BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two Humvees pulled up beside a fuel truck parked on the street outside a crumbling complex of abandoned buildings and warehouses, which Marines from a supply company had converted overnight into a fortress and a gas station.
The Marines who rode in them, part of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines, were spending Friday morning on patrol in Baghdad. They were being shot at by snipers, were firing back and were pulling out the injured in their Humvees.
Sgt. Hernan Rodriguez, 31, had little time to chat as Marines pumped fuel into the Humvees' tanks and into fuel canisters sitting in metal baskets on their tailgates.
Sgt. Rodriguez said the fuel supply has been steady throughout the war.
There are people to credit for that, people in the rear who have spent the war lugging truckload after truckload of petroleum toward the front lines.
"It's our lifeline, and the grunts appreciate it," Sgt. Rodriguez said, referring to the soldiers. "Everybody has a part. There's only so many of us that can be trigger-pullers."
The gas that Sgt. Rodriguez's group picked up that day came through the supply line filled by the Augusta-based Army Reserve's 319th Transportation Company, which has spent the war moving massive quantities of fuel forward from depot to depot, from fuel bladder to fuel bladder, for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
Where the 319th leaves off, the fuel line to the front lines involves a few more layers of Marine units, with drivers hauling smaller loads in trucks with hose attachments that allow them to pump fuel directly into combat vehicles, such as tanks, Humvees and light armored vehicles, or tanks on wheels.
The fuel pumped into the Humvees had been brought to Baghdad by Marines from Refueling Point 26, a supply depot with about a dozen bladders set up outside an abandoned maintenance facility east of the city.
Fuel at Refueling Point 26 was brought there by Marines from Camp Chesty in central Iraq south of Baghdad, which has a field of bladders holding millions of gallons of gas.
On Monday, the remaining fleet of the 319th had unloaded nearly 150,000 gallons into the bladders at Camp Chesty, the farthest north they had gone.
The Marine supply haulers who have taken fuel, food, water and ammunition closer to Baghdad have been through the same trials and tribulations as the 319th, and then some.
They have had snipers shooting at them, been caught in firefights and seen war carnage that may haunt them for the rest of their lives.
They've endured long, grueling convoys in cramped cabs, leaving hours after they're supposed to and halting again and again in hostile territory for stragglers to catch up and firefights ahead to subside.
They've waved back at the newly liberated Iraqis cheering them on, feeling a mixture of pride, sympathy and fear.
All of them have pushed forward with fuel in their tanks carried by the men and women of the 319th.
The war in Iraq has been a test of military logistics, and the Augusta unit's work got the Marines from point A to point B, over and over again.
Truckin' Lance Cpl. Chris Sheriff, 26, pulled out of Camp Chesty on Tuesday in a tanker truck loaded with fuel, part of a convoy of about a dozen trucks hauling 60,000 gallons to the depot east of Baghdad.
He drove a truck similar to the ones the 319th drives - a rig pulling a 5,000-gallon tank - but his can pump gas into a vehicle if needed.
Cpl. Sheriff, from Greenville, S.C., used to ride in a different sort of convoy before he became a Marine. In high school, he followed the Grateful Dead from concert to concert in a line of cars and Volkswagen vans.
In Iraq, Cpl. Sheriff was keeping his hair shaved closed to his head. He said in his youth it used to extend under his chin and he had a goatee beard. He said he ran wild and wound up serving a short prison term for stealing a car.
While in jail be became a Christian, and Jerry Garcia died. When he got out he went to college in Florida, but found himself lapsing into the same old behavior. He decided to join the Marines to discipline himself.
"I wish I could have just gone to boot camp and left," he said. Cpl. Sheriff rode with Cpl. Daniel Ramirez, 21. Both are part of Combat Service Support Battalion 10.
The convoy moved into the suburbs, past burned-out Iraqi tanks, roadside mud huts with straw roofs and larger homes surrounded by lush vegetation of trees and wheat fields. A portrait of Saddam Hussein outside a factory was full of bullet holes.
Civilian cars, trucks and vans buzzed past them, some with white flags, some with drivers and passengers holding out white rags flapping in the wind. Lines of civilians walked up and down roads moving looted goods - furniture, plywood, wallboard, tires, groceries and electronics.
Most people waved and cheered at the military vehicles, but some men just stared.
"It seems to me the kids are happier we're here than the adults," Lance Cpl. Sheriff said. "Maybe it's the candy we give them from the MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). Maybe they just don't understand what's going on."
Cpl. Sheriff said he's put about 1,600 miles on his truck since crossing the border into Iraq. He's been in more convoys than he can count that got near firefights. He was out of his truck at Refueling Point Anderson in central Iraq during a firefight, and rolled off a sand berm and chipped one of his upper front teeth.
During the ride to Refueling Point 26 on Tuesday, the convoy stopped repeatedly to let traffic clear, and let trucks that had flat tires catch up. It stopped one last time outside the gate of the supply depot. When the trucks stopped, the breeze coming in the windows stopped, and the heat hit hard.
"When I get back, I'm never driving a truck again," Cpl. Sheriff said.
War weary On Wednesday, two 7-ton trucks from an artillery unit of the 1st Battalion, 11th Marines drove into Refueling Point 26. Each truck was carrying fuel pods - 900-gallon tanks held in large steel frames. One pod on each truck was for water, the other for fuel.
They filled up with both, and a driver, Cpl. Jason Aoameea, 25, led a short drive through the suburbs east of the Nahr Diyala river, which runs along the eastern side of Baghdad.
"These people shouldn't be out here," Cpl. Aoameea said, watching civilians carouse past him waving and cheering. "That was the problem we had in Nasiriyah. People would wave white flags, then fire on us."
The trucks parked on the edge of a green wheat field occupied by a camp of vehicles covered by camouflage tarps and a line of Howitzer artillery cannons aimed at Baghdad.
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Cpl. Joseph Davis, 24, (left) and Cpl. Jason Aoameea, 25, relax behind a howitzer cannon aimed at Baghdad. Their Marine unit got its fuel from a supply line supported by the 319th Transportation Company out of Fort Gordon.
JOHNNY EDWARDS/STAFF
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Only a line of palm trees was visible on the western horizon. The farmer who owned the land brought the Marines eggs and bread in the morning.
They spent the hottest part of the day swatting away flies and wiping sweat off their faces. The artillery unit used the fuel for the trucks that pull the cannons, and the generators that power computers and radios to communicate with forward troops.
Every hour or so, grunts in the city called in grid coordinates, and the Marines loaded shells into the cannons and fired them in a series of ear-splitting booms.
Capt. Scot Jaworski, 33, said that fuel hasn't been an issue during the war and that he's been surprised at how well the Marines' support component has been able to keep them supplied.
Cpl. Aoameea wasn't so complimentary. He recalled when, on their way into al Kut, their trucks were running at about three-quarters full while the pods got down to 1,000 gallons. The unit also has had trouble getting food, water and mail, he said. But the worst part of the war for them was in Nasiriyah.
As they passed through that city, they found a blown-up bus full of Republican Guard soldiers and children, who were used as human shields, Cpl. Aoameea said.
They found a boy, about 4 or 5 years old, still alive. He died in the back of their ambulance, in the arms of a medic.
While the unit was set up outside Nasiriyah, a captain's hand was shot off by a rocket-propelled grenade fired at them by an Iraqi.
Cpl. Aoameea is from Queens, N.Y. and is married with two stepdaughters, ages 4 and 5. There's a weary tone in his voice when he talks about the war. He said he's ready to get out of Iraq.
"We've done our job. There isn't a person out here who hasn't been shot at, hasn't had to go without food," Cpl. Aoameea said, sitting beside a howitzer with Cpl. Joseph Davis, 24, from Houston.
Road to Baghdad A group of trucks from Combat Service Support Company 111 stocked up on water, packaged meals, ammunition, medical supplies and fuel at Refueling Point 26 on Wednesday, then spent the night in the suburbs parked on the side of a road, between a ditch and a wheat field.
One of the Marines bought a turkey from a local man, and they skewered it over a fire pit at dusk. Thursday morning, a convoy of about 90 trucks, including 7 fuel trucks carrying about 19,000 gallons, prepared to move into Baghdad.
The company took and returned fire in almost every city it passed through in Iraq.
After a briefing where a sergeant warned them about letting Iraqi citizens get too close to their trucks, Cpl. Christain Keyser, 26, said he wished the United States had dropped tents and warning leaflets, then carpet-bombed cities before troops moved in. That way, so many Marines wouldn't have died, he said. "Those were my brothers who died, all because we didn't want to do what we did in World War II. They had wives, children and mothers," Cpl. Keyser said. "We're going to have to rebuild this country, anyway. Those houses they were shooting at them from, we'll probably just bulldoze them anyway."
Cpl. Randy Ramirez, 23, drove a logistics vehicle system carrying 2,700 gallons of petroleum in three fuel pods. Logistics vehicles are short, four-wheel trucks with boxy, two-seat cabs and long trailers attached.
His truck mate, Cpl. David Shea, 22, rode on top inside the gun mount with an M-16 rifle.
The convoy later entered the city on the bridge over the Nahr Diyala. A plume of thick, gray smoke spewed into the sky from the Baghdad side of the river. An eager horde waited behind concertina wire waiting to cross the bridge into Baghdad.
Cpl. Ramirez smiled.
"I don't trust any of them," he said. "I'm not worried about a thing but a terrorist with an RPG. If they shoot at us with all this fuel, we're pretty much done."
A battle had taken place around the bridge. There were bullet holes in a brick wall, burned Iraqi tanks, fighting positions dug into the ground with sandbags around them, overturned trucks on the highway and shallow graves of Iraqi soldiers.
Inside the city, the highway took Cpl. Ramirez under an overpass, then past four- and five-story buildings and apartments. It reminded him of an Interstate back home. "I feel like I'm back on the 5 in California," Cpl. Ramirez said.
Farther into eastern Baghdad, the Company 111 Marines exited the highway and pulled into an abandoned complex of brown buildings and warehouses, where they set up camp.
Inside was a large courtyard surrounded by a wall, which made the area easy to secure. The guardhouse by the road was converted into a command center, and fuel trucks were parked on the road so tanks, Humvees, light armored vehicles and other fuel trucks could pull beside them and fuel up.
Explosions went off all around the camp. Artillery rounds were falling, and Iraqi weapons were being blown up. Firefights erupted at dark.
On Friday night, Iraqi freedom fighters faced off against Saddam's remaining soldiers about a kilometer away. They fired machine guns all night and into the morning, their phosphorus tracer rounds skipping into the air in the distance like fireworks.
A stray bullet whizzed over a group of Marines by the warehouses.
Master Sgt. Corey Simons, 40, a tank leader for Alpha Company, 1st Tank Battalion, arrived outside the Company 111 camp with a Humvee, a 7-ton truck and a logistics truck carrying four fuel pods.
His fuel truck was taking the fuel one step farther, directly to the tanks on the front lines deeper in the city. He said the tanks can't run more than a day without being refueled.
"As they kept saying, 'Push, push, push.' Believe me, I've literally bum-rushed them," Master Sgt. Simons said of Company 111. "We don't like running out of fuel."
