Tuesday, March 22, 2005
The company refurbished trucks damaged in war in Iraq within 120 days for 2nd tour.
OSHKOSH, Wis. (AP) -- Paul Walheim has seen hundreds of U.S. military trucks come back from Iraq -- encrusted with sand, sometimes riddled with bullet holes. One was crumpled beyond use after an attack by a suicide bomber.
His job is to strip the vehicles down to their bare bones -- just a frame with no wheels -- and turn them around in 120 days for a second tour of duty.
Walheim is a contract manager at Oshkosh Truck Corp., a company that's one of the top vehicle suppliers to the U.S. military and that's also taken the rehabilitation of trucks pummeled by the fighting in Iraq. Since the war began in March 2003, Walheim has seen the number of damaged trucks returned for refurbishment leap from 20 to 30 a month to around 500 in the past two months.
Some trucks come in with bent frames, or radiators smashed into the engine from when a convoy apparently came to an abrupt halt and caused a crash. Often they have just been worn down without proper maintenance -- pushed to the brink during the heat of battle.
Technological upgrades
After the trucks are rebuilt, they end up with better technology. Light-emitting diodes replace incandescent blinkers. Computer-controlled engines replace mechanical ones. And all of them get new paint, a new warranty and the odometer starts back at zero.
By the time it leaves, "we consider it a like-new truck," Walheim said.
The vehicles known as HEMTTs, or Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, and HETs, or Heavy Equipment Transporters, are the backbone of the U.S. military, carrying tanks to the battlefield, and hauling gas, guns and ammunition. With 13,000 HEMTTs in the U.S. Army fleet and 2,000 HETs, many of them two decades old, the military is working to modernize its fleet.
The Army aims to keep 90 percent of its trucks operationally ready, but heavy use since the war began has forced it to rely on Oshkosh for major repairs, said U.S. Army spokesman Don Jarosz. So the Army entered a four-year open contract with Oshkosh in December to have trucks from Iraq refitted.
"Our estimates are that approximately 15 percent of our deployed fleets will require the higher level repairs at Oshkosh," Jarosz said.
Rehab cuts costs
The Army said the rehabilitation program cuts 25 to 35 percent off the cost of buying new trucks, whose price tags can hit $350,000 apiece.
In the quarter that ended Dec. 31, Oshkosh's defense sales rose 13.2 percent from a year earlier to $215.5 million. Spokeswoman Kirsten Skyba said the greater mix toward parts and service -- supplying, armoring and fixing vehicles -- drove operating profits up 39.1 percent to $51.7 million.
The company's stock is currently trading near the 52-week high of $81.41 it reached in early March, after Oshkosh said it was adding 300,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space. Oshkosh employs more than 7,000 people worldwide.
A tour through the snowy "graveyard" where the trucks await repairs in this eastern Wisconsin city shows signs of where the trucks have been.
Serial number 35044 has markings that show it was assigned to the 3rd Cavalry, 1st Squadron, Headquarters, Headquarters Troops. It has a hole in the cab's roof, probably for a .50-caliber M-2 machine gun. Walheim imagined the unlucky soldier forced to man the turret. "He was probably hauling ammo for somebody."
One truck has a sand-caked pair of goggles inside. Another, a sunflower seed shell and a cigarette butt.
Brief histories
Stories of where trucks have been pass down from driver to handler as the trucks make their way back to Oshkosh by ship, rail and trailer.
One HEMTT cargo truck was turning a corner in an Iraqi town when a hail of machine-gun fire sprayed the left front of the cab, according to the semitrailer driver who brought it in. The driver threw it in reverse and drove back around the corner. The truck made it 100 yards before coming to a stop. The driver and passenger survived.
"The truck has never been started since," Walheim said. "That one's been torn down and overhauled. It's going to be going back."
Another crumpled wreck apparently was rammed by an ice truck driven by a suicide bomber. Workers remember that was the first truck frame that ever had to be scrapped.
Walheim is glad to help military units get back up to combat readiness when they get their truck back from the shop. The 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, Ga., which was involved in the initial push to Baghdad, recently redeployed to Iraq for a second tour of duty.
"They actually did receive a couple of our remand trucks recently to help support their effort," he said.
But it's hard not to think about the more than 5,800 soldiers wounded in Iraq who are unable to return to duty, Walheim said. "I wish there was an overhaul program to help some of those fellows out."
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