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It’s the end of an era at the Privately Owned Vehicle inspection station and the Base Support Operations Main-tenance facility in Baum-holder as Thomas Moosmann steps down and retires with 44 years and 10 months of service as a German host nation employee with the U.S. Army.
“Today is very difficult,” said the BASOPS Maintenance Baumholder supervisor, 405th Army Field Support Brigade. “It’s been my whole life. I feel happy. I feel sad. I feel every emotion right now.”
Traveling to Baumholder from Grafenwoehr, to attend his farewell event was the director of BASOPS Maintenance, Stephanie Kramer, and Stefan Pfister, the BASOPS Main-tenance operations chief. Kramer presented Moosmann with multiple certificates of appreciation signed by the commander of the 405th AFSB, Col. Ernest Lane II, as well as a certificate of retirement and a U.S. Army Civilian Service Achievement Medal for his lifelong support to Soldiers and Army families.
“We are here to help the Soldiers, to give them support. That was my life. Maybe I am half American now. When I eat some spareribs or a couple of cheeseburgers, I really feel like one,” said the 64-year-old local national employee who started working for the Army in 1980 and participated in several Return of Forces to Germany exercises, or REFORGERs, up until the Cold War ended.
Moosmann has worked at the BASOPS Maintenance facility and POV inspection station at Smith Barracks in Baumholder since 1999. Before that, he worked at Rose Barracks in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, before it closed. He said it’s his team that he’ll miss the most when he retires. Not only are they his coworkers, he said, they are his neighbors and his friends.
“Baumholder is a small community. If you’ve been here before, you know this,” Moosmann said. “We all live here, in and around Baumholder, and we see each other every week — not only at work but in our private lives, as well. At my farewell party, this will not be the last time I see them.”
Moosmann said he wants nothing but the very best for his BASOPS Maintenance team and POV inspectors, as he departs. He said that it was a pleasure working with them all these years, and he knows in the future they will continue supporting the Baumholder community and the Soldiers and Army families there with the same level of support and attention they provided under his leadership.
“If you come here to Baum-holder to get your POV inspected, my team will welcome you and serve you to the very best of their ability,” he said. “The safety of our customers and the safety of everyone on the German roadways is always our number one priority.”
As a field operating directorate under the 405th AFSB, BASOPS Maintenance provides equipment maintenance support to multiple Army garrisons and Army communities across Germany. BASOPS Maintenance provides consolidated material maintenance support for equipment and performs automotive maintenance on a fleet of garrison support vehicles.
This support includes maintenance on garrison and installation special purpose and armored vehicles, fire and rescue, snow and ice removal, and construction equipment such as scoop loaders, excavators, scrapers, road graders, tractors, rollers and more. BASOPS Maintenance is also responsible for conducting mechanical safety inspections on POVs.
The 405th AFSB is the premier logistics integrator and synchronizer for U.S. European Command, enabling readiness solutions to ‘Support the Warrior’ by operationalizing U.S. Army Materiel Command capabilities and delivering readiness within the U.S. Army Europe and Africa areas of responsibility at the points of need.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging AMC’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces.
For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.
For more information on BASOPS Maintenance, go to www.afsbeurope.army.mil/BASOPS/BASOPS-Maintenance.
For more information on the BASOPS Maintenance POV inspection program, go to www.afsbeurope.army.mil/BASOPS/BASOPS-Maintenance/Vehicle-Inspection-Copy.
