Mobile readiness team supports Army in Iraq

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Terri Barriere
  • 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  Members of the 732nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron Mobile Readiness Team are deployed here "in-lieu-of" Army forces and support the American Soldiers by recovering government assets that have been damaged, misplaced or unaccounted for in Iraq.

The team recently deployed to Camp Corregidor to lend a helping hand. 

It's the team's job to go to forward-operating bases, go through container expresses that are unaccounted for, and identify what's not supposed to be there, said Senior Master Sgt. Victor Harris, the 732nd ELRS MRT superintendent. After that, team members inventory the items and return them to their proper locations.

"We go around and collect pallets no one has claimed," he said. "Then we get them back into the system so they can be reused."

A running tally is kept of the items found, which equates to money saved. Items that are recycled in theater to other units save the military and government time and money.

Not all assets can be reused. Damaged items are sent to a depot for repair. 

A lot of the things found marked unserviceable in the containers can be repaired, they just cannot repair them here, said Lt. Col. Heather Buono, the 732nd ELRS Detachment 1 commander.

To accomplish their mission, this eight-man MRT works with fellow servicemembers all over Iraq. A 12-man detail was on hand to assist the team at Camp Corregidor.

"We get support from the base populace at the forward-operating bases to help," Sergeant Harris said. "They help us get oriented to the base and take us out to their locations."

Sergeant Harris said they all received on-the-job training at the beginning of their deployment in addition to one month of combat-skills training at Fort Hood, Texas, prior to their deployment.

"These guys are great," said Army Maj. Dave Christensen, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Brigade 3rd Infantry Division executive officer. "The expertise they bring and the systems they can tap into (helps) get the equipment out of here and back to a unit that needs it. There is no way we could do that out here by ourselves."

Major Christensen said he expects the team could finish in weeks what it would have taken Soldiers several months to accomplish by themselves.

Only halfway through the mission, the team has already recovered more than $1 million of inventory.

"We have only just scratched the surface and will continue to hit it hard until the job is done," Sergeant Harris said.

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