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News | Sept. 25, 2024

405th AFSB LOGCAP: vital base life support to Soldiers, Army Civilians in Black Sea area

By Cameron Porter 405th Army Field Support Brigade

Nearly 100 forward sites across 26 countries and five continents are supported by the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. LOGCAP provides vital life support to Soldiers and Army Civilians in places like Northern Africa and Eastern Europe.

One of the places the 405th Army Field Support Brigade provides LOGCAP services to is the Black Sea area. There, three sites are supported. They are the Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base in Romania, the Novo Selo Training Area in Bulgaria, and the Kürecik Radar Station in Türkiye.

Army 1st Lt. Mayra Gonzalez is a 405th AFSB LOGCAP support officer forward stationed in Romania for the past 10 months. She said she’s responsible for helping manage LOGCAP services at the three Black Sea sites, ensuring the Soldiers and Army Civilians deployed there receive the necessary base life support services required to complete their missions.

Gonzalez and Brian Hench, a logistics management specialist and contractor with the 405th AFSB, provide LOGCAP guidance to the requiring activities – the supported units – at the three sites. LOGCAP services at the sites range from chemical latrines and handwash stations to billeting areas, electrical power, generator support, light sets, and in some cases dining and food service support, for example.

“This is my second time in Romania. The first time I was a requiring activity of LOGCAP provided base life support services, so it’s been kind of cool to see LOGCAP support from the beginning to the end stages of the process,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said her job as a LOGCAP support officer is important because she provides the units stationed at the three sites with LOGCAP guidance and direction, and most importantly she’s able to clearly define to these requiring activities exactly what LOGCAP services and capabilities they have at their disposal.

“It’s imperative to the Soldiers when they’re out there that they’re able to function properly by having the resources they need in order to complete their missions,” Gonzalez said. “We assist with that.”

“Let’s say they have 300 personnel on the ground. The requiring activity identifies exactly what they need and lets us know. They’ll provide us this information through a letter of justification, which starts the LOGCAP process,” said Gonzalez, who hails from Dallas, Texas, and has been in the Army about six years.

“From there, we’ll coordinate with U.S. Army Contracting Command, and we’ll set up a technical data package,” said the 28-year-old Army quartermaster officer and Graduate of Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.

“For example, as it gets colder – instead of only having their individual tents – they can request a large billeting tent with heating and power so it's a little more comfortable,” said Gonzalez. “This is a good example of a service that’s within the scope of what LOGCAP can support.”

LOGCAP is an Army strategic sourcing preferred source for base operations support and sustainment services. LOGCAP remains the contracted capability of choice for the Army and multiple joint partners for emergent and contingency operations. Currently, the 405th AFSB’s LOGCAP program supports thousands of deployed U.S. forces in Europe and Africa with base life support and more. In Europe alone, LOGCAP supports 37 locations in nine countries.

The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The brigade provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging U.S. Army Materiel Command’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.