GoArmy.com > Army Reserve > Deployment: One Unit's Story

When our country needed them, the Army Reserve Soldiers of the 143rd Transportation Command were activated, mobilized and then deployed.

Activation is the term used when the Army calls Reserve Soldiers to serve on Active Duty.
When mobilized, Army Reserve Soldiers typically gather and train at their local Army Reserve Center, continue training at an Army Reserve installation (known as a "mobilization station") and prepare with their unit for deployment.
During deployment, Army Reserve Soldiers are sent to a specific area of operations.

The Soldiers of the 143rd were deployed to Kuwait to create and maintain an enormous transportation system at the Port of Shuaibah.

While deployed at the Port of Shuaibah, Soldiers of the 143rd helped unload hundreds of vessels containing everything from food to Stryker vehicles to tanks. Shuaibah remains the primary port for the continuing rotation of troops and equipment.

The 143rd coordinated the offloading and delivery of supplies that arrive at the Port of Shuaibah. The equipment they used includes harbor cranes, palletized loading systems, tug boats, Humvees and haulers like the Heavy Equipment Transporter System (HETS).

This unit was tasked with establishing and maintaining a delivery system that supplied Soldiers with everything from military equipment to mail from home. Their supply lines stretched over an area the size of California and were the longest since WWII—some say the longest ever.

	The 143rd went over to Kuwait as part of the larger mission. Our part was to get the equipment in and running the Port of Shuaibah was where we did that operation. This port is the main deep water port for Kuwait.
	We didn't shut down that port and take it over for U.S. Army action. We had to co-exist with the Kuwaitis. That was negotiating with the Kuwaiti officials, building a rapport with them, not only get what your idea was across but also find out what their needs were so we could really make a good working relationship.
	So we had 17,000 transporters—this unit doesn't have near that many people in it—250, but we set up a city for 3,000 soldiers.
	We designed the mechanisms that allowed them to operate and they can develop the road maps and make sure that the movements happen on time. They're recorded and it's coordinated with authorities so that we don't have friction with any entities unnecessarily.
	We knew what had been moved in Desert Storm, which was an overwhelming success and we use that kind of as a bar about how far we should move and what we should be moving per day. We were constrained more but in the end we moved more equipment faster than any of our expectations with more efficiency than had ever been moved before.
	The scope of the movement was on par with World War II as far as moving things through France to the fight for Germany. And that's the only other bar that we could move against because we'd exceeded everything else.