Despite pandemic, support mission continues

By Randy TisorMay 4, 2020

Jeremiah Sutherland (in watch cap at left), a training specialist with the Tank-automotive and Armaments Command’s Integrated Logistics Support Center, briefs a group of Fort Benning based Soldiers and civilians regarding Army Combat Fitness Test equipment accountability procedures in January.
Jeremiah Sutherland (in watch cap at left), a training specialist with the Tank-automotive and Armaments Command’s Integrated Logistics Support Center, briefs a group of Fort Benning based Soldiers and civilians regarding Army Combat Fitness Test equipment accountability procedures in January. (Photo Credit: Randy Tisor) VIEW ORIGINAL

DETROIT ARSENAL, Mich. – The parking lots may be mostly empty on the Detroit Arsenal grounds, home to the Tank-automotive and Armaments Command headquarters and TACOM’s Integrated Logistics Support Center, but the mission continues despite social distancing and the efforts to flatten the Coronavirus-19 “curve” that have teamed up to disperse much of the workforce to home offices across the greater Detroit Metropolitan area.

Col. Steven Carozza, the military deputy for the ILSC, has been directing the effort to field more than 36,000 sets of Army Combat Fitness Test equipment and is one of the few regulars on the Arsenal as of late, although he also teleworks from his home from time to time. The task of ensuring that all Army components – active, reserve and guard – have their ACFT gear before the test becomes required has been monumental for his small team and partners from the Natick Soldier Systems Center.

Carozza reports that the current pandemic really hasn’t affected his mission, at least, not critically. Hundreds of ACFT equipment sets have, for instance, been delivered to Fort Carson and are sitting in a central receiving facility, which is a good thing. The task of hand-receipting to individual units has been slowed somewhat, however, due to the fact that handing over equipment is usually very hands on for accountability purposes. The work-around, Carozza said, has been more video-teleconferencing and an instructional video developed by the ILSC’s Materiel Fielding and Training Directorate that helps to guide the process.

The entire fielding effort, Carozza said, is more than two-thirds complete, as in sets delivered en masse to posts. More than half of the equipment sets, he added, are in the hands of the individual units. The delta, or difference, is the easier part logistically and will be ironed out as accountability procedures continue.

Carozza added that sets destined for units outside of the continental U.S. are currently being loaded for shipment and locations in the Midwest are the next, near-term targets for fielding.