CINCU, Romania –
Under sweltering July heat with temperatures reaching 100+ degrees Fahrenheit in Cincu, a team from Army Field Support Battalion-Benelux started receiving a horizontal engineer construction company’s worth of Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 equipment back from the 104th Engineer Company (Construction) following the unit’s nearly 3-month deployment to Europe in support of Resolute Castle 24.
The APS-2 equipment – which includes about 150 major end items like bulldozers, scrapers and backhoes, plus tools, basic issue items and more – were used by the Fort Cavazos, Texas, based engineer company during the Resolute Castle 24 exercise for horizontal construction projects like roads and staging areas.
The team from AFSBn-Benelux, who also issued the APS-2 equipment to the engineers in April during an equipment configuration and hand-off area operation, is made up of U.S. Army and Dutch Ministry of Defense civilians from the Eygelshoven APS-2 worksite in the Netherlands. They are set to be in Cincu for about two weeks completing the reverse ECHA. Following the turn-in and reverse ECHA, AFSBn-Benelux will then prepare and load the equipment onto civilian line haul transporters bound for Eygelshoven.
“The unit came in and set up the equipment at the turn-in area, which happened to be the same place where we did the issue back in April,” said Daniel Perez, the director of supply at AFSBn-Benelux and the ECHA chief in Cincu for this mission.
“From there, joint inventories were conducted on all the boxes that were opened. The boxes consist of things like secondary items and BII,” Perez said. “Of course, they also inventoried and inspected all the major end items, like the trucks, trailers, generators, and construction equipment, plus all the containers and more.”
Perez said his team will do their final closeout, and all the equipment will be loaded onto the civilian line haul transporters, and the operations center will be collapsed for final movement back to Eygelshoven and end of mission.
“It’s hot out here, but it’s absolutely beautiful. We’ve been trying to get started a little early each day and get to work when it’s still cool outside. Plus, you know, we’re taking good rest breaks and making sure everyone is drinking plenty of water and being safe. We don’t want anything going bad out here now that we’re almost ready to go home,” Perez said.
Resolute Castle is a U.S. Army Europe and Africa led, multinational, joint exercise which marries U.S., allied and partner nation engineering unit training opportunities with the completion of real-world construction projects that enhance training capabilities in various areas of Europe's eastern member states. Resolute Castle is designed to reinforce regional partnerships and promote interoperability with host nation forces by providing improvements to existing infrastructure.
The 405th Army Field Support Brigade’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. The APS-2 program improves deterrence capabilities and provides additional combat power for contingency operations. It may also be drawn for use in training and exercises like Resolute Castle 24.
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 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.