MEDIA CONTEST: ALSA provides quick solutions to real-time problems

  • Published
  • By 2006 Media Contest
  • Feature Entry 5
ACC MEDIA CONTEST --  Established in 1975, the Air, Land and Sea Application Center is a multi-service unit that writes tactic, technique and procedure manuals to meet the immediate needs of the warfighter.

Many of the manuals the ALSA center produces help save the lives of men and women in the War on Terror every day.

Although there are other joint doctrine-producing centers throughout the Department of Defense, the ALSA center here is the only one that encompasses all four branches to produce manuals used in forward-deployed locations.

ALSA cuts through the "red tape" to provide directive, joint solutions so commanders in the field have guidance that would otherwise take years to produce.

ALSA manuals are developed with advice from subject matter experts across the services. These experts range from E-1s to O-4s, the service members who experience the shortcomings of current publications first-hand in the area of responsibility.

With more than 300 Langley members deploying during Air and Space Expeditionary Force 5/6 in January, many Langley Airmen will use ALSA manuals for everything from convoy operations to search and cordon procedures.

Other Langley Airmen will become experts who identify these procedural shortcomings.
"We're looking for the trigger-pullers out in the AOR," said ALSA non-commissioned officer in charge, Tech. Sgt. Jorge Venegas. "These are the guys who use the current procedures and see the problem areas not covered in real wartime situations."

The shop of 17 active-duty servicemembers and five civilians, work at a fast pace once a problem with technical data is identified. They facilitate the SME's, record all the notes and put it together in a language that can be understood and used by the entire Department of Defense.

As most associated with the military, the men and women of ALSA have taken on even more critical roles since Sept. 11, 2001.

ALSA has written, approved and produced several manuals which are being used to reshape places like Iraq and Afghanistan today such as Tactical Convoy Operations.

"We develop new procedures for American forces to use so all are on the same sheet of music during times like a convoy attack," said ALSA director Col. Robert Givens.

"The guys in Iraq realized they were getting ambushed, and there were not clear procedures for improvised explosive devices," said Sergeant Venegas. "So with a real need to collect the data and give them procedures to combat this, we invited SMEs in and produced the Tactical Convoy Operations Manual."

Known under different publication names dependent on the service, remember ALSA is a Joint Center, USA - FM 4-01.45, USMC - MCRP 4-11.3H ,USN - NTTP 4-01.3 or USAF - AFTTP (I) 3-2.58 was created to help troops in Iraq who were finding their convoys coming under attack from IED or rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms from insurgent forces.

This publication provides a quick-reference guide for convoy commanders operating in combat support and service support units.

The ALSA center produces products that are transformed into Air Force Instructions, Army manuals or other corresponding service manuals in a step-by-step checklist style format that can be used by Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen.

After Soldiers in Iraq noticed a difference in the way the services conduct building cordon and searches, the ALSA center was employed to pull together and created a manual that would be a common, step based format to get all branches of the military on the same page. In August 2005, ALSA produced the Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques and Procedures for Cordon Search Operations manual, a checklist-style manual complete with illustrations of search methods.

ALSA also produced the Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques and Procedures for Explosive Ordinance Disposal in a Joint Environment.

"We ourselves don't fix the problem, but we collect the data of what is going wrong and put together manuals to help the troops down-range," said Sergeant Venegas.
"Every manual we produce is a living document used in everyday joint operations," said Colonel Givens. "Each manual has a two-to-three year life cycle. At the end of that time, they are renewed, reviewed or deleted."

Although there are other joint doctrine-producing centers, the small 22 person shop here at Langley provides right now solutions that deployed Airmen see.

"Before 9-11, wars were fought in a conventional method; we could wait for technical data to catch up to the situation," said Colonel Givens. "Now we find ourselves in a new kind of war where things are irregular and change quickly, so we have to change quickly in response. And that's what ALSA is all about."