PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -- The 599th Transportation Brigade conducted port operations here Aug. 23 on the Motor Vessel Green Ridge for the 95th Engineer Company's unit rotation, and it handled the company's offload Sept. 6-7 in Korea.

The brigade headquarters teamed up with a deployment and distribution management team (DDMT) from the 836th Transportation Battalion and the Guam Detachment; Fleet Logistics Center, Pearl Harbor; and the 13th Navy Cargo Handling Battalion out of Gulfport Louisiana, to upload the ship.

John Manahane, 599th traffic management specialist, was the 599th operations chief for the move. He said the nature of the equipment and the layout of the ship limited efficiency.

"There were no real glitches, but the move was slow," he said. "First, we had some trouble trying to move the palletized loading systems onto the vessel. Once we developed the concept, the move went faster.

"Then there were some challenges to move the Huskies with their trailers around the interior ramps of the ship. We were able to solve that by using a couple of front loaders to move the trailers into place."

Guam Detachment operations officer, Ray Barrer, acted as a marine cargo specialist for the move. The DDMT arrived at the port Sept. 18, and they were busy with preparations up until the move.

"We got together with Clayton (Maciorowski) and the S6 team to make sure the scanners were up and running. We also made sure that the cargo list was good to go. We coordinated with Central Gulf Lines that they had adequate space and proper dimensions for the cargo. Finally, we reviewed the load plan to make sure we had the right dimensions and weight.

Barrer said both preparations and the move were easy.

"Everything went smooth. The engineers provided all the info required. Our cargo documenting people worked with the points of contact making sure that the lift was correct. It was one of the smoother operations I can remember," he said.

"In all we were able to load 120 pieces of unit equipment during seven hours of vessel operations. The move began at 8 a.m. and finished at 3 p.m., with an hour break for lunch," Manahane said.

The ship sailed from Pearl Harbor to Guam where Barrer also met the ship at Guam Commercial Port.

"On Sept. 1, the Green Ridge came into the port at noon. We discharged cargo here for Naval Base Guam. We started discharging at 1 p.m. and were done at 4 p.m. The ship left the same day for Korea," Barrer said.

The cargo's final destination was Busan, South Korea, where the 599th's subordinate unit, the 837th Transportation Battalion offloaded it Sept. 6-7.

Ray Turner, 837th operations officer, said the battalion turned the ship around quickly.

"Because of the way the pieces were loaded and because the ship is a roll-on, roll-off vessel, the containers were slow coming off. Each truck had to back up the ramp and get one container, then we would have to wait for the next," Turner said.

"But the stow plans coming out of Port Hueneme were very accurate, and we had good communications every step of the way, so we knew about how long it was going to take to offload each one.

"In all we were able to offload the vessel and turn it around in 22 hours," he added.