Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Brandenburg | Metal shipping containers patiently wait movement at the main container yard on Camp...... read more read more
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CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – America has been waging war for more than 13 years, and war requires supplies. Everything from food, ammunition, armored vehicles, parts, computers and unit specific equipment must be shipped and shipped back. How does the Army ship most of its supplies?
Like most industries, it puts them in boxes.
Large metal shipping containers are used worldwide to ship cargo all over the world. They are also the main shipping means for a deploying army; but as the Army pulls the bulk of its forces out of a theater and converts its mission to advise and assist, what happens to all the boxes?
Since the retrograde operations started in Iraq and Afghanistan, most containers owned by the Army were shipped back to their home stations, many times with the same equipment they shipped to theater. Containers damaged beyond repair were sold for scrap, and containers on lease where returned to their lenders.
“We fit as many things that you can fit in a 20-foot container, before it ships,” said Lt. Col. Daniel Grundvig, chief of staff for the 401st Army Field Support Brigade, and Flagler Beach, Florida native. “It could have a million widgets in it, or it could have two huge generators.”
Managing the tens-of-thousands of containers that move throughout Southwest Asia is the work of a small section of the 1st Sustainment Command (Theater), known appropriately as Container Management.
“We are the executors for the Army in the CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] area of responsibility,” said Sgt. 1st Class Juan Villalobos, the country container authority for 1st TSC, currently deployed to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. “We are responsible for all accountability, inventory and distribution of all containers, whether they be retrograde, unit containers or theater containers.”
At any given time, there are between 50,000 and 60,000 containers in Southwest Asia according to Villalobos, an Eagle Pass, Texas, native. The majority of the containers serve as storage for unit equipment and sensitive items that must be kept in secure locations. There are also thousands of refrigerator units that hold tens-of-thousands of pounds of food.
The Container Management section is also responsible for reducing the number of containers required in the 1st TSC area of operations.
“Units now have to consolidate their unit equipment,” said Villalobos, an Eagle Pass, Texas, native. “By doing so we consolidate all of the containers and therefore we are able to manage containers better and be prepared for any contingency moves. Last year, I know that we sent 23,000 containers back [to the U.S.].”
The Army will continue to have a modest supply of containers for any contingency and continue to move them where they are needed. Keeping track is an endless task for the Container Management of the 1st TSC.
“This [container management] isn’t something that people hear a lot about,” added Villalobos. “But it’s something that I believe is very important for the Army.”
| Date Taken: | 02.06.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 02.06.2015 09:12 |
| Story ID: | 153743 |
| Location: | CAMP ARIFJAN, KW |
| Web Views: | 158 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
This work, 1st TSC manages the CENTCOM container stockpile, by SFC Joshua Brandenburg, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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