Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Tony Spain | Petty Officers 1st Class Jimmy Seales, (left) and James Bassitt, Amphibious...... read more read more
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By Sgt. Tony J. Spain
22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
FARAH PROVINCE, Afghanistan — The sound of air-powered tools, wrenches clanging and engines turning can be heard throughout the makeshift motor pool at Farah Provincial Reconstruction Team.
Mechanics work to keep the provincial reconstruction team rolling along to accomplish the mission of providing security, bringing reconstruction and humanitarian aid in this western province of Afghanistan.
In a motor pool lacking real bays and adequate shade for relief from the summer sun, Navy Petty Officers 1st Class James Bassitt and Jimmy Seales, of Amphibious Construction Battalion, Detachment 106, said they are working with and making the best of what they have available to them.
"They are currently building us a new motor pool that will give us two bays and a lot more area to work with; it looks like it is going to be real nice," said Bassit. "We are lacking in a lot of areas here, but we're still getting the job done."
The two Navy mechanics currently work with two Afghans who were hired by the Farah PRT to help out with the strenuous workload of keeping the vehicles running, the air conditioning cool and suspensions up.
Both Seales and Bassitt agree the civilian mechanics are a big help and they couldn't have made the progress they have without them. They said the two have truly become part of the team.
"This team currently has 95 percent of all the vehicles running, which is a lot better than all the other PRTs in Afghanistan," Bassitt said, who is a resident of San Antonio, Texas.
It has taken a lot of effort for these mechanics to get to that high level of maintenance. When they arrived here in April, more than 50 percent of the trucks were down with air conditioner problems.
"We have done a lot of work in a couple of months," said Seales. "We now have them all up except for one and that is because we don't have the parts," said the native of San Antonio, Texas.
Trying to get parts to the Farah PRT can be a challenge since it's located in one of the most remote and isolated areas of Afghanistan.
"We are limited on our parts and we are kind of at the end of the chain so it is hard to get parts," Bassitt said. "We make use of everything we have."
Another major challenge for the mechanics here is the rough terrain and climate, which ranges from rugged mountains to sweltering desert valleys with extreme summertime heat and sandstorms. Conducting operations in this kind of harsh environment can create havoc on military vehicles. The road system is primitive at best with only one paved road in the province, requiring military vehicles to often travel off road.
"The rough terrain keeps us busy, we are always working on the ball joints and stuff, and there is a lot of work going on here," Bassitt said.
Seales agreed and said the rough terrain along with the extra weight from the up-armor upgrades puts a lot of stress on the Humvees.
"We work on approximately 15 to 18 trucks a week, almost all of them with some kind of suspension problem," he said.
According to Soldiers going out on missions from the Farah PRT, they are grateful for the jobs the mechanics are doing and realize how essential the mechanics can be to the mission.
"The terrain here is very unforgiving, when you go out there it is not a paved road like back home in the states and you are looking at terrain that is rougher than any off-road places you would ever have in the United States," said Army Staff Sgt. Dale A. Schwenn, a mortar man from Arizona. "So we rely on our mechanics a lot to keep us rolling so we can accomplish our mission."
Schwenn added that if it had not been for Seales, they would have been stranded on a mission in the middle of nowhere in the Anar Darreh District after one of the ball joints went out on a truck.
"We all pulled security and he replaced the ball joint," he recalled. "The truck was up and running in 45 minutes and we were able to complete the mission. It was quite a task considering the conditions, the jack was in the sand and we weren't even sure if it was going to lift the truck up."
"That is what we are here for; we have to do our part to keep the mission going," Seales replied.
| Date Taken: | 06.28.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 06.29.2007 07:46 |
| Story ID: | 11025 |
| Location: | AF |
| Web Views: | 409 |
| Downloads: | 374 |
This work, Navy mechanics keep missions rolling at PRT Farah, by SFC Tony Spain, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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