Posted on 09/05/2003 6:39:31 PM PDT by SandRat
BISBEE -- The operative word in Joint Task Force Six is joint.
Each branch of the service is represented -- Navy, Army and Air Force -- with a base camp at Bisbee Municipal Airport to support 60 Marines from an Engineer Company from Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in California as they do road and fence work along the border.
The Navy is represented by Petty Officer 2nd Class Winfeld Lattibeaudeir, who is assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 374.
"Doc," as the Marines call Lattibeaudeir, is a field medic whose sea duty is to go where the Marines go -- in this case a land operation in Arizona.
He holds sick calls in the morning and evening. Fortunately, most of the problems this registered emergency medical technician has treated "are minor cuts, sniffles, sneezes, those with the runs or those clogged up," Lattibeaudeir said Thursday.
The safety being practiced at the work site and base camp helps keep everyone in good health, he said.
A test was done to see how fast they could transport an injured Marine from the border to the Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee.
"It took us 12 minutes," Lattibeaudeir said.
He also monitors the drinking water and the sanitation of the dining facility.
Soldiers from the 488th Quartermaster Company from Fort Polk, La., operate the dinning facility.
The Marines and others at the camp get two hot meals a day -- breakfast and diner. The noon fare are meals ready to eat. There is a possibility that sandwiches and other items might take place of the MREs.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are part of the diet, and the soldiers prepared Unit Generated Rations for the morning and evening meals.
Sgt. Marvin Galloway said the cooks make the special rations even better by adding personal touches.
While preparing Thursday supper, onions and peppers were being saut/ed. Cooks added some spices to the vegetables. The meal also included pork chops, chicken, rice and mixed vegetables.
The rations come in bags that can be boiled, but the cooks like to take some of the ingredients out of the containers and either put them on a grill or in an oven, said Galloway, who is one of six soldiers working at the base camp. Four of them are cooks, one is their non-cook platoon sergeant and the other is a mechanic.
While it may sound strange, breakfast includes a bag of boiled scrambled powder eggs.
The soldiers go to Fort Huachuca once a week to pick up seven days of rations.
Four airmen from the 49th Material Maintenance Squadron out of Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., are providing the power for the dining facility and the camp.
A new deployable power generation and distribution system is being used for the first time in field conditions. The system will be used by Air Force and some Army units at austere camp sites in the future.
Technical Sgt. Michael McCarty said a system, consisting of four trailers with two generators on each of them, can provide power for a camp holding 1,100 people, as well as creating electricity for airfield operations, including a portable control tower and other lighting systems.
Each trailer and equipment costs $460,000.
For the base camp in Bisbee, only one trailer is being used.
Overall, the Air Force will eventually have 80 trailers, or 20 systems, McCarty said.
In the past, the older mobile generating systems were either massive and required large space for monitoring equipment or too small to provide large amounts of power, McCarty said. The new system, where a generator will consume about 10 gallons of diesel fuel per hour, can be monitored and controlled by a laptop computer.
Inside a air-conditioned tent, Staff Sgt. Devon Liladrie monitored the generator online. He could do diagnostic work. If a problem with the operating generator was discovered, he could shut it down and start the backup one, within 30 seconds, using the computer. Warning signals of any problem also are given visually and by sounds from the computer.
McCarty said the power generation system is air deployable, and each trailer weighs about 20,000 pounds.
Research and development tests were done at Holloman, "but they were under controlled conditions," McCarty said. The first real deployable test is being done with the system in Bisbee.
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