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Story, photos by Ben Sherman

The 168th Brigade Support Battalionrecently participated in an exercisewith Air Force and the OklahomaArmy National Guard.

Their goal involved pushing heavyloads out of an airplane.

“What we’re doing today is droppingthe containerized delivery system orCDS bundles,” said Lt. Col. DavidWaddell, 168th BSB commander.“It’s avery good joint-training opportunitythat we have.”

Working with riggers from the logis-tical support battalion of the 97thLogistical Readiness Squadron fromAltus Air Force Base, the loadmastersfrom the 168th BSB practiced loadingpallets onboard an Army C-23B+Sherpa cargo plane.The Sherpa servesas a mainstay of cargo delivery for theArmy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“They’re using a system called ‘low-cost, low altitude’ over in Afghanistan,which means that the load exits thecraft and it falls to the ground, with justenough parachute to slow it just a bit,”said Capt. Matthew Miller,Headquarters and HeadquartersCompany, 168th BSB pathfiinder. “It’sthe fastest way to get equipment andsupplies into inaccessible areas. Youcan rig anything - ammunition, water,food or supplies. Almost anything youcan drop out of the back of an aircraftand get it to the ground, except fuel,”Miller said.

Before the cargo pallets could bedropped, they had to be rigged. That’sthe job of Air Force riggers like StaffSgt. Jason Mavrogeorge, 97th AirMobility Wing logistics rigger. “Rightnow the CDS bundles are rigged forbreakaway. They weigh about 550pounds each and are used for resup-plying troops on the ground,”he said.

After the riggers finished checkingthe straps and parachutes one lasttime, the logisticians of the 168th BSBswung into action.Their goal was to be

proficient in loading the cargo in theplane.

“My crew is involved with loadingthe cargo. We’re going to load it andmake sure there are no deficiencieswhen we drop it off. One reason we’redoing air load operations is in theevent that there is a natural disaster,”said Pfc. Kathleen Root, A Company,168th BSB.“I’m an ammunition supplyspecialist, and this is cross-training forme and my crew.The Army wants us tobe well-rounded so this is a goodopportunity for us to be trained in dif-ferent areas, because you never knowwhat might come up and you have tobe able to handle it.”

That cross training helps theSoldiers of the 168th be ready for any-thing that may come their way. To testtheir abilities in that area they trainedwith the Oklahoma Air National Guardlast November in an exercise known as“Operation Sooner Response.”The sce-nario was a catastrophic disaster, leav-ing people without essential supplies.

“If there was an earthquake in east-ern Oklahoma and all of the bridgeswere knocked out and the only way inwas by airplane, we could easily throwboxes of food and water out of an air-craft to the civilians on the ground tohelp them,”stated Waddell.

Those boxes of food and water needto be something that can be carriedaway from the drop zone, either in adisaster area, or especially in remoteparts of Afghanistan.

“We unitize the cargo on these pal-lets because the guys on the receivingend might not have the means to dis-tribute bulk cargo. So we always doindividual packaging, like MREs orbottled water or ammo that is individu-ally packaged, depending on whatweapons are being used. It is all easy,”said Miller.“It’s man-portable.They canbreak it apart and carry it, and don’thave to have a vehicle come get it. Sothat’s why we always drop individual-ized packets.”

Miller knows how important thereceiving end of a drop is. He is one of

three trained pathfinders with the168th BSB. Pathfinders go in ahead tosurvey the drop zone and mark it forthe airdrop. When the plane arrivesover the zone, the pathfinders functionas air traffic controllers, giving thepilot precise information to aid in thedrop. The drop zones for the Sherpaonly need to be 25 meters in diameterversus the several hundred meters thata C-17 Globemaster III would need. Atiny “X” marks the center of the dropzone.

“The key to operations here is to givetraining on what we call ‘missionessential tasks’ for a brigade supportbattalion to deliver supplies throughair delivery methods, which can meanslingload under a helicopter, or by air-craft like we are doing today,” saidMiller.

“The jumpmaster on the plane push-es that bundle out the back of the planeso there is some ‘art’ to getting it to hita 25-meter circle on the ground.That’swhy we train with them, and they trainwith us. Because as important as it isfor us to mark the drop zone, the realtraining is on the Air Force jumpmas-ters and riggers, the guys who aregoing to push it out of back of the air-plane at 200 feet, with the pilot holdingthe steady course. It’s a very good jointtraining opportunity that we have,”emphasized Waddell.

Waddell knows that training is notalways fun in the Army, but he believesthat these airdrop exercises mean a lotto his Soldiers.

“In a BSB we’re the guys that run thewarehouses, we’re the guys that deliv-er supplies and fuel. So when we cancome out here and train on a real air-craft and do ‘go-to-war’ type tasks, thisis good stuff, and the Soldiers love it. Alot of guys will leave my battalion andgo to other units, and they’ll tell thoseguys,‘We did this or that with such andsuch aircraft.’ And, the other guys willsay ‘What do you mean? All we did waspick up trash and cut grass!’ So mySoldiers love being out here doing thistraining,”said Waddell.

168th BSB hits the mark

A 26-foot cargo chute begins to deploy from an airdrop pallet as it sails out the back of a C-23B+ Sherpa cargo plane 200feet over Fort Sill’s southeast drop zone. The exercise simulated airdrops that the 168th BSB performs when droppingammunition, MREs, water and equipment to Soldiers in remote locations of Afghanistan, or emergency food and waterpackets to civilians in areas devastated by natural disasters.

A cargo chute floats a Container Delivery System bundle to FortSill’s Southeast drop zone seconds after being dropped from acargo plane.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Jason Mavrogeorge checks the cargochute on a pallet as Airmen 1st Class Brian Carr andRangelin Kermendy watch. All three airmen are cargo riggersfrom the 97th Air Mobility Wing from Altus Air Force Base.