Photo By Command Sgt. Maj. Ryan Matson | From left: U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Meltus Nwagbara, a horizontal construction...... read more read more
When 2nd Lt. Sam Casey arrived at Torun base camp in October, he entered a world of transitioning chaos.
Casey, the Torun base camp mayor, headed a four-man team including Sgt. 1st Class Michael Logan, Sgt. 1st Class John Borske and Sgt. Meltus Nwagbara - from the 652nd Regional Support Group in Helena, Montana, tasked with overseeing basic life-support services such as food, shelter, and laundry, on a rapidly expanding base.
“There were 400 people living in three Logistics Support Area tents,” Logan said.
During the first couple months of their deployment, Casey’s team lived and worked in a large maintenance tent which also served as a maintenance bay, gym, Morale Welfare and Recreation center, mayor cell and tactical operations center.
From these cramped quarters, a functioning base camp would eventually be born. The 652nd worked with their tenant unit on base, the 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, the Polish government and various defense contractors to make it happen.
The team’s job would not be easy. Casey, a new engineering officer, and Nwagbara, a horizontal construction engineer, had experience building things, but not running the day-to-day operations of a base camp. Nor did Borske, who would eventually have to leave the team for personal reasons, or Logan.
“There’s not really a Military Occupational Specialty for running a mayor cell,” Casey said. “So we use our expertise as it applies.”
Logan, a transportation management noncommissioned officer from Waterville, Washington, the team’s deputy mayor, had one of the key roles in the process. He served as the Contracting Officer Representative, meaning as the base was literally built by contractors, Logan oversaw the progress and ensured the terms of the contracts were being met.
“Most of what I do is related to my COR duties – I have about a dozen reports a month I send to Zagan to the contracting unit,” Logan said. “This covers everything from the dining facility to laundry, contracts for the showers and latrines, the water, basically all the life support systems. I do the surveillance on them all. I go down a long checklist to make sure all of the terms of the contracts are being met. They do a great job here, so it makes my job easier.”
As the base grew, Casey, a new Army officer from Jacksonville, Texas, quickly learned the skills of tact and diplomacy under pressure. The base infrastructure was stood up quickly, but it was still a test of patience for everyone involved.
“When the construction was happening, they built a section of tents at a time, so we would sign over tents as they got done,” Casey said.
“The problem was that they told the commands here that the tents would be ready right away, so they expected to move immediately into them, but that isn’t the case – there’s inspections, you have to put fire extinguishers in them – there’s a lot of requirements that have to be met first.”
During this time, Casey learned to be a mediator between numerous parties. He had to work with the Polish government who owns the base (nothing being built was technically permanent – it all must have the ability to be removed without lasting damage to the land), the Polish forestry service, since part of the base camp borders a national forest, contracting officials and officials from the tenant unit.
“We had to manage a lot of personalities and had to manage the contractors who weren’t always happy about us bothering them all the time,” Casey recalled.
“The most difficult part of this mission was the early portion. But then again, this was the first time anybody’s had this mission in Poland – we were standing up a mayor cell and there was no mayor cell presence before.”
While Casey managed the overall picture, and Logan worked the contracts, Nwagbara handled day-to-day operations and supervising the details of duties that needed to be done.
“I assist these guys with any ground missions that come up – anything that has to do with mayor cell operations,” Nwagbara, who is from Nigeria, said. “This consists of entry control point operations, MWR, DFAC, cleanup of the general area. We do bi-weekly checks of the motor pool, the gym, toilets and showers to make sure these facilities are up and running.”
Ngwabara brought a unique perspective and experience to the team. This is his second deployment to Poland in two years with two different Army Reserve units from Montana.
Last year he was here with the 672nd Engineer Company out of Missoula, and helped construct the fuel farm at Drawsko Pomorski Training Area. This allowed Ngwabara, who was a fueler on Active Duty, and is now a horizontal construction engineer, to draw from both his military occupational specialties.
His knowledge as a fueler also came in handy at Torun.
“We recently had these 25,000-pound Secondary Containment Aboveground Tanks that we are installing, so he has helped me as being the point of contact for that,” Casey said.
The team had challenges, but all agreed they could not have been at a better place. Their camp lies just outside Torun, one of Poland’s oldest and most historic cities, and unlike most other cities in Poland, it did not suffer damage during World War II. It is the birthplace of Copernicus, and is famous for its gingerbread museum, among other things.
“Torun is the perfect city to emerge yourself in Polish culture,” Casey said. “You have some nightlife, but it’s not a big enough city that you have a ton of tourists or outside effects. You have the Soldiers who are here, and true Polish culture. You go out into town and you’re amongst people who have lived here their entire lives and love the history of the city and you see the classic architecture and old churches. And the Polish people are very proud of the city, and we came to be proud of the city too while we were here.”
Despite the early growing pains, Casey and his team have gone from three cramped tents to managing a fully-functioning base camp, with an Army and Air Force Exchange Services trailer, a gym and MWR tent, an expanded dining facility, a new parking area with concrete pavers for Paladin and other heavy field artillery machines, and several rows of living tents. The camp is unofficially known as “Camp St. Barbara” because field artillery units rotate in and out of the base camp, and Barbara is the patron saint of artillery.
“That was one of the more difficult times we had, and that was right at the beginning,” Casey said. “But it helped us get better at our jobs and learn our jobs because what we are is the liaison between all the green suiters here and our contractors. Every single life support service is contracted out, so everything that happens or doesn’t is because of the coordination between ourselves and them.”
| Date Taken: | 06.16.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 06.17.2020 06:26 |
| Story ID: | 372233 |
| Location: | TORUN, PL |
| Hometown: | JACKSONVILLE, TEXAS, US |
| Hometown: | WATERVILLE, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 1,461 |
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