The Cellar - The General Lee Comes Home

War Weary Stryker Dubbed General Lee Comes Home For Reset
By Ann Roosevelt, for Defense Industry Daily

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Better known to the Army and General Dynamics as ATGM-0086, General Lee is a Stryker Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) variant, with a two-tube TOW missile launcher.

With parts from Lima, Ohio and Canada shipped for assembly into the ATGM variant completed at Anniston Army Depot in March 2004, General Lee was handed over to the Army, which actually “owns” the vehicle and holds the title. The Program Manager Stryker Brigade Combat Team owns all Stryker vehicles and manages them essentially from cradle to grave.

How do they keep track of them is case the GAO asks?

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Here’s how that works. The unit handed General Lee over to technical experts provided by the Stryker Project Managers Office. These experts determined the Stryker could not be repaired with the standard repair and maintenance processes and handed it on to the Forward Repair Activity (FRA) for an initial limited, but more detailed technical inspection to determine what parts and materials were required to repair the damage.

Based on that assessment, parts and other requirements were identified and orders placed so some materials would be available when the General Lee was ready for repairs at Anniston Army Depot, Ala.

The next day the Army reported General Lee a battle loss.

On June 5, General Lee left the FRA and was transported to Kuwait. At that point, General Dynamics’ records show General Lee had been driven a total of 18,851 miles, with 2,114 hours on the engine.

From the docks in Kuwait, General Lee on June 23 was placed aboard the MV Cape Edmont for transport to the United States and on to Anniston Army Depot.

The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) owns and manages the vehicle carrier Cape Edmont, which is part of the Ready Reserve Fleet, which brings General Lee to the United States where it will be debarked in Charleston, S.C.

In Kuwait, the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC), working with Army Materiel Command, ensured the paperwork was in place and General Lee properly loaded on the Cape Edmont. SDDC also makes sure General Lee is unloaded in the right place, put on a truck and delivered to Anniston, complete with the proper paperwork.

MV Cape Edmont set sail with a mixed cargo that MARAD said included 130 vehicles, 72 trailers, 49 “dead tow” vehicles, or those that had to be towed on board, containers and helicopters for a total square footage of 89,823.

At sea, Military Sealift Command, the Navy component of U.S. Transportation Command, “owns” Cape Edmont while it transits to the United States.

Once unloaded in Charleston, General Lee will be taken on the long, about 600 mile journey to Anniston Army Depot for a more in-depth final technical assessment. Once that is done, reset work can begin.

A similar process is followed for each of the thousands and thousands of vehicles that are returned from theater and are shepherded through reset.

It's not hard to imagine, one undotted i or uncrossed t, can sent a multi-ton vehicle into undocumented limbo, never to be accounted for again.
I imagine many of the items, the audits don't find, are sitting somewhere without the proper paperwork.