#IAMIMSC: Senior Airman Jose Arias-Gonzalez
Duty title and unit: Special Purpose Vehicle Mechanic, AFSFC Desert Defender Ground Combat Readiness Training Center, Fort Bliss, Texas
Primary duty responsibilities: I fix the vehicles for Desert Defender, including High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs), busses and ambulances.
What’s the best part of your job?
The feeling of fixing a vehicle.
Why are you and your job important to the Air Force and AFMC?
If we don’t fix the vehicles, the Desert Defender mission for the readiness training center and logistics detail fails. That means that security forces defenders won’t be ready for their global mission sets down range in two combatant commands.
What’s a recent project that gave you a great sense of accomplishment?
We recently had six HMMWVs go TDY so we were short on vehicles for Desert Defender students. Our shop contacted Holloman AFB, New Mexico, and found out they had 10 old Mine Resistant Ambush Protected, or MRAP, turrets we were able to use.
We then needed to modify 10 HMMWVs so they could use the MRAP turrets. The team and I were able to fabricate the placement of the turrets for the HMMWVs, allowing 10 more tactical vehicles to be used in training for deploying Defenders.
Which AFIMSC priority do you most identify with – or see yourself and your job fitting into – and why?
Lethality and Readiness. I literally work for a readiness training center. My mission is to fix tactical vehicles that directly supports security forces troops training for deployments and equipment for LOGDET to get resources to deployed security forces units across the globe.