Keeping supplies in the air keeps them off the road

[unhappycamper]

Soldiers risk their lives every day to supply bases with goods via the ground, but transporting supplies in the air minimizes risk.


Keeping supplies in the air keeps them off the road
By Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, October 21, 2007


BALAD, Iraq — Thousands of U.S. soldiers pile into Humvees, trucks and tanks to deliver food, ammunition, fuel and other goods to American military bases in Iraq every day.

Granted, it isn’t the military’s sexiest job. But it’s an important one — and dangerous, say Army leaders who are looking for ways to trim the number of trucks on the road.

“It takes a certain intestinal fortitude to get hit by and get back in the truck the next day,” said Brig. Gen. Gregory Couch, commander of the Army Reserve’s 316th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary). “We want to get soldiers off the road.”

Couch’s command, based at Logistics Support Area Anaconda near Balad, gets hit by a roadside bomb every night, he said.

Brig. Gen. Kevin Leonard of Kuwait’s 1st Sustainment Command (Theater) sends convoys to Iraq and Afghanistan. They get hit two or three times a night, he said.

Both men are working with the Air Force to move items by air when possible.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49671