TAJI, Iraq - Sparks fly from a welder's tool, illuminating the room, while just next door all-wheel mechanics, covered in sweat and grease, fix engine parts, all while fighting a typically hot Iraqi summer afternoon.
Just a stone's throw away from the mechanics, secluded in a small trailer, Soldiers specializing in communications security try to solve electronic issues to make sure radios remain functional for secure transmission.
Considering the different nature of each job it would be easy to speculate all three are unrelated and part of separate units. But they aren't.
They all belong to the Headquarters Support Company, 615th Aviation Support Battalion, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, who supply maintenance in a variety of ways to the Air Cav [on Camp Taji, Iraq], said Bronx, N.Y. native, Capt. Jasmin Sarmiento, commander, HSC, 615th ASB, 1st ACB.
"HSC provides support to the entire battalion for their ground equipment, generators, air conditioners and vehicles," Sarmiento said. "We also provide backup maintenance to the FSC's (forward support company) for night vision goggles and small arms repair for the brigade."
On a grand scale, maintenance is the focal point of HSC's mission, Sarmiento said, with the constant upkeep of vehicles a major part of their many duties.
"Making sure the vehicles are serviceable and able to run so the other companies can conduct their missions is the main mission for HSC," Sarmiento said. "The Soldiers work long days to make this happen."
This often results in late nights spent troubleshooting equipment to find the exact problem for defections, Sarmiento said.
"Finding the core of the problem takes a while and some vehicles may take 20 minutes while others might take four to five hours," Sarmiento explained. "There is always a huge influx of vehicles, so we are constantly working."
The emphasis of the 615th HSC does not primarily revolve around vehicles, Sarmiento said, a fact which many people are not aware of.
"Although ground maintenance is a big portion of what we do, there are all the other things we do for the brigade as well," she said. "There is so much more to it and what many people don't know is we are the support for the FARP (Forward Arming and Refueling Point) as well."
Sarmiento said their direct support in providing maintenance for the FARP is essential for the 1st ACB, as it helps maintain the vehicles needed to fuel helicopters, one of the key aspects of an aviation brigade.
Handling duties at the FARP is Sgt. Sean Schwartfigure, from Connaut, Ohio, noncommissioned officer in charge, FARP maintenance, HSC, who said his Soldiers are responsible for repairing fuel trucks used to provide gas for brigade helicopters.
"We work on these trucks every day and also the pumps that fill up the birds on the flight line," Schwartfigure said. "Any kind of equipment that is used in the FARP out here we fix."
The FARP is kept constantly busy with fueling trucks that need to be repaired, Schwartfigure said, with older vehicles providing the most problems.
"It's not that something is always breaking down due to us not fixing it right, but the older trucks always have something going wrong with them," Schwartfigure said.
The deployment has been busy thus far at the FARP, Schwartfigure said, but he thinks the surge of damaged vehicles will slow over time.
"I don't expect us to be busy all the time, but there will always be work to do," he said. "A lot of Soldiers are cross-training on new equipment here, so we keep busy."
Like Schwartfigure and the workers at the FARP, Sgt. Sherman McCaskey, from Thomasville, Ala., radio communications repair, 615th HSC, spends his days fixing damaged equipment, only his falls into a different realm.
"My day to day duty is to make sure all the radios and comsec (communications security equipment) are fully functional, especially for the pilots who use a lot of comsec," McCaskey said. "The radios are mostly for the ground forces and the humvees, so we service those too."
McCaskey said he finds his work challenging and has had a good deployment so far, working on a lot of radios.
"The radios come in with faults and we spend a lot of time trying to figure out what causes it," McCaskey said. "Usually it's no problem."
Sarmiento said it is the attitude of her Soldiers which makes the HSC run as efficiently as it does.
"Preventative maintenance means we have to be ready to roll at all times," Sarmiento said. "But that's what the Soldiers are here for. They don't mind and neither do I."
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