Hey, did you double check that vehicle?

Well.

Our Humvee went on a mission to Panjwai district on Monday. I was driving. We went to PBW and Hazi-M'dad(sp?). At Hazi-M'dad we discovered that our vehicle had shed about 1/3rd of its "serpentine" belt. This, essentially, is a single belt that performs all the functions of multiple belts in a civilian vehicle. Drives the AC, the engine cooling fan, the compressor for the AC, the power steering, etc etc.

Well, this was not an IMMEDIATE emergency, but it did mean that the belt HAD to be replaced when we got back. Which resulted in a VERY long night for myself and Specialist White. Long, and tiresome.

Anyway, the vehicle ended up spending two days at the shop, and the belt tensioner, the fan clutch, and the AC compressor were all replaced. It was returned to us on Thursday, and Specialist Anderson and myself took it over to KAF today to go to the PX.

When we got there, I commented that it smelled like Antifreeze. Anderson replied that of course it did, the vehicle had just been reworked, and they'd probably put new antifreeze in it, so it would smell like that, wouldn't it? I figured this was probably true, since I almost invariably spill anti-freeze and oil on the engine of MY vehicle back home when I'm working on it. No reason to assume that's not also the case for the maintenance section.

Well, when we returned to Lindsey, I got out and noticed that it REALLY smelled like antifreeze. Oh, and the right front tire was wet. Which was odd. Despite it having rained the last few days, there is no standing water between here and KAF, so the tire shouldn't be wet...

We decided that we needed to look under the hood. The engine was covered in antifreeze, and we couldn't figure out why. We thought a pinhole leak at first, or a crack in the reservoir. Eventually, though, I realized that the hose that leads from the top of the radiator to the reservoir had not been reconnected. When the radiator heated up, it was venting hot antifreeze all over the engine compartment!

We fixed this in short order with our handy-dandy Government issue Gerber Multi-tools, and then we went to find the maintenance crew and rag them for missing such an obvious detail.

Lesson learned. Always double check behind the maintenance team. They forget things too. Even simple, obvious, easy things.