Posted on 12/03/2004 12:28:33 AM PST by neverdem
CAMP NAVISTAR, Kuwait -- As a cold rain falls on the desert here near the Iraq border, Sgt. Allen Maresh briefs the drivers of a convoy that's carrying urgently needed spare parts to a base north of Baghdad. He's a big, plain-spoken man from Dodge, Neb., and when he tells his drivers to "saddle up and get going" for the dangerous journey, you can't help but think of a wagon train heading out into bandit country.
The 30 trucks rumble off into the gray morning for the 900-mile round trip. They are part of what might be called the "logistical war" in Iraq -- a vast but often invisible side of the conflict. Between 700 and 1,000 U.S. trucks cross the border each day from Kuwait into Iraq: This fleet has shipped 4 million liters of drinking water into Iraq so far this year; it delivered food for 33 million meals between January and September; it carries much of the 1 million gallons of fuel consumed each day by U.S. forces.
The measure of success in Iraq is complicated, but people like Maresh are solving an unglamorous but essential problem of this war: how to keep troops supplied in a hostile environment. The insurgents have tried to break the supply line with roadside bombs, ambushes and gruesome beheadings of kidnapped drivers. But the wagon train keeps rolling every day, and there have been no significant shortages of food, water, fuel, ammunition or any other essential supplies.
If the insurgents hoped to make it impossible for U.S. forces to operate in Iraq, they have failed. The soldiers fighting the logistical war have adapted, innovated and persevered. "It would be difficult if not impossible to stop our sustainment effort," says Maj. Gen. Paul Mock, who heads the transportation command in Kuwait.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The truck drivers of the Theater Transportation Mission are doing much the same job as the old Merchant Mariners of WWII. The TC troops are the Navy, and the gun trucks are the corvettes.
Move'em out!...Rawhide!.....
Nice analogy
Yes, but this pompous, jerk-ass "reporter" couldn't help but add that little scathing sentence at the end about how it is nice to see something go right in Iraq. Along with his snide remark about the Army bungling things by not sending enough armored HumVees to the theater. What a POS.
We have to remember to honor the unseen civilian "fighters" in this war on terror. They are just as important and brave as the front line soldiers and Marines.
If only they were not all working for that eeeeeeviiil conglomerate of money grubbing rich white men known collectively as Halliburton (sarcasm off)
As some knuckle dragging maggott infested FM radio type sneered to me once "Halliburton Rocks!"
Halliburton, KBR, Blackwatch Security and all the others who are supporting our troops ROCK!
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