For Water Truck 103, a Perilous Path to the End

Umm Qasr is one of the main entry points for reconstruction items. It and the nearby port of Zubayr received more than 10,000 vehicles -- police cars, firetrucks, cement mixers, bulldozers and tractors -- in 2005 alone. All of the equipment eventually winds up in Iraqi hands.

"That's our main effort here: to push equipment out," Velazquez said. "There are people who have died doing this, but we are in a war. So we have to continue working to accomplish our mission."

With that, he signed off on the departure of Convoy 77: 12 water trucks, bound for the Baghdad Water Directorate and escorted by the 22 men of Team 7 of ArmorGroup International.

On the Road

The convoy rolled out on May 9 at 8:15 a.m. It consisted of 12 flatbed trucks and two spare cabs, escorted by four armored Ford F-350 pickup trucks with machine guns mounted in back, as well as an unarmed pickup that would drive ahead to discreetly scout out the route.

From here, Mark Jones was in command. His team consisted of 18 Iraqi employees and three British expatriates with a combined 42 years of military experience. Jones had served in the British army for 11 years before joining ArmorGroup, a company that protects many of the reconstruction convoys.

Though he has gone private and no longer wears a uniform -- except for a Union Jack patch and a small pin with the Welsh flag on his body armor -- he runs his team like a military unit.

"If it comes to small-arms fire, we keep on driving," Jones said in a rapid-fire briefing outlining the route. "If someone is injured, we're not going to stop inside the killing zone. If one of the vehicles is taken out, we'll do a crossover drill," in which one car comes up alongside the crippled vehicle, removes the passengers and continues the mission.

"If we have to stand and fight, we'll stand and fight."

Jones emphasized the possibility of violence -- "contact," in the military euphemism -- because the slow-moving convoys are often hit by bombs planted in the road or small-arms fire. The trucks can take plenty of punishment from rifle and machine-gun bullets and shrug off smaller bombs. But rocket-propelled grenades, RPGs, are a bigger threat. A direct hit can punch through even the armor of the pickups and incinerate everyone inside.

From the moment the convoy left the port, the team was on alert. As they traveled Main Supply Route Tampa, each truck's radio squawked with sights to look out for, whether debris, other traffic or suspicious "pax" -- a military word for people or passengers.

"Left side, vehicle, black, pax on telephone." Could he be calling insurgents?

"Two vehicles parked on left side, doors open." Gunmen?