As the United States Army transforms into a strategically responsive, lighter force, it will have the capability to conduct full spectrum operations anywhere in the world. Its highly lethal, deployable, and mobile units will be prepared for any challenge they might face on the future battlefield, known as the Contemporary Operating Environment. Combat Service Support (CSS) organizations are responsible for sustaining the combat forces as they meet these future challenges. Logistics officers will need to plan, manage, and direct the execution of CSS functions for the force commander. In order for future operations to be successful, the functions of maintenance, supply, transportation, combat health support, and field services must be well integrated and synchronized to reduce the logistics footprint without sacrificing combat power. This incredibly demanding set of requirements calls for talented logisticians who have had formal multifunctional training from the time they enter the military. This monograph asks if the U.S. Army should combine the current logistics officer branches from the Ordnance, Quartermaster, Transportation, and Medical Service Corps, into one branch. Currently, officers in the existing logistics branches, and those MSC officers who volunteer to become multifunctional logisticians, do not formally receive multifunctional training until the third phase of the Combined Logistics Captains Career Course (CLC3). This monograph examines how these officers are trained today, what their responsibilities are in supporting current CSS doctrine, and what their roles will be in participating in future operations. The author is able to draw conclusions and make logical recommendations in researching these three areas by applying the following criteria: Officer versatility, support of current doctrine, support of future operations, and simplicity in training and assignments. This monograph concludes that the U.S. Army should combine the Ordnance, Quartermaster, and Transportation officer branches, along with the MSC officer specialties of Health Services Operations (67A77) and Health Services Materiel (67A78) into a single logistics officer branch. The new branch would be called the Combat Logistician Branch. By training these officers together as multifunctional logisticians from the time they enter the Army, they will be better prepared to meet future CSS challenges and to support the Army's transformation. The author recommends that the Army start a Combined Logistics Officer Basic Course (CLOBC) to produce Combat Logistician lieutenants who can successfully lead platoons and work as staff officers in multifunctional CSS battalions. Additionally, CLC3 should be reduced from four phases to three phases, which would decrease the total course length by four weeks. The first phase would last five weeks and concentrate on leadership, communication, and company level operations; the second phase would last nine weeks and focus on CSS doctrine and multifunctional logistics; and the third phase would last six weeks and continue to be the integrated staff officer training program (formerly CAS3) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This would give officers more multifunctional training, and be less disruptive since the students would no longer have to go TDY twice during the course. Finally, the author recommends that Paragraph 12-7 of Field Manual 3-0 Operations be rewritten to reflect the following five CSS functions: maintenance, supply, transportation, combat health support, and field services. The other eight CSS functions listed in FM 3-0 should be called "administrative" or "special" functions.

ADA 402702 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)