A Team Above All Others: Story 1
The mechanics of Alpha Company 54th Engineer Battalion, in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq in 2003, were some of the best Soldiers I served with. They were miracle workers. They went through an excruciating trial before the war even started. You see, I took over the motor pool the week before Thanksgiving, 2002. A mire three months before we would deploy to Kuwait. The motor pool was in shambles. Half of Alpha Company’s vehicles were broken, torn apart, or in some other form of disrepair. I was brought in to turn it around. With a new maintenance team, we got started only to be slowed down by the holidays and a new mission in January of 2003, as the pusher unit for the Deployment Processing Center at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany. We didn’t have time. We were called up in February, and with 5 days to load our vehicles on to trains, we drove what we could, and dragged much more, not knowing what was going to happen once we arrived in Kuwait.
The following is a story I wrote in 2003 for Alpha Company’s Itschner book which tells maintenance’s story.
A Team Above all Others Story Series
A series of stories that come from my time spent with Alpha Company, 54th Engineer Battalion in Iraq (OIF1 – 2003).
Most of my stories come from the journal I maintained from 25 Mar 2003 to 10 Dec 2003, the Company’s Itschner book, letters, and more.
The Story
No support, no supplies, a need to be ready for war, and a new maintenance team put together only weeks prior to deploying, is how Alpha Company 54th Engineer Battalion found itself in February of 2003. At Camp Virginia, Kuwait we did not know who was to be our direct support unit, or even where our Class 9 parts were going to come from. We were the soldiers in green, that no one wanted to help. For weeks, we made do with the fast dwindling repair parts we brought, and pleading other units for help. With vehicles broken before they shipped, we had to perform miracles. Maintenance, the miracle workers. Put to the test, and expected to maintain the momentum of the company’s combat maneuverability. And, my mechanics proved their abilities.
The cards were stacked against us, from the beginning. Three out of four Armored Vehicle Launch Bridges (AVLBs) were in bad shape, even before leaving Germany. Two are M48 chassis, which were built for the Korean War. The other two, are standard M60 chassis used in Vietnam. With well over 30 to 40 years of age, it has always been a challenge to keep these monsters of track vehicles rolling. Both M48 chassis were scheduled to be replaced with newer M60s, but that never happened, because of our deployment to South East Asia. Now, we are faced with these beasts, that we stopped maintaining, and have been salvaging repair parts to keep the other M60s, mission capable. Why not! when we’re getting replacements. We will overcome though – we are the miracle workers – if it breaks, we will fix it. In one week, three engines and one transmission were replaced, with no support from a direct support unit. The only company to have all four AVLBs ready for combat, we had overcome one obstacle only to find another.
With our Prescribed Load List (PLL) almost depleted, bench stock gone, and every part we packed, hid, or acquired installed, it looked like Alpha Company was not going to be ready to cross into Iraq. With makeshift repairs, ingenuity, and fast thinking we developed repairs by, “Thinking Out of the Box.” We worked in the harshest of conditions never to lose sight of the bigger picture. On the eve of crossing into Iraq and during a voracious, blinding sand storm, mechanics put back together Alpha-66, a M113 Personnel Carrier, that had its pack taken in Germany to push out another company. Committed to ensuring Alpha Company had its full combat power the mechanics remained dedicated during even the roughest work conditions. With no real time to verify any problems that may have occurred in the repairs to Alpha-66, it made its trip into Iraq with two mechanics, SPC Tieman, as its Tank Commander, and SPC Kubasak, the assistant operator.
Every wheeled and track vehicle crossed into Iraq, under its own power. A major win on the part of the mechanics. Two engineer vehicles limped across the border requiring repairs for which we had no parts, or just unable to make repairs to keep them going. We had already been asking a lot of this equipment and now we were pushing them nearly 500 kilometers through the Iraqi desert. One by one vehicles began to fall-out of the high-speed race to Baghdad. First an AVLB, then Alpha-66, with complications to the repairs made earlier. Two ACEs went down and were left on the side of the road, never to be the same again. The wheeled vehicles were rolling tough; repairs like MRE bags as CV boots kept them up. Fast repairs, were made at each objective. Brake chambers were repaired with inner tube repair kits, 550 cord replaced throttle linkages. “Out of the box” repairs at its finest.
The momentum of combat kept up its pace, and maintenance never once flinched when something new was thrown at them. They embraced their training and knowledge to come up with new and effective repairs.
Is Maintenance the heroes of the war? No, but they are the miracle workers that kept us moving despite the enemy they faced – no parts.
The Team
- SSG Jason Clemens (62B)
- SGT Michael Martinez (62B)
- SGT Liam Diezsi (62Y)
- SGT Ryan Emerick (62Y)
- SGT Thomas Carbaugh (62Y)
- SGT Tyler Treumann (62Y)
- SGT Ray Polk (missing from image) (91A)
- SPC Jared Apilado (62Y)
- SPC Brown (91A)
- SPC Gary Carlson (63B)
- SPC Mark Barron (63B)
- SPC Bryan Pszybranowski (63Y)
- SPC Jared Kubasak (63Y) (Fallen 2005 – OIF)
- SPC Richard Tieman (62B) (Fallen 2010 – OIF)
- PFC Lavar Jackson (62B)
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