Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Adrian Borunda | Soldiers from the Arizona Army National Guard's 1120th Transportation Battalion...... read more read more
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CONCORD, CA—Dark grey clouds hover above a staged convoy, the light drizzle of rain is enough to see water dripping from loaded military transportation trucks and fog rolls over the hills in the distance. This isn’t some far off country, but northern California, those aren’t just military trucks, those are the trucks of Arizona Army National Guard’s 1120th Transportation Battalion.
Twenty-four large, and very heavy containers are staged and loaded on the 1120th’s trucks at Military Ocean Terminal Concord, but this isn’t your everyday transportation training mission, this is a real world mission – with real world risk that these Soldiers are ready to complete the task.
“Our mission is to support the 746 Combat Sustainment Support Battalion with their operation in the transportation of MOTCO containers to their destination depot,” said 1st Lt. Gabriel McDonald, the operational officer in charge of the 1120th’s task force during Operation Patriot Bandoleer.
Operation Patriot Bandoleer is a collaboration between Army Materiel Command, Army Sustainment Command, Army Surface Deployment and Distribution Command and the National Guard Bureau that provides these units with real world sustainment missions involving the movement of ammunition and other military materiel by Army National Guard transportation units to cut down on costs.
“Missions like these allow the National Guard to flex our muscle a bit – show what we are able to accomplish,” McDonald said. “What we bring to the table is phenomenal. A lot of our Soldiers are also commercial truck drivers and they bring that experience working with our civilian counterparts. Others are law enforcement and know certain road regulations that have helped with traffic situations. That various pool of talent to draw on is the inherent strength of the guard and what we offer.”
The 1120th task force included of members of several companies who are truck drivers, maintenance personnel and administration personnel. Together they formed a self-sustaining column of transportation capability. These professionals also had to work across services components to get the mission done.
“The mission that’s going on here doesn’t just include Army, Navy and civilian assets, but it’s also multi composition,” McDonald said. “We have Army National Guardsmen, Army Reservists and active duty Soldiers all working together. Working together is great training for not only the Soldiers working on the trucks or driving but also for the staff who have to work on planning, integration and execution.”
Arizona’s transportation experts had to learn to work with port officials, make sure they always followed safety regulations and plan for unexpected events like snowfall on their primary route that tested the staff’s ability to change routes shortly before a planned convoy movement.
“The real world mission adds a certain amount of value to our experiences that we just don’t get in training missions. There’s nothing notional about what we are doing here. There’s a certain amount of weight to it, in both a literal and figurative sense,” McDonald said.
Real world missions like these highlight the ability of Arizona National Guard to consistently be there for their communities as the first and proven choice for domestic operations such as Patriot Bandoleer.
“Everything has gone pretty smoothly and the best part is the motivation of everyone here on ground really putting forth that effort and really trying to do what we came here to do,” McDonald said. “As a leader that’s the best thing you can see.”
Months before the mission in Concord, Soldiers were training in preparation for these supply movements. But as one 1120th noncommissioned officer put it, communication is where mission success begins.
“Communication was the key. We have Soldiers from three different transportation companies that have been planning and working towards being ready for this mission,” said Sgt. 1st Class Madlyn Flores, operational noncommissioned officer in charge.
The motivation of the Soldiers was evident, even when Mother Nature wasn’t as accommodating as they had hoped.
“The troops are always ready to go, but we are from Arizona, so the weather hasn’t exactly been helping out,” Flores said. “But they are chomping at the bit for each leg of the mission.”
The Soldiers who are excited about this mission range from seasoned and experienced NCOs who have proven their skill at home and in deployed missions overseas to the newest junior Soldiers who are experiencing their first non-traditional training mission.
“It’s a learning experience, a chance for those Soldiers who have deployed before to not only show the newer Soldiers the ropes,” Flores said. “But its also an opportunity for all of us to come together and ask ourselves, ‘is this the best way we can be doing things?’”
Paying careful attention to even the smallest details is critical for the success of Patriot Bandoleer. The 1120th followed a systematic method that included several stages of checks to ensure the safe and successful movement of this kind of cargo.
“The staffs here at MOTCO have been awesome. They pretty much laid out the plan and we’ve just been hitting all those tasks and what they’ve asked of us,” Flores said.
Accomplishing those tasks is exactly what they’ve done.
“[The 1120th] Soldiers knocked it out of the park. I was so impressed,” said Larry Martin, the transportation manager with the 8334th Transportation Battalion, which conducts the safe and legal movement of cargo at MOTCO. “Out of the four convoys that launched they are the only ones that hit every metric and I could have not been more proud.”
It only took the 1120th two hours to load their containers on their trucks – a task that sometimes takes all morning for other units.
“They have stood head and shoulders above everyone else. They have done an amazing job, and I’m so impressed with the level of professionalism that these Soldiers have exuded since they have been on the ground,” Martin said. “They have reaffirmed my belief that they are doing the training – taking the time at the small team elements to do what they need to do to get the job done.”
Preparation was the key to success for the Soldiers of the 1120th.
“There’s a process that, by regulation, I have to go through. A whole packet that I give [the convoy commander] and as I’m explaining the convoy clearance to her on the back page is her name,” Martin said. “I felt microscopic, because here I just told her everything, verbatim, that she had already typed up and understood beforehand.”
From the drivers to the maintainers to the staff, the entire unit agrees there is always room for improvement but Martin disagreed with that assessment.
“The attention to detail is to the extreme because of what we haul. Close enough isn’t good enough. It has to be spot on. Everything has to be 100 percent and there is no gray area here,” he said.
In total, the 1120th conducted the safe and speedy transportation of over a million and a half pounds of cargo, spread over two separate convoys and traveled nearly 2,500 miles during their missions.
Whether the mission is at home or abroad, on land or in the air, the Arizona National Guard continues to be the best and most fiscally responsible choice to get the job done.
| Date Taken: | 01.19.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 04.07.2017 18:35 |
| Story ID: | 229653 |
| Location: | AZ, US |
| Web Views: | 426 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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