Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

detachments developed standard operating procedures
(SOPs) and checklists for each stage of the process. These
proved to be most beneficial, because it told each soldier
exactly what tasks had to be done and how to do them (the
standard), and what hours they could be accomplished in.
This was essential because supply rooms and arms rooms
could not be open all day long, and the leaders could not be
everywhere to answer questions.
In order to transition soldiers in and out of the unit, the
detachments had to run a supply room and an arms room.
To lessen the manpower requirements, remaining supplies
and weapons were consolidated into one detachment arms
room and supply room in the battalion. Properly operating
these was more challenging, since supply clerks and
armorers require skills and knowledge that signal soldiers
do not readily possess. There was no good solution for this
problem except for OJT. I had the S-2 from one of the other
battalions conduct security inspections and instruction in
maintaining the paperwork and control of the keys. If a
weapon needed maintenance, it was taken directly to the
Direct Support Maintenance facility. We were not capable of
performing organizational maintenance. On the supply
side, hand receipts were used to keep accountability, but,
with soldiers coming and going daily, it was a difficult task.
When supplies needed to be ordered, the detachments had
to go to my property book officer (PBO) for assistance, as the
rear detachments did not have a document register or
money of their own.
The one resource always in short supply, but always in
great demand, was transportation. Seven days a week the
rear detachment commanders had to haul soldiers to and
from training and airfields. The brigade had left a couple of
tactical vehicles behind, but almost all of those had shelters
mounted on them. The Transportation Motor Pool (TMP)
tried valiantly to meet all the requirements, but clearly had
not foreseen the increase in demand. To be truthful, no one
accurately predicted the rear detachments’ requirements
for support vehicles. Soldiers had to be taken to ranges and
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