FORWARD OPERATING BASE WARRIOR, Afghanistan – When people want things in a fast-moving airborne brigade, they want it now.
So says 11-year veteran, Staff Sgt. Karla Marrero Ortiz, the top supply sergeant for the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team now deployed to southern Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
After more than 10 years of war, most Americans are familiar with the cities of Kabul and Kandahar, but few have ever heard of Ghazni, the province that lies along the critical highway that connects the two cities.
Marrero’s brigade will spearhead what is expected to be the last decisive clearing operation of the war in Afghanistan here this summer, and her job is to ensure that her brigade’s paratroopers get the equipment they need before they need it.
“I didn’t just join the Army to come here,” said Marrero, who enlisted less than a month after 9/11. “I was mad, but I also just wanted to help.”
The daughter of a Puerto Rico National Guardsman, she was active in the outdoors and sports in her youth. Her father, Osvaldo, was not surprised when she joined the Army.
“She looked at the police but decided on the Army,” said Osvaldo, who now lives in Kissimmee, Fla. “I am so proud of my daughter. She fights for our freedom.”
With her brigade’s senior logistics non-commissioned officer stationed at Bagram Air Field, a main supply hub into Afghanistan, Marrero is the de facto NCO in charge of logistics in Ghazni. As such, she assists the brigade logistics officers, helps field new equipment, and supports all six battalion supply NCOICs as well as company-level supply sergeants.
“Whatever needs to be done, I do it,” she said. “Supply sergeant is a great job because you get to help everybody, from getting them a pencil to the uniform to the weapons they use.”
Sometimes fielding supply requests can be daunting.
“In this brigade, they come in with the worst requests I’ve seen in my life,” she said, laughing. “They say, I want this, and I want it now.”
Instead of saying no to impossible situations, Marrero has learned to offer the closest item on hand while she does her best to acquire the requested item.
Most of the time, she can procure what is needed through the Army supply system, and because she does, she remains a valued asset to her brigade, she said.
Though Marrero retains a heavy accent even after a decade in the Army, she said it does not affect her career. If you do your job well, people respect you. You have to show your command that you are trustworthy, she said.
“Military logistics is not a black-and-white profession,” said assistant brigade logistics officer, Capt. Robyn Boehringer, a mentor of Marrero’s.
“Staff Sgt. Marrero does not let obstacles stand in her way – she will find a way to ensure the logistical needs of the soldier are met and still stay within the limits of the law. She is the [supply sergeant] that I have always heard about, but until her, had not met.”
Trustworthiness is important, because supply sergeants get audited, and sometimes they go to jail. Marrero was audited during her last deployment to Iraq without issue.
Her father and mother are proud of her, though her mother worries about “her baby girl going everywhere.”
“I love the Army,” said Marrero. “It’s given me respect, honor, all that good stuff. When I get a new soldier, I tell them, “Not everybody wears this uniform. Do it right. We have the best job in the Army.”