CARRYING THE LOAD IN IRAQ

Army, Jul 2004 by Steele, Dennis

Barreling down an Iraqi highway inside a big hunk of olive-drab-painted, Oshkosh Truck Corp. a steel, at a monotonous 49 miles per hour (the speed is governed), a rat-rigged stereo in the heavy equipment transporter (HET) cab belted out the country music hit "American Soldier" by Toby Keith.

Spc. Walter Burgin, the driver/disc jockey, played that song pretty much first thing every morning-at least he had for the previous two days-establishing a patriotic tone for the trip. Sitting in the passenger seat was SSgt. William Bernreuther, a squad leader in the 96th Transportation Company from Fort Hood, Texas. Their HET was part of a 40-truck convoy of mixed military and contractor vehicles delivering equipment to the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq.

I spent a few days with the 96th Transportation Company, a Regular Army unit, as it started a run into Iraq from Kuwait, and hitched a ride with the California National Guard's 1498th Transportation Company for the return leg. Both are HET units.

Operation Iraqi Freedom (O1F) depends on truckers-military, U.S. contractor and third-country national contractor-to supply the more than 130,000 soldiers and marines, and thousands of American civilian employees in Iraq. Aside from mail and scant priority loads that are flown into Iraq aboard aircraft, everything that supports the operation travels by truck.

At any given time of day, between 800 and 1,300 trucks are on the highways of Iraq to sustain OIF from main supply bases in Kuwait while others make the run from Turkey. During deployment/redeployment operations, the number can double as trucks ferry equipment and vehicles in and out of Iraq.

"This is like the Berlin Airlift on wheels," explained SSgt. Tomas Padron, convoy noncommissioned officer in charge of the 1498th Transportation Company.

"I've never seen this many trucks in my life, and I live in California," added his driver, Sgt. Bert Almeida.

Nearing the end of their tour, soldiers of the 1498th Transportation Company had racked up more than 3.5 million miles driven inside Iraq. Stenciled in Arabic on one side of their trucks is the unit's motto: "Get Out of the Way."

It was the 96th Transportation Company's second deployment to the theater, having moved the equivalent of seven divisions' equipment during OIF's initial combat phase and the area occupation phase that followed, with nearly 1.3 million total vehicle miles under its belt.

This time, the 96th was based at Camp Truckville, adjacent to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. The 1498th was based at Camp Victory, Kuwait.

"But when people ask where we're stationed, we just say 'on the road,'" SSgt. Padron said.

Truckers can spend eight to 10 days on the road to complete a mission circuit. They drive all day and spend nights at various camps along the route. No trucks travel after dark in Iraq.

The vehicles are the soldiers' homes, and life on the road is hard, filled with long waits, short nights and not much glory. It is also dangerous. Every foot of Iraq's highways is a potential spot for an improvised explosive device (IED), and there is the constant danger of ambush.

The hundreds of miles of roads that compose the main supply routes (MSRs) are the front lines in Iraq. A map in the Camp Navistar operation center, which depicts with red pins the location of IEDs and ambushes during the previous 24 hours, shows 10 to 15 such attacks occur each day along MSRs. Convoy commanders get a situation update at Camp Navistar, the last stop in Kuwait before convoys enter Iraq.

"Last year, driving through the same towns, the people were throwing flowers," noted Sgt. David Romero of the 96th. "Now they're planting bombs."

HETs are a theater priority asset for units moving into or around Iraq. Usually transporting armored vehicles, HET units can be saddled with most any type of cargo. It just depends on the flow.

On the mission I went on, the 96th Transportation Company's 4th Platoon arrived at Camp Udairi, Kuwait, and was directed to load shipping containers.

"Used to be, we would pull up on a load like this and get mad," said 1st Lt. Sarah Groen, the platoon leader. "Now, we just look at it and say, 'It's got to go.'"

Units that need cargo or equipment transportation will occasionally employ desperate (and one might say underhanded) measures to latch onto or keep a HET convoy.

"Sometimes they will hold a convoy more or less hostage by not downloading it, hoping to get another load requested and cleared while it's there," Lt. Groen noted. "Sometimes, they might even pull Humvees in front of the trucks to keep them from moving."

When a unit is done with a transportation outfit, however, it usually gets dropped like yesterday's newspaper. They often get minimum outside support and precious little thanks. Without the truckers, however, nothing would be possible for coalition forces operating in Iraq.

By Dennis Steele

Senior Staff Writer