Our Company, the 515th Trans, came from Germany as part of our parent unit, the 4th Trans Battalion. Upon arriving in the desert, however, we were informed that we had been detached from the 4th TC and attached to the 6th TC, a Trans Battalion that was coming from the States. Not only were we detached from the 4th, the Sergeant Major had made sure that we were detached from any of the special purchase material we had shipped with us: conexes full of plywood, tools, and other equipment we had purchased in Germany that we had known we would need in the desert.

Christmas Eve. It was our first day at our new home, Tactical Assembly Area Henry. We had a challenge. There were many units in the desert and a bunch of them at KKMC (King Khalid Military City). We had to find support units that would be willing to give away or trade for things we needed... first and foremost, we needed a water point; we had left the port with enough bottled water to support the troops' drinking needs, but not enough for even basic hygiene. We had managed to snag some showers and latrines; each platoon had a couple of showers, wood framed units with a tank on top and shower heads under the tank...worthless without water. The latrines were four-holer outhouse type units with cut-off 55 gallon drums for "catchers". We also needed sources for food, for fuel, medical support, and construction materials to improve our living conditions. So we divided into teams and headed out in search of support units who could and would help us out.

I went over to KKMC looking for some sort of medical support. We talked with some ladies in an Air Force aid station who were eager to lend a hand. They told us what the most common complaints were that they were seeing and gave us some treatments for them, including some high powered antihistamines that were not normally considered "over the counter" meds. They gave us some supplies for treating burns (pot-belly stoves and immersion heaters), minor cuts, and stuff like that. One of them asked if we had gotten any mail yet. I reminded her that this was our first day here; I didn't even know my address. She laughed and told us we didn't need an address for these and opened a curtain to show us stacks of big boxes all labeled "To any GI in the Desert". They had been inundated with these boxes, the biggest sign of support for the troops we had ever seen. The flood of boxes would become so intense that it would jam up the mail system so badly that for weeks we couldn't get any regular mail from our families. But on that Christmas Eve, they were a great boon to our unit's adjustment to our new home.

I loaded as many of the boxes as I could fit into my Blazer...it didn't seem to affect the size of the pile at all...and continued on my quest. KKMC had a sort of PX...not much, but we "way-pointed" it on our LORAN so that once we got into a normal operational mode, we could shuttle our guys in to it. Better than nothing.

It was getting dark by the time I got back to our unit; we had a meeting with the others who had been out on the search and compared notes.

The Truckmaster told me that a water point had been found on KKMC. Most units have a water trailer; we call them "buffaloes". They carry about 60 gallons or more, but that isn't a lot of water for showers... especially for almost two hundred dirty souls. Truck reminded me that all of our tankers had been steamed out before they'd been shipped and as long as we didn't drink it, we should be able to transport water for showers in them. Genius.

We brought the "To Any GI" boxes in and opened them up. They were full of letters, Christmas Cards, candy, handwipes, gum, combs, magazines and all kinds of things like that. We divided up all the loot; created a box for each of the platoons' sleeping tents, and loaded them back into my Blazer.

Christmas morning, some of the Operations guys and I drove around to each of the tents, Ho-Ho-Hoing and handing out goodie boxes and wishing them all a Merry Christmas. I knew that for a lot of my soldiers, this was their first Christmas away from home and that can be a rough day for even the toughest soldier. As we went from tent to tent, I was impressed by the fact that every tent had managed to come up with some kind of decorations for Christmas: stars cut from MRE wrappers and so on. The surprise and the goodies made a bright spot in what was a pretty austere Christmas. The next surprise came at dinner; our mess section had come by some Tray-Pac meals. These were pre-cooked, canned meals...about ten servings per can. What they had gotten ahold of were chicken breasts in broth. All you had to do was to heat the whole can up in hot water and serve. After a week of MREs and mystery food, it was a Christmas Feast.

That afternoon, when our fuel tanker full of water arrived, it was followed by several NCOs from different units around TAA Henry (more units were arriving hourly!) who wanted to know how they could get us to transport water for their showers. Suddenly, we were one of the most popular units in the desert. Truck set up two tankers to move water to all the folks and in consideration we received plywood, food, fuel, extra tentage, stoves and lots of things that we didn't even know we needed. Even when we started receiving commitments for our trucks, the day after Christmas, we kept two tankers busy full-time hauling water. It was a good trade. But that night, thanks to our tanker, our genius Truckmaster, and immersion heaters from the mess section, everyone got a hot shower for Christmas, too.

The rest of our new battalion soon began arriving from the States. We were able to assist them in getting set up and the battalion staff was able to set up our "official" support system. All the units that came with 6th Trans were National Guard or Reserves. A lot of them were solid soldiers and "hit the ground running", as they say. Some of them needed a little instruction. But in a short time, we found ourselves in the middle of full-time operations in a battalion that was not only busy, but busy getting things done. The tanker trucks of my unit were running non-stop from the port to Log Base Echo, a fuel storage site just this side of the border with Iraq. The convoys were endless; each truck had two drivers who would trade off driving when they needed to sleep. Believe it or not, this was the most dangerous phase of DESERT STORM. The Army lost more GIs to vehicle accidents in the ramp-up than they did to combat during the war. But, to our good fortune and, I like to think, to our superior training and experience, our company didn't lose anyone to Tapline Road. We had come to Saudi from Germany where we were in constant operation in a real-world mission of supplying fuel to the VII Corps units of Southern Germany. My drivers were experienced in convoys and in running as individuals or in small groups. They knew their jobs well.

Many units from the States had arrived in Saudi before we had. Once established in their camps, they spent their days waiting. They trained, played volleyball, read books, played cards, got snagged for work details, and generally did the traditional military "Hurry up and wait". We were in full convoy operation from the day after Christmas until we stopped to put our trucks back on the ships to go home.