Training starts here: reception unit introduces land of logistics to new warriors

Photo By Terrance Bell | Soldiers help unload duffel bags from buses as they arrive at Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 23rd Quartermaster Brigade, July 15. Buses with 300-400 Soldiers arrive here weekly from the Army’s basic combat training installations. HHC, 23rd QM Bde., is the Army’s only advanced individual training reception company.  

UNITED STATES

07.21.2016

Story by Terrance Bell  

Fort Gregg-Adams

FORT LEE, Va. (July 21, 2016) -- One moment, building 3004 is a picture of peace and inactivity with only a few Soldiers walking about the confines, performing police call and other clean-up tasks.

The next, it is transformed into a scene full of moving parts: Buses arriving and departing, gaggles of Soldiers with duffel bags scuttling from point A to B and cadre yelling, pointing, correcting and directing the action.

The latter is played out every Friday and Saturday at Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 23rd Quartermaster Brigade, as it administratively processes 300-400 mostly new Soldiers for advanced individual training here, said its senior enlisted Soldier, 1st Sgt. Christopher Hampton.

“We receive all Soldiers (logistics and paralegal) coming from basic combat training at Fort Jackson (S.C.), Fort Sill (Okla.), Fort Leonard Wood, (Mo.) and Fort Benning (Ga.),” he said, noting his unit is the only AIT reception company in the Army. “We also receive the airborne riggers coming from Fort Benning.”

Riggers, military occupational specialty designation 92R, are required to undergo airborne training (at Fort Benning) prior to their training at the rigger school here.

While ordnance Soldiers are received at HHC, 23rd QM Bde., they are moved immediately to the Ordnance Campus and processed there.

With the mission of receiving five-to-seven busloads of ordnance, quartermaster, transportation and legal Soldiers with each iteration, Hampton said his cadre must move quickly and decisively to organize troops for either a barracks stay or hand-off to their units of assignment.

“From the minute we get them off the bus or receive them from POVs, we’re pulling, checking and validating orders, building class rosters and putting them in the system,” said Hampton. “On Monday morning, we package them up, move them to the Soldier Support Center for in-processing, culminating in briefings by the (brigade) commander and command sergeant major.”

HHC, 23rd QM Bde., must complete in-processing for Soldiers within 96 hours, said Hampton. He added a centralized system is much more efficient than individual unit processing.

“When the units pick up their Soldiers here, those Soldiers are ready to start classes the next day,” he said.

The job of processing and housing up to 400 troops fall on the backs of an 11-member staff – three AIT platoon sergeants and eight others who range from supply clerks to operations sergeants, said Hampton. Twelve-plus-hour days are routine.

“The challenge is maintaining resiliency for the cadre and making sure Soldiers are treated with dignity and respect as we account for them,” he said.

With the sheer number of troops that require processing, Hampton said it is important to him how Soldiers see what will likely become one their most critical military experiences.

“We are the first impression of logistics these Soldiers will get,” he said. “We won’t be the last, but I would like ours to be a lasting impression.”

HHC, 23rd QM Bde., processed roughly 20,000 Soldiers last year, said Hampton.

• Date Taken: 07.21.2016
• Date Posted: 07.21.2016 08:36
• Story ID: 204569
• Location: US