Photo By Christie Smith | Spc. John Elliott, a fuel handler with the 1133rd Transportation Company, ground...... read more read more
On a rainy Tuesday in June, a motor pool in Mason City, Iowa, is abuzz. Soldiers with the Mason City-based 1133rd Transportation Company and it’s Iowa City-based detachment are fueling trucks, readying trailers and going through a long list of maintenance checks.
As is usual for Iowa’s transportation companies, these Soldiers are preparing to hit the road.
One group will head west for Guernsey, Wyoming, to haul humvees back to Iowa for the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment. Another group will travel to Fort Dodge to provide driver’s training to the 194th Field Artillery ahead of their deployment. A third group will be making the trip to Fort Bliss, Texas, to bring equipment home that belonged to units stopping in Texas on their way overseas.
“Spend some time in the trans world and you see pretty much every corner of the country,” said 1st Sgt. James Shinn, an 18-year member of the unit and a Mason City native.
All of Shinn’s Soldiers drive M915A5 line haul tractor trucks — a vehicle that looks much like the civilian semis you see on Interstate 80. These trucks are built to support line haul missions overseas.
“Line haul refers more to highway travel,” Shinn explained. “We take the supplies - whatever needs to move - we’ll pick it up and we’ll take it as close as we can to the front lines with a highway truck.”
From there, Shinn said, other military transportation assets will take the supplies even closer to the frontlines.
While weather, terrain and security concerns may differ considerably between Iowa and the deployed environment, many of the missions are the same — transporting water, munitions and military equipment from point A to point B.
Staff Sgt. Randy Hakes, of Charles City, is a squad leader in the unit and the convoy commander for the trucks headed to Guernsey.
He said the philosophy of the 1133rd Transportation Company is simple: “They call, we haul.”
During his time in the unit, Hakes said he’s supported a number of line haul missions, from delivering water to a town in Kansas whose supply was cut off by flooding, to transporting ammunition from the East Coast to Nevada in a large exercise known as Operation Patriot Bandoleer. On one annual training, they transported logs to an Indian reservation in South Dakota.
“It gives us as trans haulers more practice and more training,” Hakes said.
These missions are common for Iowa’s transportation companies, Shinn said. One year, the 1133rd Transportation Company supported 19 missions over the course of four months. Each of their trucks logged 5,000 miles that summer.
Once the missions come to the state and are assigned to the individual transportation companies, Shinn said all the planning is done at the company level. From rest stops, to fuel points and route mapping, the unit is responsible for planning and executing every pick-up and delivery.
Sometimes, those rest stops look like Soldiers camping out next to their trailers.
“We get pretty creative,” Shinn said.
To pair Soldiers based on experience level, Hakes said truck partners are not assigned permanently and leadership makes an effort to pair Soldiers who aren’t necessarily already friends. Over the course of a couple thousand miles, new friendships are formed.
“Troops get close in trans companies,” Shinn said. “I think it’s the experience, honestly, you know the kind of things that truck units have to go through together.”
This annual training is no exception. The 1133rd Transportation Company Soldiers are already several days into a vigorous training plan before rolling out to their missions. Once they make it back to Mason City, they’ll be doing many of the same tasks in reverse — fueling and inspecting their trucks, parking their trailers.
“A lot of long days,” Shinn said, “but we’re better for it at the end of the day.”
| Date Taken: | 06.12.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 06.12.2020 16:52 |
| Story ID: | 372056 |
| Location: | MASON CITY, IOWA, US |
| Hometown: | CHARLES CITY, IOWA, US |
| Hometown: | MASON CITY, IOWA, US |
| Web Views: | 633 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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