Help is on the Way - 43rd Sustainment Brigade will deploy to Afghanistan next week

Just as linebackers aren’t typically featured on the Wheaties box, soldiers in Fort Carson’s 43rd Sustainment Brigade must be content to serve as the unsung heroes of the war effort.

Their mission: To provide food, supplies, maintenance and transportation to the troops on the front lines.
“We’re not the guys kicking in the doors and using night-vision goggles and bayonets,” said Lt. Col. Craig Simonsgaard, commander of the brigade’s 43rd Special Troops Battalion.

“This isn’t typically the sexiest job in the Army,” he said. “But if you don’t have fuel, you don’t have ammunition, you don’t have maintenance, you’re not going to get a whole lot done.”

About 300 soldiers from the brigade will deploy to Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan next week, for the brigade’s second tour in that country. Three other companies will join those soldiers in the next few months, bringing their number in Afghanistan to about 500.

As part of President Obama’s 30,000-soldier surge, the logistics brigade will oversee 23 subordinate units from 21 countries making up the complicated system that keeps troops equipped for battle.

The 82nd Sustainment Brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C., is presently directing logistics and supplies in northern Afghanistan.

The Fort Carson soldiers’ arrival will mark the first time that two full logistics brigades will be in Afghanistan at the same time – another sign of the renewed focus on the country’s first front in the war on terrorism.

By LANCE BENZEL

Originally published here: http://www.gazette.com/articles/lines-94990-aren-supply.html