Members of the 7th Transportation Group did have a couple of days to test their weapons at a firing range when they first arrived in Kuwait. Humvees of the th Gun Truck Company are equipped mostly with armor kits, but protection on the gun turrets is fashioned in the field.
After two days of early morning starts and long hours driving on the desert highways of Iraq, Spc. Steven Webb of the 7th Transportation Group rests on the Humvee before preparing to travel again the next day.
In most of the military convoys in Iraq, more than half of the drivers are civilians -- foreign nationals working under contract for the U. They get the job done, but officers and other drivers say many of them are poorly trained, unreliable and unprofessional.
Iraqi children frequently approach convoys, waving greetings and hoping for handouts. Drivers have had to realize that the children can also be dangerous distractions. Trees have been planted along the highway in Kuwait, separating convoys from the desert sand and camels.
Machinists at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait add makeshift,? While most of the Humvees now in Iraq are armored, most of the military? An improvised gun platform turned this supply truck into a gun truck -- an armored vehicle that can act as a convoy escort. The th Gun Truck Company, which was created for the war in Iraq, has only 35 gun trucks -- and it doesn? Steven Webb mounts a gun shield kit to an unarmored Humvee. Ground troops first recognized the need for armor, and fashioned their own?
