FORT DETRICK, Md. — Enabling critical warfighter readiness, Soldiers and civilians assigned to U.S. Army Medical Logistics Command, AMLC, provided logistics assistance, maintenance support and training at DEFENDER 25.
DEFENDER is the Army’s largest annual training exercise, involving about 12,000 U.S. service members and 13,000 troops from 29 allied and partner nations. Led by U.S. Army Europe and Africa, the exercise focuses on the strategic deployment of U.S.-based forces, the use of Army Prepositioned Stocks, or APS, and follow-on exercises that demonstrate lethality and interoperability with allies and partner nations.
“As the Army becomes more lethal, agile and efficient, we are always looking to improve our processes so we can better support for the warfighter,” AMLC Commander Col. Marc Welde said. “It’s through large-scale exercises like DEFENDER where we can really see ourselves and demonstrate how AMLC enables readiness to the force.”
Starting in April, teams from the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency, a direct reporting unit to AMLC, assisted units drawing medical materiel from the APS-2 site in Dulmen, Germany.
USAMMA teams worked with Soldiers from the 7384th Medical Detachment Blood Support, a reserve unit out of Columbia, Missouri, and the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain), a National Guard unit based in Vermont, to prepare, issue and reset post-exercise medical materiel.
Capt. Justine Juan, an operations officer at USAMMA, said the goal was to reduce deployment time by validating, preparing and packing equipment for immediate use, “demonstrating the flexibility and mobility of our warfighter to be able to deploy rapidly anywhere in the world.”
“This exercise helped greatly in validating our processes and procedures,” Juan said. “It is important to participate in these large-scale global exercises the same way it is important for every Soldier to practice their individual and mission-essential tasks.”
Support continued downrange in Lithuania, where personnel from the AMLC’s Logistics Assistance Program, or LAP, assisted with equipment maintenance and troubleshooting during the hospital exercise, or HOSPEX, portion of DEFENDER, led by the 512th Field Hospital, based at Kaiserslautern, Germany, and part of the 519th Hospital Center.
Vladimir Sequera and Jessy Moore, logistics assistance representatives from the LAP, both deployed in support of their respective Army Field Support Brigade units participating in the HOSPEX.
Sequera said the LAP team’s role was multifaceted, including evaluating shelter configurations, pinpointing refrigeration vulnerabilities and addressing dry ice supply chain issues restricted by hazmat transport limitations in a forward-deployed medical setting.
“The team’s agility in troubleshooting refrigeration systems, securing alternate resources, and planning future medical devices training speaks volumes of their adaptability under pressure,” he said.
Parallel efforts with the 512th FH included extensive equipment checks and infrastructure assessments, quickly addressing and correcting minor issues found during setup to ensure continuity of care, Sequera said.
“Additionally, we were able to provide field training sessions on medical devices like the CT scanner and medical oxygen generator,” he added, “ensuring field personnel are equipped with the knowledge to optimize equipment use and prevent future issues.”
AMLC supports concluded with retrograde operations, which includes equipment turn-in and reset for future use, supporting the 86th IBCT at a forward equipment hand-off site in Greece and coordinating the equipment’s return to APS-2 in Germany.
Sequera said the AMLC team not only met its mission objectives but also gained valuable insight for process improvements to further increase effectiveness and resilience for future retrograde efforts at forward sites.
“Medical logistics is more than just a support function — it’s the backbone of readiness,” he said. “… We don’t just ship equipment. We ensure that life-saving devices are always there when and where they are needed, and they’re going to work. I’m proud to have supported this mission and even prouder of the people I worked alongside.”
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