Photo By Sgt. Felicya Adams | Senior Airman Lorenzo Powell, an airman with the 37th Movement Control Team, 53rd...... read more read more
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SATHER AIR BASE, Iraq – A combat support hospital requires supplies like syringes, IV bags and medicine to operate. The base firehouse needs a fire truck to function. Even the judge advocate general’s office needs common office supplies to be fully operational.
All of these materials and equipment have one thing in common: They all arrived in the country with the help of service members who work on a movement control team.
The 37th Movement Control Team, part of the 53rd Transportation Battalion, 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, serves here as one of the largest hubs in United States Division-Central. The team receives and ships supplies and equipment to support units on deployment and redeployment.
“The MCT here is in charge of moving and processing all Army cargo for Victory Base Compound by air,” said Lt. Sarah Bennett, commander for the 37th MCT and a Jackson, Miss., native.
The 37th MCT is a unique team, considering they are an Air Force unit working for the Army.
Master Sgt. Casey Richmond, the non-commissioned officer-in-charge of the 37th MCT and a San Jose, Calif., native, said, “It’s been a challenge and a great experience to see how the Army does their process, and we are adapting and bringing in some new ideas to better improve [our operation].”
Considering the team had to make some major adjustments from familiarizing themselves with Army acronyms to following an Army chain of command, they all continued to have a positive outlook on the change.
“It’s kind of different working on an air base and working just for Army customers, but I think it’s awesome and we’ve learned a lot,” Bennett said.
The team quickly realized that no matter what branch you serve in, all service members are on the same team working toward the same mission.
“I love working with the Army,” said Senior Airman Daniel Quickel, the airman-in-charge of day-shift operations with the 37th MCT and a Geneva, Ohio, native. “They give us a lot of respect for helping them, because it’s all one team, so them giving me respect, in turn, I actually respect the Army a lot more than I thought I would.”
Not only has the 37th MCT overcome and adapted to the Army way of life, but everybody on the team came from a different Air Base and had to all learn how to work together quickly.
“We are all new to this and we are all new to each other,” Bennett said. “There was a little bit of friction at first, everybody got along, but it took us a few weeks for everyone to get on the same page.”
After only two months of the new team being in Iraq, they have made some valuable changes to the cargo yard.
Bennett said when they first arrived at VBC they had a lot of frustrated cargo that had been sitting there for seven or eight months prior to their arrival, and they didn’t know where it was suppose to go.
“Frustrated cargo” is cargo that may be improperly identified or was stopped for some unknown reason prior to reaching its final destination.
“One of the biggest things we’ve been working on is cleaning up the cargo yard and getting all that frustrated cargo out,” Bennett said. “We were at 60 pieces at first and now we’re down to 15 that we are trying to get out of here, and we’ve done that in a matter of a month and a half.”
Quickel added there was no accountability for a lot of equipment and their team addressed the issue immediately by finding out what customers and units the items belonged to.
In addition to clearing out the cargo yard, the team has plans on making more positive changes for the overall mission.
“We work closely with the ground MCT here so I hope that we can help alleviate some of their stuff because we can send some of their cargo by air,” Bennett said. “I don’t know if all of our customers know that, so my goal is to let our customers know that there’s other options so they don’t have to send everything by ground.”
Richmond is also making long-term goals for the team as well to help future MCTs carry on the mission.
“I want to get it up to a point so that when we finally do get replaced, the turnover will be really easy, that our replacements will understand the operation and be able to smoothly transition and keep on moving like nothing has changed,” Richmond said.
Richmond and his team of 16 airmen are a 24-7 operation responsible for the cargo coming into Sather Air Base and the cargo being shipped out or redeployed back to the states, to Afghanistan, and to other locations around the world.
They receive items to support units on VBC, whether it is general office supplies, Humvees and even fire trucks, Richmond said.
Most of the cargo is received on cargo airplanes, and larger aircraft come to pick up the oversized cargo like the humvees and fire trucks. They also use helicopters to transport cargo, whether it be a CH-47 Chinook or UH-60 Blackhawk, Richmond said.
Richmond said so far they have shipped approximately one million pounds worth of cargo and received about 300 to 400 pounds of cargo inbound.
Although the Air Force is working alongside a different service, it’s still one team working toward the same mission. Whether it is common office supplies or parts for Humvees, the military as a whole cannot complete the operation accurately without the help of the MCT shipping the materials and equipment in and out of country.
| Date Taken: | 04.27.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 05.08.2011 06:05 |
| Story ID: | 70042 |
| Location: | SATHER AIR BASE, IQ |
| Web Views: | 84 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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