Photo By Maj. Scott Kuhn | FORT HOOD, Texas—A Soldier from 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry...... read more read more
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FORT HOOD, Texas – Soldiers from 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division “Greywolf” downloaded almost 200 vehicles Saturday at the Rail Operations Center here.
Although all 3,000 plus Greywolf Soldiers returned before Thanksgiving from their successful mission in Kuwait, the more than 2,000 vehicles and pieces of equipment they deployed with are finally arriving back at Fort Hood.
“This is our fourth train out of twelve to arrive back here to Fort Hood,” said Maj. Pete Crosthwaite, executive officer for 2nd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment and the officer in charge of the Brigade’s rail operations. “Although we still have a ways to go, it is good to be getting these vehicles back, so that we can get them reset and ready for our next mission.”
The ships carrying the equipment from Kuwait arrive in Texas ports where a small team of Greywolf Soldiers observes the downloading of the vehicles and equipment. The vehicles and equipment then enter customs. Once they have cleared customs, the team coordinates the transfer of the vehicles to rail and ensures all paperwork is in in order. The vehicles are then uploaded onto trains for the trip to Fort Hood.
Once the train arrives at the Fort Hood ROC, the team of Soldiers conducting rail operations receives a thorough safety brief, while the train engines push the cars loaded with tracked and wheeled vehicles into the yard.
According to Sgt. Brennan Reeder, a mechanic with 2-82 Field Artillery Regiment, the safety briefs are extremely important. “If we didn’t normally do a safety brief before each iteration of unloading these cars, we could have a safety violation, which may damage a vehicle or injure a Soldier”
Once the brief is complete, the Soldiers attack the train cars like a swarm of locusts, undoing chains, laying platforms between the cars, starting up vehicles, and hooking up tow bars to the ones that don’t start. Once the vehicles are ready, they are driven off the rail cars and positioned in the holding yard to await transportation back to the motor pools.
Getting them back into the motor pools is key to progressing the readiness of the Brigade, said Reeder. Once we get them back there, we can start working on them and getting them ready for the next fight.
It takes about a day to download a train of 200 vehicles, and then one more day to move them to the motor pools.
Crosthwaite says that although Greywolf still has a lot of work ahead to get the vehicles back to standard, to include conducting reset, training still must go on. “We are beginning to conduct a very deliberate, gated training progression that will culminate with gunnery in February.”
| Date Taken: | 01.08.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 01.08.2018 16:45 |
| Story ID: | 261584 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 105 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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