A


group of Soldiers in Afghani- stan has a remote-controlled (RC) truck to thank for saving their lives.


Outfitted with a wireless camera to allow Soldiers to inspect suspicious objects while remaining a safe distance away, the sand-colored RC truck—16 inches long, a foot wide, and 9.5 inches high—fulfilled its mission during a patrol in Afghani- stan in August. Soldiers on patrol, who had borrowed the truck from SSG Chris Fessenden of the 58th Military Police (MP) Company, 728th Battalion, 8th MP Brigade saw a suspicious area and were looking for an alternate route. The patrol was navigating the truck around the area when it hit a tripwire rigged to nearly 500 pounds of explosives and saved the lives of the six Soldiers on patrol.


“I immediately was just shocked,” said Ernie Fessenden of Rochester, MN, Chris’ brother, of his reaction to hearing the truck had exploded. “Chris sent me a message that the truck had found its last IED. It was very much, ‘Is Chris okay?’


‘Are the people he loaned the truck to okay?’ and then, ‘If I sent another truck, would you use it?’”


After the original truck met its demise, Ernie worked quickly with local hobby


SMALL AND ACCURATE SSG Chris Fessenden navigates the customized RC truck.


shop owner Kevin Guy of Everything Hobby in Rochester, and the nonprofit organization Trucks to Troops, which collects donations to create and ship the trucks and works on customizing them for Soldiers, to get two more trucks to Chris and the other Soldiers.


MOVING IN ON IEDS While this was the first time it had tripped explosives, the four-year-old customized truck had spent just over a year on “active duty,” helping Chris and other Soldiers check for IEDs and other suspicious items in Iraq and Afghanistan.


THE PATROL WAS NAVIGATING THE TRUCK AROUND THE AREA WHEN IT HIT A TRIPWIRE RIGGED TO NEARLY


500 POUNDS OF EXPLOSIVES AND SAVED THE LIVES OF THE SIX SOLDIERS ON PATROL.


The RC toy truck’s story began in 2007 when Ernie and Chris were talking about Chris’ daily duties. At that point, when Chris was stationed in Iraq near Baghdad, his responsibilities included inspecting vehicles for explosives.


“We were shooting ideas back and forth, and back then, it became widely known that insurgents were using IEDs, whether they were hiding them on the side of the road or putting them in vehicles,” Ernie said. “We wanted to know how we can help make it so Chris gets home.”


While the brothers ran through a gamut of ideas, from the realistic to the far-fetched, they centered on one of Chris’ pressing problems—getting up close to examine a suspicious item or area, particularly underneath a vehicle, while remaining safe. The two asked, “How can we look closer without actually being closer?”


Having an interest in RC vehicles, Ernie knew that people had been placing cam- eras on RC cars for various purposes. After deciding that mounting a camera on an RC car would be the most worthwhile


AS C.ARMY.MI L 105


FIELD EXPEDIENT


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