4BSB exudes diversity in mission, leaders

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, UNITED STATES

07.28.2017

Story by 2nd Lt. Kent Williams 

1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

There is a company headquarters building located near Gate 20 on Fort Carson that looks no different from most other company headquarters. It has a green roof, white walls, bland flooring and always the faint smell of an all- purpose cleaner. The offices contain the usual pictures of Family members, awards, printers and computers. The readiness bays attached to each company’s respective area has row upon row of gunmetal gray lockers. Yet building 9079 is different from many of the other headquarters buildings on Fort Carson because of who, not what, is inside. Within the antiseptically white hallways is a wide breadth of diverse mission sets and job responsibilities. The building belongs to the 4th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, and is home to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Company A (Transportation), Company B (Maintenance) and Company C (Medical). The 4th BSB also has 10 companies spread across the 1st SBCT’s six battalions. Throughout the corridors and conference rooms of building 9079, conversations vary from feeding Soldiers, repairing a fuel tanker, ensuring that the 4th BSB has enough up-armored Humvees for security missions, ensuring Strykers can be refueled and how many MedEvac Stryker variants will be needed to move patients around a battlespace. Yet diversity doesn’t stop with the mission set, it carries on to its leaders as well. “The leadership is made of a truly all-American cadre, with leaders of African-American, Chinese, Caribbean, Puerto Rican and European descent. Couple that with many of the senior officer or command positions being held by women and the 4th BSB truly represents American society,” said Lt. Col. Eric McCoy, brigade commander. Minorities currently hold the following leadership positions across the battalion: commander, command sergeant major, battalion executive officer, all battalion staff, chaplain and three of the four company command positions. In Company C alone, women make up most of the command structure, holding six of the seven officer-level positions. In HHC, all officer level positions are held by minorities. Capt. Yaritza E. Torres was born and raised in Puerto Rico. She went from being enlisted in the National Guard of Puerto Rico to a quartermaster officer serving in Italy where she led a parachute rigger platoon. She deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 with 173rd Brigade Support Battalion, 173rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne). She now leads a maintenance company, a different mission entirely from what she was doing in Italy. “It’s a unique experience, one I have learned a lot from, and certainly one I am very proud to be a part of. The (Company B) ‘Bulldawgs’ are an amazing unit,” Torres said. Through the diversity there seems to come an undeniable strength of both will and character. The 4th BSB is a highly awarded support battalion in the Army, having just come into its 100th year of service with the 4th Infantry Division, and has served in every major American conflict since World War I. At the most recent National Training Center rotation at Fort Irwin, California, “The 4th BSB traveled farther, delivered more and out performed almost every brigade support battalion that came before it,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Owen Alexander.

• Date Taken: 07.28.2017
• Date Posted: 11.17.2017 15:22
• Story ID: 255729
• Location: COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, US