Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 83

OPERATION UNITED ASSISTANCE

(Photo by Pfc. Craig Philbrick, U.S. Army Africa)

Air Force personnel from the 633rd Medical Group, Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, erect a tent at the Monrovia Medical Unit site 9
October 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia.

approximately one week before redeployment, and
became policy as the first group was leaving Liberia.9
Given the understandable anxiety many people
around the world felt about this frightening disease, it
was imperative to communicate these policy changes
accurately to nervous family members, the Italian
community, and the U.S. population in order to influence the narrative and prevent misinformation.
While an ASCC is capable of rapidly opening and
setting the conditions in the theater, retaining command of the Ebola response mission would have come
at a cost to other theater army responsibilities. From
the outset of mission receipt, USARAF understood
that it would not provide the enduring solution to the
U.S. government’s Ebola fight.
Transition planning began almost immediately
and was facilitated by the 101st Division headquarters sending a planning team to Vicenza early with
only a warning order from U.S. Forces Command
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2015

(FORSCOM). After receiving the official unit deployment order, that team was in Liberia the following day.
Leading up to the October transition of authority, the
two staff headquarters conducted numerous video conferences linking Fort Campbell, Vicenza, and Liberia.
Transition challenges included determining what
roles and responsibilities USARAF would continue
to execute posttransition. Existing execution orders
and doctrine at the time did not address an ASCC’s
administrative control (ADCON) responsibilities
for the allocated units or attached units. The JFC and
deploying units were under operational control of
USAFRICOM; neither the Department of the Army
nor FORSCOM directed shared ADCON authority. For OUA, FORSCOM and the deployed unit’s
higher headquarters continued to exercise functions
most often associated with ADCON. To address
the ambiguity surrounding ADCON authorities, the
USARAF and the 101st Airborne Division headquarters
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