The Last Word: Logistics

The word logistics has a distinctly military flavor, maybe because logistics is so vital to the conduct of war. The fact is, you can't win a battle unless you can get your troops and materiel to the battlefield. Consider the Gulf War, an object lesson in logistics. With a storm brewing in Iraq, the U.S. military had to move thousands of soldiers and millions of tons of equipment halfway around the world, and it had to do it very quickly. Once in sight of the potential battlefield, it had to set that army up and find ways to feed, house, and supply all those soldiers and maintain their equipment.