BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
Ever buy a new piece of furniture or appliance and come to find out it won’t fit through the doorway it needs to get through?
The unrefined may respond with choice words. The unhinged may respond with their chainsaw. But the undefeated call their closest Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services site for help in salvaging a potentially sorry situation.
Imagine purchasing 755 new 220-volt U.S.-style refrigerators for American troops in Germany … and then realizing they are too large to fit through most German doorways. This is the head-scratcher the U.S. Army Installation Command faced in Sembach Kaserne in July when, instead of turning to chainsaws, it opted to turn over the entire lot to the DLA Disposition Services office in Kaiserslautern.
Barely a month later, DLA’s Transfer, Reutilization and Donation professionals had found new homes for every single unit at sites in Italy, Luxembourg and Germany, according to Disposal Services Representative Neil McCormack.
“All 755 refrigerators that were received in place have requisitions pending,” McCormack said. “The reutilization effort was spearheaded by Kaiserslautern RTD Specialist Linda Wagner and Grafenwoehr Area Manager Frank Cole, who together found customers for 694 units.”
McCormack said major receiving units were based at Naval Air Station Sigonella, in Italy, and with Army recipients in Grafenwoehr, Vilseck and Hohenfels, Germany. Other destinations included customers at Ramstein Air Force Base, in Ansbach, and with Task Force Willkommen at Rhine Ordnance Barracks, which is a “newly developed quarantine facility for inbound troops.”
Refrigerator shipments from the Army’s Sembach warehouse to their new destinations began August 19 and will continue into September.