Maintenance Control Officer: 2nd Lt. Joshua Goodon, U.S. Army
Company: 875th Engineer Battalion Forward Support Company
Operation: Prepping 70 pieces of equipment used by Task Force Red Wolf for return to the U.S. following the four-month-long “Beyond the Horizon” humanitarian assistance exercise in Guatemala
PROBLEM:
Whether it’s the end of overseas training exercises, tours of duty, humanitarian relief efforts, or combat deployments, when it’s time to go home, military equipment must be inspected top to bottom to ensure no foreign matter—be it seeds, plants, insects, even dirt—gets brought back to the U.S. where it could cause environmental and/or economic harm.
Customs Border Patrol (CBP) and U.S. Dept. of Agriculture agents typically undertake the often arduous task of inspecting vehicles at U.S. border crossings. But when brigade and battalion-sized Army units started returning home en masse following Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990s, those agents found themselves overwhelmed by the sheer amount of equipment involved; tanks, trucks, and trailers numbered in the hundreds if not thousands piling into U.S. ports.
Greg Jaskinia, Army South Customs program manager, notes that thoroughly inspecting all equipment is absolutely vital in terms of preventing potentially widespread ecological damage.
SOLUTION:
It is the responsibility of U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Joshua Goodon, with the help of other units and that of his soldiers, to ensure all vehicles under his purview are thoroughly cleaned prior to their return to the U.S. from overseas service.
This particular duty for Goodon and his troops devolves from a partnership the U.S. Transportation Command formed with CBP and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture over two decades ago to train soldiers to perform vehicle inspections and cleanings typically conducted by CBP/agriculture agents.
Region-specific military commanders like Jaskinia (the chief inspector for all military gear south of Mexico) oversee such efforts by units such as the 875th Engineer Battalion Forward Support Company, which prepped the 70 pieces of equipment deployed with Task Force Red Wolf—trucks, trailers, backhoe loaders, and other gear—for return to the U.S. from Guatemala.
Task Force Red Wolf deployed to Guatemala in early May as part of a four-month-long humanitarian exercise dubbed “Beyond the Horizon.”
A week out from the end of the exercise, Goodon and his soldiers worked under the watchful eye of Jaskinia to remove seeds, dirt, grime, leaves and insects from all equipment before returning to America. That meant inspecting each truck and construction machine deployed with the Task Force, focusing mainly on exterior areas around doors, under the chassis, etc. ,and then cleaning them thoroughly with regular hoses and pressure washers.
“It’s important to meet the Customs standards,” Goodon says. “At first, there was some difficulty meeting the standards in the time that we had left, and if we couldn’t, soldiers would be required to stay behind, which would be rather expensive; however, with guidance, my soldiers knocked those vehicles out.”
