CAPT. TONY SCINTA
Grafenwoehr Training Area Range Operations
Training Support Activity Europe,
7th Army Training Command
Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany
One of the closest calls I’ve experienced happened at the very beginning of my career where most great Army stories occur — the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California. I was a new infantry second lieutenant, freshly arriving at my armor battalion. I was ready to be the next Dick Winters, or even Elliott Ackerman, when I was instead told by my battalion commander, “You’ll be taking the role of the C Company executive officer (XO) during the NTC rotation. The current XO is having surgery, and you arrived just in time. Wheels up is next Wednesday. Good luck, LT.” Of what little I knew about being an officer, I knew even less about the (extremely important) role of the company XO.
The first week at Fort Irwin was a blur — “LT, inventory this,” “Sir, sign here, “LT, go get our pre-positioned vehicles.” I was drinking from a firehose and my thirst had been quenched long ago. I dutifully followed around our first sergeant when he wasn’t busy and tried to learn as much as I could from a company that neither knew me nor had any need for me. During the first week in “The Box,” I fared no better, as my role as an XO shifted from administrative to tactical. The firehose flowed with even more information than before, and I began to forget more tasks than I even knew how to do.
Toward the end of the rotation, a “pre-po” High-Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) in the company supply train blew a tire. The radio crackled to life:
“Cronos 5, this is Cronos Tango Romeo. We blew a tire. Requesting five Mikes to change it really quickly, then we’ll be good.”
“Roger, we’ll do a short halt. Everyone else push out for security.”
As the element spread out, I hopped out of my Bradley’s turret, did a quick position check of everyone and headed toward the downed HMMWV. I heard the crash of nearly 6 tons hitting the ground before I saw it. Sprinting, I arrived at the vehicle within seconds to find it off the jack, cockeyed with the truck commander (TC) splayed on the ground next to it.
“Sergeant, are you good?” I asked, unsure of his condition.
Gasping for air, he replied erratically, “I’m good, sir. The jack … it collapsed. I barely rolled out in time.”
I shot a glance at what remained of the jack. Jagged metal, bent out of shape, lay pinned underneath the uparmored vehicle. Guilt flooded my senses as I came to the realization that my lack of oversight almost two weeks earlier nearly contributed to the death of one of my Soldiers. Here’s what happened.
During the equipment draw within the first days of our arrival at NTC, I’d signed for a large number of items, including two uparmored HMMWVs and a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle (LMTV). What I’d failed to check, however, was that the basic issue items (BII) matched the vehicles to which they belonged. While I signed for the required equipment to operate a HMMWV, it was the BII that is issued for an M1113, not an uparmored M1114, which weighs significantly more. The M1114 is issued a higher load-rated jack.
Retrospectively, numerous failures contributed to this near miss. My commander, knowing I was new and inexperienced, allowed me to sign for his company’s vehicles with no oversight from a more experienced NCO or officer. I, also knowing how inexperienced I was, allowed my ego to supersede the alarms going off in my head telling me to ask for help. However, when I signed the equipment down to the NCO responsible for the HMMWV, he also didn’t do a proper check of the BII to ensure it matched his end item. Lastly, the lack of jack stands or any form of static restraint allowed the HMMWV, once the jack itself failed, to crash all the way into the ground rather than being held in place by secondary stops.
Thankfully, no injuries occurred during the incident. But it instilled in me the knowledge that even the smallest oversight can compound into a real-world mishap.