Photo By Sgt. William Rogers | An Army containerized kitchen is set-up during Super Garuda Shield 26 at the Baturaja...... read more read more
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Baturaja, Indonesia - U.S. Army and Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) sustainment personnel supported more than 1,800 multinational service members and civilians during Super Garuda Shield 26, at the Baturaja Combat Training Center, Indonesia, from Aug. through Sept., 2026.
Sustainment operations included serving approximately 1,500 meals and distributing about 20,000 gallons of water each day to roughly 933 U.S. military personnel, 886 multinational service members, 40 local nationals and 26 U.S. civilians, while providing shower facilities to troops training in Indonesia’s demanding tropical environment.
Super Garuda Shield 2026 is a joint and multinational exercise designed to strengthen interoperability, readiness and cooperation among participating nations.
While much of the exercise focuses on maneuver, fires and multinational interoperability, sustainment provides the foundation that allows those operations to continue. Providing food, water, hygiene services and other logistical support across an expansive training area keeps service members focused on their missions while testing the systems required to sustain a force in an operational environment.
For logistics personnel, Super Garuda Shield 26 also provides an opportunity to identify challenges, refine processes and strengthen coordination with joint and multinational partners. Those lessons help build the relationships and sustainment capabilities necessary to support combined operations throughout the Pacific.
“It has been a very rewarding experience to work alongside our TNI partners,” said Lt. Col. Jason Eaton, 4th Infantry Division logistics officer. “At every challenge or constraint, our TNI partners stood by us, to ensure we were successful.”
Long before troops arrived in Indonesia, 4th Infantry Division headquarters personnel participated in the Super Garuda Shield Initial Planning Conference, Mid Planning Conference and Final Planning Conference. Eaton said bilateral planning events helped develop the exercise support agreement that established roles, responsibilities and support requirements among Army forces, multinational participants and the TNI.
That preparation becomes especially important once operations begin.
Eaton said the biggest challenges associated with providing these services in an expeditionary environment are time and distance.
Everything from resupply to troop movement can take significantly longer because of the distances separating sustainment capabilities from the units that require them. Sustainment planners must account for those factors in their running estimates to ensure the right commodities arrive at the right place and time.
Deploying field feeding, water purification, showers and other sustainment capabilities allows units to validate their ability to operate in an expeditionary environment. It also exposes U.S., Indonesian and multinational personnel to specialized Army capabilities they may not regularly encounter.
The 1013th Quartermaster Co., 39th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 561st Regional Support Group, 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command, 79th Theater Sustainment Command, supplied and maintained 24 field showers throughout the duration of Super Garuda Shield 26 to help sustain Soldiers while in the field.
Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Bomberger, operation noncommissioned officer with the 1013th QM CO, 39th CSSB, 562st RST, 451st ESC, 79th TSC said it takes roughly a 20 person team to set up the field shower facilities and once set up maintain, operating, and cleaning is an easy processing usually only involving two or three Soliders. Manning the operations allows them to create rotational shifts and provides service members who may not have an opportunity to use the facilities at normal times, the ability to get a hot shower.
"Our system is completely modular," said Bomberger. "We can have a 24 shower set-up like we have here down to a six shower set-up in different locations all with clean running water."
That flexibility allows sustainment teams to adapt to conditions on the ground while ensuring Soldiers have access to basic necessities regardless of where training takes them.
“Field showers and water purification are niche capabilities within the Army sustainment inventory, which most Soldiers have never been exposed to,” said Eaton. “There’s nothing like a hot meal and a hot shower after a long day of training in the jungle.”
For the troops participating in Super Garuda Shield 2026, those everyday comforts represent something larger. Behind each meal, gallon of water and shower is a sustainment system designed to keep multinational forces ready, resilient and capable of continuing the mission.
| Date Taken: | 09.09.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 09.11.2026 01:22 |
| Story ID: | 574253 |
| Location: | ID |
| Web Views: | 7 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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