Focus on TUSD - Summer 2008

Tour of Duty
Bendyna returns to Transportation Department from Iraq job
Alex Bendyna's soldiers in Iraq always said he was lucky because no attacks happened when he was around.

That's the way Bendyna, the TUSD Transportation Department ombudsman, likes it. After almost a year with TUSD, he left his job in April 2007 for a one-year tour of duty in Iraq. His goal was to get everything done and to not get anyone killed.

Except for a vehicle rollover accident early during that year, he accomplished his goal and then some. During the year, he said, his unit moved more supplies every day than the Red Ball Express did in one month during World War II under Gen. George Patton.

Pounding his desk for emphasis, Bendyna said, "These guys were hard chargers. I am so proud of them."

Bendyna, 53, a lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Army Reserves, was headquartered at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. As an operations officer for Theater Level Transportation, he directed 3,500 soldiers in hauling supplies long distance by truck. They picked up supplies at the port and took them to northern Iraq by the Turkish border. He went to Basra, Baghdad and Talil in Iraq.

He never experienced an improvised explosive devise, commonly called an IED, but many soldiers did. When his soldiers pointed out locations where attacks had occurred, Bendyna told them, "You won't be attacked now. If I don't go down hard, I won't go down at all. These terrorists can't generate enough pain and suffering to make it worth killing me. So that was it. Nothing ever happened around me."

During the first 10 days of his tour, a soldier died in a rollover accident not related to combat duty. So during the next 90 days, Bendyna required everyone to go through remedial training, even those who weren't driving. There were no more deaths.

"I took great pains to make sure there would be no more casualties," Bendyna said.

To help keep soldiers safe, Bendyna said they fabricated an additional 2,000 pounds of armor in three plates that hung from the truck doors. One of the "nastiest" explosively formed projectiles, called an EFP, penetrated the first, second and third plates, exhausting itself before it hit the fourth plate, Bendyna said.

His heavy transportation unit, the 640th Sustainment Brigade, was a target for the enemy with its semi-trucks, fuel tankers and refrigerator trucks. The convoys included 20 to 60 vehicles. Bendyna said they had an "enormous utilization rate," up to 90 percent of the vehicles were always on the road. In the nearly one-year time span he was there, the truckers drove 50 million miles in 450 operations orders, moving 52 brigades in or out of Iraq. A brigade has from 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers.

The brigade Bendyna served with accomplished more than any other unit in the past during the same amount of time, averaging over 1,000 combat convoys a month and completing more than 1,400 major missions in a year, according to Third Army and CENTCOM records.

The brigade, which was almost entirely transportation, included five cargo ships. One was dedicated entirely to ammunition and one was dedicated to fuel tankers because fuel couldn't be transported over the road to hot spots on the Euphrates River.

During one of those convoy trips, Bendyna was delighted to see his son, 21-year-old Alex III, who came to Iraq as an Army scout. His soldiers moved the young soldier from his ship to Mosul. "We smoked cigars and had a nice visit," Bendyna said.

The rest of his family was glad to see him when he returned April 15, he said, and Bendyna was glad to see them. "I'm glad I'm back at work, too, because I really like my job. It's more like a family here than a job," he said.

The District's Transportation Department has more than 600 employees.

Bendyna Bio

-- By Sharon Dunham
Communications & Media Relations

Photos in the summer issue by Jes Ruvalcaba of Communications & Media Relations, unless otherwise noted.

The deadline to submit material for the September Focus is Friday, August 15. The Focus will be published Monday, August 25. Email submissions to Chyrl Hill Lander or Sharon Dunham in the Communications & Media Relations Department or use the online Tip Sheet.