PEAX Equipment

Old Military Photos from Hunttalkers

We did some shots, I have some VHS video of our company breaching the Iraqi border berm and minefields.

Nemont
 
A couple from our team got farmed out to the mission that was flying all over the country setting up ANA recruiting centers. Their main ride was a contracted Russian helo, Kasakstani pilots IIRC. The whole thing was very sketchy, but that's what you get with the red-headed step war at the time (03-04). I was happier bouncing around southern AFG in our crappy old Pakistani Hiluxes with old flak jackets duct taped to the doors and floors!

OMC-A?
 
I think so. Labels were pretty dynamic on our tour. We started out working for CJTF-180, then they stood up CFC-A. I think the recruiting mission was under OMC-A. All the PRT's (and I) slid under the J5 or J7, can't remember now. I think it was both depending on the timeframe, since PRT's were such a unicorn, nobody knew where to put us. And we had all sorts of branches and countries woven in all of this. It was pretty much like the cantina from Star Wars. Somewhere I still have my "how to extract yourself from a minefield" hip pocket class, with field expedient props like silly string and poker chips (it was 2003), that I gave to our guys, Canadian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and ANA troops. Aaah, memories.
 
Learn those labels and acronyms ASAP, soon as you're issued your BDU, and prepare to cross the LD into ET, based on info from the S2 and mission passed down from the G3 as ordered by the BG CO and supported by the S4, okayed by the S1, after conferring with the CSM and all the 1st SGTS and blessed by the CHPL. BTW, don't forget to pickup your MREs at the FOB IAW the ROM SOP, issued by the XO who's always pulling something out of his FM. :D
 
I think so. Labels were pretty dynamic on our tour. We started out working for CJTF-180, then they stood up CFC-A. I think the recruiting mission was under OMC-A. All the PRT's (and I) slid under the J5 or J7, can't remember now. I think it was both depending on the timeframe, since PRT's were such a unicorn, nobody knew where to put us. And we had all sorts of branches and countries woven in all of this. It was pretty much like the cantina from Star Wars. Somewhere I still have my "how to extract yourself from a minefield" hip pocket class, with field expedient props like silly string and poker chips (it was 2003), that I gave to our guys, Canadian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and ANA troops. Aaah, memories.

Those were the good old days. Not too many people got to have that experience. Fluid doesn’t even come close to describing those days.
 
Was just thinking the timing of this thread is so right for Veterans Day thank you all for your service hats off to you all!
After the Vietnam era draft ended, voluntary military service was the last thing on the minds of most of my schoolmates, friends and family. My dad enlisted in the Coast Guard, I think to reduce the odds of being sent to Korea. His dad was too old for WWII, built bombers on the home front. With no family tradition or peer pressure pointing me toward military service, I never seriously considered enlisting. In college I got friendly w many Vietnam veterans; all were impacted by the experience, some were seriously strange to me as a 17 year old college freshman.

I finally got intensive indoctrination to the experiences of service members when I joined the VA system as a mental health therapist, when I was age 50. That has been an incredible experience, personally as well as professionally. I had the privilege and challenge of helping male and female veterans who had experienced traumas that went far beyond combat action that most think of as the big risk of military service. Military police, 1st responders to violence ranging from air crashes to suicides, some who were @ the Pentagon on 9/11. Women and men who were raped, sexually hazed, manipulated by superiors for sex. Training accidents, vehicle crashes, natural disasters, persecution by command and "military justice," gang violence; incarceration, every sort of bad act and misadventure on ships, in foreign countries, combat zones, during basic training, domestic and relational violence, addiction, chronic pain, medical losses, and the indignities and abuses veterans still receive as they attempt to access benefits and treatment from the current VA system of care.

Less than 5% of Americans have served in military active duty. Their experience is largely unrecognized among civilians. It was and continues to be my great privilege to serve a few of those who served us all. I have limited understanding, unlimited gratitude and admiration for those who serve, who have served, and for their families who sacrifice as well. Please join me in genuinely thanking and supporting active duty military personnel, veterans and their families. For all of them, every day is Veterans' Day.

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This thread sure brings back memories. My Dad really got a kick out of it that I wound up at Fiori Kaserne in Aschaffenburg, West Germany. Both in the 3rd Infantry Division, he was there in 1957 and I was there in 1986. I put together this picture for him a couple of years ago and it's been on his wall ever since. I don't think Army issue eye glasses changed any between his and my day, though. Dad's M35A1 6x6 Duece and a Half was about the same as the M35A2 my platoon had at Fort Knox, which was built in 1968. I have fond memories of those old 6x6s churning right along through mud clear up over the wheel hubs with no problem. Working for the Forest Service in Montana during the bad fire year of 2000, IIRC, both of the fire crew's new F350 dually wildland fire engines got stranded by high centering the rear axle pumpkins on big rocks. The Wilsall Volunteer Fire Department went up the mountain and put the fire out, grinding right on past us in their M35A1 6x6.

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I sure enjoyed seeing some of the old M113 photos. I spent two years on the 95th (by serial number) M3 Bradley CFV, which we named "Animal House", in Germany, but my last two years at Fort Knox our platoon had three M113A2s and three M901 Improved Tow Vehicle versions. (Later on in the National Guard I was Infantry and only had Leather Personell Carriers.) But I was a little miffed when I visited the Swiss Panzer Museum in Thun last year. Their 113 variant, the Schützenpanzer 63/89, had up-graded and spaced armor AND a Hagglunds turret mounting an Oerlikon 20-mm auto-cannon in 1973. But at Fort Knox in 1988-1990 we weren't even allowed to order and mount the old Vietnam-era ACAV armored gun tub and shield for the Ma Deuce on our M113A2s even though they were still in the supply system. They woulda been kinda handy in Desert Storm.
 
Found a couple, first is an F-105 loaded with a pair of 3000 pounders and sidewinders prior to a mission to try to take out the Paul Doumer bridge in Hanoi. The other is yours truly having a cool one. Both were taken at Takhli RTAFB, Thailand in 1967. The red star on the landing gear flap indicates that this aircraft is a Mig killerDSCN0918.JPGDSCN0917.JPG
 
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The end of our last Training exercise before we went to Afgansitan, you can't tell but it was well over 100 degrees in this photo. We were all quite excited to get back to A/C, showers, and cold beer after a few weeks in the sand 🇺🇸
 
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