Trent Lott: “Part of any military exercise or experience is an afteraction review to learn what went right and wrong and how to…”

“Part of any military exercise or experience is an afteraction review to learn what went right and wrong and how to improve on things in future situations. It would seem that the MRE supply issue is just such an issue. Obviously DLA did not have reserve stocks of food on hand going into this operation. Obviously no one anticipated the consumption rate we have experienced in the past few months. But it seems apparent that the reliance upon MREs isn't going to change in the foreseeable future. I can think of a number of things that could go wrong during a military operation, but running out of food has to be one of the worst. So I can't imagine why DLA is cutting production when we haven't even started to replenish our reserves. It would seem simple enough that if anything DLA should be increasing production and increasing reserves so that we never face this potential disaster again. I am informed that an adequate reserve based upon the new realities we have discovered in the past few months would ultimately be 10.5 million cases. Well, we are about 10 million cases away from that goal so we better get started on meeting that target. I too would certainly welcome anything the chairman could do to address this problem in conference and compel DLA to up the reserve stocks of MREs to an adequate level.”