Providers help facilitate final mission for redeploying soldiers

3rd Division Sustainment Brigade
Story by Sgt. Tanjie Daniels

Date: 04.01.2013
Posted: 04.01.2013 10:25
News ID: 104399
Providers help facilitate final mission for redeploying Soldiers

By Sgt. Tanjie Patterson
3rd Sustainment Brigade Public Affairs

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan—Sixteen Stryker vehicles rolled into Kandahar Airfield, March 30, signifying the completion of a combat tour for some soldiers, and the beginning of a new mission for the 3rd Sustainment Brigade-Task Force Provider.

At the Joint Nation Maintenance Facility on KAF, soldiers assigned to the Provider’s headquarters element and the 135th Quartermaster Company facilitated a turn-in of mission-essential rolling stock, equipment and supplies for redeploying Troops.

“The 3rd Sustainment Brigade is the mission command element for returning, redeploying, redistributing, retrograding and disposal of equipment for units that are conducting their last tactical mile convoy,” said Capt. Paola Davila, the officer in charge of this retrograde operation, and native of Miami.

“Because this was our first mission, we came in early to conduct a safety rehearsal and set up the lanes.”

There were three lanes orchestrated for the turn in. The two outside lanes were used to accommodate the rolling stock and the center lane was aligned with a number of containers used to store each category of Army supplies and equipment. After the vehicles were parked, the commodities were downloaded and taken to their appropriate storage bin. Task Force Provider soldiers were on-hand at the JNMF to examine the equipment.

Spc. Shane Calvert, a health care specialist with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Sustainment Brigade, and native of Roseburg, Ore., inspected for Class VIII, or medical supplies.

“My contribution to the mission is to check for controlled substances and sort the medical equipment,” he said. “The medical supplies will be taken to the retro-sort yard.”

Sgt. Steven Bricker, an ammunition stock control and accounting specialist, also with HHC, inspected for Class V, or ammunition.

“I check for safety issues, and then I segregate it by the different types of ammunition such as .50 caliber and 7.62mm rounds, pen flares and smoke grenades to name a few,” said Bricker, a native of Toledo, Ohio. “Once the ammunition is checked and separated, it is then taken to the ammunition supply point for further inspection and stocked for redistribution or properly disposed of if it’s no good.”

“Because of the sensitivity of the Class V and VIII supplies, it was appropriate to have qualified individuals to handle those specific commodities,” said Sgt. Maj. Ricky Davis, the support operations senior enlisted adviser for the 3rd Sustainment Brigade and native of Temple, Texas.

Once all of the supplies are sorted by classification, the soldiers with the 135th Quartermaster Company loaded the equipment onto a palletized load system truck to transport to its next destination.

“This was our first mission,” said Bricker. “It was a rather small one, but it was a good first run. We got a taste of what’s to come and we now know what to sustain and what to improve on for the next go-around.”

“We were honored to be a part of the process in helping Warriors achieve one more step in returning home,” Davila said.