YORKTOWN, Va. — Some unsung Navy heroes are honing their skills, getting ready for potential deployments to come.
It is not necessarily the kind of thing that Hollywood makes blockbuster movies about, but logistics and cargo handling are what make the Navy go.
And, for 22 recently mobilized reservist members of Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 10 — members of Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group at Yorktown Naval Weapons Station Chetham Annex — practice makes perfect.
"Navy cargo handling battalions, they are the brightest, the best, they're dedicated. There is no one like a reservist. When they get a mission, they're unrelenting," said Lieutenant Mary "Gunner" Strade, NAVELSG Lead Instructor.
They're getting certified on the loading of Vertical Launch Systems munitions — how to do the very precise loading of Tomahawk cruise Missiles onto surface combatant warships. In this case, it's the mock "USS Landship."
The instructors like what they see.
"Well, logistics wins wars. And sometimes, it's just picking stuff up and moving it efficiently that will be the difference in a high-end conflict," said CMDCM Chad Elliott, NAVELSG Command Master Chief.
The idea is to take this group of citizen-sailors and mold them into an efficient team, to have them prepared for any future taskings around the world that they may receive.
"They've been very good. They've been following the procedures, step by step. so that's the biggest thing. And they're going to rock and roll," said Logistics Specialist First Class Daisy Romero, NAVELSGF Instructor.
This team falls under the larger umbrella of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, headquartered at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story.