AV soldiers shipping out to Iraq with Guard

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

Out in the dusty weed patches that divide the barracks buildings, troops were busy spraying their names and service numbers on the bottom of duffel bags.

Soldiers of the 1498th Transport Company, "the Big Awesome Truck Company" of the California National Guard, were getting ready to go. After months of training that took them through the beginning and middle of Gulf War II, they were finally outbound for the Middle East and their role in the end game of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

"We just want to go," said Sgt. Timothy Lee, an operations sergeant who is a medical nurse in Reno, Nev. "We've trained. We're ready. We want to go."

There were final weekend hangovers with no overnight passes needed to roll a few miles south down Highway 101 to go to "Paso," the nearby community of Paso Robles.

The lights in Barracks Building 5304 popped brightly around 3 a.m., amid the snores and groans of soldiers who were passing a quiet Saturday night in their bunks.

"A buddy of mine came in drunk, and he wanted to talk about his night on the town," said Spc. Ken Brackett of Sacramento. "I said, 'I'm asleep, and you should be, too.' "

One sergeant, arriving for orderly room duty on the night after his 35th birthday, pulled the fabric fasteners on his flak jacket and the ripping sound made him wince from the celebratory hangover he nursed. He put the coffee on.

Saturday evening formation occasioned one last bout of rueful consternation from the company's top-kick noncommissioned officer, 1st Sgt. James R. Norris.

"So, you all want to go on pass. Is that it?" Norris grumped at the assembled group of 200 or so soldiers standing in the dirt outside the World War II vintage wooden barracks.

Did they want to go on pass? Just one last time.

"I thought we'd been over this," Norris said, gloomily. "Didn't I tell you troops we were done with pass time?"

"Hooah, first sergeant," the troops murmured.

The first sergeant explained that a trip to "Paso" to grab a couple of cold ones didn't require an overnight pass. A kind of "Cinderella liberty" that cuts off at 2200 hours, 10 p.m. for civilians. That is a couple of cold ones, on a short leash, that doesn't allow for serious partying.

There were civilian cars, "Privately Owned Vehicles," waiting at curbside, one with a prominent "Just Married" sign splashed across the window a week after the nuptials. The honeymoon, with deployment to the Middle East imminent, was not quite over.

Some passes were authorized, and the company commander watched, half amused, half exasperated as a young mother wheeled a baby stroller and led a toddler past the rapidly dispersing evening formation.

"How could they know we would even let them go on pass?" he said.

For Capt. Matthew R. Hook, the work of the past month has been to take his hastily assembled company of nearly 100 Heavy Equipment Transport trucks, joined by hundreds of truck drivers, and get them ready to arrive in a war zone.

Just as they got ready, it was time for a few more push-ups. Push-ups are rare in a transportation company, noted Hook, who said commanding truck drivers is a matter of leading good soldiers who are also rugged individualists.

"In civilian life, they're out on the road all the time, and they're dealing with people on deadlines, and they are dealing with cops. They aren't like grunt infantry."

But when a motley of "BAT-C" troopers left Saturday night without the formalities, such as sign-outs and contact numbers, the first sergeant wasted no time Sunday listing the violators and dropping them for push-ups in full field gear.

"It's like dealing with 300 stray cats," he said. "Ever tried to herd cats?"

Meanwhile, one of the company's high-performing officers seethed over the number of his own platoon that trudged over into the guilty column to do their push-ups.

"We have to know where you are," Lt. Paul Peterlin said. "Accountability equals life."

Respected by his men, Peterlin has his own experience and family lore to rely on. His brother served in Somalia when the "Blackhawk Down" incident resulted in the deaths of 19 Army Rangers. And Peterlin himself once performed security duties at the Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi Arabia. After he returned from his tour with Air Force security, terrorists bombed the Khobar Towers, killing more than a dozen U.S. military personnel.

The captain picked up the pace after the push-up ceremonies, directing a battle drill, where troops scrambled out of their heavy gear, Kevlar helmets and flak vests, running them to the barracks. Then they ran, grabbed them and threaded their arms and legs back into the gear again. Time on the first round, more than the allotted two minutes. After two repetitions of the drill, performance improved.

"It may happen, out in the field, that you will not be given enough time to do what needs to be done, but you still must do your best," Hook told the soldiers.

The idea was dawning. Pass time was over.

"The order will come, and you won't leave the company area," 1st Sgt. Norris said. "We'll move to an air base, and you won't leave the room you're told to stay in. Is that clear?"

"You get on the plane," Norris continued. "Well, don't leave the plane - until you get there."

So, preparations for a journey that will lead the unit to Kuwait and Iraq are serious. In a land where fresh freedom is spurring massive demonstrations that can turn deadly in minutes, endangering troops and resulting in local killed and wounded, fresh danger abounds.

If the war is won, and the combat generally done, the land of Iraq remains a "land of bad things," where caution and body armor remain necessary.

In the time that remained, the job was to get everything - every single thing needed to deploy 300 souls to a still hostile overseas destination.

"It's a matter of getting everything ready to go," said Capt. Hook, the commander.

"It's all the brass tacks. It's every little nit-picking thing, everything that is difficult to quantify, that if you don't do it, you won't be ready."

The 1498th was cobbled together from military transportation companies across California. Major elements originated in Riverside-San Bernardino, and were joined by companies from Sacramento and the Antelope Valley communities of northern Los Angeles and Kern counties. But soldiers also hail to the unit from San Diego, Orange County and the San Francisco Bay area.

"It is truly a statewide unit," said Brig. Gen. James P. Combs, commanding officer of the 49th Combat Support Command of the California National Guard. "They have been called for an important mission, the humanitarian relief task of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

The unit also is on tap for virtually anything that its Central Command leadership requires.

"What we have are 96 trucks, and a lot of work to do," Capt. Hook said. "I think we will be welcome anywhere, because we have the trucks, so that means we are wanted and needed."

Soldiers in the company trained as operators of a 50-ton, half-million dollar Heavy Equipment Transporter System tractor-trailer built by Oshkosh of Wisconsin.

The tractor-trailers with 48 wheels are designed to haul anything up to a 70-ton M-1 Abrams tank. They also can haul shipping containers that hold anything from power generators for a shuttered hospital in Baghdad to medical supplies that could help put a village or a town back on its feet.

"Any time you are involved with anything with the American military, it is big," Hook said. "Could you imagine seeing a convoy with 96 of these trucks coming down the road?"

The trucks and trailers are 100 feet long, virtual wheeled ships.

"It looks like D-Day is what it looks like," Hook said.

In the days prior to movement to an airfield where a plane will carry them to the theater of operations, "to do" lists multiplied.

Some soldiers decided they would use blue paint to stencil their names on their duffel bags. That wouldn't do.

"They said they decided, 'We'll do blue paint,' " marveled Peterlin, leader of second platoon. "Didn't they think? Blue paint isn't regulation."

Black paint is regulation. Small details matter.

Peterlin prides himself as a custodian of small details. His platoon, which scored high in Field Training Exercise, is the result of details checked by Peterlin and his platoon sergeant. Sgt. 1st Class Martin Arreguy.

"Small details matter," Peterlin said. "Small details are the difference between life and death."

For Sgt. Scott Hakkala, a mechanic in the maintenance platoon, the object is to pay attention so that no more soldiers meet the fate of POWs like the ones killed in Pfc. Jessica Lynch's unit, the 507th Maintenance Company. To avoid such tragedy, soldiers from the ranks up to command level need to remain focused on the small details, and the big picture.

"We have a lot of good soldiers in this unit," Hakkala of Stockton said. "But I wonder if reality won't sink in before one of our trucks comes back riddled with bullets."