Providing Protection For Soldiers In Combat
(June 3, 2011) | 
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May 20, 2011 -- Sgt. Jose
Garza, a truck commander with the 370th
Transportation Company, 275th Combat Sustainment
Support Battalion, 77th Sustainment Brigade,
310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, and a
Houston, Texas, native, drives his heavy
equipment transport back to Joint Base Balad,
Iraq, after delivering an order of mine
resistant ambush protected vehicles to the
soldiers at Contingency Operating Base Cobra,
Iraq. Unlike his first tour to Iraq in 06' to
07', the 370th Transportation Company use MRAPs
to escort convoys instead of humvees.
Mine resistant ambush protected vehicles delivered by the 370th Transportation Company, 275th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 77th Sustainment Brigade, 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, sit in formation for the soldiers that will sign for them at Contingency Operating Base Cobra, Iraq. MRAPs offer better protection and customization for soldiers.
May 20, 2011 -- Humvees are
still used in Operation New Dawn, but the mine
resistant ambush protected vehicle and its
ability to offer more protection to soldiers on
convoys has reduced the humvee's role.
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JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq (5/28/2011) – For years, the U.S.
Army has been known for the quality of its soldiers and its
versatility in an ever-changing battlefield. It is this
ability to change and adapt that has made the humvee one of
the best-known icons of the Army over the last several
decades.
The humvee, or the high mobility
multipurpose wheeled vehicle (HMMWV), was first introduced
to the Army in the late 1970s as an upgrade to larger and
slower trucks. It offers speed, maneuverability and added
firepower to support troops in the field that larger trucks
cannot.
From the Persian Gulf War to both Operation
Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, the humvee has been
tested to its limits. Its role as transport and a light-fire
support vehicle transformed into more of a stand-alone gun
truck.
“I was deployed [in Iraq] from ‘06 to ‘07 with
the 370th [Transportation Company],” said Sgt. Jose Garza, a
truck commander with the 370th Transportation Company, 275th
Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 77th Sustainment
Brigade, 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, and a
Houston, Texas, native. “[During that time] I was a driver,
then a gunner, and a specialist at that time.”
The
convoy escort vehicles, or “gun trucks” the 370th
Transportation Company used to escort their transports were
humvees at that time. In the 370th Transportation Company,
certain platoons would drive palletized loading system
trucks, and others would drive escort vehicles. During
Garza's tour, convoys travelled at night and at times were
required to wear night-vision goggles, he said.
Garza
said the original intent for the humvee was not to be mine
resistant.
“Its original intention was as a utility
vehicle,” he said.
Both OIF and OEF introduced a new
weapon of warfare: improvised explosive devices. These
weapons were hand-created mines designed to incapacitate
vehicles on the road. The power of these weapons proved to
be a challenge to the humvee.
Later in Garza's tour,
his platoon was sent to Taji to help work in the development
of the “up-armored” humvees, he said. |
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“It was during
my time at the “frag five shop” that I got a firsthand
experience with upgrades of the humvees,” he said. “It was
our job to work as a conveyor belt and attached the
different parts of the armor to the vehicles.”
The
experience in helping better armor the vehicle showed Garza
the commitment that the military had to protecting its
soldiers against new types of weapons, he said. It was also
during the end of his tour that Garza got his experience
with the newest vehicle, the mine resistant ambush protected
vehicle.
“My first experience was with an RG-31 MRAP,
and my first impression was that it was fast compared to our
humvees,” he said. “My squad leader was shocked because I
had this new truck topping off around 60 miles per hour.”
Just as the humvee had been designed to fit a role in
the military, the MRAP was the newest vehicle on the block.
It combined the best parts of the humvee and improved on
them with more armor and larger passenger space.
“Driving, I felt a lot safer,” said Garza. “[The MRAP] has a
lot of accommodations; it's cooler inside, faster and offers
better protection.”
Now on the 370th Transportation
Company's current tour, their unit's escort teams are
utilizing MRAPs instead of humvees. For Soldiers like Spc.
Viktor Guerrero, a driver with the 370th Transportation
Company and a Los Fresno, Texas, native, they have more
experience with the MRAP than of the humvee on the roads.
“[The MRAP] is built for the way that we work,” he said.
“It is able to carry troops safely and quickly where they
need to go.”
In the construction of the MRAP, the
designers learned from the complications of upgrading the
humvee with additional armor.
“Because the
construction of the humvee, when we had to upgrade it with
fragmentation armor, we had to remove sections of the
vehicle itself,” said Garza, referring to his last
deployment. “But, the MRAP has rails built along the sides
for additional armor to be mounted, depended on the mission
requirements.”
The iconic nature of the humvee as the
military's primary vehicle may be drawing to a close, but
the development and direction that it helped provide will
continue to promote better vehicles and protection for the
service members who drive them. For soldiers like Garza and
Guerrero, the MRAP has aided them the same way the humvee
aided soldiers in the early ‘80s.
“The MRAP is the
Army's development to offer better and safer protection for
us,” Guerrero said. | |
Article and photos by
Army Spc. Matthew Keeler
109th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
Copyright 2011
Provided
through DVIDS
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