By Shelia Watson
Staff Writer

The Ramp Services Load Team of the 437th Aerial Port Squadron at the Charleston Air Force Base gathered around the cargo that was tagged for immediate delivery: two Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicles, better known as MRAPs, manufactured by Ladson-based Force Protection.

Scanning the night skies, one of the team members called out, “There’s our bird!”

The “bird,” a C-5 Galaxy-class plane under the authority of the Air Mobility Command, is the largest airlifter in the U.S. Air Force inventory and the only aircraft that could hold two

MRAP Buffalo-model vehicles, which weigh in at about 23 tons each.

This particular C-5 made the trip from Dover Air Force Base, arriving at night to load the MRAPs and deliver them to the war zone in the morning.

“We can make the trip across the pond in about eight hours,” said Tech. Sgt. Steve Dirksen, the primary loadmaster for the C-5. Although Dirksen could not comment on the exact location of the delivery, the MRAPs are almost certainly destined for areas in Iraq where the

U.S. Marines are concentrated in expeditionary forces.

The MRAPs might ordinarily make the trip via the Navy’s large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ships. The LMSRs are capable of moving enough equipment to fill nine football fields, which would allot many more MRAPs than the two making this trip.

In a side-by-side comparison, the C-5 is a contender, with its ability to carry 36 standard pallets and up to 81 troops simultaneously as well as a serious payload of cargo, including bulky items such as the Army’s 74-ton mobile scissors bridge.

However, where the LMSR ship can move vast quantities of equipment, the C-5 has the advantage of speed: It can get the equipment to its destination in hours rather than days or weeks, can be loaded and off-loaded at the front and rear of the cargo openings and can take off or land at relatively short distances.

In this case, speed was the deciding factor.

“The primary reason why we’re doing this is simple: We’re trying to save lives,” said Master Sgt. Jared Breyer, who is in charge of special handing. “It’s absolutely critical that we get these over there as quickly as possible. It saves lives every day when they have them.”

Breyer echoed the sentiments U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., expressed last month during a press conference at Brittlebank Park, where he touted the capabilities of the MRAP vehicles manufactured in the Lowcountry at both Force Protection and North Charleston-based Protected Vehicles Inc.

Noting that the products of the two companies could help reduce American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan if only his fellow lawmakers would move more quickly to award defense contracts, Biden proclaimed that every soldier under fire needs the best protection possible.

“This is not a press conference to get press,” he said at the gathering. “This is a press conference to save lives.”

Both Biden and U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., had sent a letter earlier last month to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, noting that any delays in sending MRAPs to the battlefield would cost the lives of “621 to 742 Americans who would have survived explosions had they been in MRAPs rather than Humvees.”

The pleas from the senators came on the heels of requests from U.S. Marines in the field, who pointed out that the standard approach of adding armor to the sides of Humvees did little to protect against blasts beneath the vehicles.

Part of the reason for using that method has been cost. According to reports from the U.S. Department of Defense, adding armor to Humvees costs about $14,000, with factory-added armoring costing about $191,000, whereas the MRAP costs between $600,000 and $1

million.

During the press conference at Brittlebank Park, Biden had insisted that “what I can’t live with is people coming home in body bags or suffering from head trauma because we didn’t afford them all the protection we possibly could.”

The MRAP Buffalo vehicles, like those that were loaded onto the C-5, have V-shaped bottoms that put the crew more than three feet off the ground and deflect explosions. The vehicle was designed to withstand the underbelly bombs that can cripple the lower-riding Humvees.

Staff writer Dan McCue contributed to this article.

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