Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Henry Gundacker | Boxes marked “Human Blood” wait for transport during a blood drive hosted by the...... read more read more
TORII STATION, OKINAWA, JAPAN
07.14.2025
Story by Sgt. 1st Class Henry Gundacker
Most people don’t think twice after giving blood. You show up. You sit down. You get a juice box and a sticker. But on the other side of that donation is a team of people making sure every drop goes where it needs to go, fast, clean, and ready to save a life.
At Camp Foster, that team is the U. S. Indo-Pacific Command Armed Services Blood Bank Center (USINDOPACOM ASBBC). They work out of a modest building on base. No big signs. No spotlight. But their reach extends far beyond Okinawa.
“We’re not just collecting blood for the island,” said CPT Yesseina Greene, the Officer in Charge of ASBBC-Pacific. “Our mission is regional. We support the entire Indo-Pacific. That means Korea, Guam, ships at sea, and sometimes even forward areas depending on the mission.”
There aren’t many centers like this one in the Pacific. ASBBC-Pacific is one of only a handful. What makes them unique isn’t just their location. It’s what they do. They don’t just collect blood. They process it. Test it. Store it. And ship it. All from the same place. From vein to plane, as one technician put it.
“It’s the full pipeline. We draw it. We run it through our labs to make sure it’s safe. Then we pack and send it where it’s needed. No middlemen,” said Greene.
That kind of control matters. Especially in a region this big. There are thousands of miles between collection and delivery. Weather delays. Logistics hurdles. Real-world risks. Having everything under one roof means the ASBBC team can move faster and adjust on the fly when missions change.
And missions change a lot.
One week, the center might be preparing for a scheduled delivery to a Navy hospital in Guam. Next, they’re racing to fill a short-notice request for a unit headed to a field hospital in Korea. The team works closely with the Defense Logistics Agency, Air Mobility Command, USTRANSCOM, and other partners to keep the supply chain tight.
“This is medical logistics at a high level,” said Greene. “We track inventory across multiple sites. We forecast needs based on exercises or deployments. We maintain enough on hand for surge demand in case of a natural disaster or combat casualty event.”
That level of readiness takes planning. It also takes a tight team. ASBBC-Pacific is fully joint. Army. Navy. Air Force. All working together in one building. No stovepipes. No one is hiding in their service lanes.
“You can’t do this job without cooperation,” Greene said. “We’re small. We rely on each other. Everyone has a specialty, but nobody gets to just do their lane. You help where the mission needs you.”
It’s not flashy work. Most people don’t see it. That’s fine by them. These are quiet professionals. The lab techs, the phlebotomists, the med logistics NCOs. They don’t hand out pamphlets or post selfies in the blood lab. They’re too busy keeping the system moving.
One thing they do care about is turnout. Getting blood in the door is still the first step.
“Sometimes the biggest challenge is just getting people to show up and donate,” Greene said. “We’re on an island. So, we need strong community support to hit our quotas.”
Fortunately, the local response is solid. Service members, spouses, even retirees show up to roll up their sleeves. Command teams help too. Recently, COL Cleveland and CSM Yates stopped by to donate. Greene said that kind of leadership makes a difference.
“It sends a message. When troops see their leadership giving blood without hesitation, they realize it’s not just a checkbox. It’s something that matters.”
And it does matter.
Blood collected at Camp Foster doesn’t sit on a shelf. It goes places. Real places. It ends up in trauma kits. In field hospitals. In medevac birds. The ASBBC can’t always share details, but they know when their shipments go forward.
“We’ve had multiple cases where blood collected here ended up downrange. You don’t always get the full story. But you know it helped. That’s a good feeling. That’s why we do this.”
They’ve also had to respond to tight deadlines. During one recent request, the team got word that a deployment needed blood products staged earlier than expected. Greene and her team adjusted their internal timelines, bumped up donor outreach, and managed to fill the shipment with time to spare.
“We can’t control what missions come up. But we control how ready we are,” Greene said.
Part of that readiness means preparing for worst-case scenarios. Earthquakes. Typhoons. Conflict. ASBBC-Pacific runs drills to make sure they can stay operational when the grid goes down or if airlift capacity gets limited.
“Contingency planning is baked into everything we do. We don’t assume the lights stay on or the trucks always run on time. We build in flexibility. We plan to keep going even when it’s hard.”
The other piece is simple communication. Greene doesn’t do hard sells. She tells people what the center does and lets the mission speak for itself.
“This isn’t abstract. It’s not someday. It’s now. It’s a young Soldier or Marine or Sailor who’s bleeding out and needs a unit of O-neg. That’s who we’re collecting for.”
So the next time someone donates blood at Camp Foster, maybe they’ll think about where it’s going. It’s not just helping someone local. It might be helping someone on a remote base or in the back of a helicopter or deep in the Pacific where no civilian blood bank can reach.
That’s the power of what ASBBC-Pacific does. No spotlight. No show. Just a team of quiet professionals making sure lifelines get where they need to go. Fast. Clean. And ready to save someone’s life.
| Date Taken: | 07.14.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.14.2025 03:08 |
| Story ID: | 542653 |
| Location: | OKINAWA, JP |
| Web Views: | 60 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Where Your Blood Goes: Inside the ASBBC-Pacific Team at Camp Foster, by SFC Henry Gundacker, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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