INDIANAPOLIS — Army Gen. Christopher LaNeve, vice chief of staff of the Army and acting chief of staff, emphasized the Guard’s indispensable, multidomain contributions to the joint force at home and abroad during an annual National Guard conference in Indianapolis Aug. 29.

Referencing the Army’s newly released strategy document, the Army Azimuth, LaNeve stressed the Guard’s essential role across all three Army priorities: defending the homeland, warfighting and projecting power on and from the land.

“You carry a heavy load of defending the homeland, whether that manifests in Joint Task Force Southern Border, D.C. Safe and Beautiful, or response efforts aligned with national disasters,” LaNeve said.

LaNeve thanked the National Guard for its ongoing support of D.C. Safe and Beautiful — a mission that has brought nearly 10,000 Guardsmen from around the country to support local and federal law enforcement efforts aimed at restoring order in the nation’s capital. As a result, Guardsmen have removed more than 1,400 illegal firearms from local streets, conducted more than 860 medical assistance interventions, administered naloxone to more than 375 people experiencing suspected overdoses and reunited more than 44 minors with their families.

“When I think about the National Guard, I think of individuals who are truly part of their communities, faces that folks recognize and can directly associate with service,” LaNeve said. “That’s a powerful force for good in our nation.”

As a young brigade operations officer, LaNeve witnessed the Guard’s tenacity in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. His unit conducted a relief in place, or RIP, for the Louisiana National Guard’s 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Iraq, whose Soldiers were serving their final weeks of deployment when one of the worst hurricanes in decades devastated their home state.

“The professionalism they displayed during that RIP will always, always stay with me,” LaNeve said. “In the face of absolute worry, they did not falter.”

That same professionalism and tenacity, LaNeve said, is rooted in Soldier fundamentals.

Returning to a “warrior mindset” across the force is critical for maintaining the Army’s position as the world’s most dominant land power. LaNeve outlined this as going back to the basics of rigorous physical training, knowing the mission-essential tasks associated with their military specialty and preparing their equipment.

“Each of us has a moral obligation to our nation and the Soldiers we serve to become the strongest, most lethal and most ready version of ourselves possible,” LaNeve said. “We must care about the basics today to keep our Soldiers alive on the battlefield tomorrow.”

With four Guard mobile brigades scheduled to conduct combat readiness exercises in fiscal year 2027 and Guardsmen currently serving in the U.S. Central Command area of operations, embracing a warrior mindset is more critical than ever, he said.

“You are in the fight.”

LaNeve praised the Virginia National Guard’s 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, or IBCT, as the first Army National Guard brigade to participate in a Joint Readiness Training Center rotation ahead of the Army’s plans to convert 25 Army National Guard IBCTs to the mobile BCT structure by the end of fiscal year 2028.

“You are a critical part of our ability to be postured to respond immediately to crises and contingencies both at home and abroad,” he said.

Operation Epic Fury demonstrated how the Army remains the foundation of the joint force, he said. While the operation may appear to center on air power and a blockade, the Army — including the Army National Guard — has continued to provide critical warfighting functions in theater.

He cited the New York-based 42nd Infantry Division, which led Task Force Spartan and provided tactical mission command for land forces from February to May, and the Kansas National Guard’s 130th Field Artillery Brigade, which transitioned from supporting Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve to serving as the field artillery headquarters for U.S. Central Command forces and executed one of the longest deep field artillery strikes in Army history.

“You are a powerful part of our ability to project power on and from the land,” LaNeve said. “The National Guard generates combat-credible formations and helps strengthen the capacity of our allies and partners through the State Partnership Program.”

The Department of War’s National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program now encompasses 117 partnerships, connecting states, territories and Washington, D.C., with partner nations in every geographic combatant command.

LaNeve highlighted the Washington National Guard and Malaysia, which have partnered since 2017, for their recent weeklong working group focused on developing expeditionary amphibious capabilities and logistics planning.

“We must position ourselves favorably left of conflict, whether that be campaigning, building relationships or forward-basing,” he said. “Through the actions we take today, we are hardening lines of communication and reinforcing the forward areas of the future fight, and you are on the vanguard of this.”

LaNeve also described the Guard’s role in “endurance,” one of four elements of land power outlined in the Azimuth alongside convergence, strike and close battle. Together, they guarantee the Army’s ability to maneuver operationally on the battlefield and to deliver joint all-domain maneuver when integrated into the joint force.

“Endurance is about our ability as an Army to persist,” he said, “to ensure we can maintain posture, protection, projection of power across time, distance, and in the face of an unforgiving and persistent adversary. We use endurance to translate victory on the battlefield to victory in war.”

The Guard’s ability to mobilize helps project power over time and distance, making it essential to the endurance of the Army’s land power. State partnerships build the relationships needed for posture and power projection abroad, and the Guard’s daily contributions to endurance directly support the Army’s ability to conduct operational maneuver, LaNeve said.

“We may have three compos, but we are one Army,” LaNeve told the audience, using a shorthand term for the Army’s active-duty, National Guard and Reserve components. “That Army is the foundation of our joint force.”

By MSG Sarah McClanahan

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. – Imagine a car breaking down and having to be transported 7,000 miles for repairs. Now imagine that vehicle is a critical asset needed to keep families and neighbors alive.

For modern warfighters, this logistics bottleneck is not a hypothetical scenario. It is a harsh operational reality known as “the last tactical mile” – the high-stakes battlespace where a military capability is delivered and where its reliability and endurance matter most.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, a tremendous amount of cargo space on military aircraft was dedicated to moving repair parts forward or retrograding damaged equipment. In a contested near-peer conflict, however, uncontested airlift is not guaranteed. To survive and win on the modern battlefield, units must possess the technical data, tools, and authority to ‘fix forward’ at the point of conflict.

The “Black Box” Vulnerability

Taking the car breakdown example, a step further highlights the inherent risks of “black boxes.” Imagine if instead of being able to replace spark plugs or belts when they fail, all you can do is replace an entire engine. This is reality for maintainers when it comes to proprietary sub-components that only the Original Equipment Manufacturer can test and repair.

Early acquisition decisions frequently trade technical data rights for rapid delivery speed or immediate functionality. While these choices result in short-term acquisition wins, they inevitably create long-term sustainment nightmares. Trapped within proprietary information and supply stovepipes, the system effectively surrenders organic repair capabilities to private defense contractors for the duration of their operational life.

Upon deployment, tactical maintainers encounter modified or non-standard system configurations that they can neither troubleshoot nor repair. This gridlock extends all the way up the sustainment chain. Geographically anchored by costly and numerous OEM test stands and starved of proprietary technical data, organic depots find themselves facing the exact same constraints.

Retaining Rights to Repair/Freedom to Fix

While defense contractors argue that private industry is best suited managing the physical and digital details of complex defense platforms, logistical experts, who have visibility across several weapon platforms, argue that this creates severe operational and financial vulnerabilities.

Without sustainable maintenance pipelines, high-tech weapon systems quickly become liabilities. This vulnerability is especially acute for low-density, high-variety fleets that lack strategic spare parts, face complex modernization efforts, and suffer from extended repair cycle times.

Because the military unit — not the defense contractor — is evaluated on operational readiness and system reliability, any gaps between acquisition and sustainment are ultimately paid for with a decrease in combat power and readiness.

LEAD’s Digital Engineering Solution

To bridge this gap, LEAD is establishing a comprehensive engineering services framework for its customers. LEAD’s configuration management team works with product offices to organize all available technical information and define the baseline configuration within Windchill, an organic Product Lifecycle Management system. This baseline serves as the foundation for all sourcing, tracking, modernization, and decommissioning decisions.

While depots are not configuration managers, utilizing LEAD as a centralized hub ensures sustainment experts are integrated into the decision-making loop alongside community subject matter experts. This baseline technical data includes:

• Component attributes and engineering models
• Repair and theory of operation data
• System test documentation and effectivity records
• Parent-child assembly relationships, parts lists, and sourcing alternates

During any maintenance cycle at the depot, artisans create a digital twin of each asset as it is being built. These digital twins organize vast amounts of technical data into an intuitive and interactive owner’s manual of what will be delivered. The twin doesn’t just show what the parts are, but how they are routed throughout the system and how they connect and interact with each other. These twins serve to better connect warfighters and depot SMEs through a common operating picture during forward deployed operations.

The final phase of this digital rollout will make these digital twins fully interactive. By incorporating cyber secure physical sensors into fielded equipment, the Army can capture real-time material failures and eliminate contrived durability or planned obsolescence. The government would now have all the information necessary to place strategic spares and plan field upgrades. This continuous feedback loop eliminates the “dirty ledger” data mismatch (where physical configurations don’t match the digital databases) that typically plagues physical systems and their digital records.

This government-owned digital thread provides a single, continuous and traceable data pipeline that starts with configuration lock and utilizes a change management process to connect acquisition and sustainment throughout the lifecycle. When all phases are deployed the Army’s priorities become the only consideration for acquiring, modernizing, modifying, and repairing warfighter equipment.

Sustaining on the Tactical Edge

LEAD engineers and technicians have 80+ years of demonstrated commitment to supporting the warfighter. Reimagining the space beyond the depot gates and between maintenance intervals is just another example of how LEAD remains relevant and innovative. By pushing technical expertise directly to the tactical edge, LEAD extends equipment operational life, minimizes down-time, and directly increases the combat readiness of forward-deployed forces.

Just as you wouldn’t ship a broken car 7,000 miles for repairs, LEAD’s comprehensive engineering framework equips our warfighters to complete the mission efficiently and effectively right where they are.

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Kate Williams serves as Letterkenny Army Depot’s Director of Strategic Management.