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455th EAPS stands up to the challenge

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Daniel Bowles
  • 437th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  If the plus up of U.S. forces were felt anywhere here, the 455th Expeditionary Aerial Port Squadron is ground zero. With record traffic of cargo, air traffic and passengers the squadron is running full throttle.

Bagram Air Field's aerial port moves approximately 500 tons of cargo and 1,000 passengers per day on average.

While other bases in the country, such as Kandahar Airfield, support the air mobility effort, Bagram Airmen perform an enormous amount of cargo and passenger movements in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and are considered the war's cargo hub.

"We've definitely surpassed the 'do more with less' criteria," said Master Sgt. Satesh Persaud, the Air Terminal Operations Center duty officer for the 455th EAPS. "They say the duty officer should have the pulse of the port," he said. "The one thing the guys do that I'm proud of is with the manning we have, they get a lot done. We are doing a third more work than a normal aerial port with a third less people."

The 455th EAPS main functions are the ATOC, ramp, cargo, special handing and the passenger terminal. Each is interrelated to the others and has a specific purpose. 

Inbound and outbound cargo yards serve as holding areas for the thousands of tons of equipment moved to and from Bagram Air Field by aircraft each month.

A walk through the cargo yard eventually leads into a dusty expanse of dunnage the aerial porters call the 'tater patch.' Here, pallets, propellers, trucks, munitions trailers and other various overflow is precisely tracked on a grid system.

The tater patch is used because the space available in the traditional holding areas is regularly exceeded.

"We don't have the luxury of sorting it based on delivery location," said Sergeant Persaud. "We don't have that kind of space."

The amount of cargo moved has significantly increased. That total has surpassed the amount shipped for the same span of time in 2008 by about 24,000 tons, and by 34,000 as compared to 2007.

Contract employees in the cargo function handle cargo documentation processing and schedule when cargo will be shipped from the outbound yard. Cargo load planners decide how loads will be placed onto an aircraft.

The special handling section processes approval for specialty cargo such as blood, hazardous materials, military working dogs, radioactive materials, high-value items, classified materials and supply items.

The passenger terminal handles allocating space aboard aircraft for passengers traveling within Afghanistan as well as for those leaving the country, and the number people arriving and departing Bagram Airfield has been unprecedented, said Sergeant Persaud.

"In the three-and-a-half months I've been here, we gone from processing passengers in a tent to an actual building," said Sergeant Persaud. "Since we have so many, the building is now under renovation to increase its capacity."

The number of passengers from 2009 transiting Bagram Airfield exceeds 200,000 whereas far exceeding the previous record in all of 2008.

The aerial port ramp function is the brute strength of just a few Airmen behind loading and unloading of cargo on Bagram Airfield.

The majority of mobility aircraft serviced at Bagram include the C-130 Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, C-5 Galaxy, KC-135 Stratotanker and Russian IL-76 and AN-124 aircraft. Loads can consist of anything from 16 airdrop bundles on a C-130, to MRAPs on C-17s and AN-124s.
 
Such a busy schedule doesn't do much to slow down the ramp personnel though, according to Master Sgt. David Champagne, the ramp night shift supervisor.

The aerial porters are able to load just about anything that will fit, said Tech. Sgt. Nick Botich, a night shift duty officer with the ATOC.

"Just last night we had to pack up a UAV so it could be transported," said Sergeant Botich.

Bagram Airfield is quickly becoming just as busy as Joint Base Balad, and in some months, Bagram aerial port traffic surpasses JBB's.

The mission of the 455 EAPS is no easy task. In shouldering the burden of his position, the pulse felt by the ATOC duty officer is one of urgency, where failure is not an option when soldiers' lives at forward operating bases are at stake, said Sergeant Pursead.

"These are critical items that have to move," he said. "They just have to." 

Editor's Note: Some specific details were intentionally left out of this story for operational security concerns.