The destructive power of improvised explosive devices hits home while walking through the Warrior bone yard.

“This vehicle here, a guy was killed in,” Staff Sgt. Richard Bullock says dryly as he walks up to a battered Humvee with a gaping hole under the front passenger seat.

“They don’t put any armor underneath, which is where most of the [expletive] happens.”

The Army says that’s no longer going to be the case, that vehicles are now being properly reinforced with armor down under, though not soon enough for this fallen soldier.

The tour at Forward Operating Base Warrior in Kirkuk moves on to another vehicle, which was a bloody mess when Bullock first saw it. Same modus operandi, same result: another soldier killed.

A third Humvee comes into view, another one of those 1025 models that lack the integrity of the 1114 version. With all the acronyms and mil-speak the Army tosses around and soldiers are expected to retain, those two model numbers are committed to memory like none other.

Bullock swings around and points to a charred heap of metal. It used to be a model 1114 before a powerful IED destroyed it. The blast and an ensuing inferno reduced it to its present appearance.

But every soldier inside lived.

It’s that disparity between the two models that has members of Company B, 145th Support Battalion taking matters into their owns hands. Literally.

In a garage that houses a company entity called the Direct Support Maintenance Shop, Bullock heads up an effort to cannibalize salvageable parts from damaged Humvees. The shop uses the parts to repair, or even create, from virtually nothing, a functioning Humvee.

“Once it becomes ‘washed out,’ it goes into our bone yard, and we have control over it,” said Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Maybon, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the shop.

The process of “washing out” a vehicle is similar to what an insurance company does in determining whether it is economically feasible to repair a client’s car after an accident. Time, labor and parts are among the factors that go into the equation.

Parts from just one Humvee deemed irreparable could end up being used on 50 or more others, Maybon said. In six months, four Humvees have been sent to the bone yard.

“He’s rebuilt one and is rebuilding two others to get them back in the fight,” Maybon said of Bullock.

Understandably, given its protective powers, the focus is on rebuilding 1114s, the safest Humvee model available to regular soldiers.

The price difference between the two models is huge. An 1114 model costs $146,844, according to Maybon. In contrast, the more vulnerable version, the 1025, lists for $38,496.

“I’ve got a photocopy of the job order,” Maybon said, referring to a document that annotates the rebirth of an 1114 model that was returned to the Montana National Guard unit at Forward Operating Base McHenry. “It’s sort of this little trophy.”

While Bullock works his magic, others in the shop go about the daily business of crawling under and around other vehicles and equipment that need servicing.

The sights and sounds are not unlike those heard in garages back home. Sporting drab green, soiled coveralls, mechanics move about the place amid the din of clanking tools and loud music.

The talent ranges from Spc. Jennese Wimbley, who is just learning how to work on vehicles, to Spc. Leslie Gump, a skilled mechanic from Mountain Home, Idaho. “Stump the Gump” is an informal contest between the master mechanic and his colleagues.

“It’s always a challenge to see if someone can stump him with a maintenance problem,” Maybon said. “They haven’t done it yet.”

As at home, maintenance is often underappreciated until the need becomes acute. But Maybon and the others know its importance, and say their efforts are all about giving soldiers the best-running vehicles they can.

“We want to give them the best fighting chance we can,” Maybon said.