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By Army 2nd Lt. Monika Comeaux
173rd Brigade Support Battalion
FORWARD OPERATING BASE FENTY, Afghanistan - Soldiers from Company B, 173rd Brigade Support Battalion paid a special visit to Forward Operating Base Hughie, Dec. 29, to train Afghan army mechanics.
More than 20 Afghan national army soldiers, assigned to 5th Kandak, 3rd Brigade, learned how to properly conduct preventive maintenance checks and services on the M1025 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle.
Right now, the brigade has a few Humvees in its fleet but is scheduled to receive more in the future.
The training followed the same steps any U.S. Army training would.
"You go from the crawl to the walk to the run phase," said Sgt. 1st Class George V. Castillo, a vehicle maintenance supervisor deployed from the 95th Training Division, Albuquerque, N.M. "You sort of hold them by their hand and show them everything. A lot of these guys can do a lot more things than we can."
Besides proper PMCS, the ANA soldiers also learned small tricks of the trade used by U.S. mechanics.
"We gave them some quick troubleshooting guides on things," said Staff Sgt. Jabar C. Steward, a light-wheel vehicle mechanic with Company B, 173rd BSB. "If the vehicle overheats, we let them know that they can unplug the time delay (so the fan runs continually) and they will be able to continue the mission,"
Castillo anticipated seeing maybe 10 ANA troops, and was pleasantly surprised when he saw the small crowd anxiously awaiting the arrival of the U.S. Soldiers.
One of the participants, ANA Sgt. Azbullah had a great time. Since he speaks fairly good English, he was able to ask his own questions and took detailed notes of the PMCS procedures.
"The Humvee is a very good vehicle," Azbullah said.
ANA Lt. Col. Shamsuddine, commander of the Combat Service Support Battalion, 3rd Quick Reaction Forces Brigade, 201st ANA Corps, welcomed the training his troops received. As soon as his brigade received the trucks, he requested some assistance with training the operators and mechanics.
"I like the cooperation between the U.S Army and the ANA," said Shamsuddine through a translator. "As you know, there has been a war in Afghanistan for the last 30 years. We lost everything we had. Now we can have a stabilized government. With the assistance of the U.S., we can continue to improve."
Steward jumped on the opportunity to train the ANA and brought two of his best mechanics with him.
"I enjoy working with other cultures," said Steward. "It would make the job real easy if I could speak Pashto, but that is not going to happen."
Both parties are looking forward to future training events. There are plans on translating the more important parts of the technical manuals and setting up more detailed maintenance training.
"It is very important for the ANA soldiers to learn how to use these vehicles, because we will one day independently provide security for our whole country," said Azbullah.
| Date Taken: | 01.04.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 01.04.2008 10:47 |
| Story ID: | 15174 |
| Location: | JALALABAD, AF |
| Web Views: | 336 |
| Downloads: | 241 |
This work, Forward Operating Base Hughie, by CPT Monika Comeaux, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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