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By Army Spc. Jon H. Arguello
22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – A 30-ton armored bulldozer hanging off a cliff may have seemed a test and task daunting enough to break the will of even the toughest paratroopers, but not even the laws of gravity would deny the veteran engineers of A Company's Road Clearing Platoon, 27th Engineering Battalion, 20th Engineering Brigade (Airborne), another successful mission.
"While transporting the dozer on a lowboy trailer the truck ran up on some rocks on the side of the road," explained Army Sgt. 1st Class Richard Fredrickson, the Road Clearing Platoon sergeant of Salt Lake City, Utah. "Once the bulldozer was at the right angle it tipped over."
Only a quick response by the Light Equipment Platoon, which anchored the bulldozer to the side of the mountain with chains, saved the piece of Army equipment from going over, Fredrickson said.
"Once they had the dozer anchored they pulled the trailer out and that's what we have now, a 30-ton piece of equipment hanging off a cliff," Fredrickson said at the time of the event.
The combat engineers immediately went to work to recover the equipment, but there were many obstacles, including the location. The bulldozer was hanging off a cliff which had been weakened by its enormous weight. Between the cliff and mountain side was a road barely large enough for one vehicle to drive on.
Another obstacle was the lack of equipment the engineers had on hand. Without heavy enough equipment, the engineers quickly contacted local national contractors, who were building a road in the area.
Easing the equipment drivers of their fear of being dragged over the cliff once they began to pull on the bulldozer was a dilemma. The engineers had to find a way of rocking the equipment back on its tracks without destabilizing it to the point of falling over. The plan was to use a pulley system to decrease the weight of the dozer, but as soon as the work started another challenge rose.
As the cables from a Jinga truck's winch tightened around the cab of the dozer, the stakes anchoring the pulling system began to bend.
"The stakes we were using were not deep enough into the rocks to support the weight so they kept bending," said Army Sgt. Joshua King of Baltimore, Md. "And the contractors didn't have drill bits large enough to get the stakes deeper into the rock. We had to find another way."
"We had to convince an excavator operator to help pull on the bulldozer while another excavator pushed on it with its bucket," Fredrickson said. "He had already left the scene scared that he would ruin his equipment but we convinced him to give it a try."
After about an hour of the excavator tearing away a portion of the mountain side to make room for his equipment to get into position, the paratroopers gave the order.
Once the mechanical beasts began the synchronized tugging and pushing on the enormous armored bulldozer with their hydraulic arms, the huge earthmover began to tremble, rock, and shake up dust before its center of gravity brought its massive 30-ton frame crashing to the ground, raising an enormous cloud of dust and pulverized rock underneath both of its safely planted tracks.
"When I saw first saw that bulldozer leaning over the cliff, I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to recover it," said Army Staff Sgt. Michael Huff, a Road Clearing Platoon squad leader from Orlando, Fla. "But with these guys I'm never surprised."
After a year successfully clearing mines, improvised explosive devices and paving a safer path for other Soldiers, the combat engineers have proven even physics can't keep these Paratroopers from accomplishing their mission.
| Date Taken: | 03.13.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 03.13.2007 11:12 |
| Story ID: | 9415 |
| Location: | BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AF |
| Web Views: | 602 |
| Downloads: | 430 |
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