If it's broken, they'll fix it
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
In Afghanistan, they're like the special operations of the maintenance world.
U.S. Army photo
They fly in two CH-47 Chinook helicopters to remote bases near the Pakistan border, fix things — anything — and fly out again, usually four days later.
Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division (Light), assigned to the Joint Logistics Command out of Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, prepare a vehicle to be sling-loaded by a Chinook helicopter.
The 11-member Mobile Maintenance Support Team from Schofield Barracks is a first for Afghanistan, and the soldiers in it have already seen nine U.S. bases, worked with Afghans, Marines and bearded, long-haired special operations troops in the mountains, and been rocketed or mortared at all but a couple of those bases.
Mostly, though, they've seen and fixed broken things: Humvees, trucks, radios — even Xboxes and stereos.
"We support everyone in Afghanistan. It's totally a different mission than I've ever done before," said Sgt. 1st Class Randolph Pennington, 29, by phone from Bagram Air Base.
There are usually a couple of maintenance soldiers at the network of austere forward operating bases Combined Joint Task Force 76 runs outside of Bagram Air Base and Kandahar, and a couple of repair specialists might be flown out, but nothing before has matched the capabilities of the maintenance support team.
First Lt. Christopher Hatch, 26, who's in charge of the unit, can bring a lot of expertise to bear.
"We have a guy who can fix any civilian vehicle, foreign or domestic," Hatch said. "We have a guy who can do any kind of electrical work, whether it's wiring buildings or fixing generators. We have a guy who can fix any type of weapons system you have."
Approximately 5,500 Schofield Barracks soldiers are in Afghan-
istan, primarily in the areas of Kabul and Kandahar and to the east along the Pakistan border where insurgency and infiltration by anti-coalition forces remain a problem.
About 80 percent of what the hand-picked team does is vehicle related. Outside major cities, paved roads are practically nonexistent, and soldiers drive on rocky trails and through dry streambeds called "wadis."
Pennington, who's from Coldwater, Mass., said vehicle problems have increased 300-fold over peacetime environments.
One team of six Humvees left Bagram Air Base for Orgun-E near the Pakistan border — less than 150 miles as the crow flies, much longer taking the circuitous ground route required.
"By the time they got to Orgun-E, every one of their vehicles needed to be repaired," Hatch said. "Everything from suspension to cross members on engines to brakes, electronics and radios — everything."
Some of the routes are "like going through the Grand Canyon" with sheer dropoffs on one side and mountain walls on the other.
"Some places you go, you'd probably prefer to cross by foot as opposed to in the vehicle," Hatch said.
Most of the maintenance team's traveling is by two Chinook helicopters with a repair truck and trailer sling-loaded below.
"For a maintenance team to sling-load everywhere we go, that's really a unique aspect," Pennington said.
They'll usually stay at a base for four days before heading to another and can be gone from Bagram for two weeks at a time. A Black Hawk or another Chinook often will be flown out to bring parts.
U.S. Army photo
Hatch, who grew up moving around in an Army family and calls O'ahu home, said it takes a couple of days for soldiers on the ground to appreciate what the maintenance team can do for them.
Staff Sgt. Santos Rosado of the Mobile Maintenance Support Team works on a vehicle at a remote site in Afghanistan. The team is assigned to the Joint Logistics Command out of Bagram Air Base.
"They don't know what our capabilities are, and they are hesitant in bringing stuff to us," he said. "But we're capable of fixing anything they have, and we've fixed Xboxes, we fixed stereo systems, we've fixed weight sets."
At one remote base near the Pakistan border, the team, part of the Joint Logistics Command in Afghanistan, built a grill out of rocks.
The Schofield soldiers have worked with the Afghan National Army, fixed equipment for different special operations groups, and gotten used to incoming rocket and mortar fire at bases — some just a few hundred yards square — on the border region.
Special operations forces, which are co-mingled with regular forces at most bases, have a lot of equipment and they need it fixed now, not later, because intelligence gained on enemy movement requires quick responses.
Staff Sgt. Santos Rosado, 29, the senior automotive mechanic, has had a chance to work with the Afghan National Army through the maintenance team.
"They're pretty good," said Rosado, who's from Puerto Rico. "They are motivated people. I've seen them around sometimes in formation trying to learn. They're pretty organized."
Hatch, whose father is a colonel at Bagram Air Base and who has a brother there who is a medic and another brother who recently left the camp, said some U.S. troops live a pretty austere life in the border region, sleeping in tents, cooking their own food, and getting an outdoor shower once a week in the 95- to 105-degree heat.
About two weeks ago, at 8:30 p.m., multiple rockets and about two dozen mortars were fired at the remote base the team was at — without any injuries, Hatch said.
Still, the roving maintenance mission is something that Hatch — and the other soldiers — would rather be doing than anything else.
"It's great," Hatch said. "We'd much rather be going out and making a difference directly. We actually get to see the difference we make on the ground."
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
