CAMP STRYKER, Iraq - In addition to their usual duties, service members at the Camp Stryker, Iraq, Class I yard manage the mass turn in of food rations from all corners of Iraq as the drawdown of U.S. troops and equipment progresses.
The yard accepts expired food rations that service members organize and sort, allowing inspectors to extend the food's shelf life and issue it to units, or condemn and burn it.
"The Class I yard receives food operational rations from areas such as (Contingency Operating Locations) Falcon, Hammer, Prosperity, Al Asad, Mahmudiya, even from the camps located on the Victory Base Complex," said Sgt. Jacqueline Hopkins, an administrative noncommissioned officer at the Class I yard. "This will be a project that is so big, it will continue beyond our unit's deployment to our replacements."
The 10th Sustainment Brigade began the operational rations turn-in mission, which is being continued by its replacement, the 96th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary).
Staff Sgt. Nicholas Bedwell, NCO in charge of the yard, said, "The collection of the expired operational rations (began) in June of 2009 and has no ending date in sight."
The Class I yard has handled more than $3.2 million of expired rations, and has saved the government more than $1.8 million by re-issuing expired rations cleared by the food inspectors, said Capt. Jeremy Hedges, commander of the 639th Combat Sustainment Support Company.
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