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  • Published
  • By TSgt. George Cloutier
  • 439th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
WESTOVER AIR RESERVE BASE, Mass. --  Westover is home to more than Airmen. Soldiers, Sailors and Marines have taken up an increased presence on base. One of the Westover family's new joint units is the Army 655th Reserve Support Group, located in the new Armed Forces Reserve Center.

The 655th came to Westover in 2010 when their old home at Fort Devens closed as part of Base Realignment and Closure actions.

In their stateside mission, the group provides administrative support to Soldiers under their parent unit, the 316th Expeditionary Support Command Division, including command and control for training, readiness and mobilization.

In February 2012, shortly after arriving at their new home at Westover, the unit deployed on a nine-month tour to Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan. While deployed, the unit's mission shifted to providing a wide range of services including contractor operations, feeding programs, troop logistics, immigration assistance, claims operations and housing.

Col. Ernest Erlandson, outgoing commander for the 655th, led the unit during their deployment to Kandahar. He said that during their time in Afghanistan the unit struggled with and overcame a variety of challenges, starting with taking on a much larger mission than they originally planned for and ranging from dealing with a squatter problem on base, resolving meal card issues, working with local contractors, and to top it all off, having their new restaurant destroyed by a mortar attack only four days after it was built. Being short-staffed and undermanned, the unit leaned on the skills their reservists brought from their civilian jobs to solve these problems and more and get the mission done.

"I can't stress enough that we did a lot of talent management," Col. Erlandson said. "We did not have a city master planner. But I had a guy who in his civilian job had been an OSHA inspector and a guy who ran a construction company. So when we got these large million dollar military construction projects, they knew how to inspect the buildings and determine if we were getting our money's worth."

Now that the 655th is back, members are settling in and getting back into the swing of garrison life. Sgt. Cathy Tate, RSG Department of Human Resources is one of the 50 unit members who recently returned from deployment.

"There's definitely been an adjustment," she said. "I still look for my weapon, but it's nice to be back. I loved what I was doing and working with the other nations. Meeting the other military from all over the world was the best part."

The 655th RSG's new commander is Col. Deborah Kotulich, who assumed command May 5 on the base ellipse.