When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, his armies got into major trouble when inadequate provisions were made to supply the troops. That problem, along with disease and the brutal winter weather, decimated his force of a half million troops.<\/p>\n
That fiasco is perhaps the truest example of a quote sometimes attributed to the French emperor and which remains true: \u201cAn army marches on its stomach.\u201d Modern armies still rely on sufficient supply lines and efficient logistics to stay prepared for conflict.<\/p>\n
Jack Kiel, a UWM senior, is spending the summer in Germany studying those issues after receiving a Department of Defense National Security Innovation Network\u2019s X-Force fellowship.<\/p>\n
X-Force Fellows are university students embedded with military commands for applied national security problem-solving. Now in its third year, the program involves 237 full-time paid interns and 46 part-time volunteers from 88 universities.<\/p>\n
Kiel, who is majoring in supply chain and operations management, is based in Stuttgart, Germany, working with the U.S. European command.<\/p>\n
He applied for the fellowship because \u201cit\u2019s very logistics based, which happens to fit in with what I\u2019m studying.\u201d In addition to being an experience that would be good for his resume, he added, it gave him the opportunity to spend the summer in Germany with his father, a former Air Force reservist who is currently working in Germany.<\/p>\n
Kiel is one of eight students at the Stuttgart base that are part of the project. His four-person team is focusing on the logistical plans in the European theater \u2013 how the different military services and their allies are working together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey brought us in as new eyes to see what kind of gaps or problems we might see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kiel has been focusing on the U.S. partnership with the United Kingdom. His work involves reading through documents, partnership agreements and historical data and interviewing the people involved in carrying out the work. \u201cWe want to find out more about what they do on the job, and how they interact with logistics and operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal is to make sure that if a military action happens or war breaks out, the U.S. and its allies have all their logistical needs covered, he said. More than 28,000 military members from all branches of the services are based at Stuttgart, along with another 5,000 civilians, representatives of federal agencies and family members.<\/p>\n
The fellowship has given Kiel the opportunity to spend time with his family for the first time in several years. His mother is visiting from his hometown of Neenah, and his younger sister just finished a study abroad in Germany and is planning to stay for a gap year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time all four of us have been together since 2016 or 2017, so it\u2019s kind of like old times; everyone being back,\u201d Kiel said.<\/p>\n
With COVID-19 restrictions, traveling to Germany was challenging, and touring within the country was also difficult, Kiel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first got here, there were still a lot of COVID restrictions, which was kind of a bummer, but stuff\u2019s finally opening up and we can go to restaurants and beer gardens.\u201d He and friends are planning trips to other German cities like Heidelberg and Munich, and he\u2019s been enjoying hiking. In the near future, he\u2019s planning to head to the nearby Black Forest area to go hiking and do some zip lining.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m loving it here,\u201d he said, but added he is also looking forward to returning to UWM and Milwaukee, where he\u2019ll finish his studies and work part-time at the Klotsche Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited about returning to have one more year of \u2018normal\u2019 college life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s proud to be representing UWM in the fellowship program, he added. He\u2019s reached out with a thank-you note to Michael Freimark, senior lecturer in the Lubar School of Business who first suggested the then-new supply chain and operations management major to him. Kiel was a first-year student who wasn\u2019t sure what he wanted to focus on. But he\u2019d always enjoyed putting things together and organizing stuff, so felt the program might be a good fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thanked him for pointing me in this direction. I told him about my experiences and how much I\u2019m enjoying it here and wouldn\u2019t have known about the field if he hadn\u2019t suggested it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jack Kiel, who is majoring in supply chain and operations management, is part of a four-person team working on the logistical plans in the European theater \u2013 how the different military services and their allies are working together. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":835,"featured_media":95139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"section":[122,124],"display_categories":[115,116],"related-coverage":[],"uwmnews-feed":[162],"class_list":["post-95110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","section-campus-community","section-students","display_categories-top-story-secondary","display_categories-top-story-section","uwmnews-feed-business"],"yoast_head":"\n