During the COVID-19 pandemic and due to the banning of Other Country Nationals (OCN) from entering Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, we have had to adjust our U.S. ExPats contractor workforce to cover mission essential services that mostly OCNs were performing. One of the many mission essential services required within the 401st Army Field Support Brigade (401st AFSB) is the agricultural cleaning of Army Preposition Stocks (APS) designated to be transported to many different locations across the world and in support of the South West Asia (SWA) recalibration mission. Since the wash racks were manned and operated by OCNs, they were completely shut down and the backlog of APS rolling stocks to be moved was at a standstill. Our performance contractor, KBR, worked with our Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) office and moved some ExPats from other sites/operations within Kuwait into the Camp Arifjan wash rack site to ensure equipment was agriculturally cleaned for movement.
Movement of rolling stocks to worldwide locations is a primary role of the APS mission under the 401st AFSB. Closing of wash racks due to COVID-19 OCNs ban from Camp Arifjan would had negatively impacted the timeline to move the APS equipment into the required countries. Other equipment scheduled for agricultural cleaning includes combat track vehicles as well.
Mr. Gilberto E. ‘Gil’ Ponce
Resident Class of 2005
GS-15, U.S. Army Civilian
401st AFSB LOGCAP Director
Camp Arifjan, Kuwait
