Cal Guard: Iraq

CAMP VICTORY, Kuwait - The combat support truckers drawn from companies in the Antelope Valley, Riverside and Sacramento have made more than two trips around the moon while in Iraq, and they want to return to their home planet soon.

They are making preparations to return, even as the bloodiest fighting in a year has shut down traffic on Iraq's main supply routes and thousands of U.S. troops are being tabbed for extensions "in theater" of unknown duration.

In the period of nearly a year since deployment from Camp Roberts in California for the hot combat zones of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the truckers of the 1498th Transportation Company have logged more than 2 million miles, hauling the gear from the rear to an ever-shifting front.

Nearly all of those miles were accident-free, but many miles traveled between Mosul in the northwest near Syria down to Basra in the southeast near Iran have been marked by gunfire, rocket-propelled-grenade attacks and improvised explosive device blasts, most recently on Monday.

Over the past year, a score of the unit's soldiers got Purple Heart honors for shrapnel wounds. To this date, none have been killed in action.

But during the worst week for casualties since the end of "major combat" was declared by President George W. Bush on May 1, a convoy of trucks from the unit was ambushed.

Two Cal Guard soldiers suffered minor shrapnel wounds that saw them quickly returned to duty, but a 1st Armored Division soldier riding as armed escort for a civilian contract driver was killed, dying from wounds suffered in the detonation of an IED that blasted one of the 1498th truck cabs.

"I can only say, I wish it hadn't happened," 1st Sgt. James Earl Norris said on receiving initial sketchy reports of the attack back at the unit's base camp in Kuwait.

"I can't even say, 'I'm glad it wasn't one of ours.' You can't be glad with one of the 1st AD soldiers killed. He was riding shotgun to protect a KBR driver."

Kellogg, Brown & Root is the Texas-based subsidiary of Halliburton, the giant contracting services firm that does everything from augment supply convoys to running dining facilities and delivering mail to troops in Iraq.

In the worst week for casualties, a number of KBR truck drivers were killed, and one, Thomas Hamill, was taken hostage Friday after an ambush in Baghdad near Baghdad International Airport. On Wednesday, his fate was unknown. The Texas company apparently ceased its own supply driving missions while U.S. forces fought to regain control of the Montana-sized nation's dangerous roadways.

Meanwhile, heavy equipment transport drivers from the 1498th were scattered at a variety of locations in Iraq where many of the main supply routes were closed down to all military traffic except tanks and assault vehicles working to restore security after a week of chaotic fighting in areas that ranged from Fallujah west of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle to the Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, south of Baghdad.

In Najaf, troops from the 1st Armored Division were massing for a potential fight to bring down the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Al-Mahdi militia has been targeted for destruction by coalition forces led by the United States.

Al-Sadr's armed followers, numbering up to 10,000, have so far failed to excite support from the majority of the nation's Shiites, who are about two-thirds of Iraq's population.

Some troops from the oversized California National Guard company were taking trucks laden with equipment and supplies to support Marines engaged in actions ranging from the siege of Fallujah to other Marines charged with stopping infiltrators coming into Iraq along the Syrian border.

The stepped-up fighting across Iraq ignited nearly a year to the day from when U.S. forces entered Baghdad in triumph. Lt. Hatem Abdine, the 1498th's executive officer, said the renewed fighting offers a historic irony.

"I have been watching Arab television, and they have been showing historic film from when the British entered the city in 1918," Abdine said. "It is amazing, seeing those old films. They look just the same as last year. The same kind of people laughing and waving as the troops entered the city. The same kind of kids smiling and happy."

The outburst of fighting also happened as the California Guard company moved daily closer to their anniversary of being "in country" supporting the Operation Iraqi Freedom mission. They hope that anniversary date, falling around the middle of May, signals the unit's departure date.

Some units that were headed out of Kuwait for redeployment to their home units outside the Middle East got turned around as they were leaving the country.

On Monday, Sgt. 1st Class Rick Brewster of Ridgecrest chatted with Lt. Oke Johnson, a combat surgical nurse who was ready to head out to home base.

"We were clearing customs and they turned us around after we cleared customs," Lt. Johnson said. "We are all going back to Baghdad. They are sending the nurses to various locations."

Gen. John Abizaid, chief of Central Command, said he wanted about two additional brigades of "combat power" to bring to the fight. That translates into about two thirds of a complete division. Units such as the 1st Armored or 4th Infantry divisions have more than 10,000 soldiers apiece.

Abizaid has declined, so far, to name which units are being held in Iraq during this recent outbreak of violence. Other commanders have said 1st Armored Division, "Old Ironsides," is the logical candidate for extension because the Germany-based heavy armor unit is seasoned in Iraqi combat and already in the area that it is handing off to the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division.

This has raised uncertainty about potential return dates to the United States for the 1498th California Guard unit. So far, the headquarters-based elements are continuing with preparations as if they are soon going to receive orders to redeploy to CONUS, the continental United States.

At the same time, the heavy trucks remaining south of the Iraqi border in Kuwait were being dispatched on Wednesday for "pre-wash" cleaning. After a hard year on the toughest of unimproved roads, all the unit's trucks will be thoroughly washed and undergo repairs before return to the United States.

"The 'pre-wash' is one of the signs that eventually we are going to be going home," said Sgt. William R. Johnson. "It's one of many things that has to be done before we go home."

Sgt. 1st Class Dave Klein of Hesperia conceded he's more than ready to go home. But, space out his deployment for a while, "I'd come back, in a year or so."

Klein earned a meritorious Bronze Star for helping make the 1498th's mission happen, but said the toughest part about being a platoon sergeant is being in the spotlight when your nature is to be low-key. It also means handing out the jobs everybody loves, like guard duty.

Sgt. Richard Mosley of the Palm Springs area had just finished a turn at guard duty, running from midnight to 6:30 a.m., watching vehicle entries at the heavily fortified camp.

At the same time, he recalled some of the extraordinary events the unit participated in. The unit's exec, Lt. Abdine, has family in Kuwait who maintain close relations with the upper echelons of Kuwaiti society.

At the behest of a Kuwaiti sheikh, some of the Guard truckers were invited to his home along with a circle of traditionally robe-clad Kuwaiti royalty and government advisers. At the sheik's pavilion, the Guard soldiers participated in "Diwaniyah," a ceremonial feast and conversational exchange hosted on traditional cushions in a Bedouin-style tent palladium near the Arabian Gulf. No one in the Arabic-speaking world refers to the body of water as the Persian Gulf.

"That was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event," Mosley said. "I don't know what we ate, but we were stuffed. They were great hosts, really friendly and cordial."

Capt. Brian Holste, the unit's maintenance chief, recalled the unit's more exotic missions, such as being tasked to help an Australian general unearth buried Iraq high-performance MiG-29 jet fighters from sand dunes they were buried in before the end of the war. No one has figured out what decision-making prompted the Iraqi air force command to bury its air force in sand near Baghdad International Airport.

The truckers helped military intelligence crews remove the jet fighters from their improvised shallow graves.

"The unit had the opportunity to do some really wild and interesting things," Holste said.

Most of the soldiers, however, were more than ready to end their globe-girdling orbits around the strife-torn Middle East.

A ceramic coffee cup sold in large numbers in the PX exchange stores sums it up.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Editor Dennis Anderson, who worked as an embedded journalist in Operation Iraqi Freedom last year, rejoined a unit of California National Guard combat support truckers tasked to run convoy missions across Iraq. Many soldiers from the statewide company are from the Antelope Valley.

"READY FOR HOME - Sgt. 1st Class Dave Klein of Hesperia earned a meritorious Bronze Star serving in Iraq with Antelope Valley troops from the National Guard. He said he's ready to go home, but willing to come back./DENNIS ANDERSON/Valley Press

(Anderson probably did NOT write the headline.)

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