Publication:Chattanooga Times Free Press
Date:Friday, March 04, 2005
Section:Front Page; Page:1

By Edward Lee Pitts
Military Affairs

CAMP CALDWELL, Iraq -- The Army this week delivered more than two dozen brand new fully armored Humvees to the 278th Regimental Combat Team stationed here, boosting the Tennessee-based National Guard unit's ability to conduct operations.

A second shipment is scheduled to arrive next week, giving the 278th more than 50 new armored Humvees, according to Capt. Tony Miller, the regiment's assistant supply and logistics officer.

Regimental commander Col. Dennis Adams said the Humvees, flown in by military planes, will be divided among the regiment's three combat squadrons whose units patrol a sector of northeastern Iraq near the Iranian border.

"Very few times in the Guard do you get a new piece of equipment," said Col. Adams, who has served in the military for 25 years. "Most of the stuff I've gotten has been slightly used with one or two owners."

The Humvees will supplement vehicles the regiment inherited from the 30th Brigade Combat Team out of North Carolina. That fleet includes some factory-armored Humvees similar to the new arrivals but is mostly made up of Humvees with add-on armor kits providing steel doors and ballistic windows but with canvas roofs.

In December, Spc. Thomas "Jerry" Wilson, a 278th member from Ringgold, Ga., asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld why soldiers were having to "dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal" to armor their vehicles.

The soldier posed the question after discussing it with a Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter. Before heading from Kuwait into Iraq, some 278th members crafted their own armor, which they called "hillbilly armor," primarily using steel taken off vehicles being sent home from the Middle East.

U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., who wrote letters to the Pentagon urging military officials to provide adequate armor production after Spc. Wilson asked his question, said Thursday the extra Humvees to the 278th are overdue.

"Spc. Thomas Wilson is the reason that the administration and the Pentagon in particular were forced to do this," Rep. Ford said. "Any political pressure, he triggered."

Other Tennessee lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., and U.S. Sens. Bill Frist and Lamar Alexander, both R-Tenn., also wrote letters to Mr. Rumsfeld urging the military to boost armor for the 278th.

Capt. Miller, of Claxton, Tenn., said the new vehicles mean the regiment is close to the more than 200 factory armored Humvees the Army allotted to the 278th when alerting the unit for this mission early in 2004. The 278th has not had that many until now.

"This gives us some needed flexibility," Capt. Miller said. "It is a big shot in the arm for operations everywhere."

Soldiers with the 278th continue to rack up mileage on the Humvees they inherited. Col. Adams' command Humvee alone shows he has driven more than 5,000 miles since the middle of December.

Master Sgt. Johnny Allen, the maintenance sergeant for 1st Squadron, said the older vehicles being used by the 278th have an average of about 50,000 miles on each odometer.

"Those are hard miles out there," he said. "That is probably equal to 300,000 miles on the highway back home."

One of the regiment's squadrons had to replace six entire engines on the old fleet in the last six weeks, according to Capt. Miller. He said many patrol units must "hot seat" their vehicles, meaning different platoons share the same Humvees for missions.

"One platoon comes off shift, and another platoon hops right in," he said.

This practice means many Humvees are staying out on the road for up to 16 hours a day and forcing mechanics to work between missions like NASCAR pit crews to get the Humvees back on the road. Master Sgt. Allen said his 1st Squadron maintenance crew has had to work 10 to 12 hours a day seven days a week to keep the fleet running.

"These might hold up without any major maintenance other than services for the remainder of the deployment," Master Sgt. Allen said Thursday while pointing at one of the desert-colored Humvees already being prepped by its new users.

Now the units should have spares when a Humvee goes down, according to Staff Sgt. Steve Hunt, 37, of Englewood, Tenn., who works in the maintenance section.

Col. Adams said he does not know why Army officials sent the Humvees now, a little more than 100 days after the regiment arrived in Iraq.

"I've been working on this since late April," Col. Adams said of the regiment's armored vehicle status. "The Army works in mysterious ways sometimes."

Capt. Miller said the Army supply resources seem to be backed up by about three months.

"In a perfect world, they would have been sitting here when we got here," he said. "But it just takes time for the Army to catch up."

But Master Sgt. Allen, of Etowah, Tenn., said the new arrivals are coming at the right time because the hot summer here promises to be hard on the regiment's wheels.

The Humvees first appeared earlier this week parked in two long rows in front of the camps' mess hall. Soldiers coming and going from meals lingered and peeked into the windows of the locked Humvees, looking them over like they were kicking tires at an auto dealership back home.

"I think I left some drool marks on the windshield of a few of them," said Lt. Joseph Minarick, who commands a platoon with 1st Squadron's Deacon Battery that oversees the nearby town of Mandila.

Rumors floated around camp that the Humvees were passing through, earmarked for a different unit. But beginning Wednesday regimental headquarters confirmed their soldier's best hopes by allowing the various squadrons to pick up and take home their new rides.

"This thing is off the showroom floor," Spc. Dustin Garrett, 21, said Thursday afternoon as he prepped one of the Humvees for its convoy to Forward Operating Base Cobra where the regiment's 3rd Squadron resides. "This is the Cadillac of the battlefield."

While Spc. Garrett fidgeted with a Humvee's controls inside, Sgt. Scott Martin, of Clarksville, Tenn., looked under the hood as the engine hummed.

Inside plastic still covered the Humvee's seats, a shiny, dust-free camouflage-colored interior. The vehicle's odometer registered just 230 miles.

"This retracts all the statements we made about the 'hillbilly armor,'" said Spc. Garrett, of Jamestown, Tenn.

Since arriving here in December, soldiers have been shuttling noncombat support vehicles to a nearby base where their metal passenger cabins are removed and replaced with bolted-on armored cabins. Capt. Miller said most of these vehicle transformations are complete.

The new Humvees come installed with the military's satellite tracking system, similar to GPS units found in luxury cars. The system allows convoy commanders to navigate during patrols and soldiers back at headquarters to monitor the whereabouts of all units conducting missions.

Capt. Miller said the regiment probably won't be seeing any new Humvees after next week's scheduled second shipment and will have to work with what it now has for the duration of its deployment.

Staff Writer Duane W. Gang contributed to this story.

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

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