FORT LEE, Va. - Six Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) and Army South (ARSOUTH) members recently visited the Peruvian Army to assist in modernizing their logistics doctrine and programs to better support future operational requirements.

Held at the Chorrillos Military Academy in Lima, Peru. and hosted by Maj. Gen. Miguel Angel Garcia Salas, Peruvian Army director of logistics, the U.S. team shared informational briefs on areas such as quartermaster, ordnance, transportation and the Defense Logistics Agency.

"The Peruvian Army is going through a force modernization process, including reviews and updates of their logistics doctrine and field manuals," said Lt. Col. Alex Shimabukuro, deputy director, Training Development Directorate, CASCOM. "The Peruvians already utilize World War II to pre-Desert Storm U.S. doctrine and have been adapting Colombian manuals derived from current U.S. manuals."

ARSOUTH, CASCOM and the Peruvians collaborated in a bilateral group discussion of the Army's efforts to modernize logistics and employ a modified and condensed DOTMLPF-P (doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policies) assessment to identify possible modernization gaps and areas that the U.S. can assist.

"FM 4-0, Sustainment Operations is the Army's principal doctrine manual on sustainment support, this manual is a companion to FM 3-0, Army Operations and, provides the foundation for how Army Sustainment forces support and sustain large scale combat operations," said Maj. Michelle McDevitt, doctrine developer, Training and Doctrine Integration Directorate, CASCOM.

The Peruvian Army recently built a modern aviation maintenance depot capable of sustaining their current Russian-built helicopter fleet and with proper funding any other foreign-made helicopter with the intent on making it a regional rotary wing depot. The challenge lies with their tank maintenance depot which is a large facility but has few people and funding since the focus of the government is humanitarian/disaster response missions.

"This event was crucial in allowing the exchange of sustainment models, lessons learned, and understanding of each Army's professional military education (PME)," said Maj Eduardo Rodriguez, Multi-National Interagency (MN&I) Division, G-4 ARSOUTH. "As a result, the Peruvian personnel demonstrated a particular interest in attending US logistics courses."
Garcia said he was extremely pleased with the U.S. team for their depth of sustainment knowledge at all three levels of war: tactical, operational and strategic as well as how the U.S. logistics formations operate and adapt to the operating environment.

The weeklong trip was in support of U.S. Southern Command's military objectives and ARSOUTH's security cooperation objectives by developing partner nation militaries and fostering military-to-military relations.