Mobile Register:
...The article also gives a lot of personal stories about the members of the unit.But it hasn't taken the Alabama out of them.
After welcoming this stranger into their midst Saturday afternoon, they took me to meet the Third Platoon, headed out on a long convoy mission to Kuwait that will probably not return to camp until I am gone from here.
I quickly found that the men of the 3-117th also have a traditional Southern affinity for customizing their rides. Army-issue just isn't good enough: They've got to tinker.
Take Viking 1, a Light Motorized Tactical Vehicle (LMTV), more commonly called a "gun truck," which was the lead vehicle in Third Platoon's 28-truck convoy.
LMTVs are heavily armored tractor-trailer cabs with a short bed in the back and a .50 caliber machine gun mounted up top.
But Viking 1 isn't exactly like the dozens of other LMTVs on this base. Under the direction of Staff Sgt. Carl Morin of Phenix City, the crew has made a few modifications.
In addition to the .50 caliber machine gun in the turret, they added a mount for a light SAW machine-gun that could better cover the truck's rear.
They mounted four high-power fog lamps, acquired from Auto Zone by family members back in Alabama, to the roof of the truck. The turret gunner aims those beams at the sides of the road to better detect roadside bombs or insurgents waiting in ambush.
They added sun visors to the cab, and installed a radio intercom system so they could communicate using headsets instead of trying to shout to one another over the thunderous diesel engine.
They scavenged dome lights from an Iraqi bone yard at Taji and used them to illuminate the cab's interior when they are not out on the road.
And they added a power inverter that converts the truck's 12-volt power supply to standard household current. During the long periods of down time at the "convoy support centers," or truck stops, they can plug in their laptops and watch DVDs or play computer games.
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