Fort Hood, Texas – Bravo Company, 553rd Division Sustainment Support
Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division Sustainment Brigade recently returned from a deployment to the Europe Command area of responsibility on June 23 at Fort Hood, Texas.
Over the course of nine months Bravo Company deployed nine
maintenance teams across seven different countries supporting four port missions for three brigade combat teams, totaling over 2,000 hours which increased theater readiness by 45 percent.
“We were the first support maintenance company to deploy to Germany,”
said Cpt. Ephesian Poinsette, Bravo Company commander. “We had to be
creative, flexible and adaptive and utilize our strengths to assure that we met the mission when called upon.”
Bravo Company was faced with several short timelines in which a mission
needed to be executed. Maintenance Support Teams were sent to Greece,
Northern Germany, Dutchland, Netherlands, and several other forward sites in different North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allied countries.
“Because we were the first maintenance company to arrive, there was no
clear cut blueprint,” said Poinsette. “That was our biggest challenge and we continued to overcome it.”
Several other challenges were presented to Bravo Company over the nine
month duration of the deployment.
“My biggest challenge as First Sergeant was managing personnel across
many different locations,” said 1st Sgt. Jonathan Lawson, Bravo Company first sergeant. “At a given point I had 50 percent of my Troopers tasked out to five different areas, and to overcome this challenge I had to rely heavily on the leaders I had put into position and also leaders from units that we were supporting.”
Another challenge that the unit faced was continuing to keep morale high.
Bravo Company organized holiday events for Thanksgiving, Christmas and made sure that Troopers were recognized for their hard work and dedication supporting the Army’s mission.
“We continued to let our Soldiers know that everything they were doing
was important and that they mattered,” said Lawson.
He said they plan to continue working on maintaining a team with great
morale and camaraderie as they continue their mission back in Texas.
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