Camp Buehring, Kuwait, Aug. 17, 2004: Pfc. Mark Greene of the 699th Maintenance Company, 21, of North Carolina works on an armored door at the Camp Buehring “Mad Max” shop. The shop retro-fits soft-shelled vehicles of troops arriving from Germany, South Korea, Japan and elsewhere with armor, blast-proof windows and air conditioners so they stand a chance against jagged rocks, roadside bombs and the incessant Iraqi heat.

During a tour of Camp Buehring just a few months later then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would field questions from Iraq-bound soldiers complaining about being sent into combat without armored vehicles, having to resort to “hillbilly armor,” adding scavenged scrap metal and bullet proof glass on to their trucks for protection against roadside bombs in Iraq.

Caught off guard by the critical questions, Rumsfeld uttered the now famous phrase “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Read about the inner workings of the “Mad Max” garage at Camp Buehring and see more photos here.