Email   Print   Share By Capt. Monika Comeaux, 13th ESC Public Affairs

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U.S Army Staff Sgt. Sabrina Barragan, an ammunition specialist and mentor for RSC-W’s Logistics Training and Advisory Team, checks on the progress of the assortment and storage of a new ammunition shipment at the Camp Zafar Afghan National Army ammunition supply point July 11. Barragan has recently been tasked to provide oversight and mentorship for the Afghan National Army ammunition sites in RSC-W. Capt. Monika Comeaux, 13th ESC Public Affairs

CAMP STONE, Afghanistan - It is not easy for U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Sabrina Barragan to be away from her two young children for the fourth time during her military career. It is even more challenging to work as a trainer and adviser for all matters concerning ammunition storage, issue and handling, for the Afghan National Security Forces in approximately one-fifth of Afghanistan in Regional Support Command-West.

However, according to multiple accounts from her supervisor and Afghan National Army partners she works with on a daily basis, she is cut out for this task.

Barragan deployed on individual orders from Fort Hood’s 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) in December 2011. She advises personnel at the ANA ammunition supply point at Camp Zafar, as well as travels to remote locations to make sure that the ammunition issued from Zafar is received, stored and issued out properly, she said. Recently, she was asked to provide the same oversight for the Afghan National Police, at nearby locations.

At the Zafar ASP, she does spot checks and inspections often.

“On a day-to-day basis, we make sure that the inventory is right,” Barragan said.

When ANA personnel receive an MOD 14 (request paperwork) or a MOD 9 (issue paperwork), she makes sure they are properly processed. She makes the ANA do inventory first, then she double-checks their numbers.

Although she did not exactly know what to expect with this job, she was impressed with what she saw when she got on the ground.

The ANA have been doing ammunition for years.

“When I got here, I was thinking, ‘They are pretty good,’” she said, adding that she was impressed by the layout and design of the ASP, which was put in place by her predecessor who was an Army major.

For some, it may not seem practical to have a female adviser on an all-male base, but for ammunitions experts in the region, Barragan is it. Her supervisor, Maj. Edwin

Marcelino, the chief of the Logistics Training Advisory Team for RSC-W, thinks that being a female adviser gives her an edge. Marcelino also deployed from the 13th ESC and has had Barragan on his LTAT Team since the team was formed during their train-up leading up to the deployment in late fall of 2011.

“She is a great noncommissioned officer, a real go getter … in terms of her job competence in her occupational specialty, she knows that inside and out,” Marcelino said.

He also explained that previous mentors have done a lot to develop the ammunition handling capabilities of the ANA, but he can see a lot of improvement since they first hit the ground.

“There is a lot more organization now,” he said. Their customer support is much better.”

The friendly greetings and handshakes by the ANA soldiers and instant updates being provided to Barragan on the particular day of the interview, July 11, suggests that they get along well and have mutual respect for each other.

Barragan, being a good NCO, also tries to make sure that basic necessities, like having plenty of drinking water, are met. She arrives to almost every visit with cases of bottled water, she said.

The summer heat at Camp Zafar competes with the summer heat of Texas. Since she is a mother of two, she has a soft spot in her heart for children. She often sends candy home with the ANA soldiers to their children.

“She is a very proficient mentor, she is very professional, and taught us a lot of new things,” Afghan National Army Spc. Tajuddin Badroz said through an interpreter. He has worked at Zafar since 1385 on the Solar Hejri calendar, 2006 on the Gregorian calendar.

“We learned a lot from the previous mentors – each one of them has done their part,” he said. “She taught us how to be professional when the units come here getting ammo.

“She was always here helping us, and we learned how to stack properly and how to be more accountable in issuing and receiving the shipments,” Badroz said.

The noncommissioned officer-in-charge of the ASP, ANA Master Sgt. Enauatullah Gigarkhun, also spoke highly of Barragan.

“She knows the business, she knows the job very well and she helps us track the ammo, the books and stacking the boxes,” he said through a translator. Gigarkhun did not receive formal ammunition handling training – all he knows he learned from the Russian military and

lately from his coalition mentors, like her.

Barragan cares a lot about proper procedures and putting systems in place. She would like to expedite the workflow by sending some of the ASP personnel to computer literacy classes, she said.

But besides being kind and caring, she also knows where to draw the line and put her foot down and say “no.”

“At times, if there is a mentor here, they (ANA) expect the mentor to do everything,” she said. “I am the rough one on them … you guys are doing it, I am here making sure you are doing it right.

“If I was to leave now, I think they would be fine. They have it, they know what they are doing. They can do everything on their own,” Barragan said about the ANA ammunition operations.

She is grateful that she had this opportunity to work with ANA and coalition partners, but her work is not yet done. With approximately five months left in her deployment, before she returns to Fort Hood and is reunited with her children, she will now have to tackle the ANP side of the house.

“She’s got probably the most critical additional duty,” Marcelino said, adding that Barragan knows her job inside and out, and he sees a lot of potential in her. “Some Soldiers make great advisers, some don’t. She is more of the former; she makes a great adviser because of her personality.”

The ASP where Barragan advises the ASC in RSC-W is part of the ANA’s Forward Supply Depot under the Regional Logistics Support Command-West at Camp Zafar, currently scheduled to transition over to the ANA in the second part of 2014.