Photo By Sgt. Scott Wolfe | Spc. Kip Bonds and Spc. Ryan Spengler work together to refill the hubs of a Humvee,...... read more read more
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By Staff Sgt Scott Wolfe
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division
BAGHDAD – Company B, 47th Forward Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad will be honored at the U. S. Army Europe Combined Logistics Excellence Award ceremony the first week of April 2009.
The unit based out of Smith Barracks in Baumholder, Germany, will receive the gold medal award as the winners of the USAREUR Award for Maintenance Excellence.
At the ceremony awards will be given for maintenance, supply and deployment excellence, with the winners receiving golden trophies and the runner-up silver.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Dorian Bozza, from Queens, N.Y., was the battalion maintenance officer for the 47th "Modern Pioneers." He entered the unit for the award to recognize the battalion's maintenance accomplishments during their current deployment to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
"I put them in for the award to show 'Big Army' how the [47th] FSB is the lifeblood of the [2nd] Brigade," said Bozza who is now the battalion maintenance officer for Task Force 1-35 Armor, 2nd BCT, 1st Armd. Div., MND-B. "You can't run without maintenance, and they don't get the credit they deserve. The award is very time consuming, but also very rewarding to win."
Bozza spent a lot of time putting the packet together. It has 25 pages of supporting documents: from pictures to missions and descriptions of the extenuating circumstances surrounding them.
"After I put it all together, at first I could not believe what we had done. We did the maintenance for two battalions with one company for a while," said Bozza. "We took care of the maintenance for the Georgian contingent that was with us," referring to the coalition partner that had teamed up with the 2nd BCT until their redeployment to Georgia in August.
He laughed and said, "We had to translate the 5988E and Technical Manual into Georgian."
The 47th FSB is a legacy brigade and had to restructure its maintenance program before their deployment in April, 2008. Now, instead of each company having specialized personnel and taking care of their own vehicles in the battalion, one company does everything with access to all the specialized equipment needed for different repairs.
"That changed everything. We went from taking care of 178 vehicles to over 800. Add in the Georgians and that is another 68 vehicles," said Staff Sgt. Matthew Crane, from Wolcott, N.Y., who is the Company B motor sergeant and also the unscheduled maintenance NCOIC. Any maintenance issues that are noted when an operator conducts preventive maintenance checks and services goes through him.
Bozza added that the Pioneers are much smaller that the 203rd Brigade Support Battalion that they replaced. The mission parameters and their responsibilities have not changed though.
"Our job is to put vehicles on the road so they can do missions," said Sgt. 1st Class Ignacio Ortega, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico. He is the battalion motor sergeant and next month will have been in the Army for 17 years.
He says he has never been with a unit to receive an award this prestigious.
"I don't know how we keep up with everything with all the stuff we inherited," added Ortega.
Bozza said that the non-mission capable equipment went from two to 57 after the 47th performed its first maintenance inspections on the signed-for vehicles.
"That was pretty bad," he said.
But the BMO thinks that Company B can take whatever is thrown at it and winning the AAME would seem to prove him right.
"I think the 47th does the best maintenance in the brigade," he said. "With all of the challenges and taskings, we do an excellent job."
To Ortega, winning the award means, "All we went though, all the teamwork, all came to something good."
| Date Taken: | 12.18.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 12.18.2008 07:21 |
| Story ID: | 27837 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 459 |
| Downloads: | 336 |
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