Powell-based unit passes muster at National Guard training

Posted 7/11/19

While a team of nervous soldiers from Powell waited, Headquarters Service Company Readiness NCO Sgt. 1st Class Kandy Gorsuch of the 960th Brigade Support Battalion inspected their fueling line at …

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Powell-based unit passes muster at National Guard training

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While a team of nervous soldiers from Powell waited, Headquarters Service Company Readiness NCO Sgt. 1st Class Kandy Gorsuch of the 960th Brigade Support Battalion inspected their fueling line at Camp Guernsey.

Gorsuch eventually gave a thumbs up.

“I felt they were efficient,” she said of the Powell-based Wyoming Army National Guard logistics unit. The team supported the soldiers of the 1742nd Transportation Company of the South Dakota National Guard during their annual training last month. The 960th provided bulk fuel and set up the fueling line as part of Golden Coyote, a South Dakota-based training exercise.

Petroleum Supply Specialist Pvt. Annabelle Mowery organized her team on Sunday, June 16, instructing four soldiers to prepare a 5,000-gallon tanker for a thirsty convoy of trucks. Two fuelers and two mechanics took up posts as a plethora of vehicles arrived. Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic Spc. Audie Marsh guided the trucks using hand signals, hooking ground cables to the lug nuts on wheels as they came in to prevent dangerous sparks. Petroleum Supply Specialist Spc. Jonathan Richards and Sgt. Alaor Viera, another wheeled vehicle mechanic, carried over fuel nozzles, drip pans and hoses to fill the empty fuel tanks.

Mowery ordered the starting and stopping of the pump and tracked the team’s progress as it recorded the amount of fuel being dispersed. In the last step, the tracking forms were signed by either the driver or truck commander.

Mowery normally drives a HEMTT, a heavy expanded mobility tactical truck that has a 2,500-gallon tank.

“I’ve been driving it for two years,” she said. “Before that, the biggest I’d driven was a pickup. The HEMTT was a new experience.”

Last month, she got another new experience by training with the 5,000-gallon tanker. The “5K” tanker has two pumps and two side-mounted pumping stations.

“The mechanics get to know the tanks,” Gorsuch said of the exercise. “It helps their understanding of when they need to drain the tanker.”

As the 1742nd’s truckers drove out of paddock No. 3 on Camp Guernsey, Mowery and her team tended to the cleanup: getting hoses and equipment back to where they belonged. In wrapping up another long day at annual training, it was mission accomplished.

 

— By Sgt. Jack Eden of the Wyoming Army National Guard

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