TAEGU, South Korea — A Marine platoon leader huddled in a woodline with his squad leaders and pored over a map.
Pointing with his pen, the lieutenant showed where in the rugged hills the “enemy” was positioned and the route the Marines would take to attack.
For U.S. troops in South Korea, some 9 million maps of the peninsula are stored at the Pusan Storage Facility, a U.S. Army installation run by the Army’s Materiel Support Center-Korea.
And, to streamline operations, PSF’s Map Support Office-Korea is changing hands.
Beginning Oct. 1, the Defense Logistics Agency office in Hawaii will take charge of daily operations. The DLA already controls U.S. and European map supply operations.
“It will align the mission in DLA, give it some consistency throughout the Army,” said Mike Burch, PSF’s deputy commander.
“The main reason,” said Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, 8th Army spokesman, “is to gain efficiencies.”
“You cut out redundancies and you have one office that can cross-level, conduct the ordering as necessary, and we have one point of contact.”
The MSO-K operates out of two warehouses on the PSF compound. In one is the “operational” supply — 3 million map sheets and some digitized maps on compact disc, issued as needed to U.S. military units around South Korea.
In the other warehouse are 6 million map sheets in case of war. U.S. units flowing into South Korea in wartime would be issued the maps. “They’re stocked, maintained and updated with revisions, and of course in a contingency they would issue those,” Burch said.
“Units will continue to order maps through their normal channel that they have been, and they should not see any change,” Boylan said.
“You might see it more in the ‘big picture,’ whether it’s efficiencies in dollars, efficiencies in customer support time, better visibility in supplies across the Pacific,” said Boylan. “It goes back to streamlining and efficiency. Anything we do to enhance support to the war fighter, support to the customer, is better for the military.”
