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***image1***It was like a great book with a sad ending when the 21st Theater Sustainment Command said goodbye to its 29th Support Group during an inactivation ceremony on Rhine Ordnance Barracks June 9.
The multi-functional logistics unit with a history spanning more than seven decades was inactivated as part of the Army’s transformation process and logistical modularization.
Maj. Gen. Yves Fontaine, 21st TSC commander, likened reviewing the 29th SG’s distinguished history to reading a “brilliant manuscript.”
“It is a great organization and it is a sad day to reach the end of this outstanding mission,” he said.
For the brigade’s last commander, Col. Robin Akin, it was a bittersweet moment as well.
“Although I am saddened by the end of the unit’s service to our Army, it is a privilege for me to be standing before you as the last Dragon Brigade commander and to honor the legacy of the 29th Support Group,” she said.
She recalled that while she knew the 29th SG was going to be inactivated even as she took command almost two years earlier, the mission was never affected. General Fontaine agreed.
“You not only prepared to inactivate, but deployed and redeployed many of your subordinate units to Afghanistan and Iraq. You implemented Left-Behind Equipment support, provided professional augmented logistics observers or controllers to the Joint Multinational Readiness Center to support the multiple complex exercises,
operated Europe’s only Deployment Processing Center, conducted rigger support for special operations, helped train our coalition partners for their deployments and supported numerous exercises in theater,” General Fontaine said.
Throughout this, the 29th SG was in a constant state of flux, absorbing inactivated units from the 21st TSC’s other brigades before finally relocating, transferring and
inactivating all units.
The 29th SG’s only remaining units – its Headquarters and Headquarters Company, the 512th Maintenance Company, the 596th Maintenance Company and the 618th Movement Control Detachment – were inactivated during the same ceremony.
Keeping with the great book analogy, General Fontaine spoke of the 29th SG’s
distinguished lineage and past.
“There are many great chapters in the ‘Team Awesome’ history; so many that we cannot list them all,” General Fontaine said. “The 29th was first activated during World War II and was deployed to the Pacific Theater, where Pvt. George Watson earned a Medal of Honor.”
“The 29th was activated again for the Vietnam War and supported famous battles such as the Tet Counter-Offensive,” he said. “In 1980, the 29th finally activated in Germany and was providing support to this theater when the Berlin Wall came down and the exciting years of German reunification began.”
General Fontaine then spoke of the events he considers critical to defining the history of the 29th SG.
“Under the command of Col. John J. Deyermond, who retired as a major general, the 29th deployed to Kaposar, Hungary, to support Operation Joint Forge – the NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina. And, in support of the Global War on Terrorism, the 29th deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom where Brig. Gen. Lynn A. Collyar took the 29th downrange to establish joint logistics in Afghanistan,” he said.
