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Saturday, July 23, 2005
Keeping the ‘Iraqi Express’ rolling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Arifjan, Kuwait — Brig. Gen. William Johnson keeps a poster from the trucking company Oshkosh pinned on his office wall. The slogan says: “When hell and back is a daily commute.”
Bita Honarvar/AJC
Brig. Gen. William H. Johnson in his office at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Friday.
As though Johnson needed reminding.
Here in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert, just a few miles from the Saudi border, sits the main deployment and redeployment hub for armed forces fighting in Iraq.
Since last October, about 165,000 troops have moved through Kuwait either on their way in or out of Iraq. That includes the soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, who deployed in mid-May.
Johnson, a native of the Atlanta area, wears several different hats at Camp Arifjan, but the 55-year-old businessman from Morrow is primarily in charge of transportation of military equipment and supplies.
As director of Movement and Distribution for the Coalition Forces Land Component Command, Johnson is in charge of arranging convoys into Iraq and making sure that incoming units receive their equipment shipped in from the United States.
When the 48th arrived here, Johnson’s soldiers helped unload the vehicles and equipment shipped ahead of the brigade’s arrival. Much of the brigade’s supplies and containers were hauled up to Baghdad by Johnson’s team, which consists of about 3,500 mostly Reserve and National Guard soldiers.
Vehicles on tracks, such as M-1A2 Abrams tanks, have to be transported from Kuwait to Iraq on heavy-duty haulers because of the long distance.
“It’s 500 miles from here to Baghdad,” Johnson said. “Everything that you don’t want to drive has to be hauled. Also, if a vehicle is not armored, you can’t drive it.”
Convoys leave every day for the dangerous highways of Iraq carrying goods and equipment ordered by the various military units in Iraq.
Everything from lumber to uniforms to pre-packaged military rations is off-loaded from ships and warehoused in shipping containers that span the size of many football fields at Camp Arifjan.
From there they are clearly marked with the unit’s name and location and loaded onto trucks that are then escorted out by military vehicles.
The “Iraqi Express,” as it is more commonly known, runs daily.
Johnson estimates that 850 trucks cross the border every day. On average, the soldiers in the convoys are on the road for 8 to 10 days.
On the way back from Iraq, they often haul old equipment or vehicles damaged in accidents and bomb blasts. They are either returned home or are picked apart for spare parts.
“We do what we do so that the war fighter has what he needs,” Johnson said. “It’s been very satisfying to be here for a year.”
Recently, however, Johnson gained fame for a far less dangerous mission. He was the mastermind behind the local edition of the Peachtree Road Race.
Johnson, an Army reservist, had already received his Peachtree number when he was mobilized in June 2004.
The 25-year Peachtree veteran wasn’t about to sit one out.
“I brought my number with me and ran my own personal race,” Johnson said.
He mapped out a 10K course at Camp Arifjan, ran it alone (his driver picked him up at the finish line) and sent in his results to the Atlanta Track Club.
He then worked with the club to organize the Peachtree at Camp Arifjan this year. More than 1,000 runners participated. Soldiers also ran the Peachtree in Baghdad and at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
At Camp Arifjan, Johnson’s desk sits opposite a large digital clock on the wall that displays four time zones. There’s Zulu, the term used by the Army to indicate Greenwich Mean Time. There’s Kuwait time as well as time at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, where the U.S. Transportation Command is headquartered. Then there’s Atlanta, home of Third Army, the lead organization for U.S. military operations in Kuwait.
Johnson, who works for the health-care textiles firm Encompass Group in McDonough, expects to be heading home soon.
He keeps two photos of his granddaughter taped on his computer monitor and said he just found out another grandchild is on the way after son-in-law Capt. David Key of the 3rd Infantry Division, went home on leave from Iraq a few months ago.
And there is one more thing Johnson can’t wait to see again, he said.
“Green trees.”
