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FORT CARSON, Colorado – Maintaining the maintenance of military vehicles can be a tedious task. The Army relies on its Soldiers to provide expert maintenance and repairs to take on such tasks.
The Soldiers of 3rd Battalion 29th Field Artillery Regiment Soldiers, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, conducted technical inspections and post operations maintenance earlier this month.
“Our main focus was to ensure that the unit’s vehicles were fully functional and ready to deploy,” said Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Sosnowski, a B Battery motor sergeant. “A field artillery’s mission is to shoot, move and communicate. On a day-to-day basis are to ensure vehicles are getting fixed and parts are getting ordered, as well as the maintenance on our vehicles.”
After completing their month long rotation at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif., they continued to be proactive and stay ahead of their tasking.
“We are preparing for the deployment early next year,” said Sosnowski. “We have to inspect vehicles and re-inspect them. Sometimes, we find out what’s wrong and order parts.”
Instead of working too hard, Sosnowski encourages his Soldiers be proactive.
“It’s really time consuming when a lot of parts come in all at once for vehicles,” said Sosnowski. “With my team, we divided the process where we constantly inspect and do services. That way we catch any deficiencies and fix it right away.”
If you do you job right the first time, the workload isn’t that much.
“If my Soldiers do inspections correctly, they’re able to mange the workload and not have to work so late,” said Sosnowski. “It’s hard, but I have a great team who works for me and makes it easier. When you get the system down, it flows easier.”
Safety is Sosnowski’s top priority when it comes to maintenance of the vehicles.
“Sometimes people will fix things temporarily just to move it,” said Sosnowski. “That poses a safety risk, especially if you take shortcuts with these vehicles. Although we have deadlines to meet, if we are not at 100 percent with these vehicles, they aren’t moving. I ensure my team manages their time wisely and gets things done in a timely manner without rushing.”
The maintenance teams have competitions against each other to keep the morale up at all times.
“The dedication to maintenance is just a small part of the overall focus the Soldiers have demonstrated these past few months in execution of training and the preparation for future operations,” said Sosnowski. “We find various ways to stay motivated and make missions interesting.”
Sosnowski’s Soldiers takes the prior training as well as daily inspections as a learning experience.
“I learned a lot from my team,” said Private 1st Class Adam Yates, a track mechanic. “I learned how to drive some of the vehicles such as a recovery vehicle [M88A2]. Not only do I fix vehicles, I get to cross-train and work on different vehicles.”
The unit is scheduled to deploy early next year.
| Date Taken: | 10.07.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 10.14.2016 13:10 |
| Story ID: | 212028 |
| Location: | FORT CARSON, CO, US |
| Web Views: | 35 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 3ABCT maintains at NTC, by SFC Ange Desinor, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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