Joint Base MDL Airman supports material management operations at Balad

Published Oct. 26, 2010
By Master Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
Air Mobility Command Public Affairs

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- Thousands of miles from California's second largest city and his hometown of San Diego where one of the biggest shipping ports exist in the United States, Senior Airman Noah Clifton is doing work similar to what happens in his hometown -- getting supplies to those people who need them.

Airman Clifton is a material management journeyman deployed with the 332nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron Material Management Flight, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, at Balad Air Base, Iraq. He is deployed from the 87th Logistics Readiness Squadron , 87th Air Base Wing, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J.

His home wing, the 87th ABW, provides installation management to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the nation's only tri-service joint base, according to the wing's Web site. The wing also provides "mission-ready, expeditionary Airmen to support unified combatant commanders in on-going military operations." The wing consists of more than 3,100 officers, enlisted, and civilian personnel from the Air Force, Army and Navy.

As a material management journeyman, Airman Clifton is required to maintain qualification in preparing and maintaining documentation and records associated with inventory management actions, his official Air Force job description shows. Airman Clifton's job skills also include issuing and transferring property, conducting inventories and segregating and preparing property for storage as well as identifying items and condition of property.

Material management Airmen like Airman Clifton also have to maintain mandatory knowledge in basic mathematics, supply policies and procedures, Air Force property accounting, stock and inventory control, accountability and responsibility, principles of property accounting through manual or automated data processing, storage methods, warehouse control (receipt, issue, and disposal) and materiel handling techniques.

They also must know methods of preparing and maintaining supply records, manual and automated supply accounting systems, logistics principles and interactions (supply, maintenance, transportation, and procurement), hazardous material and waste procedures; and supply management for contingency operations.

At Balad AB, Airman Clifton works with 35 other personnel who currently keep track of around 7,000 currently required line items valued at about $30 million, according to a news report from 332nd AEW Public Affairs.

"Since flying operations have not stopped here, we still have to be able to support any aircraft that comes in, as well as our aircraft that might break down in another location," Airman Clifton said in the news report about what his unit does for Balad AB. "We have spares packages that can go out to various locations with critical parts an aircraft might need. So when you add those to all the different supply items needed to make a base functional, it turns into a big deal."

According to its base Web site, Joint Base Balad is home to the headquarters of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing. JB Balad is located approximately 42 miles north of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle region, which was considered the power base of Saddam Hussein.

The 332nd AEW is composed of nine groups including the 407th, 438th, 447th and 506th Air Expeditionary Groups, located respectively at Ali Base, Al-Asad Air Base, Sather Air Base and Kirkuk Regional Air Base. Of note, the 332nd AEW has been designated by U.S. Central Command as the senior airfield authority at all four of these air bases in addition to Balad.

Joint Base Balad also includes what was formerly Logistics Support Area Anaconda, the largest Army supply center in Iraq. The U.S. Army's 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command is responsible for operating the supply center.

(Tech. Sgt. Stacy Fowler, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs, contributed to this report.)

Trimming supply assets