Airman leads team in managing enemy's weapons cache
by Senior Master Sgt. Trish Freeland
Air Forces Central Baghdad media outreach team
1/8/2009 - TAJI, Iraq (AFNS) -- An Airman with the Taji National Depot sees the war on terrorism succeeding every day as coalition forces collect and destroy enemy weapons here.
Capt. Ted Yang is the liaison officer for Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq's J4 collective weapons section, and his joint team of Airmen, Soldiers and civilians are responsible for collecting weapons captured from insurgents so they can't be used against Iraqi and coalition forces.
"We collect anywhere from 100 to 1,000 weapons a week," Captain Yang said. "I saw almost 3,000 weapons come through in just my first week on the job."
"If it looks like a weapon or anything that could do harm, it gets collected during raids," said Army Sgt.1st Class Alejandro Jimenez, the collective weapons point NCO in charge. The Patchogue, N.Y., native has seen some strange items arrive at the warehouse.
"Kitchenware, motorcycles, helicopters, a World War II-era BMW motorcycle with side car -- anything that is captured," he said.
The weapons are inventoried and logged by serial number and weapon type. Most are
destroyed, while the more unique items are often sent to museums. Depending on the condition, some are refurbished and given to the Iraqi military.
"About 1,500 AK-47s were given to the Iraqi army from the captured caches so they could train and learn how to fix and maintain them," Sergeant Jimenez said.
While most deployed jobs in a joint environment come with challenges, the biggest one for this team thus far has been the limited amount of daylight hours.
"When units show up unannounced with large numbers of weapons, they can be processed if it's still morning," said Captain Yang, a Yang, a native of Fresno, Calif. "The warehouse closes at 5 p.m. because of lighting conditions, so if it's late the units have to take the weapons back and return the next morning to turn them in.
"We do something here that yields direct results and affects the safety and well-being of Iraqi and coalition forces," said the captain deployed from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.
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