SOUTHWEST ASIA -- Two members of the 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Group unit deployment manager office have a big task -- to move the 1,100 people assigned to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing's largest group in, around and out of the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.
"We are responsible for people in three squadrons, five (aircraft maintenance units) and the group staff," said Staff Sgt. Brandon Sroufe, 379th EMXG UDM, who is deployed from Royal Air Force Mildenhall, United Kingdom. "We track everyone as they are coming in for their deployment and take care of many of the actions needed to get them back home at the end of the deployment."
Sergeant Sroufe, a Fort Wayne, Ind., native, said most units have UDMs who only deal with individual squadrons. One of the reasons the 379th EMXG is different is due to how personnel come and go.
"A lot of our guys come in on the aircraft they work on," he said. "Traditionally, the jets belong to the aircraft maintenance squadron, so rather than having UDMs for the maintenance squadron and [also]maintenance operations squadron, who would need to [then] work with the AMXS UDM, we take care of everything for all three squadrons."
One of the biggest focuses for the office, whose motto is, "We make it happen all over the world," is preparing for the current rotation to leave and the next rotation to arrive.
"Right now we are getting ready for the next rotation by making sure all of our personnel are coded correctly to go home and their departure dates are correct," said Tech. Sgt. Ricardo Torres, 379th EMXG UDM, who is deployed from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. "We also make sure they will have enough turnover time with their replacement once that individual gets here.
"It is possible the UDMs at home stations could get the wrong person," the Del Rio, Texas, native said. "For example, you could get a 3-level in a 7-level position. So we are in constant contact with the force providers, making sure the inbounds are the right ones and taking care of any issues that come up."
One of the biggest issues the office deals with is personnel not arriving with all the equipment listed on their orders.
"If they report without gear, we can't get it for them here, the home station has to send it," Sergeant Sroufe said. "But if they report with something and it's broken, we can work with [the personnel section] and swap it out. For instance, three weeks ago, we had an Airman get here with a canteen and it had broken on the way over. We were able to take it over and get it swapped out for a new one."
In addition to making sure people arrive and leave on time, the office is responsible for any maintenance recovery teams, or MRTs, that have to be sent out because something happened to a jet while it was away from the base.
"If a jet from here breaks down somewhere in the AOR, we are responsible for getting the people and equipment out to fix and recover the jet," Sergeant Sroufe said. "Once we find out there has been a tasking, we will work with the squadrons and flights to find out who's going and what tools they need to take. If I got a call for an MRT right now, we could get them out in an hour."
He said it can normally take a few hours for an MRT to get on an aircraft. However, depending on a few different factors, other missions can be put on hold so a team can repair the jet and allow it to come back to base.
"One time, there was a scheduled mission which was about 20 to 30 minutes away from taking off," Sergeant Sroufe said. "After we informed them we needed to get an MRT out, they completely scrubbed that mission and rebuilt it so our guys to go forward to recover their aircraft."
The office also works closely with other maintenance group UDMs throughout the AOR, Sergeant Torres said.
"On occasion, the other maintenance groups in the AOR, give us a call to give them a hand because they know their guys are inbound, but don't know exactly where they are, or know they are here and can't get on a flight," he said. "So they will call us and ask if we can help their people get a flight out of here."
"That's where our 'we make it happen all over the world' motto came from," said the technical sergeant. "We are helping people throughout the AOR, working directly with the force providers stateside and because of our MRTs. There is no place in the world we don't touch."