Feeding fighters

Agility DGS is responsible for feeding over 150,000 troops in Iraq, as well as providing the military with comprehensive logistical support. CEO Dan Mongeon describes the huge challenges facing a private firm operating in a war zone.

In Iraq, the army is certainly marching on its stomach," smiles Dan Mongeon, as he mops up the remains of a fine continental breakfast, served in a fashionable restaurant in one of Dubai's top hotels. "Troops eat so much better now, day and night, and it's a phenomenal morale factor."

As both a retired US Army major general and the CEO of Agility Defense and Government Services (DGS), Mongeon is well placed to deliver a verdict on the culinary options available to the troops currently in Iraq.

Today, it is his responsibility to feed 158,000 troops and 100,000 contractor and government employees at 120 locations across the country. And as he eyes the array of condiments spread in front of him, the retired US Army major general is reminded of his first - very different - visit to the region back in 1990.

"In the first Gulf War, we'd take a 5lb block of butter, cut it down into five 1lb blocks, and then blow the sand off it," he recalls. "Today, the food that is provided is no different to any you could buy in any grocery store."

"Troops eat so much better now, day and night," he continues. "Today you have the power of the entire food industry - the food is there, on time, as requested, and that certainly wasn't the case in the first Gulf War because the infrastructure support wasn't there."

In 1990, Mongeon commanded a logistics support squadron with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the screening unit for the 75,000-strong 18th Airborne Corps during Operation Desert Shield. Later, in Operation Desert Storm, the regiment moved over 300km in 100 hours, leaving remnants of three Iraqi Republican Guard Divisions in its wake.

It stopped 20km east of Basra and Mongeon's squadron acted as the linkage between 18th Airborne and 7th Corps, the lynchpin of the US war machine as it veered wide of Baghdad - its goal then limited to liberation, not regime change.

"The first Gulf War was about overwhelming force, but then that was with a far larger coalition," he remembers. "Iraq was definitely a safer place then, and it was a totally different war. This war is much, much harder."

Today, Mongeon heads the public arm of Kuwait-based Agility, the Middle East's largest storage and logistics company. DGS provides a diverse group of defence and government customers - including the US Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, Army Air Force Exchange Service, and the Department of State - land, sea and air transportation.

It has around 2000 staff, and with the majority of DGS operations taking place in Iraq, the firm has suffered first-hand from the sickening violence that has stained the country since 2003.

Last year, 46 DGS staff suffered injury and six died as a result of attacks in Iraq, including from improvised explosive devices and insurgent assaults. While those numbers have dropped significantly so far in 2008, the firm isn't taking any chances with its staff or its vehicles.

"We have a system called MicroTransport, which is a real-time, satellite based tracking system so that we know where every truck is and we can update that data minute-by-minute," explains Mongeon. "Through a Geo-fencing system we can tell if a vehicle has gone off-route at any point - if a vehicle breaks the boundary left or right, it alerts."

"A couple of years ago when things were very intense we had a convoy of trucks break the fence," he recalls. "We called the military who confirmed the convoy was interdicted and that they had three of our trucks and drivers. Then we were able to use the GPS to tell them exactly where the trucks were. They sent a reaction force, killed the insurgents and recovered our trucks and our drivers, and that incident alone paid for the system."

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