By Staff Sgt. Tony M. Lindback
3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division
CAMP STRIKER, Iraq – Like an ant that can carry many times its own mass, logistician Soldiers supporting 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division are responsible for a heavy task load.
Ensuring that Rakkasans have everything to perform their mission has kept logisticians of 626th Brigade Support Battalion busy in their first 150 days in Iraq. As busy as they have been, the unit has leaned forward in the foxhole and has had many accomplishments.
Lt. Col. Matthew Redding, commander of the 626th, said there are two major accomplishments he attributes directly to the professionalism and willingness to succeed he sees in his Soldiers.
"The first one was our ability to conduct a relief-in-place transition without losing a single step in terms of operational momentum," Redding said. "For us to be able to shift accounts, to be able to pick up distribution nodes and to be able to begin distribution missions without any hiccups was our first big hurdle. It was accomplished by the Soldiers in a magnificent manner."
The second major accomplishment is in the Soldiers' ability to keep up with the sheer volume and number of missions they support and maintain, Redding said.
In support of the Rakkasans, the 626th has distributed more than 86,000 cases of bottled water; supported five bulk water sites, producing more than 650,000 gallons of bulk water to forward patrol bases; distributed more than 12,000 cases of meals ready to eat; and distributed 875,000 gallons of JP-8, the lifeblood that powers most Army air and ground vehicles.
As impressive as those numbers may be, they are only a few of the statistics for the class one and class three supplies for which the 626th is responsible. The BSB also provides the class four building materials, class five ammunition, class nine parts and materials, maintenance, medical support, transportation and base defense.
Redding proudly said his Soldiers are providing support in an area comparable to the state of Delaware while absorbing the base-defense mission at Camp Striker and Camp Victory without failing to meet the needs of Soldiers even in the most remote locations.
On top of meeting the logistical needs of the Rakkasans and other Soldiers at Camp Striker, Soldiers in the 626th have been coming up with new ways to support their infantry and field artillery brothers in arms. Some of the ideas were a result of the battalion losing one of its own while supporting another battalion's operation to take an area back from insurgents.
"As a result, what they did was scrounge around and came up with a fire truck concept that mounted to a wrecker which enabled a recovery crew to move to the head of a logistics patrol and suppress a fire while we employ life-saving equipment – yank doors off and so forth," Redding said. "The fire-suppression system will allow injured Soldiers to be pulled out of a burning vehicle in time to apply lifesaving measures and medically evacuate them."
"Each and every day we're trying to come up with something that not only helps us but something that helps the entire brigade here," said the 626th's Command Sgt. Maj. David Thompson.
The Soldiers have also used their ingenuity to aid Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicles in this environment. They have equipped MRAPs with flexible piping to get them past low-hanging overhead wires and rearview cameras with monitors so Soldiers can see what is on the ground behind the vehicles before lowering the rear hatch – helping them avoid dropping the hatch on a person or an improvised explosive device.
"You just hit a button and that door just plops down," Thompson said. "That is a 500-pound door, minimum. If someone was just standing there it could knock them out or kill them."
Soldiers in the 626th have also converted the inside of an MRAP to serve as a field ambulance allowing safe evacuation of injured Soldiers with enough interior room for someone to administer medical treatment.
"They've applied many off-the-shelf, out-of-the-box type solutions to equipment that would normally be just a stock Army-issued vehicle to make their situation better," Redding said.
Redding attributes his Soldiers' desire to make such improvements to a special bond between logistics Soldiers and the Soldiers they support.
"When we push out our support, we're issuing out to our (forward support companies)," Thompson said. "Each battalion has one of our FSCs attached to them, so these are our brothers and sisters down there as logisticians ... and when it comes to the bond between them and the Soldiers they support – they're Rakkasans. The Soldiers are very proud of that."
With the first 150 days complete, and a battle space expansion looming, Redding said he is confident in his battalion's ability to stay on top of the logistical demands of insurgent warfare.
"I think it's very much like a marathon," Redding said. "We started off at a very good pace. I think we're going to find through the rest of it that the whole brigade has settled into a very steady and sustainable pace of operation.
"We have the ability to surge when needed, but we can generally predict when those surges will be and we're preparing for the day when our battle space will expand," he added. "When we do increase our battle space and the number of units we support, we should be in a good logistics posture to do so and to support that mission."
| Date Taken: |
03.22.2008 |
| Date Posted: |
03.24.2008 15:27 |
| Story ID: |
17686 |
| Location: |
BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: |
204 |
| Downloads: |
174 |
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This work, Heavy-lifting logisticians carry the load, by SFC Tony Lindback, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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