Life on the Road

Great escape in Iraq

What was Tommy Hamill, a married, 43-year-old truck driver from rural Mississippi, thinking when he signed on with KBR and agreed to deliver fuel and other supplies in… Iraq?

“I was thinking that we have soldiers over there putting their lives on the line, but we’re all still Americans, and I wanted to be a part of it,” says Hamill, who has no military background. “I did it for patriotic reasons. I wanted to see a different part of the world. I did it for the adventure.”

Hamill experienced adventure and more when his truck convoy was attacked on April 9, 2004 near the Baghdad International Airport. Five of Hamill’s associates were killed. He was wounded, taken prisoner by masked gunmen and held hostage for 24 days. Hamill’s extraordinary experience, culminated by a daring escape, was front-page news worldwide and subsequently chronicled in the best-selling book, “Escape in Iraq: The Thomas Hamill Story.”

As he recounted his adventure for the umpteenth time at this year’s Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS) in Louisville, Hamill admitted there was one other reason why he left his family and farm in Macon, MS for perhaps the most dangerous job in the world: money. His one-year contract with KBR paid $80,000, tax-free. Hamill needed the money to save his farm.

So, after convincing his wife that he had not lost his mind, Hamill flew to Houston for 10 days of orientation. The recruiting pitch was a little unusual. Rather than extolling the virtues of driving a truck for KBR, the recruiter did his best to talk Hamill out of making the trip to Iraq. “He told me that the living conditions were terrible and I could get killed over there, but I told him that my mind was made up,” Hamill says.

This was one instance in which everything that the recruiter told Hamill turned out to be true.

On Oct. 6, 2003, Hamill found himself in Iraq. “My first impression was, ‘I’m glad I don’t live here,’” he recalls, but Hamill did have to live there, at least for several months. For the first three months, he slept in a cabover truck. “Having been a truck driver for 26 years, I was used to it,” he says.

As for his job, Hamill says the truck convoys were routinely fired upon, but his biggest fear was being surrounded by thousands of gallons of fuel. “The first time out, the truck in front of me had this big sign on the back, ‘Danger: Flammable.’ I was two or three feet off the back of this guy and we’re both doing 50 miles per hour. I was more worried about running into the back of him than enemy fire.”

All of that would change on April 9, 2004.

Note: The second part of Hamill's story, including his amazing escape, will appear in the June issue of our sister publication, Pro Trucker.