Photo By Paul Harris | A team of soldiers and civilians from the U.S. Army’s 838th Transportation Battalion...... read more read more
Reporting from Newport, Wales-- Amidst the familiar clank and rattle of cargo containers being offloaded from a ship a small team is making sure the U.S. Air Force gets its ammunition.
“We rely on y’all’s expertise to get these shipments out safely,” said Tech Sgt. Rakarah Bray, 501st Combat Support Wing, U.S. Air Force who was working with the 838th Transportation Battalion, 598th Transportation Brigade at the Port of Newport in Wales. The port is situated about 12 miles from Cardiff, Wales and it is not very often the Air Force utilizes a water port for a resupply mission. “That’s always logistics. If something is not working, immediately drop it and make a change and you guys (the Army) will help us figure out a solution,” Bray said.
Most missions for the 838th happen in mainland Europe so this mission presented the opportunity to get his team out of their comfort zone and test their abilities, said Lt. Col. Daniel Chandler, commander 838th Transportation Battalion.
“It's special to come out to the UK because I get to see my detachment working on their home turf,” Chandler said in reference to the UK detachment that primarily works northern European ports. “There is inherent danger with uploading and downloading these containers because it is ammunition,” Chandler said and went on to praise his team's efforts to work with the port and Air Force to make sure safety standards were upheld.
“I am hoping our younger soldiers understand how the whole dynamics work,” said Sgt. Maj. Carlos Varas, 838th Transportation Battalion a veteran of many operations in his long tenured career. “How we can be better partners and how a large scale operation works.”
“We have a lot of arrows in our quiver,” Chandler said about maintaining relationships with ports all across Europe and the ability to project power to our adversaries. “You live and die on your logistics tail that follows you,here it is ammo, if you don’t have ammo you can’t survive and continue the fight, it is extremely important.”
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2026 03:52 |
| Story ID: | 570839 |
| Location: | GB |
| Web Views: | 19 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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