GRAFENWOEHR, Germany –
Serving as a supply technician with Base Support Operations Maintenance, ensuring proper accountability of all the tools, repair parts, machinery and even trucks and other vehicles used to support multiple Army garrisons across Germany might be enough work for some people, but not Birgit Joyce. She also works as a volunteer.
Recently, the U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria command team in Grafenwoehr where Joyce works for the 405th Army Field Support Brigade’s BASOPS Maintenance presented her with the USAG Bavaria Host Nation Volunteer of the Year Award for 2024.
“In 2020 I was also recognized as volunteer of the year,” said Joyce, who during her free time works for the USO, the VFW and the German American Contact Club.
“Once a month the VFW does post cleanup where volunteers come out and help collect trash around the base, and I help to prepare a barbeque for afterwards,” Joyce said. “I enjoy it. It’s fun, and they’re always very thankful.”
Joyce does something similar when volunteering with the USO, both at Camp Aachen where rotational units come for training and at the USO center in Grafenwoehr, which mostly supports permanent party Soldiers and their Families stationed in the USAG Bavaria community, she said.
“I volunteer at both USO centers, helping to set up the barbeques to support various events for the troops,” said Joyce, who has been working for the Army for 20 years, is 56 and has been married for 29 years.
At work Joyce ensures that all the new equipment and supplies assigned to personnel working for BASOPS Maintenance in places like Stuttgart, Kaiserslautern, Baumholder, Wiesbaden and more are properly accounted for and annotated on their hand receipts. In addition, she ensures excess or damaged equipment and supplies are properly documented at turn-in, helping to enhance readiness and safeguard funding and resources.
Highly proficient with operating Global Combat Systems Support-Army, Joyce uses the web-based automated logistics system to track and maintain accountability of repair parts and supply items. Capable of managing large volumes of transactions, GCSS-Army provides current item location updates as well as expected times of arrival. It also interfaces with the General Funds Enterprise Business System, or GFEBS, for financial data tracking and feedback.
Joyce said she has worked at BASOPS Maintenance for a total of seven years, so far. Before that, she worked for U.S. Army Medical Department Activity-Bavaria doing facility management for all the medical clinics, but her first job was at the Army hospital in Wurzburg, which closed nearly 20 years ago.
“It’s interesting for me to work for the U.S. Army,” said Joyce, who is a German local national employee. “I get to learn about the American culture a little and the way of life for American Soldiers. And why do I like volunteering? I do it for the Soldiers and the Veterans and their Families.”
As a field operating activity under the 405th AFSB, BASOPS Maintenance provides equipment maintenance support to all garrison community organizations and activities in Germany. It provides consolidated material maintenance support for base support operations equipment and mechanical safety inspections for privately owned vehicles. It performs automotive maintenance on a fleet of garrison support vehicles to include special purpose and armored vehicles, fire and rescue, snow and ice removal and construction equipment such as scoop loaders, excavators, scrapers, road graders, tractors, rollers, and more.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The brigade 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 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.