Sergeant 1st Class Junior Hazelwood (left) and fellow mechanic Staff Sgt. Garye Ware, talk over progress being made on adjusting the newly replaced front brakes of an 1148th Transportation Company semi tractor. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry)

by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry
Georgia National Guard
Public Affairs Office

Editor’s Note: At the time this story was reported, crews working on the semi tractor-trailer rigs mentioned here had switched out, and the mechanics were well on their way to completing the work for which they’d been placed on orders.

FORT GORDON, AUGUSTA – When truck drivers of the 1148th Transportation Company, stationed here, don their helmets and hit the road in mid-July, they’ll be hauling a sizeable number of light and heavy wheeled vehicles to Fort McCoy, Wisc., for Macon’s 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team to use during exercise Patriot 2008.

To get that equipment there, and on time, those truckers will be using the 1148th’s 80 semi tractor-trailer rigs to get the job done. That means Army Guard mechanics have to inspect the big haulers from front to back –from the tractor’s front grill and to the end of the trailer bed.

“Every thing has to work…from lights to tires to brakes to the engine to the fifth-wheel that locks the trailer to the tractor,” said Staff Sgt. Gary Levant, assistant shop supervisor at the 201st Regional Support Group motor pool. That’s where the 1148th, which is part of the 201st, keeps its vehicles.

They’ve even replaced the wooden inlays on the trailer beds. “No who climbs into one of these rigs will take it on the road or haul anything on a trailer if that piece of equipment isn’t safe. And I mean nobody,” he strongly re-emphasized.

Work on the big rigs began in April and will continue, most likely, to the end of May, Levant said. Getting that work done isn’t something two, four or even five “mechs” can accomplish, not in a short period of time, he explained. Work that can’t be accomplished on site is sent out to the various field maintenance shops and maintenance units around the state.

“It takes all the help we can muster,” Levant said with a serious look on his face and leaning back in his office chair. “

Since April, two shifts of 12 mechanics, all of them full-timers with the Mobilization and Training Equipment Site (MATES) at the National Guard Training Center have worked five day work weeks, doing 10-hour days, sometimes longer. Levant said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Leslie Groover at MATES OKd weekends off so the crews could go home and spend time with their families.

One the M-Day side, the mechanics drill with units such as Kennesaw’s 277th Maintenance Company or Company B, 348th Brigade Support Battalion

“By the end of the week, everyone has earned that much needed rest,” Levant added. “We wanted to make sure they got it.”

Sergeant 1st Class Junior Hazelwood is one of the team that its shift Friday, May 2. To him the long hours and sometimes tedious work really is necessary. Why send a driver out on the road in a rig that only half-way meets safety standards or will leave him and badly needed equipment stranded.

“I’m not gonna' let anything get out of here without it having what it needs replaced or tuned up and running the way it should,” Hazelwood said. “Once we’ve done every tractor, every trailer, I know Staff Sgt. Levant intends to call in outside inspectors to go over each and every vehicle.”

The more eyes there are looking for things missed, the better chance of getting them corrected before July, Levant added.

When the 1148th’s convoy does move to Fort McCoy, its drivers won’t be just doing their jobs, so to speak. The trip, said Staff Sgt. Garye Ware, one of Hazelwood’s fellow mechanics, is a trial run to ready the heavy haulers for deployment to Afghanistan next year with the 48th IBCT.

“What better way to find out whether our hard work and long hours have been in vane, or if the efforts our crews have made have put safe rigs in the hands of capable drivers,” Ware said.

The July convoy, he said, will certainly tell the tale.

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