thedrifter
08-04-06, 07:57 AM
Military using air power to keep troops off Iraq's roads
By: REBECCA SANTANA - Associated Press
CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq -- The U.S. military is increasingly using air lifts instead of ground convoys to resupply troops to avoid the deadly roadside bombs that remain a major killer of American soldiers after more than three years of war.
The 3rd Corps Support Command, which supplies units throughout the country, has made air shipment its No. 1 priority since arriving last October at Camp Anaconda, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
"When we first got here, all of our stuff was shipped out by ground," said 1st Lt. Ted Mataxis, 29, of Raleigh, N.C., whose unit is responsible for assembling Humvee tires, engines and other repair parts for air transport.
Now "we're sending the majority of our stuff by air," he said. "The only stuff that goes out by ground are the big, bulky items."
In October, the command moved about 6,500 pallets -- the platform that items are loaded onto -- by air each month. The monthly figure now stands at about 16,000.
The increase of air shipments means about 33,000 vehicles and 71,000 troops who would have been driving convoys around Iraq's dangerous highways have been taken off the roads.
It is unclear how many soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs -- known here as improvised explosive devices, or IEDS -- while on supply convoys. According to the Web site icasualties.org, roadside bombs against all types of convoys have accounted for 926 of the 2,044 hostile fire deaths among U.S. forces since July 2003.
Army officials here have no doubt that the air effort has saved lives.
"Any time you go outside the wire, anything can happen," said Maj. Doug A. LeVien, 34, from Brooklyn, N.Y., with the 548th Logistic Task Force. "All battalion commanders try to minimize how often you have to go out. If you don't have to go out, that's a win. Those are numbers that don't show up in box scores."
Moving cargo by air has its limits. Bigger, bulkier items such as fuel, drinking water or food weigh too much to make them practical to ship by air, and there's too much of it.
The air effort has meant a greater role for the Air Force in Iraq. Working with Army engineers, the Air Force has improved runways around the country that were originally built for small Iraqi fighter planes.
Now large cargo planes can fly directly from the United States or other staging points around the world and land at a number of bases instead of going first to Kuwait to offload supplies.
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute, said cooperation between the Army and Air Force has improved since Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has pressured the services to operate as a team.
"The Army desperately needs Air Force firepower, surveillance and mobility, while the Air Force needs to prove its relevance to the fight. The services still have frictions in their day-to-day interactions, but they seldom have cooperated as closely and continuously as they do today."
For the soldiers and airmen on the ground in Iraq, what matters is keeping troops off the roads.
"If I can save another soldier from going out on the road, I'd rather well do it," said Spc. Brian Morgan, 36, of Raleigh, N.C., who checks hazardous materials such as engines before they can be loaded onto planes. "It's somebody else that has a family back at home."
Ellie
By: REBECCA SANTANA - Associated Press
CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq -- The U.S. military is increasingly using air lifts instead of ground convoys to resupply troops to avoid the deadly roadside bombs that remain a major killer of American soldiers after more than three years of war.
The 3rd Corps Support Command, which supplies units throughout the country, has made air shipment its No. 1 priority since arriving last October at Camp Anaconda, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
"When we first got here, all of our stuff was shipped out by ground," said 1st Lt. Ted Mataxis, 29, of Raleigh, N.C., whose unit is responsible for assembling Humvee tires, engines and other repair parts for air transport.
Now "we're sending the majority of our stuff by air," he said. "The only stuff that goes out by ground are the big, bulky items."
In October, the command moved about 6,500 pallets -- the platform that items are loaded onto -- by air each month. The monthly figure now stands at about 16,000.
The increase of air shipments means about 33,000 vehicles and 71,000 troops who would have been driving convoys around Iraq's dangerous highways have been taken off the roads.
It is unclear how many soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs -- known here as improvised explosive devices, or IEDS -- while on supply convoys. According to the Web site icasualties.org, roadside bombs against all types of convoys have accounted for 926 of the 2,044 hostile fire deaths among U.S. forces since July 2003.
Army officials here have no doubt that the air effort has saved lives.
"Any time you go outside the wire, anything can happen," said Maj. Doug A. LeVien, 34, from Brooklyn, N.Y., with the 548th Logistic Task Force. "All battalion commanders try to minimize how often you have to go out. If you don't have to go out, that's a win. Those are numbers that don't show up in box scores."
Moving cargo by air has its limits. Bigger, bulkier items such as fuel, drinking water or food weigh too much to make them practical to ship by air, and there's too much of it.
The air effort has meant a greater role for the Air Force in Iraq. Working with Army engineers, the Air Force has improved runways around the country that were originally built for small Iraqi fighter planes.
Now large cargo planes can fly directly from the United States or other staging points around the world and land at a number of bases instead of going first to Kuwait to offload supplies.
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute, said cooperation between the Army and Air Force has improved since Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has pressured the services to operate as a team.
"The Army desperately needs Air Force firepower, surveillance and mobility, while the Air Force needs to prove its relevance to the fight. The services still have frictions in their day-to-day interactions, but they seldom have cooperated as closely and continuously as they do today."
For the soldiers and airmen on the ground in Iraq, what matters is keeping troops off the roads.
"If I can save another soldier from going out on the road, I'd rather well do it," said Spc. Brian Morgan, 36, of Raleigh, N.C., who checks hazardous materials such as engines before they can be loaded onto planes. "It's somebody else that has a family back at home."
Ellie