Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. -- Station Ordnance at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, North Carolina, supports the installation and tenant commands with military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment.
“Here at station [ordnance], we distribute ordnance to other units when they need it, and store it when they don’t,” said U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Michael Casey, an aviation ordnance systems technician and ordnance maintenance chief.
Part of Casey’s responsibilities as ordnance maintenance chief include day-to-day maintenance around the work area, overseeing the trucks moving in and out of the storage area, overseeing all ordnance issues, and keeping log of all ordnance on hand.
“I do a little bit of everything,” said Casey. “Since we handle all ordnance, ammo, explosives, etcetera for the entire installation, it’s up to me to make sure the Marines get done what needs to get done.”
Station Ordnance has a big responsibility at MCAS Cherry Point. Station Ordnance supplies Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron-14 (MALS-14), MALS-14 provides aviation logistics support, guidance, and direction to different squadrons.
“We have the largest magazines on the air station so we supply MALS-14, who in turn supplies all the other squadrons here,” said Casey. “We also support the range and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) by prepping explosives and ammunition for them for whenever they need it or if they are getting low.”
Casey is also responsible for supervising operations in the ordnance assembly area, determining the serviceability of ammunition, inspecting the maintenance, storage and shipments of explosives, and keeping inventory of the stock of ammunition.
“We have a database that we use to order whatever we need,” said Casey. “We track all ordnance shipments for MCAS Cherry Point and we keep a very detailed record of what we have on hand, what we have issued out, and what we having coming in or going out. It’s imperative we know all this information, a lot of our assets are live explosives, ammunition, rockets, bombs, missile launchers, et cetera. We can’t just lose a multi-million dollar missile launcher, you know?”
Casey and the Marines of Station Ordnance are keep busy ensuring the array of units on the installation are mission ready at all times.
“We do a lot but it’s all subject to change daily,” said Casey. “If it’s a busy time of the year and we have lots of deploying squadrons or even just squadrons going out on training events, we will usually be a lot busier because we’ll have to prep everything to be issued, update our tracking systems, coordinate with whoever requires issue, then finally supply them with whatever they need. Other than that we’ll have to inspect our magazines, do inventory; just average things but with explosives.”
The importance of attention to detail and discipline is not lost on Casey, and he credits the hard work and dedication of the Marines under his charge for unit success.
“All I have to really do is make sure it gets done safely and quickly,” said Casey, “… these Marines know their stuff and always ensure the job gets done how it’s supposed to be done.”