Photo By Cpl. Ryan Young | Marines with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 Sahl Sinjar Detachment taxi two...... read more read more
CAMP SAHL SINJAR, Iraq — The missions are done for the day and three CH-46 Sea Knights are parked, taking up a small piece of a giant slab of concrete unused by anyone else. They are the only helicopters left at the forward operating base, Camp Sahl Sinjar, Iraq.
With a haze of dust in the sky, the Sahl Sinjar Detachment maintenance Marines of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268, are on the flight line enduring the heat and dust to keep their aircraft operational. Two green arrows drawn pointing up on a marker-board inside the Marine's maintenance control tent and one red arrow drawn pointing down, tells the Marines they have two working Sea Knights and one in need of repairs. By the end of the night, the maintenance Marines' workload would change, but not in their favor.
The detachment at Sahl Sinjar is small. With only 16 maintainers, they operate much differently than the Marines in the rest of their squadron located at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, who work set shift hours with a massive logistical support structure at the ready. These Marines base their lives around keeping three aircraft flying. Sleeping when they get the chance, working constantly to prevent maintenance issues and waiting on tools or parts is their routine. A set schedule may exist, but it is very loose — they work as long as missions are happening, and practically every step in between.
"We have enough Marines out here to get the job done," explained Staff Sgt. Gabriel Melendrez, the detachment's quality assurance Marine for all maintenance shops and a CH-46 aerial gunner.
Melendrez said that "enough Marines" doesn't mean the perfect amount. Take his job description for example. He fills multiple billets within the detachment, overseeing the work of every maintenance shop, while also working as an aerial gunner during missions. This is how many of the Marines in the detachment work - filling roles in the air and on the ground to keep missions going and aircraft running.
"It is a collaborated effort out here," said Cpl. Michael Lamb, one of the detachment's crew chiefs, who said often times he doesn't hesitate to stick around after a long day of flying to help out with maintenance. "Some Marines fill four or more billets. It is like constant cross training, so in the end we understand the aircraft more."
By nightfall the detachment finds issues with the other helicopters. The green arrows on the marker-board are erased and red ones take their place. None of the aircraft are considered fit to fly. It may be a work-generating-curse of a sort, being so good at finding the problems, but the Marines say they have to find problems when they're small to avoid the potentially large problems that could follow.
"The Marines have learned to focus on every detail here, because our support structure is a day or two away meaning we have to see problems early," explained Gunnery Sgt. Steven Thomas, the HMM-268 Sahl Sinjar Det. maintenance controller.
Being a small detachment with few helicopters to look after, the Marines started with the bare minimum of equipment. At first they mirrored the fundamental resources of their main body, using and storing basic tools and accessories for the aircraft, but the weather conditions in their area of operation quickly affected their aircraft in ways they had not expected. Sand from frequent storms was affecting the aircraft's auxiliary power units' ability to start. The Marines had to have plugs and covers shipped to them to block sand from getting into places they had not previously seen sand cause problems. While any problem with the aircraft is a big deal, problems with engine performance can quickly affect the amount of weight a Sea Knight can carry. These kinds of issues had to be solved by the Marines before it began to hamper a mission's payload limits.
"Marines always say adapt, but sometimes you just have to work harder," said Melendrez. "That is how it is with the sand. We have to work a lot harder to keep it out."
Dealing with new problems that the Marines haven't seen before is not the only thing that challenges the Marines and keeps a steady flow of operations from smoothly taking place. Blocking out and cleaning sand might be a continuous task, but it is something the maintainers can do as soon as they need to. When a part breaks however, it means the Marines often have no choice to hurry up and wait.
"Back in Al Asad we could get parts in hours, but here we have to have our parts flown in on a C-130, which may take a day or two — in good weather," said Thomas.
Inside the ready room, a tent just off the flight line where pilots stand-by and aircrew conduct mission briefs, the phone calls begin. The detachment officer in charge, Maj. Ryan Sheehy, says he knows his maintenance Marines can handle the craziest of situations, but that doesn't stop him from making the calls himself to ensure certain people in the supply chain know how important the parts are. Sheehy even brings up the idea of a maintenance day, which would eliminate tasking the Marines to fly for a day to focus on fixing the aircraft. A maintenance day is something that most squadrons perform once every couple of weeks, but deployment tempo in Iraq and even more so for this detachment means they struggle to fit one in once a month.
Among all the phone calls tracking the progress of the parts movement to Sahl Sinjar, which might make it on a C-130 that night if the weather holds, and the hint of a maintenance day, there is still planning going on for the next day's mission. A Marine intelligence analyst is preparing information for the brief and the pilots are gathering the air support requests to make an itinerary outline of the upcoming mission. They are pressing forward as if, none of the aircraft working the day before a mission is a usual scenario for the detachment.
"We plan to fly tomorrow, and this is how much we rely on our maintainers to basically work miracles," said Sheehy. "The maintenance Marines are this detachment's bread and butter."
| Date Taken: | 07.31.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 07.31.2009 06:13 |
| Story ID: | 36993 |
| Location: | CAMP SAHL SINJAR, IQ |
| Web Views: | 394 |
| Downloads: | 296 |
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