Photo By Sgt. Melissa Lessard | Soldiers with 163rd Military Intelligence Brigade prepare the wrecker to be hooked up...... read more read more
During the morning hours of March 24, maintenance support Soldiers with the 504th Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade received a training mission to recover vehicles.
This mission would take them in to the early morning hours of March 25.
The mission was very complex and included setting up a mock maintenance support area away from the motor pool. This included setting up the Combat Service Support Very Small Aperture Terminal, medical station, turn in, quality control and an assessment area.
“It’s training them for combat, to be able to go to a hostile environment and protect themselves while properly recovering a vehicle,” 1st Lt. Tyesha Battle, Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 303rd MI Battalion, said. “This tested them to go through the steps.”
The Soldiers were inspected on every movement and communication they made, including their mission brief, pre-combat checks and inspections, radio checks and much more. After the initial mission brief and checks were completed, Soldiers moved to the West Fort Hood wash rack.
“They got here and set up day to day operations,” Battle said.
After they set up their temporary mission headquarters, both battalions left to the training site.
“Once they got to the site, they discovered they had to call a 9-line medevac, salute reports and a UXO report for possible IED’s,” Battle said.
A UXO report lets higher authority know that Soldiers out in the field have encountered unexploded ordnance.
The vehicles rolled in and backed up to their flipped vehicles. While working to recover the vehicle, Soldiers took on fire and lost team members. The Soldiers adapted to the change and assigned team members to take on new roles during the mission.
During the exercise, the maintenance teams also encountered low lighting and adverse weather conditions.
“Visibility will affect a lot of factors,” Sgt. Christopher Smith, Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 163rd MI Bn., said.
He said that hooking up a vehicle that has been tilted or flipped can become difficult at night as visibility of the area is a key factor.
Battle said the most important factor to show Soldiers is that the environment will not always provide good conditions for their missions. It is ideal to give them a variety of circumstances such as day, night, hostile scenarios and bad weather conditions.
Once the teams recovered their downed vehicles, they towed them back to the wash rack to conduct a battle damage assessment.
Battle said the Soldiers will find out the cost of damage and send the information to the clerks to put the parts on order.
Overall, Smith said his team did well and there is always room for improvement.
| Date Taken: | 04.01.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 04.06.2021 10:54 |
| Story ID: | 393155 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 19 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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