CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq - Citizen-Soldiers with the 224th Sustainment Brigade, 103rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), are making a difference, in a collaborative effort, on the “War on Excess” with its Mobile Redistribution Team (MRT) on Contingency Operating Base Adder, Iraq.
The MRT was created as a key component of Operation Clean Sweep and the Responsible Drawdown of Forces. The MRT assists units with the removal of non-mission essential, non-property book, non-theater property equipment excess.
“The fixed redistribution site has been operational since October and was established in support of Operation Clean Sweep II,” said Capt. Vanessa Marrero, a support operation effects officer and MRT officer-in-charge with the 224th SB. “The MRT can operate as contact teams consisting of two to four Soldiers or up to 10 Soldiers depending on the type of mission.”
These Soldiers have the capability to identify the proper disposition of equipment; MOS’s [military occupational specialty] include, but are not limited to, automated logistic specialists, vehicle repairers, transportation management coordinators, supply specialists, and ammunition specialists.”
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Keith Glenn, the MRT fixed site and mobile team officer-in-charge with the 110th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 224th SB, has the primary job of oversight of the MRT fixed site yard and its daily operations.
“It’s taking items out of hidden areas and putting them back into the system,” Glenn said. “It’s reducing the actual footprint of the material. We’re trying to consolidate, and it is a collaborative effort. You’re reducing transportation dollars, transportation assets; here we have consolidated our efforts and expedited equipment from the COB’s.”
The MRT yard can process around $2 million of supply on a weekly basis with about 500 items, said Staff Sgt. Jonathan Pierce, the operations noncommissioned officer for the fixed site with the 632nd Maintenance Company, 110th CSSB. The MRT yard Soldiers work together and are from various units in the 224th SB.
“Currently there are 43 military [MRT personnel] and 13 civilians,” Pierce said. “The Soldiers outside [in the yard] do all the paperwork, they evaluate each item that goes into each multipack [tri-walls/white boxes constructed above a pallet], and from there it goes into my office, then my guys will fed-log [the system will assign a dollar value to the item] it. If we cannot find it, we will look up manufacturer’s data, de-militarized codes, recovery codes or class codes, and then the Soldier will place it on the multipack to ship it to the SSA [supply support activity] or wherever its destination is.”
Besides saving the government money, removing excess equipment and supplies from Iraq, the yard places many serviceable items back into the Army’s supply system or back to the units from which it originally came.
“When we run into serial numbers items, we run them back through RPAT [Redistribution Property Assistance Team], and they go through the theater provided equipment property book and validate the serial numbers,” Glenn said. “And if there was ever a commander looking for that equipment or there was a Financial Liability Investigation of Property Loss done, they actually try to contact that commander and get the property back to him, or reimburse him the dollars that were taken from him.”