14 MAR 07 Truck inspections

The day starts a little after daybreak for this group of Iowa Army National Guardsmen. They do a few varieties of push ups and then they’re off to the staging yard. As I reach this yard, it is a sunny day but the gusty winds make it feel like a day on a Brainerd, Minn., lake in the fall with the perfect walleye chop. Of course this FOB received its name from British soldiers stationed there. We pronounce it Tre bill but they pronounced it trouble because it was so cold in the winter months. The soldiers are divided into teams of two and each team is responsible for a row of trucks and trailers numbering about seven. Each team has an inspection checklist that includes working headlights, tail lights, brakes and wipers. The soldiers also check for major fluid leaks. Not even an hour has passed before we take a break by a small bonfire in the middle of the yard. The drivers are ordered in one area while a bomb-sniffing and drug-sniffing dog searches each truck. After these searches, the soldiers go back to work. I decide to climb up one of the tanker’s ladders to get a high angle view. Imagine trying to climb one of these ladders on the side of the tanker with an extra 60 pounds of weight (the top-heavy body armor vest with mandated gear like several hundred rounds of ammunition for my M-4 rifle). I unfortunately picked a ladder that didn’t go all way to the top of the tanker. So I had do some acrobatic moves to reach the top. Needless to say it was a tedioius process. But I got a great photo (which couldn’t be published because of Operational Security concerns). Several minutes later, the team’s task was over as a company from their battalion arrived to escort these trucks to a large base in the interior of Iraq.