Tip of the SDDC spear: 831st Transportation Battalion--Southwest Asia.

The 831st Transportation Battalion's headquarters is in Bahrain but the unit s mission ranges throughout the entire Central Command area of responsibility. Their mission is to provide the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command services from the countries that make up the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Kuwait, Iraq, and the various "Stans."

For the past three years, the 831st Transportation Battalion has been on the front lines of the "Global War on Terrorism" supporting the many Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that make up Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Soldiers, Department of the Army civilians and local nationals frequently deploy from the battalion base in Bahrain to a multitude of locations throughout the Persian Gulf as part of our Deployment Support Teams. The battalion also has four detachments located in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Afghanistan. As OEF continues to bring liberty and democracy to Afghanistan, U.S. Forces continue to hunt down Taliban and Al Queada remnants as well as Osama Bin Ladin.

Department of Defense cargo and unit rotations that support OEF continue on specified rotation cycles. In order to get cargo in and out of Afghanistan, specific techniques and procedures have been established.

The purpose of this article is to articulate those techniques and procedures that SDDC is utilizing to successfully move units and cargo from the continental United States to the vast and austere landscape of Afghanistan.

Since the onset of OEF, units such as the 82nd Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, 25th Infantry Division as well as other task forces and logistics outfits have deployed to Afghanistan. The 831st provides direct support to those units and ensures the forces close "on time."

Cargo deployment or redeployment operations to support forces in Afghanistan have been conducted a couple of ways. One is simply door-to-door commercial service. In this type of operation, a commercial carrier will deliver the cargo from CONUS or OCONUS seaport of embarkation direct to the Port of Karachi, Pakistan and then truck it to either Bagram or Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The second method combines Military Sealift Command "Grey-Bottom" vessels, commercial feeder vessels, Air Mobility Command aircraft and two separate water ports.

Sensitive and outsized cargo is usually moved through Umm Said seaport in Qatar and brought to Al Udied Air Base, Qatar where it is flown to the area of responsibility.

The non-sensitive cargo is brought by MSC vessel to a trans-ship port like Salalah, Oman or Fujairah, United Arab Emirates where it is stuffed in containers or flat racks.

Cargo is moved by commercial liner to Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently trucked to Bagram and Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The numbers, however, are not the impressive part of the story.

What does make this story impressive is the level of coordination and teamwork between the battalion and its commercial partners to deliver the cargo to the warfighter.

Currently, military vessels do not use Pakistan's ports. As a result, the 831st is responsible for transshipping all OEF-bound cargo arriving in "Area of Operations" from MSC vessels to commercial ships for onward movement.

The Port of Fujairah, a spacious, modern facility situated on the eastern seaboard of the UAE, is ideal for such an operation.

Working hand-in-hand with their commercial contractor, APL, the 831st downloaded the MSC vessel without incident, staged the equipment, and finalized the necessary documentation. While this represents a complete operation on many missions, this was just the beginning for the battalion. Once the equipment was staged and documented, stuffing operations began.

Over the next several days, the 831st and APL stuffed the 25th ID's gear into 710 containers and 313 flat racks, ensuring all cargo was fitted with Radio Frequency Identification tags and securely blocked and braced for the long road ahead. Once stuffing operations were complete, the equipment was loaded on five APL feeder vessels for the 2-day sail to Karachi.

From the moment the vessel pushed away from the pier until the container or flat rack was delivered in Afghanistan, APL ran the show. The same constraints that prevent US military vessels from pulling into Pakistani waters also prevent SDDC personnel from supervising the discharge and onward movement of the Division's cargo, so APL was in charge every step of the way.

After discharging at the port in Karachi, In-Transit Visibility information was captured with hand-held scanners, tarps were re-secured on flat racks, customs documentation was cleared, and the cargo was assigned to trucks and dispatched from the port.

Ready for the final leg of its journey, the equipment was trucked to one of two distant locales: either 800 kilometers to Kandahar, or well over 1,000 kilometers to Bagram.

As Maj. Joe Corleto, the 831st executive officer pointed out, "That trip is no Sunday joy ride."

Inclement weather can make Pakistan's and Afghanistan's roads next to impassable, and there are bad guys looking to disrupt our lines of communication," said Corleto.

Because Pakistan's government does not allow permanent RFID interrogators to be placed within its borders, APL positioned documentation teams at checkpoints along the way to relay real-time ITV to those tracking the cargo at the battalion headquarters in Bahrain. With that information, the 831st was able to keep eyes on the shipment and ensure that the 25th ID movement officers were informed throughout the process.

Rick Marsh, Transportation Intern, 831st Transportation Battalion