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In the past 7-8 years about 90% of the actual fighting has been conducted by organizations where you typically dont hear anything in the news until somebody dies.  Like not just a couple big operations, dozens and dozens of teams running missions day in and day out per CENTCOM theater (of which we have three now)

My last deployment wasn't that long ago and we pretty much got it all. Firefights under 50 meters, minefields, IEDs, quasi-large scale combat operations with tanks and rocket artillery firing on us.  Experiences vary wildly, if you talk to somebody that sat in a guard tower the whole time you would get a different perspective.

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Daemon,
Long time no see. You still in? Gotta be getting close to retirement?

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A little background:

Up until January 2001, the US military had been subjected to some of the stupidest, most detrimental, demoralizing treatment by the Clinton White House for 8 years.  The senior NCOs and officers had grown up during the Reagan Administration where the military had one primary focus:  Train for combat and deploy on a moment's notice to dish out coordinated, professional, industrial-scale violence on our enemies with swiftness.

When Clinton came into the WH, she instituted all kinds of social experiment garbage, SHARPs training, EO quotas, don't ask-don't tell, and there was a clear departure from the war-fighting spirit from the top-down.  To this schism, there was a lot of cultural resentment from dudes who had joined a professional military tasked with doing our Nation's business seriously.  When I was a private, all my Drill Sergeants had combat patches, and practically all the NCOs with 5 years of service or more in my first unit had been Panama or ODS vets as well, so we got to hear how things used to be concerning training, ammo allotments, field rotations, and deployments.

Once George W. Bush came into the WH, he inherited a mixed military culture of camouflage welfare recipient garrison Pogues, and war-fighters who were chewing at the bit to deploy and slay enemy combatants.  After 9-11, everyone knew it was game-time and he had already done a 180 in several areas, military pay being the first one.  Clinton had made sure we didn't get a pay raise for years, and when Bush came in, it hit our wallets significantly and was very welcome.  Morale picked up tremendously because you knew the Commander-in-Chief was making the military a priority.

As things moved forward into 2002, we saw one Battalion from down the street deploy to Afghanistan, but nothing for us.  More and more guys started murmuring again, saying, "We're never going anywhere.  We're gonna continue to do DRF cycle picking up pine cones on Sicily while everyone else gets a piece of the action.  This sucks!"

Then we got word we were deploying "somewhere" in early 2003, while pallets of DCUs, IBAs, Wiley Xs, desert boots, and MOLLE gear piled into the Brigade supply system, filtering down to the Companies with mass issue eventually ending up in Joe's arms as he hobbled away from each Company supply room down in the basement level.

Right before we deployed, they had all the NCOs from my Brigade (325th) meet in York Theater (Fort Bragg).

Imagine this perspective but everyone in BDUs (we couldn't wear the DCUs until the day we staged for loading the birds IIRC):

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Firs0.4sqi.net%2Fimg%2Fgeneral%2F600x600%2F59185088_fOrhbY9zmUHJ0Z2vR021UuiSzTMr2e6EgMQWdBz5oxw.jpg&f=1&nofb=1


Some butter bar 2LT gets up in front of that screen and says,

"Alright gents, watch this short video presentation and then I'll be giving you your CENTCOM AOR ROE briefing."

I looked over to the dude to my left and said, "Wake me up when this stupidity is over." or something to that effect.

It gets quiet, and then Drowning Pool's Let the Bodies Hit the Floor slowly crescendoed into full volume, and the screen erupts with footage from Desert Storm, primarily focusing on the Highway of Death slaughter with escharred corpses hanging out of the APCs, trucks, and tanks, F-15Es, F-16s, A-10s, M-1 Abrams, and Bradleys blasting Iraqi units endlessly.

There was a unanimous roar among us all, as this was unexpected.

The little JSG Lieutenant gets up on the stage again, and starts off his very animated and motivated "ROE briefing".

One of the first things he said that slapped us all into full focus was...

"I don't care if your Company commander tells you to tape up your mags or not have a round in the chamber of your weapon.  That's an unlawful order and will be disobeyed!"

"You are to shoot first and ask questions later!"

"If you see a threat, do not wait to be fired upon."

The shouts of "Hooah!" were visceral.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing, but I liked it.

We all went back to our Joes and told them we're getting ready to kick some serious ass.

To be a SAW gunner, M240 gunner, FO, TACP, Scout Sniper, or Scout/Observer in the early days of OIF in 2003 was everything and more than a young hooah could have hoped for.

I had this cheap little 35mm film no-name camera.  Digital cameras were just barely becoming a thing back then and I didn't have one.

I just found a bunch of photos I forgot about I need to upload sometime.  Here's one I've had for a while.

https://i1085.photobucket.com/albums/j422/LRRPF52/14CrowellinOverwatch.jpg

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I wound up attached to 1AD DISCOM after 3ID ripped out. After we got to Baghdad and set up the CMOC in the green zone...well what became the green zone....my team got sent down to LSA Dogwood where the CSH was at the time and just started running missions out of there....and then we discovered there were a metric shit ton of explosives that got abandoned at Al Qua Qua military complex..so we started trying to mitigate the theft of that for a while.

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Did anyone besides me have the pleasure of working with the Norwegians SOF cats at Bagram?   I loved those cats and the support females as well.  They were solid Vikings and went above and beyond every time they were tasked to support my ODA.  

And I may be biased, but Ole T never received the recognition he should have for carrying my wounded ass through a minefield to the casvac vehicle.



18Z50

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You had to be there to believe it.

March 2003 to March 2004:

“Hey man, y’all want some AT4s? Here’s like 5 or 6.”

Driving around in unarmored humvees, doors off, rear security in a lawn chair in the back.

$100k in cash in my backpack.  Turn in some Arabic receipts and get another $100k.

Captured weapons everywhere, no pistol issued to me so I had a seized .38 revolver with no reloads stuck in my DCU pocket for emergencies. I.e. not getting my head sawn off by hadji.

Having a bonfire at night like Lord of the Flies, with some of Saddams johnnie walker blue label getting passed around.

Go feed the tigers at the zoo during lunch.  Stop for hummus and ice cream at the market.

Let’s go explore the tunnels under the palace. Rumor has it there’s an underground route to the airport.

Hawaiian shirt day. Or week

Big boy rules.  Do what you want, how you want, but you own the consequences.

Replaced my name tapes with CPT Ali Baba.

Got pulled over on Route Irish by a bird colonel for not wearing my seatbelt. He didn’t like my name tapes.

Thanksgiving 2003 spent with the locals, teaching them how to eat shrimp, then getting violently ill from food poisoning.

Handing out “puffy potato chips” (pork rinds)

Oh damn we shot the local mayor in the ass in front of a crowd of screaming locals.

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I was a MiTT guy in 05/06 so missed the halicon days of the invasion.   We operated in Salladin Prov and it was pretty cool to roll around like the rat patrol with our IA

https://i.postimg.cc/J0jz68xz/IMG-1401-1.jpg

Last few years I've been working as a contractor in Afghan for Task Force.  Can't talk much to that but those boys sure fuck bad guys up most every night.  I run a ISR system in the JOC so front row seat to some pretty cool OPNs.

take good care

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Oh I was more pleased than anything.

I'm against nation building. I'm very for "don't make us come over there" diplomacy.  I had no idea we wrecked so much house in 03

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Did anyone besides me have the pleasure of working with the Norwegians SOF cats at Bagram?   I loved those cats and the support females as well.  They were solid Vikings and went above and beyond every time they were tasked to support my ODA.  

And I may be biased, but Ole T never received the recognition he should have for carrying my wounded ass through a minefield to the casvac vehicle.



18Z50

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@LRRPF52

We are still waiting

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This.  Not sure how many times a dude has to get asked a simple question.

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There's some validity to standardization of fighting load and ruck load. Mostly for trauma reasons. I don't want to have to roll you around looking for your IFAK while you're bleeding out.

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Did anyone besides me have the pleasure of working with the Norwegians SOF cats at Bagram?   I loved those cats and the support females as well.  They were solid Vikings and went above and beyond every time they were tasked to support my ODA.  

And I may be biased, but Ole T never received the recognition he should have for carrying my wounded ass through a minefield to the casvac vehicle.



18Z50

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We had NORSOF in Syria.  I didnt do any work with them, but they do have the best rations. I have literally no idea whats in them, but they are delicious.

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Not in the goddamned 101st.  We had weekly ammo count, you were signed for every round.  Yeah, unload every mag, empty every nutsack, record how many fucking rounds you have.  That was fucking retarded.  

We also had LBV SOPs and when we ditched LBVs, we had IBA SOPs.  That is an SOP for where every pouch goes on your IBA.  Also we had to carry bayonets.  But some joe got his stolen by a kid in a crowd so then we had to tie/tape them to death so it was impossible to get them out of the scabbard.  But still had to carry them lol.

ETA: Fallujah was totally different.  My company was detached from division and no fucks were given at all.

2005-2006 was 180 degrees different.  Carry your shit how you want, all the ammo, frags and c4 you want for whatever.  Good times except we were losing guys daily.

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The stories of how many TOWs they fired into the building that Sadams son was in made my day

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Not in the goddamned 101st.  We had weekly ammo count, you were signed for every round.  Yeah, unload every mag, empty every nutsack, record how many fucking rounds you have.  That was fucking retarded.  

We also had LBV SOPs and when we ditched LBVs, we had IBA SOPs.  That is an SOP for where every pouch goes on your IBA.  Also we had to carry bayonets.  But some joe got his stolen by a kid in a crowd so then we had to tie/tape them to death so it was impossible to get them out of the scabbard.  But still had to carry them lol.

ETA: Fallujah was totally different.  My company was detached from division and no fucks were given at all.

2005-2006 was 180 degrees different.  Carry your shit how you want, all the ammo, frags and c4 you want for whatever.  Good times except we were losing guys daily.

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Wait wait...

Regular guys could just be like "excuse me, please give me some C4" or did you work in ordnance disposal?

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I had no idea.

Would an infantry guy have occasion to use C4 often? Frag grenades I totally get. Javelins I totally get.  I'm curious about C4 though. Maybe making an entrance in a wall or something?

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The delta dude with the taped down 1911 grip safety and a holster that exposes the trigger always makes me wonder.

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I had no idea.

Would an infantry guy have occasion to use C4 often? Frag grenades I totally get. Javelins I totally get.  I'm curious about C4 though. Maybe making an entrance in a wall or something?

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Not in the goddamned 101st.  We had weekly ammo count, you were signed for every round.  Yeah, unload every mag, empty every nutsack, record how many fucking rounds you have.  That was fucking retarded.  

We also had LBV SOPs and when we ditched LBVs, we had IBA SOPs.  That is an SOP for where every pouch goes on your IBA.  Also we had to carry bayonets.  But some joe got his stolen by a kid in a crowd so then we had to tie/tape them to death so it was impossible to get them out of the scabbard.  But still had to carry them lol.

ETA: Fallujah was totally different.  My company was detached from division and no fucks were given at all.

2005-2006 was 180 degrees different.  Carry your shit how you want, all the ammo, frags and c4 you want for whatever.  Good times except we were losing guys daily.

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The delta dude with the taped down 1911 grip safety and a holster that exposes the trigger always makes me wonder.

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There was point in time when any MAM with a phone, or anything remotely looking like a phone real or imagined got his free trip to the promised land.

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If I were in charge of everything I'm not sure I'd issue 1911s.

HOWEVER, I do think it's fucking awesome Delta is rocking 1911s. (If that makes any sense)

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Did anyone besides me have the pleasure of working with the Norwegians SOF cats at Bagram?   I loved those cats and the support females as well.  They were solid Vikings and went above and beyond every time they were tasked to support my ODA.  

And I may be biased, but Ole T never received the recognition he should have for carrying my wounded ass through a minefield to the casvac vehicle.



18Z50

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Still pretty America.

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I was too young to get to go in the initial invasion but I made it to 3ID for the surge and OND. Just about all the NCOs in my battalion, 3-7IN, had deployed with them into the invasion so I had more stories about that than I ever thought I would hear. One of my favorite is the A Co looting the airport in Baghdad and stealing all of the watches and what not from a super high end jewelry store. To the victor goes the spoils. Then they went into one of Sadaam's palaces and looted it too...

https://ssl.c.photoshelter.com/img-get2/I0000WlHodXXQEmY/fit=1000x750/iraq2003-a-invasion015.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3161/3071216513_78770349b6_b.jpg
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/538112c0e4b0870ae9a4d9b0/53bd8a8ae4b0c9db7aa86fb8/53bd8acde4b0ef294e51a6c3/1407195355681/IRQ_06.jpg?format=1000w
https://i.redd.it/tfwyzd7624s11.jpg
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/army-3rd-division-37-infantry-soldiers-kick-in-a-door-and-search-a-picture-id1880288?s=594x594
http://www.dailyherald.com/storyimage/DA/20130320/news/703209753/EP/1/2/EP-703209753.jpg&updated=201303201445&MaxW=800&maxH=800&updated=201303201445&noborder