Defense Logistics Agency personnel from around the country and globe converged on Battle Creek , Michigan, this week to kick off the 2016 edition of Overseas Contingency Operations Readiness Training, or "OCORT."
The training brings together 12-person teams comprised of equal numbers of military reserve personnel and Civilian Expeditionary Workforce members for the chance to practice their collective site building and problem solving skills in a deployment-like scenario.
The first 30 or so participants arrived July 10 and immediately began their Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration phase of a team deployment, basically conducting site reconnaissance and preparing their personnel and equipment for sustained disposal operations.
July 12 marks the beginning of their four-day “build” phase, where agency expeditionary doctrine says the teams have 96 hours to have their disposition sites constructed and fully operationally capable. Exercise planners, DLA Installation Support personnel, and nearby DLA Disposition Services headquarters staff will help provide various daily scenarios, or “injects,” for exercise participants to deal with to help them simulate real world developments and challenges as they build up their sites and get the property receipt process working.
“It’s the time and the place for mistakes to be made and for participants to learn as a team and as individuals,” said Logistics Management Specialist Tim Walters, the director of this year’s OCORT. Additionally, Walters said, actual DLA customers from the Army, Marines and Air Force will be turning in real property to exercise participants this year, bringing another level of realism to training.