Photo By Sgt. 1st Class James Lilly | U.S. Army Spc. Adam Pfiefer, an ammunition specialist from Missoula, Mont., with the...... read more read more
BAGRAM, Afghanistan – The old expression still rings true.
“You can’t fight a war without bullets.”
The 592nd Ordnance Company, an Army Reserve unit from Billings, Mont., keeps U.S. soldiers supplied with the ammunition they need to fight in Afghanistan. The company has been running ammunition supply points on Bagram and Kandahar Airfields since they deployed to Afghanistan in October, providing ammunition to soldiers throughout most of the country.
“We have truckloads and truckloads of ammunition moving in and out constantly all day, everyday,” U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Flynn, the 592nd’s accountability officer at the Kandahar ammunition supply point said. “We have units coming in picking up and turning in ammo everyday. There’s no slow day in this ASP.”
Flynn, from Bozeman, Mont., said his soldiers issued more than 50,000 tons of ammunition – an average of more than 200 tons a day – since the unit arrived in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Raymond Roberts, a platoon sergeant with the 592nd, an ammunition specialist for 16 years, said the unit pushes out about 400,000 pounds of ammunition each day from the Bagram ammunition supply point. He said the 592nd shipped out about $1.5 billion of ammunition to the warfighters across Afghanistan this year. Additionally, he said a strong effort is placed on recycling and reusing old ammunition products, such as empty ammunition cans.
“We’re averaging about 10,000 pounds a day back in total; I think it’s been about a million pounds we’ve refurbished and sent back to the states,” Roberts, from Helena, Mont., said. “Since one of those pallets of cans is worth about $3,000 each, I’m guessing that’s about $5 million worth of cans we’ve sent back.”
U.S. Army Sgt. Jonathan Rosling, the turn-ins non-commissioned officer at Kandahar, said there are two types of ammunition turn-ins - unit and amnesty turn-ins. He said during unit turn-ins a unit brings in unused or unwanted ammunition, and in amnesty turn-ins, ammunition found in theater is turned back in to the ASP.
“They bring it in, we inspect it to code it – figure out the condition the ammunition is in, the serviceability – and then we repackage it and get it ready to put it in our stocks,” Rosling said.
Rosling, a native of Helena, said the ammunition that cannot be reused is destroyed in controlled detonations by the 592nd in conjunction with the explosive ordnance device unit.
The job of an ammunition specialist demands not only hard work, but a strict attention to detail as well, Flynn said.
“There’s a lot of technical aspects to this job,” Flynn said. “The general technical score is higher. You need smart, strong soldiers to do this job. There’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of counting, a lot of number-crunching and nomenclature and acronyms and everything has to be done perfectly. If one thing is done wrong, you’re going to have an accountability problem and we can’t have that.”
Flynn said despite moving tons of ammunition day after day, the attitude of his soldiers have made the deployment a positive experience.
“They’ve accepted changes as they’ve come,” Flynn said. “They work safely, and we haven’t had any accidents out here. We haven’t had any soldiers get sent home for any problems. Minus the indirect fire that happens out here, nothing wrong has happened. Our soldiers focus on the job and not on personal problems.
“Our soldiers get the job done with - most of the time – a smile on their face.”
| Date Taken: | 08.15.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 08.14.2011 19:47 |
| Story ID: | 75340 |
| Location: | BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AF |
| Web Views: | 706 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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