One of the 319th Transportation Company's Humvees stops during a convoy in central Iraq for a group of camels. The temperature topped 100 degrees Saturday in the central Iraqi desert. JOHNNY EDWARDS/STAFF

Increasing heat testing 319th

REFUELING POINT ANDERSON, Iraq - As American forces worked to take Baghdad on Saturday, the 319th Transportation Company's fleet was at the fuel depot in central Iraq that is as close to the front lines as the company has been.

The trucks sat parked on the side of a paved road, waiting to unload their fuel. Pfc. Melanie Edwards sat in the passenger seat of her truck's cab with her chemical suit off, her helmet and flak vest off and her boots and socks off.

It was hot in the desert Saturday - very hot.

Temperatures topped 100 degrees, and the Augusta-based 319th had been on the road for eight hours in trucks with no air conditioners, drinking bottled water that turned warm as the day wore on.

"I'm fine," said Pfc. Edwards, of Greenwood, S.C., who turns 20 this week. "I'm letting my feet air."

"She's taking a chance," said her truck mate and driver, Cpl. Darian Jones, 36, of Hephzibah, who stood outside in the shade of his truck eating food from a meal ready-to-eat package.

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He was out of his flak vest, helmet and chemical suit jacket, too.

The desert heated up significantly Friday, further draining an already exhausted 319th.

At Camp Viper, soldiers not out on the road sought shade in the rations storage unit, or lay in their cots in tents with wet rags on their foreheads.

The other members of the unit returned Friday night from a fuel-hauling mission that lasted three days.

The fleet was back out again Saturday morning. The convoy was scheduled to depart at 6 a.m. and left at 7 a.m., which was closer to being on schedule than any convoy the unit has gone on since the war started.

As the heat intensified in the afternoon, soldiers in passenger seats rode with their feet out their windows and their boots off. When the trucks stopped, they opened both cab doors to let air circulate.

Cpl. Jones said the heat not only drains him of energy but also interferes with his concentration and can make him sleepy while driving.

The 319th does not plan to return the fleet to Camp Viper. The soldiers were traveling with their cots and gear Saturday, and expected to set up camp at a new location in central Iraq after finishing their mission today.

They spent Saturday night at Refueling Point Anderson, set up on both sides of a road leading north.

Last week, many of the soldiers found themselves in a firefight here while trying to unload fuel, and they saw dead Iraqi soldiers on the ground the next morning.

For weeks, the 319th has been hauling all the bulk fuel for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, despite losing about 40 percent of its fleet to breakdowns and crashes in the desert.

Late last week, help came from the 281st Transportation Company, an Army Reserve unit based in Las Cruces, N.M.

The company has a fleet larger than the 319th's, and also has been hauling bulk fuel for the Marines.

--From the Sunday, April 6, 2003 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle