Fixing Anytime, All the Time

Fixing Anytime, All the Time
2BT Newsletter: Daggers Edge V1, Iss16
SGT 1Class Gary Sarapa
June 27, 2007

The motto of the Maintenance Platoon of Golf Company, 610th BSB, which supports 2-32 Field Artillery is, “We fix anytime, all the time.” It is a motto by which every Soldier in the platoon lives. They know that their way of supporting the war is ensuring that all of the equipment used by the “Proud Americans” is not only fully mission capable, but to high operational standards as well. The platoon itself is a miniature maintenance company, capable of performing field level maintenance on every piece of equipment owned by 2-32 FA. It is comprised of an automotive section, ground support equipment (GSE) section, service and recovery (S&R) section, communications and electronics section, armament section, and a maintenance control section.

During the past month alone, the automotive section has put in over 200 man-hours, bringing most deadlined vehicles back to FMC status the same day. They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When the call comes in that a broken vehicle is returning from a patrol, the parts, tools, and mechanics are all standing by, waiting for the vehicle, ready to pounce on it like a NASCAR pit crew. The section also provides a three-man team with a wrecker and contact truck each week at Joint Security Station Torch. The forward team repairs equipment utilizing minimum resources until it can be brought back to the Forward Operating Base. They also provide welding and lift support for JSS improvement, as well as maintenance and repair of the generators on site that provide the JSS with power.

With the hot temperatures of late, the GSE section has also stayed busy repairing and recharging 14 vehicle air conditioners, earning the GSE section sergeant the nickname “Mr. Freeze” from the Soldiers in the battalion. He is the only air conditioner mechanic by MOS in the platoon, but he has ensured all of his Soldiers are crosstrained to provide seamless support to the Proud Americans and keep them cool. They have recently started replacing all of the front and rear evaporators in our battlehardened M1114 fleet, making a significant improvement in their cooling efficiency.

The S&R section, besides providing the recovery and lift capabilities for the battalion, has made its biggest impact on the battalion performing annual services on the battalion’s vehicles. Over the past month, they have completed services for ten vehicles, with an average turn-around time of only 24 hours each. This performance is impressive because, according to the Maintenance Allocation Chart, it should take them close to 37 hours each. This quick turn-around allows a vehicle to get back in the fight with the assurance that it is in the same shape as when it rolled off the showroom floor. A key part of the S&R section are the welders who have fabricated anything the battalion has asked for from warning light and pope glass brackets to crew-served weapons stands at the JSS.

Besides the vehicle services, there is also the requirement to maintain night vision devices, weapons, and communications equipment and this is where the C&E and Armament shops jump in to do their part. The C&E section inspected, purged, and repaired over 40 NVG during platoon services and the armament shop inspected, gauged and repaired over 60 individual and crew-served weapons. In their “spare time,” the C&E shop installed MP3 players into our vehicles’ public address systems so the platoons can transmit messages during their patrols.

The speedy repairs accomplished by all of the sections in the Maintenance Platoon could not be accomplished without the parts provided by the Maintenance Control Section. The parts specialists are constantly on the road, requesting and picking up parts from every warehouse on every FOB on the entire Victory Base Complex. They have already logged hundreds of miles without even leaving the wire.