Photo By Patrick Loch | Newly-arrived Soldiers march to mess tents for their noon meal at ROB barracks, near...... read more read more
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For nearly two months brigade Soldiers have been ensuring the safety of both U.S. forces and host-nation communities by receiving Soldiers undergoing COVID-19 quarantine requirements upon entry into Europe.
“Task Force Willkommen is a real-world mission that is providing life support for Soldiers that are new into country to ensure they are COVID-free before they are released to their unit,” said Lt. Col. Andrea Talbert, 83rd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion Commander.
The mission is being executed out of ROB Barracks, near Kaiserslautern, Germany, to provide housing, in-processing, logistics and life support for Soldiers carrying-out a 14-day quarantine.
“We’re protecting the force by making sure a clean bill of health before their movement to the unit,” said Lt. Col. Robert Wilson, 510th Regional Support Group operations officer.
The effort, spearheaded by the 83rd Combat Support Sustainment Battalion, 510th RSG, is in-line with one of the brigade’s primary tasks: providing life support and base operations for tenant units/Soldiers. With deep backgrounds in providing everything from billeting to MWR services, the 510th is well-primed to help take care of Soldiers as they meet their entry requirements before dispersing to various commands throughout the European theater.
“For a majority of the Soldiers this is their 1st assignment,” said Sgt. 1st Class Tesha Crawford, operations NCO for Task Force Willkommen. “We make sure they are quarantined, trained and we have mentors and cadre available to teach finance, how to read their leave-and-earnings statement … we try to be unit specific.”
Crawford stressed the team’s effort in providing more than just a bed as they wait out their 14 days to ensure they are not carriers for COVID-19. By providing mentorship, a light-version of sponsorship and a few comfort items Crawford and her team can prepare the junior, unaccompanied enlisted to be better positioned for success at their various posts in Europe.
“We maintain command and control, discipline and order, and provide every Soldier guidance that is needed,” Crawford said. “Since we began the mission we’ve improved living quarter space, WiFi, ordered new furniture, and food is so important here so we made sure to make more available to the Soldiers, both quality and quantity.”
While executing Task Force Willkommen supports readiness throughout the European theater the effort also provides brigade planners and executors an opportunity to both flex and improve base and life support operations, as this will be exercised during Defender Europe 2021 this coming spring.
| Date Taken: | 07.18.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 08.08.2020 05:17 |
| Story ID: | 375563 |
| Location: | RHEINLAND-PFALZ, DE |
| Web Views: | 158 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Task Force Willkommen ensures health, safety of U.S. forces, host nations, by Patrick Loch, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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