An exercise in agility: Soldiers practice quick humanitarian response

[unhappycamper]

From left: Pfc. Ramzi Chebbi, Capt. Bruce Chojnacki, Pfc. Daniel McCurdy and Pvt. Nick Philips, all with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 21st Theater Sustainment Command, unload equipment.


An exercise in agility: Soldiers practice quick humanitarian response
By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, December 3, 2008

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Inside a cocooned maze of green tents, soldiers with the 21st Theater Sustainment Command are supporting a humanitarian aid mission — kind of.

Actually, the soldiers are participating in Agile Challenge 09 — an exercise focusing on a scenario in which the logistics command would deploy its early entry command post to coordinate getting water, food, medical supplies, sleeping bags and the sort to those in need.

"Nobody’s really going to put food on a C-17 to fly to some far-off country, but we’ll do all the coordination to do that up to that point," said Lt. Col. Lance Burton, chief of 21st Theater Sustainment Command’s material readiness branch.

The training scenario hits close to home for the 21st TSC. Its deputy commander headed the U.S. military’s humanitarian relief effort this summer in the Caucasus-region nation of Georgia, and its soldiers played a key role in the mission.

"By all accounts, we did a phenomenal job with that, but that was a fairly short duration, and there were a lot of resources for that," Burton said. "We’re not sure that we’ll always have a short duration. We might have a longer duration — months, years — of doing something like this, and we’ve got to be prepared."

Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59175