MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. -- Nestled in the neighborhoods of North Charleston, S.C., is the Naval Weapons Station Charleston, a hub of ammunition for the Marine Corps at large.
Marines stationed overseas who unload a Maritime Prepositioning Ship full of gear and ammunition will unload containers full of ammunition that were packed and loaded at this storage and distribution facility. The weapons station has 200 magazines, a bunker that contains ammunition, with a capacity for more than 60 million pounds net explosive weight of conventional ordnance.
Controlling 10 magazines of their own, Marines from the Depot Ammo Supply Point took a trip to the NWS to gain valuable insight into their military occupational specialty's larger operations Sept. 29.
While some ammo techs have seen the end result overseas, some have only seen what they do on a day-to-day basis aboard the Depot, so this gave them an opportunity to witness preliminary operations, said Chief Warrant Officer Steven DeVost, officer in charge of the Ammo Supply Point and Depot ammunition officer.
"I think we accomplished what we set out to do," said DeVost, "[and that was] to get a basic understanding of the program and what the Marines at the liaison section do."
Ammunition technicians are versatile and important to the Marine Corps, and they will always be needed in their units, said Staff Sgt. Robert Ximenez, Ammo Supply Point staff noncommissioned officer in charge.
"Eventually you could find yourself in Afghanistan or Iraq having to download a ship and push the ammo forward, [all the while] not really having an understanding of where it came from or who is behind it," said Ximenez.
The trip to Charleston gave the Depot Marines a chance to see how the NWS ammo techs work, said Ximenez.
Running the show for the Marine Corps at the Naval Station is the Marine Corps Liaison Office, Maritime Prepositioning Fleet Detachment aboard the station.
These Marines work alongside civilians unloading rail cars full of containers, or 'cans,' and storing them in magazines until they are needed for an order. Then they load them back into specified cans, seal them up, label them and ship them out to the Blount Island Command, which plans, coordinates and executes the logistics efforts in support of MPSs and the Norway GeoPrepositioning programs. From there they are loaded onto MPSs bound for overseas destinations.
Depot ammunition technicians got a chance to see a different part of their military occupational specialty and not just the Depot operations, said Staff Sgt. Stanley Donegan, MPF Detachment staff noncommissioned officer in charge.
"There are two different sides to our MOS," said Sgt. Ronnie Henry, Ammo Supply Point ammo tech. "You have the Ammo Supply Point side and then there is the using unit side attached to grunt units, artillery batteries, etc."
For Henry, the most important aspect of the trip was shipping and receiving.
"You have got to think about how difficult it would be to keep track of all of that, to keep track of all of those containers that, most of which, are not even there, they are on a ship," said Henry.
Keeping track of the ammunition at the NWS is all done through computers and bar codes. Mostly, it is done remotely, and the process begins before any Marine on land has even seen the containers.
"It can be a headache trying to keep up with all of the details and numbers," he said. "Because, when it comes to counts of ammunition, quantities have to be exact. There is no around or about."
In their imaginations, the Depot Marines had built an elaborate system of how it all works, but what they thought and what they saw were two different things.
"I thought it was a whole lot more complex than what it was," said Sgt. Todd White, an Ammo Supply Point ammo tech. "The operation was very smooth."
White said the most interesting part of the trip was learning how the ammunition is packaged and stored.
"I have been on MPSs, but I had never seen how the ammunition got to me out in the desert," said White. "It was pretty interesting to see how big the operation is and how the civilians and the Marines work together."
White was in awe of the inner working of the physical shipping and receiving aspects of the program.
"I always wondered who packs these containers, and how do they pack them and where they get their criteria for how to pack them," said White.
I learned all of that at the NWS and now I know, said White, who has served with a Marine Expeditionary Unit and in Korea dealing first hand with the unloading and reloading of the containers.
Now that the Marines have been to the weapons station, and they know that the cans are going down to Blunt Island to be loaded, thier next trip will probably be to Blunt Island to watch them actually get loaded onto the ships, said DeVost.
As an ammo tech, Marines can pretty much go anywhere, he said. They will gain a greater appreciation and broaden their knowledge of their MOS.
"Once they leave [Parris Island] they will already know what it is like here, and they will have a better understanding of it," said Donegan, a former Parris Island Ammo Supply Point Marine, who participated in many trips like this with his Marines. "When they get to where they are going, they will not have the 'deer in the headlights look.' They will already have a better understanding than somebody who is [basically trained.]"
We like to have people come up here and let them know what is going on so they will have a better appreciation for the Marine Corps and have a better understanding of their MOS, he concluded.