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380AEW Article

Supply brings teamwork to deliver for deployed service members

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jacob Morgan
  • 380th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  The history of modern supply chain management dates back to the Napoleonic Wars, where military supply management changed from looting and requisition to regiments of military personnel dedicated to the supply and transport of military equipment.

The significance of military supplies in wartime has been showcased in many wars to include the American Civil War. According to many historical accounts of Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender including one by PBS, it is believed the surrender was largely due to the inability of Confederate logistics to keep the Army of Northern Virginia fed and resupplied during its final days. In both of the World Wars, German submarine attacks on Allied shipping had a substantial impact on the ability to re-supply and reinforce Allied forces on the front lines.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was quoted as saying "you will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics."

Today, the U.S. Air Force's vast supply chain spans the entire globe and provides a lifeline to contingency operations overseas. All items in the AF's supply are processed, stored, catalogued and distributed by supply specialist in logistics readiness squadrons.

While in the 1700s, food, water and bullets may have been the most important items to conduct military operations, the technologic advances over the past 300 years have changed the game. The 380th Air Expeditionary Wing operates six different airframes flying sorties daily; their supply team, the 380th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron Materials Management Flight is responsible for 30,000 unique line items including everything from pencils and paper to circuit boards for a KC-10 Extender. Their operations give a glimpse at how complex supply management has become.

"We have 11 distinct sections covering a large variety of missions," said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Dimitri Green, 380th ELRS Material Management Flight superintendent. "We bring everybody together with a lot of teamwork and borderline obsessive organizational tendencies."

According to Green, three sections typically see the most customer interaction; base service store, flightline supply, and individual protective equipment.

The base service store takes care of all office supplies servicing wing members with their administrative needs. Customers ranging from DoD civilians to active-duty members from all services come to the base service store for all administrative items needed for daily operations.

"Most of these administrative items would take a couple weeks to come in if the base service store wasn't here," said Green, who calls McClellanville, S.C., home. "Everything funnels through the supply experts here to create a one-stop shop for our members."

While the base service store provides administrative supply, flightline supply provides the operational items needed for the air superiority the 380th AEW provides, said Green. With aircraft that have vastly different missions, the equipment varies as well.
The majority of the 30,000 different unique items are stored and managed at flightline supply including storage of mission essential items, such as nuts and bolts and circuit cards.

"Flightline supply and our ability to procure and maintain an item really does help keep planes in the air," said U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Tracy Escobar, 380th ELRS flightline supply journeyman. "There are certain items that we supply, that if they were not here when needed, the aircraft would not take off."
Most of the time, deployed flying squadrons bring repair and replacement items with them, said Escobar. If the item is not available, supply makes sure it becomes available quickly.

"Flightline supply also takes care of the due-in for maintenance program," said Green. "This is the cradle to the grave program for aircraft parts. When a part is at its limit, we send it back to be repaired or refurbished and give out a replacement for the aircraft. They have a very busy mission, sometimes exchanging more than 800 items a week."

The other section that exchanges a lot of equipment weekly is individual protective equipment.

IPE consists mainly of individual first aid kits, gas masks, body armor, and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear protective equipment. In this section, special attention goes to the shelf-life of an item, said Green. If an item such as a gas mask is expired, it could be a bad day for the person wearing it.

"Our IPE team consists of people who are professionals at putting this equipment together; equipment that could mean the difference between life and death," said Green.

In addition to these three sections, there is one member who is responsible for equipment accountability. This member must literally count every nut, bolt, aircraft tire and circuit board in the inventory. While this could be tough for more than 500,000 items, the office keeps 98 percent accountability, roughly 13 percent above the standard.

"The more you learn about supply, the more you come to appreciate it. We get parts in the hands of people who need them within minutes," said Escobar, who calls Huntington Beach, Calif., home and is deployed from Minot Air Force Base, N.D. "It's great to see our part of the mission in action. There is so much variety and so many different people to help across the base."