Oral History Interview
DSIT AE 057

Interview Conducted 13 February 1991 at Logistical Base CHARLIE, Northern Province, Saudi Arabia

Interviewer: SSG LaDona S. Kirkland (116th Military History Detachment)

SSG KIRKLAND: [I am SSG LaDona S. Kirkland of the 116th Military History] Detachment. Today's date is the 13th of February, 1991. This is a DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM tape, and I am talking with SPC Joseph, that is spelled J-o-s-e-p-h; L. (middle initial); Smalls, S-m-a-l-l-s. He is with the 139th Transportation Detachment and he is from Fort Totten, New York. Okay, could you tell me how long you have been here?

SPC SMALLS: Here in Saudi Arabia about five and a half months.

SSG KIRKLAND: Do you remember the exact date that you came?

SPC SMALLS: September 12th, [1990] we arrived in country.

SSG KIRKLAND: Where was the first place that you came to when you got to Saudi Arabia?

SPC SMALLS: We were in Dhahran, landed at the [King Abdul Aziz Royal Saudi Air Base] Dhahran airfield. We were staying at the Port of Dammam, in that area.

SSG KIRKLAND: What were you doing in Dammam? What was your mission there?

SPC SMALLS: Our mission there was to offload ships and to get the convoys ready to move out to their next destination.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, great. This is Log[istical] Base CHARLIE, is that correct?

SPC SMALLS: Yes, this is.

SSG KIRKLAND: And this is called an information center?

SPC SMALLS: Yes, it's more or less like it ... well, we call it, in a slang way, like a little truck stop almost for all U.S. convoys.

SSG KIRKLAND: Right.

SPC SMALLS: Okay. And also it is used for host nation trucks that are carrying U.S. equipment to stop here to find out where they are at and how far they have until their next destination.

SSG KIRKLAND: And how long has this booth been set up?

SPC SMALLS: It has been set up for maybe about three weeks or so.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, and who decided that we should need an information booth?

SPC SMALLS: This came from the higher ups about this information center.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay.

SPC SMALLS: Excuse me.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. This is an interruption. SPC Smalls is going to help a convoy.

SSG KIRKLAND: This is SSG LaDona S. Kirkland and I am speaking with Sergeant John, J-o-h-n; David, D-a-v-i-d, (middle name); and last name is N-e-b-l-i-n-g. He is with the 32 ADA [32d Air Defense Artillery Command]. Okay, John, you're with the convoy here, right?

SGT NEBLING: That's right.

SSG KIRKLAND: And where are you all going?

SGT NEBLING: We're heading to Log Base CHARLIE.

SSG KIRKLAND: Why do you have host national drivers?

SGT NEBLING: They were contracted out for us. We are waiting for fleets of commercial vehicles to come in for us to drive.

SSG KIRKLAND: Right.

SGT NEBLING: And they are on the ships now and are waiting to be down loaded.

SSG KIRKLAND: Where is this convoy coming from?

SGT NEBLING: It's coming from Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

SSG KIRKLAND: And how far is that from the point that you are at right now?

SGT NEBLING: About a day and a half.

SSG KIRKLAND: What do you have in your ... what kind of equipment are you carrying?

SGT NEBLING: We are transporting the new Track-2 hot weather desert boots.

SSG KIRKLAND: And you are transporting those to where?

SGT NEBLING: To Log Base CHARLIE.

SSG KIRKLAND: To Log Base CHARLIE so those can be distributed throughout the troops there? Okay. What sizes do you have?

SGT NEBLING: They go from 6-1/2 up to size 13.

SSG KIRKLAND: So you don't have a size 3-1/2 for me, right?

SGT NEBLING: No, we sure don't.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, well that's too bad. Why do you not have desert camouflage uniforms?

SGT NEBLING: They haven't been issued yet.

SSG KIRKLAND: They haven't? How long have you been in country?

SGT NEBLING: We've been here almost a month.

SSG KIRKLAND: So are you National Guard or Reserve, or --

SGT NEBLING: No, we're regular Army.

SSG KIRKLAND: And where are you out of?

SGT NEBLING: Berlin, Germany.

SSG KIRKLAND: Berlin, Germany. Okay, well, thank you very much.

SGT NEBLING: You're welcome.

SSG KIRKLAND: And ... that's all I need to know. Okay, thanks a lot.

SSG KIRKLAND: This interruption was due to the fact that a convoy came to the information center. SPC Smalls, could you tell me what you did when the convoy came?

SPC SMALLS: Okay, what I did, I assisted the convoy commander at finding the unit he is looking for. Most of the units have their higher elements up here that is already set up, but they don't know what location they are at. So sometimes all you have is grid coordinates and the grid coordinates don't make sense. So what I do is I make those grid coordinates come clear within miles or kilometers, and I show them exactly where they are at and how far they have to go to their next point.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, and where are these people going?

SPC SMALLS: Right now they're going up to the Class IX yard--supply.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. I just talked to somebody and he said that they were delivering the desert camouflage boots.

SPC SMALLS: Correct.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, great. Now, there were host nationals driving on the convoy. Did you talk to any of them?

SPC SMALLS: No. Usually when there is a host nation driver we always have a military person travelling shot gun, so I don't really deal with the host nationals, not unless they are arriving by themselves and they have their equipment. They usually have to speak directly to convoy command.

Now in some instances you may have say three or four host nation trucks that come in where there is no U.S. military on them. At that time I have to somewhat get them to understand what I am saying and I have to read between the lines what they are saying. Most of the time they just show me paperwork, and from the paperwork they give me, which is a TMR, transportation movement request, I know what they need and where they need to go to.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. What are the most often asked questions of people coming to the information center?

SPC SMALLS: Is this Log Base CHARLIE? That's the most asked question. And where is the fuel point, how far are we from it? Or in some cases you have a couple of Navy airborne units who may want to find out where their element is.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Why do host nationals drive the trucks? Why do not we have U.S. military drivers transporting the equipment throughout the country?

SPC SMALLS: Well, from what I understand host nation trucks are contracted to the government somehow, so they use their drivers to drive the trucks and they use other drivers to handle equipment to be moved by truck. That way we don't have all the drivers ... you know, we try to use most of the U.S. drivers to carry ammo. No one really wants too many of the host nations carrying ammo. So we try to, from what I am understanding of this, they are using the Saudi trucks, the host nation trucks, to keep their people in jobs. They use their trucks to give them jobs, and it saves wear and tear on our drivers, you know, to use them for other things.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. How long do convoys usually stay here?

SPC SMALLS: Okay. We have some convoys that may travel from maybe as far as Riyadh. And they may come here maybe for fifteen minutes tops, you know, stop, rest. They just come here to rest and move out. They just come and just check in to say "okay, we're here; we're going north;" fifteen minute at the most. At this time everything is like move in, move out; no time to delay.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Do people ever ask if they could stay longer than the fifteen minutes? Or maybe it's nighttime and they want to spend the night and get something to eat. Do they ever ask that question?

SPC SMALLS: Once in a while. You know, you have some that may come and say my unit is up here, my guys are tired, and it's so late and they don't know exactly where they are going, you may let them stay until the morning. Once it's 0600, 0700 hours, they've got to move out. You know, and that, in turn, we have to get clearance from the higher ups to let them stay here.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Are there any questions that people have asked that you haven't been able to answer?

SPC SMALLS: Where some particular units, you know, that are up here but they are so well hidden we don't know exactly where they are at. The only thing you can do is give a close approximation, and then someone from there can say okay, we know where they are at.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. You had mentioned to me one time that somebody had asked where Log Base WALNUT is.

SPC SMALLS: Yeah.

SSG KIRKLAND: Could you explain that to me, please?

SPC SMALLS: Log Base WALNUT, it's a particular area, but it's not a log base. I can't say exactly what it is, even though I know. [Actually Assembly Area WALNUT.]

SSG KIRKLAND: Sure, sure.

SPC SMALLS: It's a particular area, but it's not a log base. And when they came up to ask where is Log Base WALNUT I was stuck. I was like, there is no such place. And this person told me oh, yes, it's at such and such a place. After we stood there for a few minutes, it wasn't Log Base WALNUT ... WALNUT is not where he was supposed to go.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Is there any problems that you have had since you have been here that haven't been able to be solved?

SPC SMALLS: Well, mostly at night, you know, when we're out here, because you can't really see what's in these vehicles that are going by. Sometimes you be a little bit leery, you know, standing out here. When you have trucks go by you can practically tell what truck it is going by, but then when you have others, like just regular civilian cars go by, you know, you don't know, because they be looking, they go slow and they look and they keep going. So you be kind of leery, but that's only at night.

SSG KIRKLAND: Have you ever had an incident, maybe a host national or maybe somebody that you thought was an enemy driver had stopped here and was scoping the place out and you had to go run them off? Anything like that?

SPC SMALLS: No. The only incident that came close to that was we had a car that pulled over on the side of the road. It was dark and it just pulled over, it had its lights off. I gave him ten seconds to move, and if he didn't move, locked and load. He came out and the car left.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay.

SPC SMALLS: That was the only incident.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. All right. What are the work hours here?

SPC SMALLS: This is 24 hours. We go in three shifts. There is constantly somebody here at all times. And that's just to make sure we get everything ... details down. I mean, we could practically tell you how many trucks, cars, planes, everything that comes through here. We have it all down on paper. Now in some instances, like some people don't stop, okay, but we still have it down, time and everything, how many it was. That way we can call up to the high command to find out who it was. Everything really falls in place, you know. But it would make it easier on us if they would just stop and give us the information, then we wouldn't have to go through the process of going higher up. See, like this particular area has maintained all the movement coming in and out of this area.

SSG KIRKLAND: How do you know who to stop?

SPC SMALLS: Well, technically we are supposed to stop everybody, okay, but there started getting into a problem whereas some people didn't really have to stop here. They knew where they were going, so there was no need for them to stop, so we had to stop doing that. We set up the signs stating particular commands and units to stop here, involved, you know, M[ilitary] P[olice] vehicles to stop here to find out information. So this is more or less an information center.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Do host nationals, for example host nationals who aren't driving for the military, do they ever stop here and ask for directions?

SPC SMALLS: We'll occasionally have some host nations that may come and ask where is the ammo yard or where is the fuel yard, and they have equipment for the U.S. We have to basically explain to them, they understand kilometers, so we say ten kilometers, twenty-seven kilometers from where we are at, fuel point, they go up there and do the paperwork. But before we tell them anything they have to show us some type of paperwork. Once you pull into this sector here we can check your whole vehicle over if we don't know what you have.

SSG KIRKLAND: Sure. What about a host national in a sedan? Do you ever have any of them stop and ask questions?

SPC SMALLS: No. Most of the time they just drive by, you know. Like they want to look and see what it is, but they don't stop.

SSG KIRKLAND: And how big are the convoys that usually stop here?

SPC SMALLS: It all depends. Sometimes they are unit size, that can take maybe 30, 40 vehicles, you know, and sometimes, if it's ammo, that can take 50 to who knows how many vehicles. But, you know, you always have different elements. Each element may have 50 vehicles per element. Most of the elements, they move between one hour and two hours apart. So when one comes in one hour, an hour, an hour and a half, the next one should be coming. So everything ... .

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. When the troops start moving forward from this location will you be moving with them or are you planning on staying here, or can you say?

SPC SMALLS: I can't really say.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay.

SPC SMALLS: You know, I can say we'll be around, you know. We'll be around.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Great. Now, you are working with active duty people, is that correct?

SPC SMALLS: Correct.

SSG KIRKLAND: And how is the situation there? Do you get along well with the active duty people? Do you want to sit down?

SPC SMALLS: No, I'm fine.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay.

SPC SMALLS: I have been on active duty myself before, but I never had no resentment toward reservists or National Guards, anything like that. Whereas the people who we are with, you know, they say they don't have nothing against the reserves or anything, but I think they do, and a lot of other people feel that way. So the only thing I said to make this thing work, we're all here for the same cause, we ought to be treated equal. We didn't ask to come over here. We didn't ask to take the active duty people's jobs. We were just called up to come. Maybe the active duty feels threatened by having us over here. I don't know why, but, you know, they just feel like we got to be second to them, like we are beneath them.

SSG KIRKLAND: Um-hum. Could you state some kind of an example?

SPC SMALLS: Well, one example is ... I'm going to give you just an example, I know of a unit that has some reserve elements attached to the active duty unit, and instead of this commander bringing all his ... instead of him moving out the right people to the right jobs, he in turn, he had maybe, let's just say he had ten active duty detachments, okay, say ten active duty and ten reserves. He turns around and says okay, I've got all my active duty detachments out there, I'm going to bring all of them back in to me and send the reserves out there. Why should I have my people ... . So what in turn happened, all of his people are living nice and lovely, and the reserves are out there doing all the work. Now, when it comes times for the glory moment of, you know, pat on the back, it's going to go to the active duty unit. And why, because the reserves was there. The reserves was the ones out there doing everything.

Now, if this here, this military movement, it ought to combine all the forces. Everybody should do their fair share. It's just like you have one unit say well, I'm going to keep all my active duty people to the rear and send all my reserves to the front line. You know, that's bad. Then it makes the reservists, or National Guard, makes them feel leery. Why should, you know, why should I want to be even part of this team?

You know, but it's hard to get people to listen, because they say oh, well, it's not like that. They always try to cover it up, you know. They always try to cover it up. Sometimes you may want to go to the IG [Inspector General], but they say oh, no, no, we can handle it down at this level. They try to give you a butter up story to keep you quiet. But it's bad.

Like in this particular situation. A lot of reserves and a lot of National Guards will probably just get off military duty, period, after this is all over, and that's all because of how they was treated. You've got some, you know, who went AWOL [Absent Without Leave] before even coming over here, and all because our active duty treats them. If the active duty wants to fight this war and do everything by themselves, let them do it by themselves.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Now what's your shift here? 4:00 to 12:00, right?

SPC SMALLS: My shift is 4:00 to 12:00.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, that's 4:00 in the afternoon to 12:00 midnight. What do you do when there are not any convoys coming through that you have to stop?

SPC SMALLS: We more or less just monitor the roads, you know, make sure there ain't nobody broke down, you know. If we see somebody in trouble we can probably get the MPs to assist them. We check on TMR requests that come in across the radio, if a particular unit needs trucks to task on a certain mission. So we are pretty much busy here. There is really not much of a lax time, you know, because there is something always going on.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. So when it's your time to monitor the road do you sit here in this chair away from the information booth most of the time, or do you go in and out of the office and monitor things in there also?

SPC SMALLS: Well, in my position I go in and out because I am all around. I have to go in there, check on things, then I come back out here. Sometimes you may not get ... maybe one or two trucks may pass in a moment. But, you know, I'll go in there, you know, and do some work in there, then if it starts to get busy out here I come back out here.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, and what type of work do you do in the office?

SPC SMALLS: I monitor the radio, you know, keep in contact with our higher headquarters, you know, pass along information that, you know, must be fed into computers that is sent to the higher ups.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. What is your duty position? What was your official title?

SPC SMALLS: The official title of my job, [Military Occupational Specialty] 88N, is Traffic Management Coordinator. We coordinate all the movements of all convoys, troops; anything that has to be moved, we coordinate the movement for. We are the ones that say what routes to take, what routes not to take, what is the best way of getting it from point A to point B in the best time.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay.

SPC SMALLS: So we are the ones that sit down and take a big map and say okay, we can go from here to here within an hour, but if we go this way it will take us three hours. We more or less get the equipment and troops to where they got to go as quick as possible.

SSG KIRKLAND: All right. What type of living conditions are you in?

SPC SMALLS: We live in tents.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Is there ... what about meals? Do you have a hot meal a day, or ... ?

SPC SMALLS: Breakfast is fairly so hot, lunch is MREs [Meals, Ready-to-Eat], dinner is a hot. It's okay. We can't complain. It could be worse, you know, but it's just hard all around. The chain of command could make it better for the troops and get more out of the troops.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. And what do you think that they could do to make it better for the troops?

SPC SMALLS: I think the best thing they could probably do is rotate us out.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay.

SPC SMALLS: You know, I think everybody should come and do their fair amount of time and go back, you know, go back to the rear area. I don't think one set bunch should just sit here, you know, and do all this time, because up here it's pretty hard, compared to back where we was.

SSG KIRKLAND: What were the conditions like in Dammam when you were there?

SPC SMALLS: Okay. Now Dammam, we was living in like host nation little huts at first, when we first arrived in country, which wasn't bad as long as we had the air conditioner. But once the air conditioner went out it got real hot. So that wasn't bad. And then we moved to another compound, okay, which was like barracks, modern barracks, a compound there, which was pretty nice, nice rooms, hot water, everything was nice. We stayed there for about two months and then we moved up north. The place where we moved up north is nice compared to right here, you know, and the conditions are way better than up here. If they could make it the same it would be much better.

SSG KIRKLAND: All right. What is your civilian job?

SPC SMALLS: My civilian job is store detective. What I do, I assist in the apprehension of shop lifters and get them processed through the police department, booking sheets. I escort the prisoners down to central booking whereas we put out a sheet on them, find out if they are an FBI fugitive [warrant]s and so forth and so on, get the paperwork and take it back to my department.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. What store is this?

SPC SMALLS: This is for Alexander's Department Store.

SSG KIRKLAND: In New York City? Manhattan?

SPC SMALLS: Yes.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, great. I see you have a green book here. What is that green book for?

SPC SMALLS: This green book is for incoming convoys, okay. I have three different convoys that I deal with. I deal with unit convoys, okay, and I also deal with ammo convoys. Then I deal with container convoys.

Now the unit convoy, more or less I get the unit, their convoy number, that's if they have it, what they are carrying, it could be MTOE [Modified Table of Organization and Equipment] equipment or it could be equipment for another unit, or supplies, you know. The time; where they came from; and up to this point right here.

Now for the ammo it's different. The ammo we get what the ... what unit is hauling the ammo, who is the higher headquarters, where they are coming from, how many trucks they have, and what type of ammo it is, okay.

And then for containers, we do basically the same like ammo, except the container number is the most important thing because that container number tells us what is in that container, okay. Because if we just sit here and watch ten trucks with ten containers, and say okay, we've got ten trucks with ten containers. But before the container leaves from its origin it's put into a computer, okay. And for example, it could say sea-land, SEAU stands for sea-land, and then a seven-digit number. I'll get that number into the computer and they can tell me everything that is in that container. That's how we keep track. Sometimes we may open up the container, right, to see if the exact contents that is on the TC&C that's in there. Other than that, that number plays an important part.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, once you have a convoy that has ammunition on it and you get that container number, you go into the computer there in the office and does that help with showing how long it takes a convoy to get from point A to point B? And does it also show who has been straggling?

SPC SMALLS: Right. See, when the convoys come in here and, like I say, we get the information, then we send it on its way. Once we get that information before our shift is over, right, we have to turn in a report, okay. How many convoys came in, the trucks, the element, where they came from, what they had, okay. Once we call that information across and it's put into the computer, that computer will print out everything that is on that unit, okay. And they will say, okay, the unit left, say, Dammam, say it left at 8:00 in the morning, right. And say if they didn't get up here until the next day at 8:00, something is wrong, because we know exactly how much time it takes for it to get from there to here.

SSG KIRKLAND: And has that ever happened?

SPC SMALLS: We had some instances where the drivers (what we call) just relaxed, pulled over and snoozed about six, seven hours, and they are not supposed to. I mean, you are supposed to rest, you know, may have a ten-, fifteen-minute rest stop, but no such four- or five-hour lapse when we don't know where you are at. That's the biggest problem.

SSG KIRKLAND: So what do you do to correct this?

SPC SMALLS: What we do, sometimes ... like I say, it's according to what area. We have an MP to watch the areas, the routes that we have, okay, and we could have drivers that are just sitting out there. We can call to the MPs, the MPs can call and say we have some trucks just sitting out there, say if they went past two or three times, say two hours and these trucks are still there. They can call to the nearest transportation office and they in turn will get in contact with the higher up transportation command. And then they can call and say well, we have these trucks here, see who these trucks belong to.

And at that time they would call up to us. We could verify who the trucks belong to, where they came from, where they are supposed to be. In most cases some of the drivers they get like, not too many U.S. drivers, a lot of host nation drivers, you know, we have some equipment that's supposed to be, say ammo that's supposed to be up here already and it's not here, and it's three hours late, then we run frantically thinking there's an accident, then we have to go up and down the road looking for it to a certain point. Then we call to the MPs and they have to check from another point to another point, and then they say okay, we located the trucks, maybe one or two was in an accident. And in some cases the trucks just pulled over, they want to take sleep.

The way I see it, we're here to defend them. They should be trying their hardest to get the equipment to where it's supposed to be.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. How much time does the driver have before he knows that he is getting close to the information center? Is he alerted somehow?

SPC SMALLS: Yes. We have signs all the way down the road, maybe two or three k[ilometer]s from right here that let them know you are about to come to an information stop. It says all convoys stop. So the only way you don't stop is if you don't feel like stopping. You know, the signs are out there in broad daylight, you can't miss them. Like I say, in some instances we have some trucks that don't stop, like that truck right there.

SSG KIRKLAND: Yes.

SPC SMALLS: That truck right there has 7th [Transportation] Group [on its bumper]. It's supposed to stop, but it didn't stop. Now that truck, he could know where he's going, okay, but there's times when that truck goes all the way down the road and don't know where it's going and he comes back. So then we can give up a little fuss why he didn't stop. "Oh well, I thought I didn't have to stop because I thought I knew where I was going." That's what happens in some instances.

The driver goes by, we catch the bumper numbers, the bumper tag of the particular command that we need to know where those trucks are, because those particular trucks are carrying important stuff that needs to get up here. So when they don't stop, when we see them just zoom on by, right, then we have to ... we say okay, we have one truck this time, and we can spot just about what is on it from where we stand here. Okay, we have an ammo truck that just went by. If that ammo truck gets up there and they don't know where they're going, and they come back ... .

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. If there is a convoy that doesn't stop ... it looks like you have another customer here. Let me let you go for just a moment.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, SPC Smalls, you just had another customer. What was this person inquiring about? Why did this person stop?

SPC SMALLS: He was trying to find his unit. He came up here another day bringing some equipment up for a unit, but he was travelling, he was just driving another unit, you know, helping them with their trucks. Now he is up here looking for his own unit, because he can't find his unit. So I just go in there, take him to a little board where I have all the units mapped out, and tell him where he needs to go.

SSG KIRKLAND: You have a map there in the office?

SPC SMALLS: Yes, we do.

SSG KIRKLAND: Did he say what unit he was going to?

SPC SMALLS: Yes, he did.

SSG KIRKLAND: Could you tell us what unit he was going to?

SPC SMALLS: Sure. 29th Trans[portation].

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, great.

SPC SMALLS: We've got a French helicopter here.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, tell me about the French.

SPC SMALLS: The French guys, okay, they're like ... they signal people. They are located right near us. They have one, two, maybe about four compounds around where we're at. They seem to be pretty nice; they're pretty helpful.

SSG KIRKLAND: In what ways have they helped you?

SPC SMALLS: Well, we had a truck break down and we didn't have no mechanic around real fast, and a couple of their mechanics came over and, you know, was helping on the truck. Pretty useful. It's not bad working with them.

SSG KIRKLAND: Do they ever come around here with their cameras and take pictures? Do they ever want to take pictures with the American troops, or have you seen anything like that?

SPC SMALLS: We have some, but we don't really like people taking pictures here, not unless you're authorized. You have some that just take pictures of the area, you know, where they are at. Occasionally some may want to take a few pictures of the GIs.

SSG KIRKLAND: What about the people going by in their trucks and vehicles, do they ever wave at you?

SPC SMALLS: A lot of them hold up the peace sign.

SSG KIRKLAND: And who is that? Do the host nationals do that or the American GIs?

SPC SMALLS: American GIs and the ... a lot of the people here like the Saudis, they will hold up the peace sign too. You have some that may be work here in Saudi, they just look and drive by.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. Is there anything that you want to add that I haven't covered?

SPC SMALLS: Well, the only thing I could possibly say is that next time that they have one of these they should plan it better. I think they should just take time and plan out something, I mean, a big, major exercise where they are going to do something like this, you know. That way they know how to approach it, you know, without going through any trouble. And I am saying going through any trouble, moving thousands and thousands of troops into one little confined area is rough. There are some times you lose track of where these troops are. That's bad.

So I think the main thing they need to do is, I don't know, once they get all the units that they are going to bring over here, you know, wherever they are going to, they need to map out that area fast, you know. Every time somebody comes in they need to have it mapped out, put them on there. That way it would make it easier, because sometimes you don't have the knowledge of who is who. You know, someone could be telling you oh, they've been there for the longest, the longest. No such thing. Everybody is in error, you know.

Other than that it's an average day in the life of a transportation specialist.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. And you said that they have been here for a long time. Who were you referring to?

SPC SMALLS: This particular unit that may have been up in this area longer than others, okay. They may have been up here when they first started this log base. That don't tell us nothing, because they may not have no dealings with us. They could be with somebody else. They might not even have no need to stop here, you know.

SSG KIRKLAND: You're talking about American troops coming by?

SPC SMALLS: American troops. This unit has been here ... what happens is, the unit may be so far up the road, but it's still part of this log base, so far up the road they don't have any dealings with us. So that is what happened sometimes. But we make a note of that, you know, particularly a unit that is not in what I'll call range area, you know, so we can know where they are at just in case somebody do come. Because every once in a while you have somebody from the higher ups, like these spies may come and just ask you questions to see what you know.

SSG KIRKLAND: That has happened quite a bit?

SPC SMALLS: We had a couple of visits from, you know, SUPCOM [22d Support Command] commands and stuff that come by, and look and see how we have everything set up. You know, see if this place is worth the time and energy to set up, to make it. What it all boils down to is basic needs. It helps you to know where you are at and it don't delay you getting to where you are going. You drive around here ... one time we had a guy who said he drove past here three or four times, back and forth, but he didn't know what this place was and that's because we was still in the setting up phase. So he just saw a little building here.

But now they've got signs and everything set up. Some of these drivers come through here three or four times a day, so they pretty much know this area, they sometimes don't stop. But when you don't know this area and you can see it, you see the signs, it's here to help you. You know, it's not here to hamper you from getting to where you are going. It's here to help you.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. And so you primarily give directions to people going to Log Base CHARLIE then?

SPC SMALLS: Correct.

SSG KIRKLAND: That's it. Okay. And what does SUPCOM stand for? That's S-U-P-C-O-M. What does that stand for?

SPC SMALLS: That just stands for support command.

SSG KIRKLAND: Support command. Okay, great. This concludes the interview between SSG LaDona S. Kirkland and SPC Smalls.

SSG KIRKLAND: This is SSG Kirkland, and here are some follow up questions for SPC Smalls. SPC Smalls, when it's night how do you see people's bumper numbers?

SPC SMALLS: Okay, most of the times we have a flashlight that we use, right, when we're standing in the road. If we can't see with the flashlight we have night vision goggles that clear up the darkness, so we can see. With that and the flashlight we can get a pretty good picture of what their bumper number is. So if the trucks don't stop we at least know what bumper number it is. It helps. We don't have too many of them here, but it helps.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. If you have a convoy that gets away from you without them stopping, you could get on the phone and call somebody, that this convoy did not stop and they are on their way?

SPC SMALLS: Yeah. What we could do, we look and see what type of equipment is on the truck, okay. If we see supplies we know what particular class it goes into, or if it's ammo we can call the ammo yard and say we have, say, 30 ammo trucks coming down that way that did not stop, they're travelling in black out. When we say black out that means they had their lights on, right, until a certain point and then they shut down and we don't see no lights. Maybe two or three. They come flying past there, just gone, zoom, zoom. Then when they get down the road to a certain point they hit their lights back on.

Okay, sometimes they do that to arrive to be undetected, because by the time we spot the convoys at night, it's dark, and if they shut their lights down we don't see them. We can hear them, then we put the goggles on and we see the trucks coming, then we know what it is. That's why we had to set up these flood lights and everything. So it's pretty hard to convoy in and we don't know what's on your truck. That's when we call to a particular area and say we've got 30 trucks or so coming to your area, we need to know who the unit was and the convoy commander, and we deal with them from that point.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. So you have more people trying to not stop at night than during the day?

SPC SMALLS: Right. Because, you know, they ... okay, some of them know this is log base ... what log base this is, and say okay, we know this area, we ain't got to stop. But they still have to stop because we have to account for those trucks. We could say okay, 30 trucks. Say we get a call from higher ups saying okay, we have a mission that we need 30 trucks. Okay, do we have any trucks that have dropped off a load? Oh, sure, we've got 30 trucks but we don't know what unit. What do you mean you don't know what unit it is? That's why when them trucks go to drop loads we can get on them right then and see who it is. That way we can tell them okay, we've got another mission for these trucks to do.

You see, what was happening was trucks were dropping off their load and then disappearing, you know, showing up hours later. They know that's not supposed to be. That's the main thing.

SSG KIRKLAND: Oh, so right after they drop off their load they are supposed to go back to where they came from?

SPC SMALLS: They're supposed to go back, that's right. You get some that drop off their load and want to wait five or six hours before they decide to move on. No, no, no. It's according to how far they've got to go how much rest time you get before you move back out, okay. If you're going far, you know, maybe two or three hours before you get ready to move out, but you are moved out to a certain point, to another checkpoint area. Rest there, and then move to another checkpoint area that's further down. But the times that you stop at these checkpoints you get closer back to where you're supposed to go, so there is no excuse that you should be in one place longer than you should be.

SSG KIRKLAND: How far should a person go in order to be able to have a two or three hour rest stop? Miles or hours.

SPC SMALLS: Okay, I'll put it to you this way. From here to let's say another log base, say, maybe 400 miles down the road, you should have maybe one rest stop, maybe two tops. We try to make them have the checkpoints at intervals, okay. Say from this log base to another log base it may be 100 miles, okay. There is no reason you should stop. None whatsoever. None. None. Not unless you've got to go to the bathroom, and that's, you know, that's plain and simple. There is no excuse.

Once you have stopped at that checkpoint and you say the next checkpoint is 100 miles, there's no excuse. You do what you've got to do there and you cover the 100 miles, unless you're stopping for them to go to the bathroom or something like an exception you must do. But just to stop and pull over the road to catch a couple of winks? No, you've got to go. Can't have it. Now if you're going farther than that, say maybe 400, 500 miles or so, then I can see, all right, stop for an hour here. For an hour tops. That's the most. Three, four hours? No, No. Not unless you travelling from way down south somewhere and you came up this far, then I could see you staying maybe five or six hours, and that is just to ... .

Like we had one convoy, right, they travelled maybe 400 and some odd miles, so we had to get them out to recuperate, okay, by the time they got here, because they stopped maybe, what, three times, which was good. So we ain't going to send them right back. We're looking at the drivers and the drivers are groggy and stuff. We can't send them back there, like an accident. But if you're only going 100 miles from here and you stop for a long time, something is wrong, you know.

And that's what our biggest problem was. We were having drivers pull over and say oh, well, I've only got 50 miles to go, let me take me a little snooze here. By the time they wake up it's dark, oh, no, where am I at? That's what the problem was. So what we had to do was track down where these trucks were stopping at. So every once in a while we took a little recon out for particular areas, see a truck sitting there, we'll watch and see how long they are sitting there. They get some that get there one hour, two hours. We go ask the driver where are you supposed to be at right now? Oh, I've got to go here. Why are you not there? Oh, I was just taking a rest. Well, how long have you been here? He'll say oh, I've been here 20 minutes. Lying. You sat here for about two hours. Move these trucks out. Well, who are you? We're from transportation. And then they hop up in the truck, zoom. They got to go. [LAUGHTER] They go to go, there ain't any questions, because they know, when we say transportation, it only takes a phone call and we can find out who you is, quick. So all I do is get that bumper and get on the phone. Okay, this driver belongs to this unit. Oh, they want to take a four or five hour rest break.

So that's the main thing. Some higher ups from SUPCOM, they want us tracking them drivers, when the drivers are taking lapse, too much of a lapse period between where they should be, and they want to find out what the trucks are doing, where they are driving. It's the host nation that does it all the time, they are going to pull over on the side of the road somewhere. You might be driving by me, like, so, you have equipment, you see a host nation driver standing there. Wait a minute, and you pull over and see what happened. Oh, sleep. Sleep, no, no, no. You don't sleep on our time, you sleep on your time. Move the stuff out. Even right here we get some host nation drivers come and pull up right here. Sleep, sleep. No, you got to go drop the load. Sleep. Tired, sleep, sleep. No, no. Got to go. Then okay, okay. One guy, he'll pull up maybe right, a little piece up there and shut his lights off, thought we didn't see him.

SSG KIRKLAND: [LAUGHTER] Well, you do.

SPC SMALLS: We came out there. Lock and load, came out there. Hey. You got to go. You got to go. Show him my M-16. He's gone now. It's a different story under, you know, different circumstances, but this is war. We're tired of you pulling over with ammo, and you want to pull over here and go to sleep? No, you got to go. No questions about it. But that did happen a lot of times.

But like the U.S. drivers, they may be way down the road somewhere, say they had a flat tire or something. They change the flat tire, oh, well, let's rest a couple of hours. We ain't got nothing else to do, you know they're going to send us back out again. Oh, no. You got to go. You got to go.

So sometimes you got people from SUPCOM, they got particular people that go up and down the road, the route that we use, and see what these drivers are doing. And it gets told up to the general and the general loses his stars over this thing, and then he says this, this, and this, and it comes back down to us. So that is why it's so important to keep track of these convoys.

SSG KIRKLAND: Have you ever heard of people getting lost? Trucks that there is no way that they can be found?

SPC SMALLS: Well, sometimes ... well, we had certain instances where we found the truck but it was way off their marks. Okay, instead of taking a turn ... you know, sometimes they see a turn that says turn here, but the sign may not be too clear, so in your mind you go no, that ain't no sign, I'm going to keep going. And then they get, oh, no, I'm not going to be here, I ran out of gas. Then you've got to send helicopters on a recon to see where they are at. You just passed a checkpoint, and they say this particular convoy just passed my checkpoint, they ain't passed you yet? No. Couple of hours go by and you go uh oh. You get worried, and you get all these bigwigs involved, and you've got to do a backtrack and see where this truck is. It turns out he was way off his mark. He didn't turn where he was supposed to turn. Ask the driver why he didn't turn there, the sign didn't look good to him so he didn't turn.

Excuse me, I've got some trucks coming.

SSG KIRKLAND: Sure, of course.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay, SPC Smalls, I just noticed there was a convoy that came by and they had host national drivers in them, however, there wasn't a military, a U.S. military driver to accompany them. Why was that?

SPC SMALLS: Okay. The reason that was because the equipment that was on the truck was just supplies. It wasn't no hazard, it wasn't sensitive items, okay. Anything that deals with ammo, explosives, or something like that, a U.S. driver must accompany the host nation driver at all times. If one of those trucks was to pull in here without a U.S. driver you could hold that truck right here.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. And what type of driver would you say these were? Were they, what, Pakistanis?

SPC SMALLS: They were Pakistanis.

SSG KIRKLAND: And did you mention that if it was an ammunition truck then it would be a Saudi driver, that's correct?

SPC SMALLS: Correct.

SSG KIRKLAND: Okay. This concludes the follow up questions between SSG LaDona S. Kirkland and SPC Smalls.