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	by Tony Adams

Transporting Our Troops

Material handling professional describes logistics effort in the Middle East.

I was activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Transportation field on August 30, 2004, and was sent to Kuwait as a contracting officer for logistics at Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC), located at Camp Arifjan.

Work positions were very fluid, and I soon found myself assigned as a liaison officer to 3rd Army, tracking and monitoring convoy classes of supply going in and out of Iraq on Theater trucks. Only two routes were designated as main supply routes into Iraq, which easily became strained with the traffic of hundreds of transport trucks. Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), snipers and obstacles in the road hindered the flow of supplies into Iraq and the backhauling of equipment that needed to be repaired or salvaged.

Tony Adams climbs into a Heavy Equipment Truck (HET) Tank Hauler.

The command center where I worked was responsible for all logistics coming into Theater and for moving equipment and supplies north to various camps within Iraq. Sixteen warehouses, each the size of a football field, are part of the Army Material Command (AMC). These warehouses primarily contain repair parts for all types of equipment. The inside of the warehouses is filled with pallet racks, containers and vehicle parts. The largest material handling equipment used is Linde container movers. Forklifts from all the major lift trucks are used, but Hyster, Yale and Toyota, from 2,000 to 10,000 pounds, are common. Most of them were LP or gas. (Disappointing, since my civilian job is in Douglas Battery's Industrial Motive Power division for electric lift truck batteries!) Many camps use military rough terrain lift trucks, which are multi-fuel that can run on diesel or gas. Multi-fuels are used in all types of military over-the-road vehicles. The rough terrain lift trucks also were best for loading and unloading products from supply trucks in the sand and uneven road surfaces.

Many civilian contractors wore the same uniforms as the military and worked the same hours, so it was hard to tell them apart, except for the haircuts or facial hair. The only difference between military people operating equipment and civilians operating equipment is that the military people carry weapons with them everywhere there may be a threat. Many of the operational functions were just like the civilian ones—scanning barcodes, inputting inventory and verifying products.

In Kuwait, there are several companies that supply equipment to the camps, but the majority of material handling equipment is delivered from the States by plane or ship. Kuwait has many servicing locations for repairing equipment, and in Iraq, there are many trained military and civilian mechanics to repair equipment. If repairs are too extensive, the equipment is sent to the rear for repair.

There are many great things happening in Iraq, but the biggest thing is the trust in the United States by most of the Iraqi people. We should be proud of the work the men and women of the Armed Forces and all the civilian contractors are doing in support of the Iraqi people. For these volunteers, the support from the American people and Coalition Forces is what helps us through these times.