Army's swift response to soldier needs.

• Author: Farrell, Lawrence P., Jr.
• Position: President's Perspective - Rapid Equipping Force - Editorial

Among the hard-learned lessons of the wars that U.S. forces have been fighting for the past three years is the importance of having a military procurement system that is responsive to the needs of troops on the front lines. The widely reported shortages of body armor and up-armored Humvees in Iraq highlight the huge challenges facing the Defense Department's acquisition process which, in a nutshell, are to anticipate equipment requirements accurately and to rapidly meet urgent needs.

One viable solution to this problem can be found in the U.S. Army's Rapid Equipping Force, or REF. The organization, based in Fort Belvoir, Va., was exclusively designed to find materiel solutions to emerging war-fighter requirements--ideally, within 90 days or less. To work directly with operational commanders, the REF has forward teams in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq, the teams consist of one officer and several NCOs with each Army division. "Only by being on the battlefield and living and working directly with soldiers can we understand and address the true needs of the soldier in a quick and effective manner," said a REF spokesman.

With a workforce that grew from about 20 in April 2004 to more than 100 by December, the REF has managed to deliver a number of key technologies in a matter of weeks or months. It also facilitates and expedites the delivery of materiel solutions through the existing acquisition management structure. Under the traditional procurement cycle, the same process would have taken years.

To expedite development and rapid equipping, REF seeks primarily commercial off-the-shelf technologies, which can function as stand alone capabilities or can be integrated with existing military systems.

The REF had its origin in the PackBot robotic platforms sent to Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 to remotely inspect high-risk areas. The robots helped operational units clear caves, buildings and compounds. Another useful field-engineered device supplied by REF is a personal digital assistant loaded with mission essential phrases that lets units without interpreters communicate more quickly and effectively with local citizens. Among the success stories was an REF engineer field rigging a web-camera to an ethernet cable and a laptop. On its first mission, this "well-cam" discovered a weapons and equipment cache inside an 80-foot well. As an alternative to destroying locks and doors during search missions in rural Afghanistan and then reimbursing the...