Blount Island trains advisory team leaders to equip deploying forces

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.— Blount Island Command trained officers Oct. 7 at Marine Corps Support Facility Blount Island, Florida, to lead technical assistance and advisory teams issuing forward-positioned equipment and supplies during next year’s exercises.

The teams connect deploying forces with service-managed, ready-for-issue equipment and supplies. Integrating afloat and ashore stocks gives commanders more options to equip and sustain their forces. Planning is underway for exercises in the Indo-Pacific and Middle East, as well as at Blount Island.

Staff noncommissioned officers joined the classroom session, where Richard Buhr, deputy director of Blount Island Command’s operations department, explained equipment movements, accompanying supplies and afloat and ashore integration for exercise planning.

That preparation builds on a year of operational support across multiple theaters. The command issued more than 14,000 items for Cold Response 26 in Norway, supported the first maritime prepositioning force offload in Mindanao for Balikatan 26 and helped move nearly 300 vehicles ashore during Combined Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore 26 in South Korea.

The training culminated in a Marine Corps Platform Integration Center walkthrough and demonstration focused on digital asset tracking. Network administration and port operations Marines, including several new to the command, joined the session.

Paul Mattingly, a senior consultant with CGI Federal, said MCPIC modernization is improving data handling, reporting and analysis to strengthen inventory and tracking. During this year’s exercises, its passive radio frequency identification system inventoried and tracked equipment in Mindanao and supported ship-to-shore movements in South Korea.

MCPIC use is expanding in Norway, where cave stocks range from ready-to-eat meals and cold-weather gear to tactical vehicles and heavy trucks. The command is expanding secure network access, and a June site survey informed plans for additional antennas. Units can request expeditionary MCPIC sets to maintain real-time equipment accountability while training alongside NATO allies in the High North.

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