The Ride of Your Life - Enabling the Urgent Universal Needs Statement Process

Second Lieutenant Saenz had just experienced the ride of his life. According to last count, four thousand two hundred thirty nine 4,239 US lives were lost in Iraq and six hundred forty one 641 US lives were lost in Afghanistan with many more thousands wounded in both locations. Perhaps as a surprise to many, approximately seventy five percent of the US combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were attributed to improvised explosive devices IEDS, rocket propelled grenades, explosively formed penetrators, and land mines. In 2003, the United States Marine Corps attempted to mitigate the threat of these weapons by acquiring a new armored vehicle called the High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicle MRAP using a tailored acquisition process the Marine Corps referred as the Urgent Universal Needs Statement UUNS Acquisition Process. While the UUNS Acquisition Process facilitated the production of a very capable armored vehicle in months rather than years, there were serious issues associated with the acqusition particularly as it applied to manufacturing, asset visibility, sustainability and maintenance. To mitigate future challenges with this acquisition process, an enhanced UUNS Acquisition Process should be developed. The enhanced process should incorporate the best qualities of the current Evolutionary and UUNS Acquisition Processes. Once instituted, contracting officers, financial managers, and program managers must institute additional management controls, oversight measures, including a metrics and a feed-back mechanism.