Vehicle mechanics strive to maintain perfect record

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KARSHI-KHANBAD AIR BASE, Uzbekistan (AFPN) --  Athens, Greece, is not the only place where records are being set. At this base, located north of Afghanistan, a team of five mechanics are making history in their own little corner of the world.

Vehicle mechanics from the 416th Air Expeditionary Group’s logistics readiness flight replaced a mechanical pump seal on a truck July 3. The job, itself, was not earth shattering -- the trend it started was.

Two weeks later, Tech. Sgt. William Underwood, the shop’s vehicle maintenance superintendent, said he noticed his office was still maintaining a 100-percent vehicle in-commission rate for its fleet.

“I’ve never had that happen to me before -- not even for 15 minutes,” he said.

Airmen here said it is a rarity and even more amazing considering this remote location.

Sergeant Underwood said he knew that getting a 100-percent in-commission rate is one thing, but maintaining it is another.

“Once we got it, we didn’t want it to go down hill after that,” he said.

At the two-week mark, the flight had a barbecue and recognized the shop’s achievement.

After a month, the mechanics still had a perfect record. They were just as surprised as everyone else. Their commander, Capt. Jennifer Coyne, visited them and jokingly asked if people were actually driving their vehicles because none were breaking.

By then, everybody was taking notice.

“(The Airmen) all started receiving letters of appreciation from different commanders on base, and they were really becoming known as the people to go to if you had a problem,” Captain Coyne said.

Besides keeping all 86 of their vehicles in perfect running condition, they fixed machinery that was not even in their realm of expertise or part of their fleet.

They repaired an air compressor on a base radar system that controlled the base’s air traffic and worked until 3 a.m. to help a local contractor fix a fire truck that would have hampered C-17 Globemaster III operations had the truck not been working. They also repaired an air-conditioning system on an old truck so civil engineers had a cool place to rest while building an emergency runway in the desert heat.

In their own way, Sergeant Underwood, Tech. Sgt. Mike Cooper, Staff Sgt. Jason Curra, Senior Airman Joshua Cooper and Airman 1st Class Nina Owusu-Ansan were directly contributing to the base’s primary mission of supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

That is not to say they still did not focus on their unblemished record. After a month, they suspiciously eyed every incoming vehicle as a potential breaker of the record. If they could not fix a vehicle before 7 a.m. the next day, the spell would break, and the record-setting pace they set would come to a screeching halt.

On the 40th day of their perfect run, a Humvee was towed into the shop with a busted starter. It was not like they were located in the middle of a big city where they could drive downtown and buy another starter from a dealer, so they had to improvise. Even if they ordered a new starter that day, they probably would not have received it until a week later, if they were lucky.

What they did was pull the bad starter from the Humvee, grab a couple more from other broken Humvees in the area, and, like Frankenstein, they built another starter. They worked late that night to install it. To their relief, the Humvee came alive when they turned the key at 11 p.m. The record remained intact and still continues with 56 days.

Sergeant Underwood said he attributes their success to their varying mechanical skills, which he said blended together to form the perfect team.

“Everybody has their own little niche,” he said. “Keeping the record going takes a little bit of luck and a lot of skill.”

The maintainers said they are hoping the next rotation of mechanics who replace them will continue the perfect record, and they will -- with a little bit of luck and a lot of skill.