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Back in action

Workers reassemble a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck at the Oshkosh Truck plant in Oshkosh, Wis. The truck, which was damaged in Iraq, was being refurbished to be put back into military service. (Associated Press photos / The Spokesman-Review)
Ryan Nakashima Associated Press
Workers reassemble a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck at the Oshkosh Truck plant in Oshkosh, Wis. The truck, which was damaged in Iraq, was being refurbished to be put back into military service. (Associated Press photos / The Spokesman-Review)

OSHKOSH, Wis. — Paul Walheim has seen hundreds of U.S. military trucks come back from Iraq — encrusted with sand, sometimes riddled with bullet holes. One was crumpled beyond use after an attack by a suicide bomber.

His job is to strip the vehicles down to their bare bones — just a frame with no wheels — and turn them around in 120 days for a second tour of duty.

Walheim is a contract manager at Oshkosh Truck Corp., a company that’s one of the top vehicle suppliers to the U.S. military and that’s also taken the rehabilitation of trucks pummeled by the fighting in Iraq. Since the war began in March 2003, Walheim has seen the number of damaged trucks returned for refurbishment leap from 20 to 30 a month to around 500 in the last two months.

Some trucks come in with bent frames, or radiators smashed into the engine from when a convoy apparently came to an abrupt halt and caused a crash. Often they have just been worn down without proper maintenance — pushed to the brink during the heat of battle.

After the trucks are rebuilt, they end up with better technology. Light-emitting diodes replace incandescent blinkers. Computer-controlled engines replace mechanical ones. And all of them get new paint, a new warranty and the odometer starts back at zero.

By the time it leaves, “we consider it a like-new truck,” Walheim said.

The vehicles known as HEMTTs, or Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, and HETs, or Heavy Equipment Transporters, are the backbone of the U.S. military, carrying tanks to the battlefield, and hauling gas, guns and ammunition.

With 13,000 HEMTTs in the U.S. Army fleet and 2,000 HETs, many of them two decades old, the military is working to modernize its fleet.

The Army aims to keep 90 percent of its trucks operationally ready, but heavy use since the war began has forced it to rely on Oshkosh for major repairs, said U.S. Army spokesman Don Jarosz. So the Army entered a four-year open contract with Oshkosh in December to have trucks from Iraq refitted.

“Our estimates are that approximately 15 percent of our deployed fleets will require the higher-level repairs at Oshkosh,” Jarosz said.

The Army said the rehabilitation program cuts 25 percent to 35 percent off the cost of buying new trucks, whose price tags can hit $350,000 apiece.

In the quarter that ended Dec. 31, Oshkosh’s defense sales rose 13.2 percent from a year earlier to $215.5 million. Spokeswoman Kirsten Skyba said the greater mix toward parts and service — supplying, armoring and fixing vehicles — drove operating profits up 39.1 percent to $51.7 million.

The company’s stock is currently trading near the 52-week high of $81.41 it reached in early March, after Oshkosh said it was adding 300,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space. The expansion is being undertaken primarily to handle the growth in its defense business. Oshkosh employs more than 7,000 people worldwide.