ROCK ISLAND, Ill. – As the participants in DEFENDER-Europe 21 return to their regular operations after the exercise, Joint Munitions Command is proud to have supported DEFENDER-Europe 21 through its mission of providing all conventional munitions for the U.S. Department of Defense.
The command and its 17 subordinate depots, arsenals and ammo plants manage $59 billion of munitions and sustain America’s fighting forces by getting ammunition to troops wherever and whenever needed.
“We’re proud to deliver munitions logistics to warfighters,” said Brig. Gen. Gavin Gardner, JMC commander. “Strong ammunition sustainment is especially important for a defensive exercise like DEFENDER-Europe 21.”
JMC’s involvement began well before DEFENDER-Europe 21’s official March start date. JMC is responsible for all conventional munitions used by the Joint Force and regularly delivers materiel readiness to the forward tactical edge. Warfighter deployment response times are decreased by prepositioning munitions across the globe.
“We are the manager for conventional munitions for the DOD,” Kim West, an analyst in the JMC War Plans division, said. “Any bomb or bullet that a warfighter touches came from us.”
DEFENDER-Europe 21 included both training and live-fire operations for the 28,000 participants from 27 nations over a three-month period. JMC has already started replacing the rounds used during the exercise.
“Getting ammo around the world is what we do,” said Katie Crotty, planning director for JMC. “Our depots started pulling materiel in February to ship to Europe and replace the munitions used in DEFENDER-Europe 21.”
While all of JMC’s subordinate commands support the warfighter through producing, shipping, storing and demilitarizing munitions, five depots and ammo plants directly provided replacement munitions to the Operational Support Area involved in DEFENDER-Europe 21, including Crane Army Ammunition Activity in Crane, Indiana; Letterkenny Munitions Center in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in McAlester, Oklahoma; Tooele Army Depot in Tooele, Utah; and Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Kentucky.
The explosive items pulled from the depots range from mortar rounds to Howitzer prop charges to shoulder-fired rockets.
“The JMC Enterprise ensures that every explosive item delivered to warfighters is ready for use,” said Dan Brown, director of quality for JMC. “Their lives depend on rounds firing when needed. Thanks to the work of our depots and headquarters employees, that’s a guarantee we can make.”
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