Garrison recognized for deployment support excellence

by Brandon Spragins
U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern


After placing runner-up for Installation Management Command-Europe’s Deployment Excellence Award, U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern will now compete at the Department of the Army level.

The garrison recently competed against seven other garrisons within IMCOM-E for the annual award, which recognizes units for deployment excellence, capturing innovative initiatives that improve the deployment process for Soldiers.
 
It also tracks Army deployment training trends for doctrinal and training updates. Submissions contain synopses of what all the different agencies do as part of the deployment, redeployment and reintegration processes.

The successful execution was due to superior logistical, operational and execution planning that assured safe movement from Germany to forward deployed locations, said Bill Dial, the garrison transportation management specialist.

“The garrison has improved upon previous highly successful deployments and redeployments by conducting rail and air load training and planning,” Dial said.

Last year, the garrison helped deploy more than 10,000 service members through the Installation Staging Area and the Deployment Processing Center, a 21st Theater Sustainment Command asset located on Rhine Ordnance Barracks, including the deployment of four Patriot Missile Batteries from the  10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command.

During that time the garrison loaded 4,595 metric tons of equipment on 111 railcars, including 202 pieces of equipment, 64 containers, 138 rolling stock items and 30 supercargo passengers. 

The garrison also coordinated dozens of trucks to move containers and 86 vehicles. They coordinated four air missions for 256 passengers and four bus missions for 249 passengers.

Meanwhile, the garrison also supported the 21st TSC, helping reintegrate more than 300 Soldiers from tenant units, including the 266th Finance Management Center, Company D, 106th Finance Company, the 635th Movement Control Team and the 254th Medical Detachment. The garrison deployed the 903rd Contracting Support Battalion, 624th Movement Control Team, plus elements of the 5th Military Police Battalion and 64th Medical Detachment.

“The contributions of over 20 different agencies, located throughout the Kaiserslautern Military Community, were involved in these processes, led to the success and make this award truly a community award,” said Lt. Col. Lars Zetterstrom, U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern commander. “We’re grateful to have such a hard-working team of professionals here to support our deploying troops.”