GRATEFUL - Staff Sgt. Andre Tomas Ramon of Victorville, born in Cuba, says he's grateful to America for citizenship and liberty. He said going to Operation Iraqi Freedom is "part of the debt I owe to the United States for my freedom." DENNIS ANDERSON/Valley Press

AV Guard troops ready to fly to 'The Sandbox'

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

CAMP ROBERTS -- Finally, the Army -- the vague and faceless Army that operates from somewhere "on high" -- issued the "desert camouflage utilities" uniforms to the California National Guard soldiers of the 1498th Transportation Company.

The soldiers of the "Big Awesome Truck" company were finally headed for the final act of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the issue of the desert uniforms was the strongest signal they were on their way after a four-month odyssey of bouncing from base to base in Fort Lewis, Wash., and Camp Roberts, Calif.

"Rumors are flying," 1st Sgt. James Norris said at a weekend formation of the company's nearly 300 soldiers.

In his unmistakable tone of Tennessee-bred certitude, Norris told the troops, "We ain't goin' to homeland defense. We ain't goin' home. We are goin' to 'The Sandbox.' We are gettin' on the plane."

And so, the desert cammies were ready to draw, by platoons of 50 soldiers, after morning chow on Saturday.

The uniforms arrived taped inside big boxes stuffed with sandy colored boots, sandy colored tunics and trousers, sandy colored "boonie hats" and Kevlar helmet covers.

Early Saturday, as he consumed his "Red Eye Special," a double shot of espresso off the coffee truck, Spc. Donald Zedicher of Rosamond inspected his 10-wide boots with proprietary pleasure. Next, he modeled his fatigue jacket with the joyful scrutiny of a business traveler visiting a recommended Hong Kong tailor.

"These will do," he said, looking at the boots. "But the pants are about three inches too long. I'll just stuff them in my boots. Seventeen years in the Army, and I've always stuffed (cuffs) in my boots."

Issue of the desert camouflage to replace the Sherwood Forest leafy green pattern utilities loomed large as one of the signs that this National Guard company was finally ready for a tail number, the number of a flight that would carry them away from Camp Roberts, likely first to Kuwait, where they would stage for combat support operations in Iraq.

The 1498th is a gathering of soldiers from across California, with major elements from Antelope Valley communities, from Riverside and San Bernardino counties, from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego Counties, and from Sacramento.

The unit strength hovers just shy of 300 men and women, many of them former Marines, some former infantry, tankers and armor cavalry troops, some paratroopers, and a few Army Rangers, and new soldiers fresh to the Army.

The company's assignment is to drive enormous Heavy Equipment Transporter trucks, 100-foot-long, 45-ton monsters across the length and breadth of the troubled Middle East.

The company prepared to move to its mission in Operation Iraqi Freedom on the week that President George W. Bush declared major combat over, but said that "much work remains to be done in Iraq."

For soldiers of the 1498th, the movement overseas was bittersweet, representing success in training, but a separation from families and loved ones. The movement comes at a time many of their friends and loved ones were asking "Why must they go?" when so much of the fighting seemed to be over.

Still, during the week the California National Guard soldiers readied to board a charter aircraft to take them to the Middle East, paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne, the "All American" division, fired into a mob of religious protesters mixed with AK-47-wielding infiltrators, killing 13 people and sending dozens more wounded to hospitals.

"These troops face the most difficult of missions," said Lt. Col. Richard B. Phillips, who oversaw their combat training by running the troops through an imaginary war-torn landscape called "Phillipistan," the land of bad things.

"The most difficult mission troops face today is peacekeeping duty in a low-intensity combat environment," said Phillips, a veteran of combat in Panama. "They have constant choices and decisions to make under the rules of engagement, so that they don't commit a war crime or get court-martialed if they have to pull the trigger."

Movement of the unit overseas involved myriad details of moving a line company into the "theater of operations." Food, transport, communications, pay records, mail arrangements all needed to be executed, but many loose ends remained.

"They're workin' it," Norris said, weary from fretting details with higher command.

With hot combat ended, the California Guard troops moved to join more than 200,000 other soldiers who already shipped over, many who fought the lightning war that ended the regime of Saddam Hussein in a matter of weeks.

They readied to join multitudes already camped on the desert, in springtime Middle East heat ranging above 120 degrees, in an environment populated with scorpions, camel spiders and cobras.

"The cobras are about this big around," said Cpl. Dean Frame of Quartz Hill, a Desert Storm veteran who incinerated cobras along with burning trash during the first Gulf war.

Norris told the troops to get ready for privation and hardship, with sleeping quarters on Army cots.

"I'm told it's about 50 soldiers to a tent, and that latrines are going to be about 50 soldiers, per outhouse," he said.

"It ain't going to be a Sunday walk in the park. I'm takin' a pool with myself about how long will it be before troops start askin' me, 'When are we goin' home, First Sergeant?' "

For the company commander, Capt. Matthew R. Hook, the planning is to get the company ready to deliver "an enormous number of missions."

"When you're in the infantry, you are always training for combat," he said. "When you are in transportation, you are always conducting operations. Everywhere we drive represents what it is that we do."

"I decided a long time ago that if I was going to go somewhere in the Army, it was going to be with transportation."

Trucks from similar units are covering hundreds of miles a day across the Iraqi landscape, everywhere from the south in Basra, to the north near Turkey or Syria.

So, the group readied to board an enormous plane, somewhere at an air base in California, on a departure date that was classified a military secret. The plane, whether charter civilian or a big Air Force cargo plane, would carry a heavy load.

"We're 50,000 pounds of flesh," said Spc. Jeremy Deckard, a military intelligence specialist. "That's how much we weigh without equipment. I worked it out on an Excel spread sheet. Our average weight is about 185 pounds each."

Along with the 50,000 pounds of flesh, nearly 300 beating hearts and pairs of feet, there's an equal weight in personal gear, with weapons, M-16s and SAW squad automatic weapons.

Uniform for travel is combat helmet, flak jacket, load-bearing vest and weapons with ammunition pouches.

In the days before departure, every morning's sick call report represented a snapshot of the company's readiness. The 1498th is a big company, about twice the number of an infantry company, even achieving nearly the size of a small battalion.

Morning strength reports indicated people heading toward sick call, some with injuries or medical conditions that might keep them from "making the deployment." Each number reduced on the "medical hold" list meant one fewer driver to perform missions.

With "medical hold" cases numbering somewhere in the low dozens, officers of the company anguished, because they want the maximum number of driver crews to operate the company's nearly 100 monster-sized trucks that are capable of hauling cargo ranging from an M-1 Abrams 70-ton tank, to shipping containers that can hold tons of food or medical supplies for humanitarian relief.

Soldiers who became "medical hold" cases impaired mission capability. Cutting the number of troops classified as "medical holds" assumed urgency in the final days. Such soldiers were sent to Fort Lewis for evaluation, paperwork and waiting.

Company leadership wanted to get the unit airborne as soon as possible.

"It's time to 'suck it up, cupcake!' " Lt. Brian Holste, the company's maintenance officer said, echoing a favorite company phrase. To reduce "medical hold" cases, "We've tried everything short of public humiliation," Holste lamented. "We need to get 'in-country.' "

Holste, of Long Beach, presided over a massive troop barbecue, the last big shindig before deployment.

Soldiers in the company kicked in a few bucks apiece for 600 pounds of carne asada, a steak roast, Mexican style, accompanied by tortillas, salsa and cerveza -- Mexican for beer, mate. Officers ponied up twenty bucks.

Barracks barbers administered last-minute hair cuts with buzzing clippers and razors. Soldiers played pick-up football games, smoked big cigars and danced to salsa rhythms.

"We're gonna have to keep our heads down, won't we?" said Spc. Richard Mills.

"We're just gonna have to keep our minds on our jobs and watch each others' backs," said Staff Sgt. Beverly Slaney. "Just do your job, and you'll be all right."

For some soldiers, employers such as state agencies make up the difference in a soldier's pay and a civilian paycheck. A private sector employer is military veteran Jack Brown, chief of Stater Brothers. Steve Perez, a Stater Brothers inventory specialist, beamed with pride on hearing that he had been honored in the Stater Brothers newsletter just before departure. A glossy poster from Staters Brothers urged, "Come Home Safe; Come Home Soon."

"Don't get me wrong, I love my job, and I wish I could stay home, but I think it's wonderful that Stater Brothers handles things this way with its employees. Jack Brown is a great man."

Some things to be missed are the small things, but the small things matter. For instance, Staff Sgt. Dennis Budd is an assistant football coach with Jeff Cortez at Lancaster High School. He wants all the Antelope Valley Press prep sports accounts about his team's preparations for football season.

"Jeff Cortez is the greatest coach in the Valley, and I hope to be home in time for the season."

There is no telling how long the 1498th will be on operations in the Middle East.

For others, sacrifices are large and range from shedding income to losing contact with their loved ones for a tour that, at the least, poses hardship and poses a variety of dangers. One NCO, an immigrant from Havana, looked forward to his part in the mission. "It is part of the debt that I pay back to this country for granting me freedom and citizenship," said Staff Sgt. Andre Tomas Padron, a native of Cuba and former soldier with the 101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagles."

"I miss my family terribly, already," he said. "My house is very traditional. But when 9-11 happened, I said, 'I am ready to do whatever it takes for my country,' even though I miss my family badly."

For Spc. George "Gil" Carrillo, a personal gulf exists, missing his wife, Lisa Ann, and family.

"People ask me, "Why are you doing this?' " he said. "It's difficult, but I told my wife, I intend a full career in the military.

"This is my mission, this is what I've trained for, for 14 years. It is a personal hardship, but it also is a duty."

For others, there is the realization that hundreds of thousands of American troops will continue to fight a war on terror, whether it is in the Middle East, or other areas that pose a threat to America or its allies.

"We're going to be in for the long haul," said Staff Sgt. James Kallsen, an armored cavalry veteran who helped settle the streets of Los Angeles during the riots after the Rodney King verdict. "We're going to be in Iraq for years. This is what I expected."

For families at home, a school poem written by 12-year-old Kevin Shaleen probably summed it up best.

The boy is the son of Sgt. 1st Class James Shaleen, a career soldier and Military Police vet who runs company operations.

The poem, on a sheet of school notebook paper, is framed by a boy's cartoon drawings of a character called Squarepants.

The assignment was to write a poem stemming from the phrase, "I am ..."

"I am a boy who misses his Dad"

"I worry about my Dad going to war"

"I want my Dad to stay home"

"I am a boy who misses his Dad"

Shaleen is a topkick senior noncommissioned officer, a veteran of overseas missions, a high-speed soldier, and someone not used to getting something in his eye. He got the poem via e-mail and his eyes blinked rapidly.

He resumed preparations to leave.