Photo By Sgt. Thomas Day | BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN (October 4, 2006) --- An AVCRAD Soldierget his hands...... read more read more
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by Sgt. Thomas L. Day
Desert Voice Staff Writer
40th PAD
BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN ( October 4, 2006) ---- In November of 2005, Command Sgt. Maj. Dennis Taylor came to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, intending to use small teams of his helicopter maintenance task force as response forces, deployable when helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan needed urgent repair in order to return to battle. Two weeks later, those teams were off to Bagram Air Base outside of Kabul, with no arrangements to come back to Kuwait any time soon.
The original plan – to deploy teams to Afghanistan from Kuwait as needed – was quickly scrapped. Taylor's Task Force AVCRAD (for Aviation Classification Repair Activity Depot) had to permanently embed teams alongside the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) to keep their helicopters able to negotiate the Hindu Kush mountain range that surrounds the Bagram Air Base.
The 10th Mountain and their aviation support assets have needed their help.
"We're doing things by the seat of our pants because we need to be doing them," Taylor said. "We're rewriting doctrine here."
The obstacles that Taylor and the 10th Mountain crews have had to climb have been taller than anticipated – both literally and figuratively speaking.
"It's a totally different environment here than Iraq," said Capt. Michael Dunaway, a company commander with the 277th Aviation Support Battalion, who was with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Tall Afar in 2003 and early 2004. "We're flying at a lot higher altitudes with these helicopters.
"Without (TF AVCRAD), it would have been a much more difficult road to have these aircrafts flying the missions they're doing," Dunaway said.
The 10th Mountain Division flies CH-47 Chinook, AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters – and they can take the brunt of the Afghanistan dust "even just sitting on the flight line," Dunaway noted.
What the 10th Mountain crews cannot fix – the high-level technical breakdowns that the Army calls depot level repairs – the AVCRAD can and must if the helicopters are to return to the skies. "If its depot level repair, it will be 'deadlined' until we can get it fixed," said Taylor.
While the AVCRAD has covered the depot level maintenance, it has also assisted lower-level repairs that would primarily be handled by the units. With necessary maintenance checks – required every 50, 100, 150, 250 and 400 flight hours – coming so frequently, the AVCRAD has helped wherever they can offer a hand.
"Every time (the helicopters) come back from missions, we have to do some kind of maintenance on them to get them ready for the next day," said Dunaway.
The AVCRAD task force is a combination of two AVCRAD teams; one from Mississippi and another from the Missouri National Guard.
Original deployment plans to Kuwait only included the Mississippi team. However, that changed when Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In the aftermath of Katrina, every Soldier in the Mississippi Guard team was given the option of staying home or going to Kuwait; about half of the unit took the Army up on offer to help out at home. In their place came more than 100 Soldiers from the Missouri Guard, who were given just two months to prepare to deploy.
"Every one else here from Mississippi is a volunteer," said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Blair Albrecht.
In early November, both the Missouri and Mississippi teams are scheduled to redeploy and return to their civilian jobs. Taylor, a 36-year veteran and former sergeant major for the entire Missouri National Guard, continues to rally his Soldiers as they enter their final month of a year-long deployment.
"Every aircraft we put in the air, we're keeping a Soldier off the road," Taylor told his Soldiers during a September 15 dinner with the entire Afghanistan AVCRAD team. "I'm proud of you."
| Date Taken: | 10.04.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 10.06.2006 09:46 |
| Story ID: | 7939 |
| Location: | BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AF |
| Web Views: | 226 |
| Downloads: | 88 |
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