By 1st Lt. Erik Oberg
CAMP STRYKER, Iraq — The Class I yard, run by the 639th Quartermaster Company, 620th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 96th Sustainment Brigade, has been tasked for another extremely important mission: the mass turn-in of food rations from all corners of Iraq.
The job is simple: take all expired food rations from all over Iraq, organize them, sort them, and either have the food inspectors extend the shelf life of them and issue them to soldiers or condemn them and burn them. It may sound simple, but the quantities involved in a process like this can be mind boggling, not to mention the nine years the military has maintained operations in Iraq.
The yard receives food operational rations from areas such as Forward Operating Bases Falcon, Hammer, Prosperity, Al Asad, Mahmudiya, and even from the camps here on the Victory Base Complex. This will be a project that is so big it will continue beyond the 639th's deployment to our replacements. This will allow for an important and incremental step in turning Iraq back over to the Iraqi people.
According to Staff Sgt. Nicholas Bedwell, the noncommissioned officer in charge for the Class I yard and a Kalispell, Mont. native, the 639th handled over 3.2 million dollars of expired rations and have saved the government over 1.8 million dollars by re-issuing expired rations cleared by the food inspectors. This is all in addition to the normal day-to-day operations the company is dedicated to. "We take great pride in the unique position of tackling such a daunting task," said Bedwell.