I can't remember the mans name, but hes posing in a photo in country smiling holding his weapon with a very basic load out. Normal BDU's, The only thing that still sticks out to me besides how fucking badass he must be (although he looks genuinely friendly in the photo) and the fact that he was crazy old, was he only had one or two mags on him and one was either on his stock or in maybe in a single mag pouch. That and then obviously his age in the photo.



You can also clearly see he was definitely long tabber as well.

Unfortunately I don't remember any of the backstory .



If anyone has a copy of the pic I'd really appreciate it, along with the mans name.



Thanks fellas.

I know why I'm interested in pics of green berets...

Get back to Normandy!!

One mention of a beret & you get all sad for the old country

Lol.

I tried to find the pic, but all I could find that fit the description was in Afghanistan.

You must be thinking of a Special Forces NCO named "Bones".  Google Bones Special Forces.  AFAIK, there was a thread recently where he passed away in the last few months.  

As far as old Special Forces guys out there I recall meeting a Green Beret of very advanced age while I was deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2002.  He was a Sergeant Major from one of the Army Guard SF units.  He used to eat with us at the JTF-SWA chowhall every now and then.  Real nice guy had a star on his CIB too.  He said the star was from Desert Storm.  Guess where he got the first award?  That would always blow the young troops minds.

It's funny I've only been in 15 years and the young kids give weird looks when I tell them I worked with Vietnam vets when I was a young Airman.

Bones was MSG RICHARD (Dick) SMOOT.  

ARFCOM thread on his death

If by Title 10 you mean AD, then I'm picturing MSG Beckstrom but I don't have a photo of him.

Damn, I didn't know he passed.  Didn't know him other that his internet pics.

Dick, like Ron Phillips was killed in a  Motorcycle accident.  Both were fine warriors and solid cats.  

I had two assigned to my directorate at SOCCENT who were long time reservists. Both SF qualified and both entered active service in 1967 I believe and both served in Vietnam. One was a CW5 and the other was a SGM. They were both still serving in 2002.

I am not the one you seek, but here you go.

I was assigned to the Big Red One in Bagdad, Iraq as their SF liaison in 2007.  I was 55 at the time.  You will note the MACV combat patch.




Here is a much younger picture of me  in 1972 in RVN



The most common comment I heard was  "Hey my grandpa had a patch like that, he died a long time ago"

The nice thing was how the pilots would answer with smoke signals.

We would use signal mirrors and vigorous arm waving of orange panels,  combined with much cursing.     If it was ARVN pilots, we went directly to the cursing.  And then ran far, far, away.

BTW

I still think I am a pretty good looking guy even now (My mom says I am still her "special snowflake" with the funny hat)

Another badass who worked well into his 70's.

Billy Waugh

I didn't realize they made nut flaps big enough for those brass balls!  Thank you for your service over such a period and two hard wars.  My first PSG was MACV and we took two Americal vets to Iraq with us in OIF.  It's been 21 years since I first enlisted and I'm smoked - you old timers are a remarkable breed.  

| joined in 1970 as a 17 year old and got medically retired in 2010 at 57  in spite of my pleading to stay in. I have been around long enough to see the post RVN draw down, the 1980's build up under Regan, the cuts under Clinton in the 90's. Then the build up in the 90's again, and finally the GWOT, where the money flowed freely for SOCCOM. Prior to that, Special Forces was the bastard stepchild of the big army.

I did get called up to Just Cause in Panama, and again in Gulf 1 (spent my tour at Fort Bragg), and then I was stop lossed in 2002 (they adjusted my retirement date to 2031 at which time I would have been 79)  I got called up in 2002 and again in 2007.  My only regret was I never called up to go to Africa, it would have meant I got to fight on all the major land masses in the world.

The nice thing was that as the years passed, I could pass the PT test by simply not dying during the run. Never did get the hang of wearing the reflective belt though,  the idea of wearing cammo and a bright yellow belt made no sense to me, but that's the big army for you.

Was the SGM named Stan Parker?  I was attached to SOCCENT in '95 for the UN pull out from Somalia (I was a 5th SF Group MI guy) and worked with a MSG Stan Parker.  Stan was SF and Ranger tabbed, and had been a LRRP with 101st Abn in Vietnam.  He had a rucksack full of funny stories about his time over there, and was fun to have a beer with.

Stan called me a few months after we redeployed home from Kenya, to tell me his photo was on the cover of a book titled "Special Men" (I think).  The book was about Vietnam LRRPs.  I found the book and sure enough there was a group of guys in tiger stripe cammies with their faces painted up.  I immediately recognized a young Stan Parker in the photo.

That is brilliant work.  Thank you for everything you did.