Bombs to bullets and everything in between: Ammo

Published Sept. 23, 2009
By Staff Sgt. Angelique N. Smythe
451st Public Affairs

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- The 451st Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron Munitions Flight plays a role in everything from each bullet carried for personal protection to the big bombs loaded onto various aircraft to win wars.

The mission of the munitions flight at Kandahar Airfield is to build, maintain, store and deliver all the munitions the Air Force uses here at KAF.

The flight is responsible for $42.5 stockpile to include laser guided bombs, small arms munitions, countermeasures, and other related weaponry. In essence, they put the lethality in our close air support mission as well as providing defensive systems for medical evacuation and cargo airlift.

"This is our chance when we really get to do our job," said Master Sgt. Holly Jensen, systems and materiel superintendent. "Back home, it's a lot of training, and it's important then, but when we come here, this is when our hearts start to swell and we start doing what we were trained for."

Until mid-July, only five munitions personnel made up the Munitions Accountable Systems Officer, or MASO, team. Their primary job was to make sure all munitions were correctly accounted for at all times, but they also assisted with other aircraft, such as the Predators, C-130 Hercules and HH-60 Pave Hawks. Five was not enough for this mission. When the A-10 Thunderbolt IIs arrived two months ago, 50 more munitions Airmen arrived as well.

Two weeks before the munitions flight increased to 55 members, the Advanced Operational Element team flew in to take the initial steps to get the work areas set up and functioning.

"The ADVON team usually receives equipment to accomplish all the setting up so that everything's ready to go when the main group of people arrive," said 2nd Lt. Ryan Maddox, flight commander.

However, their equipment didn't arrive until approximately one week after everyone had already flown in.

"It was real big kudos on my ADVON team because they set everything up from scratch along with my MASO guys who were already here," said Lieutenant Maddox.

With the assistance of the Marines and Army personnel, the team was able to accomplish their mission.

"We'd been relying on each other for equipment and everything else you can think of," said Sergeant Jensen.

This was a good example of teamwork as each service worked together in this Kandahar joint environment.

Senior Master Sgt. Terry Pritchert, munitions flight chief, said, "Kandahar is a unique mission because we are actually operating out of an Army owned ammunitions supply point. We share this with the Army and Marines."

The munitions flight supports the entire base, not just one air frame.

"We all come together from different units, but we're all ammo; we stick together," said Sergeant Pritchert. "We issue bullets out... those bullets that you're carrying on you personally, we all have a part of that... to the big bombs that are dropped."

The munitions flight does not only support missions of Kandahar Airfield, but other forward operating bases, such as Jalalabad and Bastion, as well.

The flight is still building up its work area. Currently, they're operating on air pads surrounded by bunkers outdoors. In the future, they're looking to build buildings for indoor operations and inspections. They're also looking forward to having internet connectivity in order to keep real time accountability of all munitions.

"Future ammo is going to develop substantially," said Lieutenant Maddox. "The new military construction project will quadruple the size of our storage space."