Col. Kurt F. Neubauer, 11th Wing commander, and his leadership team, along with personnel from the airman and family readiness center, and the wing chaplaincy, were on hand to provide support and information to the deployers and their family members.

Eight of the deployers are from the vehicle operations flight and affectionately carry the title “Combat Truckers.“ The primary role of the vehicle operations career field at home station is to transport passengers and cargo. Beginning in early 2004, the role of the vehicle operator took a decisive turn, when the Air Force was called upon to fill critical shortfalls in the Army and Marine Corps' ability to perform combat convoy operations in Iraq, and later in Afghanistan. Nearly four years later, the Air Force continues to provide convoy support through two front-line units; the 70th and 424th Medium Truck Detachments.

Before traveling to the area of responsibility, the team will complete an intense six-week basic combat convoy course at Camp Anderson-Peters, Texas. The course is conducted under bare base⁄field conditions with a curriculum that places students in realistic and strenuous training scenarios used to teach skills in weapons qualification, weapons employment, individual and team movements, map⁄compass⁄global positioning system navigation, convoy operations, urban warfare and employing leadership in the small unit setting. Upon reaching the training site in Texas, the team will find themselves under the command of Capt. Jennifer Friedman, commander of the 70th Medium Truck Detachment.

In an e-mail to the group, Captain Freidman outlined a series of priorities to ensure that the unit meets its primary goal to bring every person home safely. The priorities are safety, discipline, taking care of each other and setting the example. According to Captain Freidman, the third priority, taking care of each other, applies when “providing cover fire during a convoy, or a sports team, or in making sure your wingman gets chow if they're too busy to make it.“ These simple, yet profound, priorities will carry these warriors through what will likely be a grueling, danger-filled, deployment.

Since January 2004, when the wing sent team members forward as part of the first Air Force “Truck Company,“ 52 men and women from the 11th LRS have been deployed to support combat convoy operations, earning three Bronze Star Medals, 39 Army Commendation Medals, two Army Achievement Medals and one Purple Heart Medal. Seven of the eight vehicle operators deploying are veterans of convoy operations.

Vehicle operations personnel could not safely carry out these missions without the help of the vehicle maintenance personnel. As the nature of conflict changes, so does the threat to logistics units, especially combat-convoy personnel. The vehicle maintainers take pride in countering threats such as command-detonated and pressure-sensitive mines placed on, above or along the shoulders of roads traveled by military vehicles. They do this by maintaining, conducting special-hardening on vehicles, and serving as mobile maintainers on combat-convoy missions.

Three of the 11th LRS's vehicle maintainers will attend an extensive predeployment training including mine resistant ambush protected maintenance training conducted in Texarkana, Texas. The maintainers' jobs can mean the difference between injury and death, which is why they take so much pride in their ultimate objectives to ensure all convoy vehicles meet safety requirements and are “in-commission“ and hardened to ultimately protect the vehicle's occupants.

At the end of this long deployment, the men and women from the 11th LRS will gather, once again to welcome these gallant warriors home from battle.