Quartermaster Company Cleans Up

Photo By David Kujawa | Sgt. Eric Shaw adjusts the sinks in the shower facility available at the North FOB at Camp Graying during Northern Strike 2016, Aug. 10, 2016. The 464th Quartermaster Company, of which Shaw is a member, set up a shower and laundry facility to support the military personnel assigned to the exercise. Northern Strike 16 is a National Guard Bureau-sponsored exercise uniting approximately 5,000 Army, Air Force, Marine, and Special Forces service members from 20 states and three coalition countries during the first three weeks of August 2016 at the Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, both located in northern Michigan. The exercise strives to provide accessible, readiness-building opportunities for military units from all service branches to achieve and sustain proficiency in conducting mission command, air, sea, and ground maneuver integration, and the synchronization of fires in a joint, multinational, decisive action environment. (Michigan National Guard photo by Master Sgt. David Kujawa/Released)  

MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES

08.11.2016

Story by Tech. Sgt. Daniel Heaton 

Michigan National Guard

“Nothing boosts morale more than a clean pair of socks and a fresh uniform to put on,” said Sgt. Deanna Lippert, who is overseeing the laundry check-in area at the 464th’s operation at the North FOB at Camp Grayling during Northern Strike 2016.
Lippert said the laundry operation can clean about 75 pounds of laundry per hour. That can be enough to ensure that as many as 1,500 troops per day receive fresh laundry.
“We’re not operating at capacity for this exercise, but we are providing laundry and shower services at both the North and South FOBs,” Lippert said. “It is an important service to the Soldiers in the field.”
A few steps away from the laundry check-in area, Specialist John Schlaack and a crew of Soldiers are operating the large wash machines that actually turn dirty clothes into new ones.
Schlaack, who works as a nursing assistant at Troy Beaumont Hospital in his civilian job and is also enrolled in nursing school, said the hands-on approach to his military assignment keeps things interesting.
Schlaak and his crew not only are working with the laundry machines, but with the heaters and condensers that boil the roughly 400 gallons of water per day that are used in the machines. Once that water is boiled, the steam is captured and condensed, allowing the laundry crew to recycle virtually every drop of water they use.
“This way, we are able to operate even in an area where there are issues getting water,” he said.
At the final station at the laundry, other Soldiers are folding the clothes and doing an inventory against the laundry tags that have followed the laundry every step of the way – ensuring that proverbial missing sock in the laundry does not come up missing in this operation.
“Depending on our volume, a Soldier may be able to drop off laundry in the morning and pick it up that same night,” said Sgt. Laquanda Murphy, who is running the folding and pick-up operation.
The company’s other major operation is a 12-head shower tent that can accommodate up to 144 troops per hour, said Sgt. Eric Shaw.
Soldiers in Shaw’s section work with the pumps and the heaters to ensure that Soldiers are able to receive a hot shower when they are able to take a break.
“I know it makes a big difference in how a Soldier feels after a long day out in the field,” Shaw said. “What we do makes a difference.”
The 464th Quartermaster Company is based in Lapeer, Michigan.

• Date Taken: 08.11.2016
• Date Posted: 08.12.2016 12:58
• Story ID: 206943
• Location: MICHIGAN, US