Photo By 1st Lt. Lacy Briscoe | Soldiers from the 503rd Maintenance Company, 398th Combat Sustainment Support...... read more read more
By 1st Lt. Lacy Briscoe
10th Sustainment Brigade
CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - An Airman with the important job of pest control on Sather Airfield at Camp Liberty, Iraq, was out looking for pesky creatures. He came across a jackal hole and began prodding around to discover the pest, but found something much more interesting.
Airman 1st Class Thomas Burns, a Spencerport, N.Y., native and member of the 447th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron, found an object protruding from the hole that turned out to be the tread of a tank, still attached to the rest of the tank, completely buried in the ground. He notified his supervisor, and they immediately realized that this piece of tread had the potential of causing a life-threatening situation if left in place.
The tread was considered a non-tangible piece of equipment that could catch the fuselage on the bottom of an airplane if forced to conduct an emergency landing on the airfield. The strong durability of the tread would, in theory, tear the belly of the plane during an emergency landing and potentially cause additional and unnecessary injuries to the passengers and crew. The only solution was to remove the old tank.
The Airmen conducted some planning, and then the excavation began! The Air Force used a back hoe to dig out around what was identified as a T-72 Soviet-designed battle tank. They soon realized they would need some additional reinforcement to pull the 41.5 ton piece of metal out of the hole they had dug. They sought out the 503rd Maintenance Company, 398th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 10th Sustainment Brigade for the call of duty on Sather Air Field. Staff Sgt. Daniel Torres, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native; Sgt. Anthony Gomez, a native of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; and Spc. Austin Jayko, a White, Ga., native, were chosen as the most high speed recovery team to support the mission. 1st Lt. Lacy Briscoe, an Orem, Utah, native, coordinated with the Air Force commander, Maj. Jack Evans, of Maryville, Tenn., and his team as the 503rd recovery crew examined the deteriorating tank.
The Air Force estimated that the tank was hit in 2003 during the initial ground war and had deteriorated to the point there were no moving parts. The recovery team was not even sure the rusted shackle points would hold the weight of the tank long enough to pull it from the hole. Torres and Gomez were determined to make the mission a victory and gave Briscoe the "thumbs up." The team traveled back to Camp Liberty and awakened the M88 from a deep sleep and drove it off Pad 21 for the first time to rescue the Air Force from their predicament.
Once the team arrived at the recovery site, Torres directed Gomez and Jayko to hook up the tank to the boom and dig the spade several inches into the ground for additional leverage. Technical Sgt. James Simmons, a native of Highland Mills, N.Y., pushed with the bull dozer while Gomez powered the boom to pull the corroded hunk of steel onto the low-boy trailer. The tank did not want to leave its home on the airfield and was dragging a piece of tread behind it deep into the ground. This made it very difficult to move onto the low-boy trailer. This heavy oxidized piece of steel would not cooperate, but Briscoe and her team was not going to give up.
After several attempts and tricky obstacles the tank was successfully loaded onto the trailer but then slid off one side. After another lift and load endeavor and through pure determination and a little elbow grease the airmen and the Soldiers worked valiantly together to force the tank to sit evenly on the trailer. Finally, as the sun was setting, the eight hour effort of assessing, tugging, pulling, and lifting the T-72 sat on the trailer in a stable position. The support of the 503rd Maintenance Recovery team was crucial to the 447th successfully removing the potentially harmful piece of machinery from the airfield. This recovery effort allowed the airfield to continue safe landing operations.
| Date Taken: | 01.27.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 01.27.2009 04:49 |
| Story ID: | 29310 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 318 |
| Downloads: | 248 |
This work, M88 Awakened: Combined Joint Service Operations, by 1LT Lacy Briscoe, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT