Twitter
Facebook
Members of Task Force Harvest rounded up more than $978,000 worth of turned-in, nonexpendable equipment during a visit to U.S. Army Garrison Baumholder June 9 to 13.
A 21st Theater Sustainment Command mobile team comprising logistical supply Soldiers, Department of the Army civilians and German local nationals, the Task Force Harvest team travels to units to account for and process excess equipment and supplies. The goal is to take items off a unit’s property book, referred to in Army-speak as a consolidated property list, and redistribute them to units with equipment shortages.
“We try to directly fill shortages within theater, and if not in theater, then (the Continental United States),” said Al Stapleton, logistics manager for Task Force Harvest. “All other equipment, whether sensitive or non-sensitive, goes back to (the Kaiserslautern, Germany-based, Theater Logistics Supply Center-Europe) for minor repair and inspection and then sent out to be reused by other units.”
At USAG Baumholder, task force members processed 384 pieces of turned-in equipment ranging from small hand-held radios and printers to larger equipment such as Humvees and single-axle trailers.
This is not the first time the Task Force Harvest team has visited USAG Baumholder. During a week-long mission in March of this year, the task force rounded up more than 2,500 pieces of turned-in equipment valued at $11.4 million.
Task Force Harvest, first stood up in 2005 as part of a U.S. Army Europe-backed property accountability initiative, accepts all Class II (individual equipment, tentage and tool sets) and Class VII (vehicles and chemical protective suits and overboots) items.
“We are able to look at the CPLs and determine if a unit is short or excess equipment,” Stapleton said. “With that, I can pull from this unit to that unit, one warehouse to the next, to fill shortages.”
Last year, Task Force Harvest completed eight separate missions at various U.S. Army garrisons in Italy and Germany collecting approximately 25,000 items valued at more than $63 million.
This year alone, the task force has collected upwards of 5,500 equipment items at an estimated value of $46 million during missions to Bamberg, Grafenwöhr, Schweinfurt, Vilseck and twice to Baumholder.
Many of these missions target military installations with inactivating units. In the case of USAG Baumholder, the 230th Military Police Company cased its colors earlier this year, generating a requirement to account for and turn in all of their assigned equipment. Task Force Harvest assists in this process, while at the same time, dispersing Army property to other units either here in Europe or back in the U.S.
“We can connect with other units to move this property around, where it can be beneficial in another place,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Sonia Sanders, supply systems technician with Task Force Harvest. “We are saving the Army a lot of money.”
