Soldiers in Iraq Pack Gear for Departure

By Army Spc. Anthony T. Zane
362nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq, Nov. 29, 2011 – Quartermaster soldiers here are busy packing up pallets of military equipment prior to shipment out of Iraq.

 “Our mission here was to take all the units’ equipment [and] send them to Afghanistan or send them back to the states to get remanufactured,” said Army Staff Sgt. Gene Taylor, a Morton, Miss., native and the yard’s noncommissioned officer in charge assigned to the 227th Quartermaster Company.

Taylor said the redistribution property assistance team processes equipment from various base units.

“Units turn in all their nonrolling stock and their rolling stock to us. … We’re processing all the nonrolling stock in here,” he said. “My guys here … get everything together, banded up, boxed up and ship it to where it needs to go so we can get it out of the country.”

Rolling stock consists of all military vehicles, Taylor said, while nonrolling stock includes all other equipment. The pallets include radios, computer equipment and hospital equipment, said Army Pfc. Tye Spinks, a customer service representative who hails from Bandera, Texas.

“It’s mainly stuff that the units can’t take back with them,” Spinks explained.

Mobile teams are dispatched to units on base that are unable to get to the yard to process their equipment.

“We have two mobile teams here as well,” Spinks said. “They’re going out to them and doing the same turn-in process as we were doing here.”

Once all the equipment is processed and shipped out, he said, the team will do a final cleanup of the yard and will close up shop.

“Our leadership is wonderful,” Spinks said. “If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to do the stuff that we do.”