NAVELSF serving in Kuwait and Iraq

Navy Supply Corps Newsletter, Nov-Dec, 2004

Once again the NAVELSF Forward Alpha delivers--but instead of vehicles and cargo containers at the port, in Iraq the unit is fueling a free Iraq. Sailors at Camp Anaconda have added an additional one million gallons of fuel to the capacity at the camp. Through Navy ingenuity, they developed a way to repair and renovate nine large fuel bunkers that are remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime. The hardened bunkers provide an extra safety net for fuel capacity in country if needed--as in April when the insurgents stopped many convoys.

Postal Operations

Part of the Navy combat logistics mission in the AOR includes delivering the mail. The 33 NAVELSF Forward Alpha Sailors providing postal service operations at five different locations in the AOR have rang-up over one million dollars in sales and handled over a million pounds of mail since arriving. The Post Office is a huge morale builder allowing mail from loved ones to arrive in a timely fashion to Soldiers fighting the war.

Army Sergeant Brandon Fletcher of Gilt Edge, Tenn., is one of the beneficiaries of the Navy's postal ops. "Actually, the post office seems to be running a little more efficiently, a little smoother since the Navy's taken over," he said.

Senior Chief Boatswain's Mate Albert Diaz, 48, of Jacksonville, Fla., was Post Master at Camp Wolverine, just outside the gate of Kuwait City International Airport, prior to the Army moving the location elsewhere in Kuwait. In his civilian life, Diaz manages the night shift at a U.S. Postal Service processing center in northern Florida.

Diaz put his civilian experience to work numerous ways during his deployment at Camp Wolverine, where he and his postal clerks took over for an Army postal detachment. A truck delivers the mail every morning, backing up to one end of the tent. Before, the Army postal clerks would climb up into the back of the truck and toss the bags of mail, some weighing as much as 70 pounds, down to the ground. Once they were done, they would have to climb back down, or jump several feet onto the stony ground.

"I looked at that as a safety hazard," Diaz said. So Diaz had a platform built, level with the truck bed. Now, the bags of mail slide down gravity rollers onto a chest-high wheeled platform into the office. "Being fresh, we probably saw opportunities for improvement that they just didn't see," he said. "We are always looking for ways to do things better."

Mobile Air Cargo Handling Team

Twenty-one Sailors from the Omaha, Neb., area work side-by-side with their sea service counterparts to expedite critical Marine air supplies and parts. They work for the 3rd Marine Air Wing (3rd MAW) at eight locations in Iraq and Kuwait.

"The knothole has always been the last mile," said Lt. Col. Rich Coleman, a Supply Liaison Officer with the 3rd MAW.

"The work and dedication of these Sailors is outstanding. These parts are critical for us to keep flying. Prior to them arriving, nobody had the specific job of looking out for Marine Air Wing shipments within Iraq and Kuwait. As a result, no one took responsibility for making sure shipments reached their final destination," Coleman said.