MONSTER TRUCK — The Heavy Equipment Transporter System is the half-million-dollar-a-copy 25-ton monster truck that is driven by the Antelope Valley National Guardsmen of the Big Awesome Truck Company, which is preparing for movement overseas to possible war with Iraq. Ron Buckles

Big Awesome Truck Company crews mull Iraq combat role

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

"When the tankers are damaged, boy, do they like to see us coming," Chief Warrant Officer Michael O. Ellis said. "Even if there's a firefight going, we go out and get them."

Ellis, of Sacramento, is a chief warrant officer 5, a rare rank in that it's the warrant commission equivalent of a colonel.

Ellis has been out and back on tank recovery from Vietnam to Desert Storm, formerly with the 11th Cavalry, the famed Black Horse regiment now based at Fort Irwin, the National Training Center in the high desert near Barstow.

Now, he is training National Guard troops from across California on how to use the monster trucks called the Heavy Equipment Transporter System.

Dozens of the soldiers of the 1498th Big Awesome Truck Company live and work in the Antelope Valley, and others come from a boxed compass of locations across California, including Indio, Riverside, Moreno Valley, San Bernardino, Sonoma, Roseville, San Diego, Long Beach, Bakersfield, Barstow and Sacramento.

"They've come here from all across the state," said 1st Sgt. Jim Norris, a veteran transport noncommissioned officer. ''They know we are going to this thing (with Iraq), and they're from everywhere. We've got infantry, Signal Corps, intelligence people, everything."

Norris bears a passing resemblance to the kind of characters Ward Bond played alongside John Wayne in the John Ford cavalry westerns, — big, gruff, generally good-natured, fair and firm.

Command Sgt. Maj. Robert Liles of Tehachapi said Norris is a natural to ramrod the Big Awesome Truck Company.

"I found a sergeant with his experience, and people who knew him from when he ran operations with a Guard unit in Bakersfield know that he knows what he's doing," said Liles, a corrections officer at California State Prison Tehachapi when he's not wearing Army green.

The 1498th has been training and gathering troops since December. Soldiers from the 756th Transportation Company in Lancaster blended in with the unit along with troops from all points of California.

"They're a great bunch of soldiers," Norris said. "Not all of them have been truck drivers, but if a soldier is decent, and willing to learn, we can train them to be truck drivers."

The truck they are learning to handle has a curb weight of 41,000 pounds, and that is just the tractor. The trailer that carries the tanks weighs 50,000 pounds. Put the package together and you have a 45-ton tractor-trailer that costs more than $500,000. It can carry a 70-ton tank, making it the Big Awesome Truck, built by Oshkosh Truck Corp.

"I wish they would have called them Tonka toys," Liles said, "But I guess we're happy with Oshkosh."

"This is the biggest truck in military use," said Spc. Ken Brackett of Sacramento. "And this is the biggest truck company in the military."

The cab carries a driver and an alternate, plus it can carry a four-man tank crew back from the battlefront. Like an 18-wheeler, the cab is big enough for a sleepover, but this is a 48-wheeler, not counting spares.

"When you put the tanks up on those trailers, it gets your adrenaline going," Sgt. William Rae said. "You can't help but feel the adrenaline."

The vehicle has automatically steerable axles to get a truck and a tank out of the soft sand.

There are all kinds of sand in Iraq, Kuwait and Turkey that can bog down a vehicle, whether it is running or combat-damaged.

"In Iraq, there's hard sand, like a dry lake bed, and there's a plateau of lava rock, like out in the Mojave Desert at Fort Irwin," Ellis said. "Lava tears up a lot of tires."

Then there's the fine sand in both Iraq and Kuwait, Ellis said, remembering his combat time in Desert Storm.

"There's find sand that's almost a powder. You go to sleep in a tent, and you have to dig out when you wake up," he said. "So much sand has blown up to bury tires and vehicles that you think you're waking up in a different place."

Finally there's the wadi, a dry surface with water bubbling underneath. "You have to have your recon people identify those areas, or a vehicle will sink," Ellis said.

Ellis is frustrated that, at his senior rank, and age, 57, they won't send him out on this trip.

"I want these kids to survive," Ellis said. "These soldiers aren't here for the money. They are all volunteers, and they all want to go. They are absolutely dedicated to the United States of America, and I am proud as hell of them."

The age range of the Guard troops ready to go to war overseas ranges from 18 to nearly 60 years old. Many of the soldiers are in their 30s, 40s and even 50s.

Some of the veterans making their way from the Antelope Valley include Sgt. Gregory Carter, Victor De La Fuente and Andy Crawford. They've all made prior deployments and are going again.

"That's what life is about," said Capt. Bob Morisette, commanding the "BAT-C," the acronym for the road warriors of the Big Awesome Truck Company. "You've got to say, 'What the hey! Been there, done that, going back for another varsity patch.'Ê" He referred to the right shoulder combat patch worn by seasoned vets.

Sgt. James Werner of Palmdale got the prized Combat Infantryman's Badge with the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne during Desert Storm.

"We convoyed out to the Euphrates River to join the helicopter troops," he said. "I couldn't see the river, but I could hear the carpet bombing from the B-52s."

For a number of the Guard troops, the event that brought them to shed civilian life for the Big Awesome Truck Company was the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

Spc. Peter Mavropoulos was self-employed, running his own successful trucking operation in Riverside.

"I'd been out of the Army for 20 years, and I had no thoughts about ever going back in, but when 9-11 happened, I called up and asked if I was too old, because I was 46. They said I wasn't too old, and here I am. I was infuriated about 9-11. I'm losing about $100,000 in income out of this, but it doesn't matter. I'm glad that Im doing this."

© 2008 Antelope Valley Press, Palmdale, California (661) 273-2700