Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Zane Craig | Soldiers and civilians work together to sort ammunition collected June 19 at the Old...... read more read more
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – Service members and civilians from units throughout Joint Base Balad, Iraq, participated in Amnesty Day June 20 and 21 at the Old Bridge Park to remove excess material that could not be thrown in the trash from their buildings to facilitate the eventual closure of JBB.
“The Army is definitely the muscle behind the body of this mission,” said Capt. Robert Williams, Army officer-in-charge of amnesty day, 352nd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 77th Sustainment Brigade, 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, and a Fayetteville, Ga., native.
“We are providing the [Mobile Redistribution Team] guys who are the subject matter experts on base closure,” he added.
Williams worked jointly with his Air Force counterpart who represented the Air Force’s ownership of JBB. Over the course of a month, both sides worked diligently to coordinate all the pieces needed to make amnesty day a success.
The multiple sections comprising the base closure assist teams provided a total of more than 100 soldiers, airmen and civilians who cooperated to provide a single location, date and guidelines for JBB units to bring their unwanted materials for redistribution.
“This is a golden opportunity for units, so they flock to this,” said Williams, referring to the tendency of units to procrastinate until provided the incentives of one location and no paperwork.
“It’s starting to get units into the mindset of 'we’re leaving, we’re not staying here forever,'” said Williams. “It’s not sustainment operations anymore, it’s retrograde operations.”
Williams said turnout Monday was meeting, but not exceeding, his expectations and that things were going smoothly with no incidents.
“I’m seeing a lot of equipment that can be reused,” Williams said. “We’re definitely going to save the Army a lot of money with this mission.”
After all the equipment is sorted, the usable material will be sent to the Supply Support Activity in Kuwait, and from there, will be distributed to Afghanistan, U.S. forces in Europe or to the U.S. itself.
The organizers of Amnesty Day utilized the well-established “JBB all” email list to communicate to individual units the opportunity and the requirements to participate, such as what materials were acceptable, and the location and time of the event itself.
“We wanted to get to the lowest equipment level in our building as possible,” said Master Sgt. Cynthia Messerschmidt, an assistant inspector general with the 310th ESC, and an Eden Prairie, Minn., native.
She expressed gratitude for the opportunity to reduce the amount of everything from office supplies and holiday ornaments to facilitate the continuing reposturing of U.S. forces in Iraq.
“As a whole, I feel building 7508 pulled together to accomplish a big mission today; taking three truckloads of equipment to amnesty day,” said Messerschmidt.
Though relieved by the opportunity to get rid of excess supplies accumulated over several rotations of deployments, Messerschmidt expressed some sadness at “throwing away” usable gear.
According to Williams, however, Messerschmidt and others with doubts about the usefulness of the equipment they turned in should rest assured that it will find a good home and save the Army a great deal of money in the process.
He said $1.8 milllion of equipment was shipped to Kuwait just from the MRT yard and added the mission was such a complete success, it was extended through Tuesday to give those who were not able to participate Monday a chance to stop by.
Amnesty Day was a display of the Army and Air Force communities on JBB working at their best, working effectively with both U.S. and Iraqi civilians, and working together to accomplish the mission of supporting the continuing reposturing of U.S. forces in Iraq.
| Date Taken: | 06.21.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 06.26.2011 01:49 |
| Story ID: | 72749 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 58 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Amnesty Day aids US forces with reposturing, by SFC Zane Craig, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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