And other good things as well

http://militaryarmament.tumblr.com/post/173647750333/the-us-invasion-of-grenada-a-1983-united

I'd been long gone and great good riddance too from the army when I got home from work to find the invasion news splattered all over television and the first thing that popped into my head was "I've been left behind!"

Where the @#$%^&*! did that come from?

Cool pics. I'd like to know the story behind this chinook.

Edited to add from a different website. That's a Sea Knight not a Chinook. but I'd like to know also.

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=166886

There's a decapitated palm tree to the left in the picture, could be the one that did it in.

I lost my Cherry in Grenada.

Also lost a flight school classmate.

35 years ago......

Wow, this brings back memories.  I was at Ft. Lewis 82-85.  My buddy came back I didn't go due to being in ADA. Air Defense Artillery.
He and I ended up in same college years later.  Was a bit joyful and teary eyed to see em both times.
God bless ya!

my squad leader was a Grenada vet, he said they found crates of brand new M-60’s and ran S/N’s up the chain, there was no record of them anywhere.

they took them and outfitted entire squads lol. probably CIA supply drops

dont know what they did them after it was over.

Most likely turned them in after reporting them "found on installation". Property book officer added them back into the system.

hippie video

overlooks the fact that there were 600 US medical students on the island

US forces kicked the commies out and the island has had free elections since

Reagan was right

even Tip O’neill supported after learning all the facts

GOOD SHOOT

Damn..., all these years I figured it was over Nutmeg!

Grenada is the dominate producer and exporter of the nutmeg seed in the Western Hemisphere.

Nutmeg is a key ingredient for Eggnog.

The Commie SOBs were trying to steal Christmas!

Reagan said the "The Spice Must Flow" and sent us in to Save Christmas!

There is a gallery...... , I've posted  some images before from  on Grenada, with some questions about gear and  others for enjoyment and discussion. Those thread's  links are reposted here if you care to read the comments, knowledge  and history shared from others

From an A1 post previously   https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Operation_Urgent_Fury_A1_upper_with_optical_illusion__actualandamp_quot____A1_sight_wheel__Thanks_for_the_help_/123-716139/

Sight wheel in question,



Where everyone here helped figured out that an A1 had an unintended effect of looking like it had an A2 wheel on its for windage adjustment wheel/knob. That is was not Rapidex Windage Knob but a trick of wear, light and angle.

Image url http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/156650346/original at source, click under image for what sizes load best medium, large, and/or original(is the largest and varies greatly).

The image came from Oly Olson's  gallery Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada) http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/urgent_fury_grenada of 513 images not counting January 1984  Solider's Magazine Article below   Lots of 1980's retro Land plus  surplus Com Block weapons. He took photos  of the weapons they confiscated that were unique and interesting to him at the time, who cares about photoing your service rifle repetitively , especially back with film & development costs....  You can find a lot history on the various photographs from the gallery comments and each image's page  comments. If similar or related images, you'll want to read/view them all to get the full story(ies). Like with the Downed Boeing CH-47 Chinook 46 Boeing Vertol CH-46F  Marine Sea Knightimages . Which while having a Service Ceilingof 6,096 m (20,000 ft) is sitting at approximately 1 or -1 meter depending on seal level and tides. The images are spread out for location, guessing for different people's photos or sources. It is one thing to read about and imagine them landing and taking the runaway, it is another to see it all from the various photos taken by the soldiers. These aren't your professional news photographers but soldiers who served photos.

Bottom of gallery has the January 1984's Soldiers Magazine Article on the Urgent Fury's Airborne Rangers with more photos.  http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/jan_84_soldiers

Some more A1 pictures  *note all images are direct linked, copy  the source url and drop the .jpg to get to the actual image in the gallery. Otherwise trying to paste the .jpg link   will take you to the faster direct linked image servers(seperate from where the galleries , images their respective comments  and actual account are stored, I'll explain why if someone really cares but....) of PBase the photo hosting service. Which is free from annoying scripts and ads. When you use the website click on the image size small, medium,large or original and it will then default to that size for when you click on the gallery's thumbnails. Original is the largest uploaded size, it best to browse at medium or large and then go original when you want to gear stare and stalk.

DN-SN-85-02097


DN-SN-84-11967


DF-ST-84-09923


DF-SN-84-10912


DA-ST-85-02242


DA-ST-85-02239


DA-ST-85-02204


Gun Team at Road Block
3rd platoon, B Company, 2/505th Infantry, 82 Airborne Division


Soviet Ambassador's Vehicle Requisitioned
see image page http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/123381901/original for additional comments keith nightingale27-Apr-2011 17:11
Nope. C/2-505 busting the window of the Soviet Ambassador's Mercedes at Saline. The 1Sgt used it for the log vehicle throughout our stay


IMG_0015sm


Ken Richey Grenada.jpg
Soldier of B Co. 2/505th INF cleans his M16A1 rifle during Operation Urgent Fury
comment of note Oly Olson
An M60 machine gun is visible lower left and the 82nd trooper has a Camillus made standard Army fighting knife hanging from his load bearing equipment. Note that the trooper is wearing Vietnam type jungle fatigues. The relatively new BDU uniform was ditched very quickly by troops in Grenada in favor of lighter weight and cooler "rip stop" uniforms still in old-stock inventory with the Army.  link http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/132005345/original


DA-ST-85-02231  possible Tom Maloney see comments on image page http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/102646378/original



DA-ST-85-02242sm


DA-ST-85-02193sm


Troopers from B Co. 2/505th


LTC Keith Nightingale (seated foreground left), cmmdr. 2nd Bn. 505th Inf., Grenada 1983


also the C&R forum posting of images are posted at https://www.ar15.com/forums/armory/Captured__Mosin_Nagants_M44_in_1983_Grenada_andamp_quot_Operation_Furryandamp_quot__still_in_use_a_world_andamp__lifetime_away/14-449379/

About learning about that chinook / Boeing Vertol CH-46F  Marine Sea Knight...   there are several images spread out through the Oly Olson's Operation Urgent Fury Grenada   galleries on Pbase. You'll find comments on each image  that are separate and also others on the galleries. Which gallery comments don't always say which image they referencing, you have to add all  together to get a full and amazing history lesson. You're kinda eavesdropping on  conversations, although they posted them publicly. Luckily the history lives on.

also on second post   I had used helicopter's crash photos & comments quote explaining how the Marine Sea Knight went down and why it is so damaged while explaining how comments worked on the images, "An example is the downed CH-64 on the beach which all the images combined have the full story. Which was taken down by claims of enemy fire but the palm trees and rotors don''t mix being the likely anti-aircraft weapon of cause. With all the major damage coming from disabling/securing it and there are comments from the guy who pulled the bolt and other parts from the gun and throw them in the ocean... Really a surprising find. I wonder if kids play on and in it today?"  from 2015. I wonder what is left of it on the beach today....   Now we have verifiable proof from historical aircraft service records.

@soldier65 was the different website you were referring to the one I linked from PBase and this man's gallery?  I'ld imagine this was popular site to photograph, then and now...



and comments are on at least this this image of it
http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/123381905   directed link right below....

One of which said  This 46 had clipped some trees on the way in...The damage you see is from the Spector disabling it..The Rangers had to hoof it down the beach to get extracted. I clearer that AC of the 50..I broke it down and chunked the parts in the ocean..The Ranger left their rucks and some weapons on the beach..I broke those down also throwing them in the ocean as well.. 1st plt Aco 2/325th, Chaulk 1 # 55. Plt RTO

The Marine Sea Knight registration and tail number  157711   and C/ n msn  2610 on helicopter body 261

I remember getting told about Grenada by our Drill Sergeants, had people crying that they were going to war.  I told them to STFU as it would be over before we finish basic, LOL.

CD

And a very nice gallery it is, too.

Lookit this freakin' guy in the center with the ciggie pack tucked into his helmet band.

I don't want no teenaged queen,
I just want my M-14

I had just gotten to Division a few months before and the CIF was out of stock on medium kevlar helmets, so I wore a good old steel pot to the island. Still got it.

Stood out like a sore thumb. Haha

very cool photos, this whole conflict i feel is not very represnted or spoken about in the military community.

Thanks for posting.

Good pics thanks.

In the "gun team" pic, troop at the left has a shotgun.

Also note that the shortest guy got stuck carrying the pig, same as always.

Shotgun looks like a Winchester 1200.  This one still in service in Astan today.

Attached File


CD

I'll take it!

WTH?!

Sorry  I   screwed up the  linking on several photos, for adding the word "original" in image's url's code . Since it is  defaulted  by clicking the size to view them and then isn't listed in the url's when viewing additional  images which I copy and pasted from.  I went and fixed all the ones i saw. Well recheck when back home in few hours to make sure i got them all corrected.  Compare  my screwed up url for size/detail and your quoted url   http://www.pbase.com/olyinaz/image/140594766.jpg  above to the one corrected below.  Everyone should see those guns just a little better...

Compare this image you link quoted

Also for note, you don't need a PBase account to to comment there on the gallery or images, if your comment doesn't show up directly, it just means the user has the screening settings to approve comments  before being displayed to stop the spammers.

Is it just because it’s blurry or is his finger on the trigger?

The fella kicking in the door.

These 505th guys are easily identified. Theirs was the only regiment in Division at the time that had a permanent SOP to wear scrim on their helmets. They used scraps of camo netting and cut up sandbags.

The other regiments like mine, the 325, added local foliage as needed.

Finger looks in the guard at least, which the door looks open. So can't fault him for being prepared in case there was someone right there before the rest could take their shots.

When tenths to hundredths of seconds count... what the hell? another COD BlkOps. cutscene...

when were you in the 325?

'83 to '86.

Kinda off topic, but still with the Urgent Fury theme.

I remember a picture that I saw of members from the Ranger Regiment receiving awards for actions--it has a bunch of them in their OD uniforms.  I saw that in a book when I was much younger.

I have looked online with no apparent luck.  Anyone have that picture by chance?  It was a published photo.

Thanks!

nice, which company?

c 2/325 1983 - 86

This thread is about Grenada....not hollywood BS

right, you sold it at the pawn shop, mr stitch jones.

A 3/325 for the first two years, then transferred to C 1/325 because the whole 3rd batt was shipping to Italy for a couple years and I didn’t want to reup. Came to regret not doing that. Dumb kid.

Interesting thread and some good photos.

I was in 2/505 in the 82nd from March 1980 until November 1981, so I missed the Grenada op.  Of interest, I was a company armorer for about a year, a job I really enjoyed.  As I remember, in early 1981 we turned in all our M16A1's and received brand new M16A1's.  We definitely had some old rifles in the company before we turned them in, I recall there was one rifle with the older three pronged flash hider with an XM serial number.  The new rifle's were all Colts, they came to us in individual cardboard boxes, with one 30 round mag and a sling.

A few things I remember about that time period in the Division.  There were still a lot of 20 round mags in use at that time, probably about half the magazines in the company were 20 round mags.  I ordered 30 round mags whenever the CO let me, but back in those days the money was tight.  The Reagan money hadn't quite kicked in.  The other thing was rifle cleaning equipment was hard to get too.  You'd think that issue would have been resolved as a lesson learned from Vietnam.  Part of that was the same deal with having to spend money from the supply budget for that stuff and once we issued cleaning equipment it tended to disappeared.  When I finally got a bunch of rifle cleaning stuff in, I put together about 50 complete M16 cleaning kits and kept them in the supply room as a war deployment stash.  I hope those kits were issued for the Grenada deployment.

It's an M21 more likely than anything else.  82nd didn't have many M14s in the inventory for almost 2 decades by that point, but did have M21s and duty positions to fill them with until they were replaced by the M24 SWS late 80s, early 90s.

@MG56
@winddummy82
@Richard-ar15

What was the jump schedule and frequency of platoon or company-level training for you guys back then?

Did you still do squad SOPs, local training, or battle drills in Area J?

By the early 2000s, jumps were anywhere from 1-2 per quarter.

We did airfield seizures out on Nijmegen and some other small DZ, Sicily for mass attacks, all of those at night with combat equipment at 800ft AGL, mostly from C-130s and then more and more C-17As.

I was in 3-325 AIR 2000-2003, after having been in 6 previous units, 3 of those Airborne as well.

I had a Grenada Ranger for a Battalion Commander in Korea before LTC Milley took over for him, who was by far the best BC I ever worked under.

I had just returned from a Mediterranean deployment, and we were still sort of on stand down. I don’t think there was anyone in the squadron who wasn’t jealous.

Luzon DZ near Camp Mackall?

eta: Aircraft mock-ups adjacent to the DZ are still visible on Google maps.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0161465,-79.4650872,120m/data=

I don't remember all the details. I think you had to jump at least every 90 days(?) to keep your status, so it was at least that often. I remember opportunities to volunteer for admin jumps with other units.

I recall it was battalion/company training operations all over the place during the training cycle, then platoon and squad level close to the barracks in Area J during the alert cycle, then a lot of damn leaf raking, heavy drop rigging details and guard duty during the division support cycle. Used to enjoy pulling guard at the Division Museum.

I've jumped Luzon several times, as well as MacKall AAF when I was at SWC, jumping out of Twin Otters or some civilian skydiving planes SWC rented for us to keep status, which was one of the only "fun" static line jumps I did.

St. Mere Eglise was another we jumped occasionally.  Sicily and Holland were the most frequent just going from memory.  I'd have to pull out my jump log and see, because there are a bunch of them in those training areas generally boxed in by Manchester, King, and Plank roads.

There was one where the engineers blew the triple-strand concertina wire with bangalores before the assault elements flowed into a MOUT site on the southern end, all at night.

Nice photos

* Battalion/Company training all over Bragg....check

* Platoon and Squad near barracks in Area J....sometimes (I had to fight the system hard just to get that time with my Squad, as a Squad Leader)

* "Lots of damn leaf raking", mowing lawns, picking up trash out in the middle of nowhere, cleaning drop zones , Division Guard? ......Yeah, that tradition seems more entrenched than anything else there.  What a sh*tshow extraordinaire that was.  I don't miss those DRB 3 /DRF-9 suckfest detail days at all.  Division Guard was horrible.  We had to go work out of some barracks more east of where 325 AIR was, then run guard rotations all over the post like MPs would be expected to do.  Sucked, even as an NCO supervising the rotations and taking out, then picking up Joes to bring back to the barracks.  Never understood why we didn't just do that out of our own barracks.  All those barracks are torn down now. When I got back from the Middle East, they had demolished a lot of places and the Rear-D chapter soldiers stole the contents of my off-post wall locker while we were deployed (2003).

We jumped at least once a quarter as well, but my buddies tell me it's way down now, maybe once every 6 months since they pulled out most of the C-130s from Pope AFB.   They have a newer, heavier parachute with a reserve that's almost as big as a T-10 main.  I had no complaints with the T-10 really.  37 jumps and no injuries, almost every one of them night with Combat Equipment, 800ft AGL.

Funny thing happened when I first in-processed to 82nd.  The first available jump they had for me and some others was UH-60A, which was way higher altitude, I think something like 1600ft AGL at 90kts with your legs hanging out, feeling like you were about to slip off the entire time we were in position.  Long way down compared to every other jump.  It was all C-130 and C-17A after that.  C-141Bs were retired from USAF service while I was at Bragg, so one of the last times they flew, hydraulic lines blew and leaked all over guys in the bird on the way down to JRTC, while one guy (who was in my Battalion in Korea several years before) thought he was having a heart attack and had to divert the bird anyway.

When we jumped into JRTC at night in the aftermath/trailing edge of a tropical storm, almost the entire Battalion was dropped in the trees because they couldn't see the DZ.  As soon as I exited and got a canopy, I pulled the craziest slip you would ever think about and barely landed just a few feet within the DZ, barely missing the trees.  Other dudes were stuck up in the trees all over, tried lowering themselves and got all kinds of injuries.  We had been ordered not to pack any sniffle gear, so our rucks were astonishingly nerf-sized that deployment, and it rained on us like crazy.  Only time I've ever spooned another man so hard shivering like a wet dog in the cold.  Terrible

ETA: Sorry for the derail gents

1/75 Ranger Memorial Vignette

You kidding? This is one of the great things about hanging out here!

As a grateful civilian I love to hear stories from all the services.

Thanks to all who have, are and will serve!

Very cool pics and memories- thanks for sharing them!

When I was in Regiment we had a few Grenada Rangers - they were the “old guys”.

Now I am one of the “old guys”.

RLTW