Twitter
Facebook
The numbers are an excellent indicator of the magnitude of the current mission. About 4,000 Soldiers from units deploying with the 172nd Infantry Brigade passed through the 21st Theater Sustainment Command’s Deployment Processing Center on Rhine Ordnance Barracks between Thanksgiving and Dec. 5.
Even for the experienced team at the DPC, which falls under the 21st TSC’s 39th Transportation Battalion, those are record numbers.
“This is probably the greatest influx of Soldiers we have ever experienced. We usually see about 200 to 300 Soldiers every three weeks or so. Now, we are looking at 4,000 in a 10-day timeframe,” said Odis Atkinson, a DPC team leader and equipment specialist.
Mr. Atkinson and his co-workers at the DPC attribute the mission’s success to intensive planning and excellent teamwork.
“We sat down with the staff and did a lot of planning. We analyzed the mission and crunched the numbers. For example, we usually stock 2,000 bottles of water and 3,000 meals. For this mission, we upped the meals to 10,000 and the water to 6,000 bottles,” Mr. Atkinson said. “Once we broke out all the mission requirements, we set up teams to manage and take care of them. We were working three flex shifts to be covered 24/7, and we always overlapped teams to be prepared for potential changes and challenges.”
“We have a great team that pulls together to get things done. We back each other up. And, being the Air Force guy here, means I know what they want at Ramstein Air Base. I can help the Army side of the house by being familiar with how to best prepare to get their equipment on the planes,” said Wayne Rondeau, another DPC team leader and processing specialist.
In addition to the cooperation required for good team work, the staff’s joint effort was directed toward one common goal.
“The idea behind everything we do is to make it as easy on the Soldiers as possible,” Mr. Rondeau said.
“We want to minimize all that ‘hurry up and wait stuff’ to get them processed as quickly as possible so they can enjoy a little more comfort before they go downrange,” Mr. Atkinson said. “Our team leaders are retired senior noncommissioned officers. We speak the same language, and we speak the language of the Soldiers coming through here as well … We know how to get them to do things because that’s what we did during our military careers.”
Soldiers from the 9th Engineer Battalion, a subordinate unit of the 172nd Infantry Brigade, who were bussed to the DPC from Schweinfurt Dec. 2, testified to a successful mission.
“I came through here on a deployment in 2003. There is a world of difference between then and now. Things run a lot smoother and much more efficiently. It took about 30 minutes to manifest more than 200 Soldiers, which used to take three or four hours back then,” said Capt. Jerrid Allen, the Headquarters and Headquarters Company commander for the 9th Engineer Battalion.
“There seem to be improvements everywhere. The whole system – the reception process, manifesting, the services provided to the Soldiers – everything seems to have improved a lot,” said Lt. Col. Ben Bigelow, 9th Engineer Battalion commander.
