Reporting from Iraq: Convoy travels perilous route to supply Seabees
Convoy is supply lifeline for Seabees

By Scott Hadly
Sunday, July 20, 2008

ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq — The moon hasn't yet risen, and the road is dark.

On the first midnight run of a two-night journey from Camp Ramadi to a small outpost a few miles from the Syrian border, a long convoy of armored semitrailers snakes past darkened farms, dusty hamlets and Iraqi police checkpoints.

The caravan is led by an MRAP, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, the military's 14-ton answer to roadside bombs, driven by 20-year-old Chantelle Schweiger, a Seabee with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3, dispatched to Iraq from Naval Base Ventura County.

It's one of six monster vehicles guarding almost three-dozen semis loaded with building supplies. The materials are for building a remote battle post, called Tripoli, and other command outposts near the town of Rahwa.

"I'm sure everyone here feels pressure; we are in the middle of a war zone," said Schweiger. "But you get used to it after a while. We've put in around 17,000 miles in 3 1/2 months, and we haven't hit any IEDs (improvised explosive devices). We've taken some small-arms fire, but that's about it."

The Seabees always ride in an MRAP when traveling outside a military base in Iraq.

The vehicle is a mongrel-mix that's part Humvee, part personnel carrier, and part monster Brinks truck. It weighs from 12 tons to 14 tons and is immune to anything but the largest roadside bombs.

This more than 300-mile roundtrip supply chain is at the heart of the mission for the Seabees of Battalion 3, now stationed in Iraq. Troops often drive at night to avoid civilian traffic and the scorching heat of the day.

Their journey starts in a dirt and gravel lot at Camp Ramadi with a briefing by Alan Wujcik, a Navy chief petty officer who oversees the security detail. Talking to the MRAP crews and truck drivers, Wujcik goes over the latest intelligence and lists some of the recent attacks on the route. He goes over the steps that troops should take if one of the trucks or MRAPs hits a mine. He describes under what circumstances gunners can open fire.

He then turns to Lt. Mark Conrad, the battalion's chaplain.

"Chaps," Wujcik calls.

When the tall, white-haired former Marine raises his voice, everyone bows his or her head.

"Let no bombs or bullets come near us," Conrad says in his Texas drawl. He asks God to watch over the Seabees.

Nests of scorpions

The convoy reached Tripoli, a Spartan outpost that overlooks a popular smuggling route, about 24 hours after leaving Ramadi.

The bare camp is populated by a contingent of hard-core Marines, a handful of Iraqi police and a crew of Seabees, who are busy building wooden barracks and a command post under a punishing sun.

Nests of scorpions are here and there.

Violence in this Sunni-dominated province — at one time an insurgency hotbed — has dropped dramatically over the past two years. It's made the Seabees' job a bit easier. But more facilities are needed as U.S. forces hand over greater responsibilities to the Iraqis.

U.S. forces pulling back from the border in western Iraq are relocating to bases like Tripoli, leaving the job of guarding the frontier to the Iraqis. Other troops are consolidated at larger bases. All that means more work for the Seabees, said Cmdr. Tony Edmonds, who heads up Battalion 3.

"We're at more than 100 percent of capacity," Edmonds said. "What does that mean to be over 100 percent? It means that people who are normally clerks or in administration are also out there swinging hammers."

Because so many crews are sprinkled around the province, Edmonds hitched a ride on the convoy to assess how each crew was doing, making sure progress is being made and his people aren't getting burned out.

Get kudos from Marines

Unlike at Camp Ramadi, where troops are provided three hot meals, good coffee and fast food, remote bases are more austere. The food isn't as good. The living conditions aren't as comfortable. And the work is much more intense.

The Seabees have been at Tripoli for a month and expect to be finished by early August. To meet their deadline, they've been working 12 hours a day, six days a week, as well as knocking out a half-day on Sundays.

Edmonds was pleased at how the Seabees at Tripoli were holding up.

"Surprisingly, morale is higher than at Camp Ramadi, where there are a lot more comforts," he said.

He gets a similar response at Camp Rahwa, which is nearly as remote.

Many of the men and women working at Tripoli say being so far from major bases gives them more autonomy and lets them focus on work. As a project progresses, they get kudos from Marines or soldiers, whose lives they make a little more comfortable.

"The Marines love us," said Builder 1st Class Dan Sherman, a massive bodybuilder who supervises the crew at Tripoli.

He pointed out the new showers his crew installed and the nearly finished barracks that will replace hovels that house troops. One of his first projects was putting up a tent where he's set up a gym.

"This is what I like to do," Senior Chief Eric Davis said while walking through deep sand that's as fine as talc. A puff of dust rises with each footstep, then is carried off by a hot wind.

Work dominates the days that meld into each other as the unrelenting sun beats down. The Seabees find little relief from the heat inside their tents, so they just keep working through the hottest times of the day.

Temperature at 120 degrees

It's difficult to exaggerate the heat.

The temperature has climbed toward 120 degrees in July, and August is expected to be hotter — near 140.

"After working a little bit, I looked down and I noticed my pants were soaked through with sweat," said Command Master Chief Jeffrey Weigel, a veteran of the first Gulf War who was in Iraq during some of the intense fighting in 2004.

Weigel, the battalion's top noncommissioned officer, spent the night at Tripoli working alongside the troops.

"The sweat ended up puddling in my shoes," he said.

Like Cmdr. Edmonds, Weigel worries that the Seabees might get complacent and forget they're in a war zone or stop following procedures. A Seabee in another battalion was cleaning his weapon a few days before the convoy arrived when it accidentally discharged, firing off three rounds. No one was hit.

At one of the convoy stops, Weigel, a tall blunt-talking NCO, berated the men and women in his unit for getting sloppy. He picked up one of their M-16s and pounded the stock on the ground, showing how easy it is to knock a round into the chamber, or "charging" it. The weapon could fire with a touch of the trigger.

"That's how friggin' easy it is," he said. "Follow procedure. Don't do something stupid that's going to get someone killed."

Rollers meant to trigger bombs

After the supplies are unloaded from the trucks, Equipment Operator 1st Class Kathryn Remm makes sure the convoy truck drivers she supervises are ready to head back for another supply run.

They pull out, with Schweiger's MRAP in the lead and five others mixed in with the trucks.

Ryan Sutherland, a 23-year-old Seabee from Crescent City who wants to become a California Highway Patrol officer, drives the last armored vehicle. If one of the convoy vehicles is disabled, Sutherland and his team are supposed to either fix it or tow it if possible.

The lead MRAP is equipped with front rollers that stick out about 15 yards ahead of the vehicle. The rollers are meant to trigger and detonate bombs before the truck and the rest of the convoy get to them.

Schweiger drives at perhaps 45 miles per hour over more than 100 miles of darkened roadway.

Insurgents use pressure triggers, heat or a wire to detonate roadside bombs. But spotting the bombs — hidden under the road, in a pile of trash, in a box or dead animal — is often a challenge.

"You don't want to miss something and get blown up," said Schweiger, a tall brunette with silver stud earrings. "But they train us really well."

Inside the vehicle, Petty Officer 3rd Class Chris Bishop, a combat veteran who served as a turret gunner in his last tour in the region two years ago, is trying to get a tracker computer system to work.

It's a lot different here than it was two years ago, said Bishop, a former college track star who wants to become a dentist.

"For one thing, you had to deal with getting shot at," he said. "You still get shot at, but we haven't had to deal with a full-on firefight or getting blown up by an IED."

Bishop's convinced that although violence is down, the insurgents are just waiting for the U.S. to withdraw and start going "hog wild."

"Those guys who think this is over are wrong; it's never going to be over," he said.

The live mapping system not only tracks the vehicles' route, but it also pinpoints where all allied forces are and can provide information about attacks.

With the vehicles lit up at night, Bishop, the father of a 2-year-old girl, is most nervous when the convoy stops and he has to step out into the dark.

"You can't see anything, but they can see you," said Bishop, who said his time away from family is harder during his second tour of Iraq. "You're looking down, trying to make sure you don't step on something and blow up. Personally, I'm nervous as (expletive) when I get out at night. I'd rather not do it."

James Davenport, a 33-year-old petty officer who is in charge of an MRAP and is a convoy security team leader, said when you step out of a vehicle at night, it feels a bit like you are walking around with a target on you.

"Have you gritted your teeth for an hour?" he asked. "That's what it feels like."

Davenport sees the war as a good thing, helping the Iraqis get back on their feet, establishing a democracy and taking control of the country. He doesn't see pulling out as an option.

"I'm a Republican, my parents are Republican, and no way is a Democrat going to take over," he said.

His friend and fellow crew leader, Dan Johnson, a 29-year-old petty officer, sees things differently.

"I embrace change," said Johnson. "Maybe it's time for a change."

But Johnson doesn't think the U.S. should pull out of Iraq. There's been a lot of progress, he said. And it's calmer and the Iraqis are doing more.

"If we pulled out completely right now, there will be civil war in Iraq, and it will be on us," he said, "It will be our fault."

Johnson rides shotgun in the lead MRAP, his face illuminated by a green glow from the instrument panel.

With Schweiger, he scans the road for anything unusual, maintains radio contact with the rest of the convoy and navigates the road using a live mapping computer system. He has a sidearm strapped to his thigh, and his loaded M-16 is stowed next to his seat.

"Usually when someone has to get out of the truck in the middle of night, it's me," said Johnson, who is known for his cool under pressure.

One car doesn't yield

He joked about how there are many in the military who never leave the cocoon of the Forward Operating Bases, or FOBs, like Camp Ramadi.

"We call them fobbits. Like Hobbits never leaving the shire, they never leave the wire," Johnson said.

Atop the MRAP is a .50-caliber machine gun manned by gunner Sean Tolson.

He pokes his head out of the top of the turret to look for anything out of the ordinary.

Once in a while, when an Iraqi vehicle doesn't pull over or gets too close to the convoy, the Seabees sound a siren. Tolson then fires a "lume," an illuminated round that is a sort of bottle rocket meant to scare off the vehicle. If the vehicle still doesn't pull over or stop advancing, Tolson will fire one shot into the ground, under military rules of engagement. If the vehicle continues, he will open up in earnest.

A few hours into the journey, as Schweiger steered through the darkened streets of Hit, where the convoy has seen sporadic small-arms fire in the past, Tolson notices that religious music begins blaring from mosques as the convoy passes — not surprising in this very religious part of the country, except that it is the middle of the night.

Later, as it gets lighter, the convoy crosses paths with more and more civilian vehicles. The cars and trucks pull over and make way. But one car driven by an old man doesn't yield. Tolson fires a lume. The driver stops for about 10 seconds but then starts to inch closer toward the convoy. Tolson grabs his 727, a smaller version of an M-16, and prepares to fire.

The driver stops about 50 meters from the convoy when he realizes Tolson is going to shoot.

After so many close calls, Tolson said he's learned to just let that kind of stuff roll off his back.

"I really don't feel anything anymore," he said. "It happens all the time."

Ellie