Photo By Shawn Eldridge | Along with 14 of its subordinate organizations, the Joint Munitions Command earned the...... read more read more
The Joint Munitions Command, headquartered at the Rock Island Arsenal, and 14 of its subordinate organizations were recently presented with the Army Superior Unit Award.
One of the Army’s highest unit-level honors, the Army Superior Unit Award was established by the Secretary of the Army in 1985 to recognize outstanding meritorious performance of a unit during peacetime of a difficult and challenging mission under extraordinary circumstances. Those circumstances may be deemed to be extraordinary when they do not represent the typical day-to-day circumstances under which a unit normally performs or may reasonably be expected to perform its peacetime missions.
For the purposes of the award, peacetime is characterized as any duration during which wartime or combat awards are not permitted in the geographical area where the mission took place.
JMC earned the distinction for meritorious performance in support of the Afghanistan troop and refugee withdrawal during the period of Aug. 1, 2021, through Aug. 1, 2022.
JMC, which has 17 arsenals, depots, and plants around the country, is responsible for the production, storage, distribution, and demilitarization of conventional munitions for the Department of Defense.
“There’s over 11,000 employees across the Joint Munitions Command’s enterprise, and they support wartime and peacetime operations every single day,” said Brig. Gen. Ronnie Anderson Jr., who has been JMC’s commander since June 2023. “To all of our employees, thank you for what you do every single day.
“This all happened before my time as JMC’s commander, but I was on the Afghanistan side of this operation when we started the drawdown and there was lots of ammunition in the theater that had to come out,” Anderson added. “I will admit I did not know where those munitions were going and that the Joint Munitions Command was going to be dealing with it, but I’m proud to admit the fact that most Soldiers don’t know what the Joint Munitions Command does is a testament to the reliability to everything you do every single day. No service member of any service on any part of this planet ever has to worry if the ammunition is going to be there, and when they put it into their weapon system, they know it’s going to function properly.”
As part of this effort, the Mobile Ammunition Renovation Inspection and Demilitarization (MARID) team, which is based at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma, deployed to Joint Base Charleston, as did two JMC Quality Assurance Specialist (Ammunition Surveillance), to support the Immediate Response Force — a joint effort between the Army and the Air Force — for the drawdown from Afghanistan, and they performed immediate ammunition services and maintained the overall quality and reliability of munitions before it went back into the stockpile.
MARID’s mission is to serve as a rapid response team which can be deployed within the continental United States and outside the contiguous United States to meet urgent ammunition operation requirements for the DOD and the JMC enterprise.
Col. Gabe Pryor, who assumed command of MCAAP on June 22, 2023, stressed the team’s importance.
“The work performed by the MARID team and the QASAS was critical in maintaining the overall quality of the ammunition, which is essential for operational readiness,” Pryor said. “Their expertise ensured the stockpile met the necessary standards for reliability and effectiveness, which is paramount in military operations.”
The 14 JMC subordinate organizations who received the Army Superior Unit Award include:
• Anniston Munitions Center in Alabama
• Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky
• Crane Army Ammunition Activity in Indiana
• Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada
• Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Tennessee
• Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Iowa
• Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri
• Letterkenny Munitions Center in Pennsylvania
• MCAAP
• Milan Army Ammunition Plant in Tennessee
• Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas
• Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia
• Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania
• Tooele Army Depot in Utah
| Date Taken: | 12.18.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.18.2024 08:29 |
| Story ID: | 487769 |
| Location: | ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 20 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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