Army Medical Logistics Command supports rapid deployment exercise in Korea

Story by C.J. Lovelace

U.S. Army Medical Logistics Command

CAMP CARROLL, Republic of Korea — U.S. Army Medical Logistics Command supported an Eighth Army deployment readiness exercise July 31, supplying medical sets and equipment to an armored division unit participating in Operation Pacific Fortitude.

Pacific Fortitude is a readiness validation exercise, where an Army unit is tested on its ability to rapidly deploy personnel successfully to a given environment, conduct training and redeploy back to their home station.

In this case, Soldiers from 4th Battalion, 70th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, were notified for deployment July 17. Six days later, they began drawing equipment, including six armored vehicles, from Army Prepositioned Stocks in Korea, known as APS-4K.

AMLC’s Support Operations, or SPO, team worked closely with the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency, a direct reporting unit to AMLC, to issue seven medical sets aligned with the vehicles pulled from APS storage in support of the exercise.

“The medics from the gaining tactical unit received an executive brief, as well as a short explanation of medical APS and how it supports early medical capabilities,” said Shawn Hardiek, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command desk officer for AMLC SPO. “The medics then conducted joint inventories with the USAMMA staff.”

Inventory operations were timed, providing data broken down by each set to aid in future workload analysis and planning operations.

“When it comes to supporting the warfighter during a transition to hostilities scenario, timing is everything,” said John Foley, interim APS-4K site manager for the event.

After completing inventories, the medical sets were loaded and departed the APS site to simulate the handoff process to the unit. The vehicles then returned and the sets were unloaded and reset to complete the medical portion of the exercise.

In addition to AMLC SPO and USAMMA personnel at APS-4K, personnel from the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center-Korea and AMLC’s Integrated Logistics Support Center also supported the exercise.

“In an emergency combat situation where seconds matter, we need to be ready to issue medical resources as soon as possible,” Hardiek said. “Participating in exercises like this helps us ensure that we have the systems and procedures in place to be able to do that successfully.”

USAMMA and USAMMC-K are both direct reporting units to AMLC, the Army’s Life Cycle Management Command for medical materiel.