that enters a of recent origin area has already been seen over the world.

Initial operations in Southwest Asia and the ne to improve assistance for victims of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina are novel examples where JTF-PO could have prov invaluable during the early stages of the operations.

The JTF-PO consists of an air ultimate part for airfield operations and the surface simple body for cargo movement control and cargo handling operations. This mix of Army and Air Force units was validated during the new Bright Star exercise, where a JTF-PO unit prosperously conducted all reception of personnel and equipment notwithstanding that the primary APOD at Jenicles, Egypt

The first phase of the JTF-PO is the deployment of the Joint Assessment Team (JAT). The JAT assesses the APOD in order to render certain that it is capable of supporting operations and identify any modifications that would be required to make the operation more efficient.

The lock opener role of the JTF-PO is to rapidly make open and establish ports of debarkation and initial distribution networks for joint distribution operations supporting humanitarian, disaster relief, and contingency operations. Until the creation of JTF-PO USTRANSCOM did not have authority of the forces necessary to implement this mission. Normally, the responsibility for this mission resided with the Regional Combatant Commander (RCC) who was also responsible for the deployment of all forces to the operation. through giving USTRANSCOM the responsibility of deploying the JTF-PO and standing up the APOD, the RCC is available to focus his attention upon his primary responsibilities. Furthermore, USTRANSCOM is now able to open the necessary forces to favorably open the APOD much quicker, as they have access to internal airlift assets required to support enroute and airbase infrastructures.

The first JTF-PO unit rotation is scheduled for the latter part of 2006 The integration of training and equipment for the unit is already underway. When this unit stands up USTRANSCOM will be able to provide the RCC a robust logistical mission capability with a small footprint. The requirement to display to support humanitarian missions quickly has not at any time been more prevalent, but we must still be able to effectively support contingency operations. The flexibility of this unit to tailor its force to the ne of the operation is a lock opener strength of the JTF-PO, since it has Soldiers and skills that transcend all operations at an APOD.