PAKTIKA PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Traveling in Afghanistan is not an easy task. The roads are narrow with steep drop-offs, riverbeds are strewn with rocks and raining can cause mudslides where portions of the mountainside literally disappear. When supplies and vehicles need to get somewhere, the soldiers from the 172nd Support Battalion will drive almost anywhere to accomplish the mission.

“We are constantly moving stuff around to different [forward operating bases],” said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Clinton Bailey, from Glennwater, Texas, a transportation platoon sergeant, Company A, 172nd Support Battalion. “We transport whatever the brigade needs.”

Company A soldiers are currently conducting a two to three week-long mission in order to pick up mine resistant ambush protected all-terrain vehicles from Command Outpost Curry and bring them back to Forward Operating Base Sharana to upgrade their armor.

“The vehicles currently can not be used on the battlefield because of their level of armor,” said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jessica Torres, Tulare, California, a gun-truck platoon sergeant, Company A, 172nd Support Battalion.

Soldiers conducting supply missions have a lot of preparation beforehand. The majority of the planning goes into getting the vehicles ready for convoying.

“The soldiers [perform preventive maintenance checks and services on] their vehicles and go through a 20-level, quality checks and quality services before they dispatch their vehicles,” said Torres. “They check [the vehicles] out and make sure they are up to standard for mission.”

With proper checks on all the vehicles the soldiers hope to mitigate the risk of traveling, and prepare in case the enemy engages them along the route to FOB Orgun-E, according to Bailey.

“We control about 90 percent of it through our planning, execution, precombat checks and precombat inspections,” said Bailey. “The other ten percent is influenced by the enemy.”

Torres said that the route to FOB Orgun-E was not always as safe as it currently is. The Afghan National Army has set up checkpoints along the route, securing the roads and providing overwatch security for the area.

“We did encounter small arms fire and indirect fire when we first started taking these routes, but lately, the ANA has setup checkpoints along the route,” said Torres. “This has decreased the amount of enemy fire.”

The vehicles that are being picked up do not have the armor rating necessary to perform missions outside the operating bases so they can not be driven to FOB Sharana. Once their armor is enhanced, they will be combat ready and the vehicles will be mission capable.

According to Torres, by utilizing existing vehicles and upgrading their armor instead of buying new vehicles, the Army is using their existing resources and saving money in the process.

Along with saving money, the mission will deliver more vehicles that are able to occupy the battle space, providing more of a force presence in the area.

Soldiers from the 172nd Support Battalion have conducted around 15 successful missions since being deployed to Afghanistan. With more supplies and vehicles needing movement, the soldiers will remain busy for the foreseeable future.

“Us going out there and risking our equipment and our lives for the better of other soldiers, that is a good thing,” said Bailey. “It’s soldiers helping soldiers.”

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