DÜLMEN, Germany –
A town hall was held at Tower Barracks here Sept. 28, marking the 405th Army Field Support Brigade’s first official step to regionally align its four battalions and its critically important Army Prepositioned Stock-2 program to best support U.S. Army Europe and Africa – to include future APS-2 operations in Poland.
The battalion commanders from Army Field Support Battalion Germany and Army Field Support Battalion Mannheim conducted the town hall. In attendance were about 80 supervisors and leaders from the Dülmen APS-2 worksite, both contractors and Army civilians.
The Dülmen APS-2 worksite and its more than 350 contractors and Army civilians are responsible for the storage and maintenance of a brigade’s worth of APS-2 wheeled vehicles and equipment.
The command and control of the Dülmen APS-2 worksite will be officially relinquished by AFSBn Mannheim Oct. 21, and AFSBn Germany – headquartered at Vilseck, Germany – will assume responsibility, allowing the Mannheim battalion to focus on its mission to prepare for and transition to Army Field Support Battalion Poland.
In addition, a year from now the APS-2 worksite at Coleman Barracks in Mannheim, Germany, will also fall under the command and control of AFSBn Germany, taking the remaining weight off of AFSBn Mannheim’s shoulders and allowing the battalion to concentrate solely on its approaching pivot to Poland mission as it assumes responsibility for a brand new $360 million APS-2 worksite in Powidz, Poland, and becomes AFSBn Poland.
Larry Perdue is the general manager for Amentum at Dülmen, the lead contracting agency at the APS-2 worksite. He said a lot of the Amentum employees have expressed concerns and asked a lot of questions about their future so holding a town hall helps address those questions and concerns.
“For Amentum, it’s great to have this town hall – especially with the two battalion commanders – so our folks get an understanding of who Amentum is supporting and specifically the changes that we’ve been talking about with them regarding command and control coming from AFSBn Germany versus AFSBn Mannheim,” Perdue said.
It’s significant and important to have both battalion commanders here today for the town hall, echoed Lt. Col. Rebecca Milkowski-Gerdelman, the commander of AFSBn Germany.
“This is a very important APS site. It provides a lot of capability to the theater in the event of contingency operations,” said Milkowski-Gerdelman.
It’s important to show as one battalion changes out and another comes in, the team at the Dülmen APS-2 worksite is part of the bigger 405th AFSB team and a valued stakeholder in the process, Milkowski-Gerdelman said.
“The transition of command and control at the Dülmen worksite is the first visible sign of the 405th AFSB’s shifting capability and reorganization across U.S. Army Europe’s theater of operation,” said Milkowski-Gerdelman.
“The town hall today is the actual starting point for that transition. This starts the formalization process,” said Lt. Col. Brain Astwood, the commander of AFSBn Mannheim.
During the town hall both Astwood and Milkowski-Gerdelman thanked the Dülmen worksite employees for their efforts.
“All of you here play a major role in what we do in the European theater with respect to theater defense and security. Everything that you are doing here every day plays a major role in our theater defense posture,” Astwood said. “You’re doing amazing work, and I really appreciate all the work you’ve done over the last few months.”
“It’s all about the team, and you are all going to become part of team AFSBn Germany very very soon,” Milkowski-Gerdelman said. “And I am absolutely thrilled about that.”
The APS-2 program is a key component of U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s power projection and warfighter readiness missions. The 405th AFSB’s APS-2 program provides turn-key power projection packages – ready to deploy at a moment’s notice – while helping to reduce the amount of equipment needed from the deploying forces’ home stations. Combatant commanders identify their APS-2 requirements, and the 405th AFSB executes and then issues the equipment to the deploying warfighters.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and under the operational control of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa. The brigade is headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. Forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging the U.S. Army Materiel Command’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.