JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq - When soldiers with the 403rd Inland Cargo Transfer Company, 13th Combat Support Sustainment Battalion, 3rd Sustainment Brigade, 103rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), arrived at Victory Base Complex, Iraq, in August 2010, they were confronted with the task of replacing 450 personnel with 150 to operate six Central Receiving and Shipping Points at bases throughout Iraq.
The 403rd ICTC CRSP personnel reduced the number of containers in the yard at VBC by 60 percent in the last two weeks in support of the United States Forces-Iraq sustainment and responsible drawdown of forces.
“We receive and ship out all containers and cargo within Iraq,” said 1st Lt. KiAnna Walker, officer in charge of VBC CRSP yard with the 403rd CTC,. and a Suffolk, Va., native.
The cargo they handle can be almost anything, including vehicles, housing units, tanks, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and various types of equipment.
“If it can be strapped into a pallet or put into a container, it can be shipped,” she said Walker.
At VBC, 30 soldiers are doing what 60 Soldiers did before August with no problems. The work tempo has not changed due to a lack of personnel.
“My soldiers work hard and get the job done,” said Walker.
She credits that hard work and effective training for the success of the unit’s operations. Upon arrival, the 403rd ICTC also became more proactive, using e-mail and phone calls to ensure local customers received their containers in a timely fashion.
Customers can refer to contractors, other units, or facilities such as the Army Air Force Exchange Service, that send cargo to or receive cargo from the CRSP yard.
The emptiness of the yard is palpable, even to a visitor who had never seen it full of containers and the equipment needed to move and sort them. That relative emptiness does not imply a lack of work still to be done. The drawdown is ongoing, and even sustainment requires that cargo be moved throughout the country.
“The CRSP yard works just like a post office,” said Spc. James Cunningham, the cargo lane noncommissioned officer- in- charge with the 403rd ICTC, and an Akron, Ohio, native.
Cunningham, with one other soldier, oversees 13 civilian contractors, to make sure they get the right cargo in and out of the yard and follow safety and hazardous materials guidelines.
“There’s no such thing as a typical day here,” said Cunningham. “It all depends on the customers.”
Soldiers with the 403rd ICTC provide a great example of how to do more with less to sustain the troops in Iraq, while facilitating a responsible drawdown of forces.
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