Roll Call!

[Super Cubs 132]

With Memorial Day approaching I'm curious how many vets are here?

 

And would like to say thank you.

[SUXBNME 1,324]

And would like to say thank you.

 

 

[AmbassadorOfKwan 0]

No war experience (thank God), but did my time like every young man should have to.

[Voltaire 4,556]

Ran around the desert during daddy Bush's Iraq war.

 

It was the easiest war in human history though and the actual ground war was so fast that I didn't even know it started until it was half over.

 

I was in 2nd Armor Division (Forward). (We) were the front lines (not me personally, I was two miles behind or so with the tankers always in front of me). I was maintenece section third shop (meaning we had specialty repair equipment that wasn't issued to company level motor pools). There was (probably) never a time when I had open space between my rifle and the Iraqi Army so long as those tanks were doing their job.

 

One day I was so startled when I heard powerful -loud- gunfire nearby. I was pleasantly surprised I wasn't dead. Turns out it was our field artillery shelling the Iraqis. After that it became a very frequent sound and I knew to recognize the sound of it. I never once came under fire personally. One day -this made international news- an Apache from Big Red One (Ft. Riley) blew up one of our -2nd Armor Div (Forward)- Bradleys.

 

We kept moving and relocating, three days here, five days here, four days here. Far, far to the west in the middle of the desert. One day we reloacted but kept going for a long time, we had crosed a berm -sand wall- which we had never done before so I thought maybe we were in Iraq; the other guy in my truck agreed, but we didn't know for sure until saw a bunch of blown up Iraqi tanks and dead Iraqi soldiers.

 

It was surreal. Like going on a tour with no tour guide. See blown up sh*t on your left and right out the truck window. You don't know where you're going, all you know to do is to -single file- follow the trucks in front of you (who don't know where they's going either) in a long, long convoy. The first vehicle in the convoy was the company commander (maybe it was the batallion commander) with satelite guidence in an M1A2 Abrams so if there were any landmines, he could safely set them off while the rest of the vehicles followed in his tracks on a safe path. I was always way in the back, like five or six vehicles from the end. The only other vehicle that knew where we were going -with the satelite guidence system- was the last one in the convoy, my boss, with some of our best mechanics to fix any vehicles that broke down along the way so he could catch up to the others.

 

These long, long truck convoys snake through the desert like this at low speeds. Occasionally you stop and wait then go. Sometimes you stop and wait, then you see the M1 is lost and you see him come around driving right past you going back the other way and your friends following him.

 

Easy easy war.

[spottedowl 1]

Ran around the desert during daddy Bush's Iraq war.

 

It was the easiest war in human history though and the actual ground war was so fast that I didn't even know it started until it was half over.

 

I was in 2nd Armor Division (Forward). (We) were the front lines (not me personally, I was two miles behind or so with the tankers always in front of me). I was maintenece section third shop (meaning we had specialty repair equipment that wasn't issued to company level motor pools). There was (probably) never a time when I had open space between my rifle and the Iraqi Army so long as those tanks were doing their job.

 

One day I was so startled when I heard powerful -loud- gunfire nearby. I was pleasantly surprised I wasn't dead. Turns out it was our field artillery shelling the Iraqis. After that it became a very frequent sound and I knew to recognize the sound of it. I never once came under fire personally. One day -this made international news- an Apache from Big Red One (Ft. Riley) blew up one of our -2nd Armor Div (Forward)- Bradleys.

 

We kept moving and relocating, three days here, five days here, four days here. Far, far to the west in the middle of the desert. One day we reloacted but kept going for a long time, we had crosed a berm -sand wall- which we had never done before so I thought maybe we were in Iraq; the other guy in my truck agreed, but we didn't know for sure until saw a bunch of blown up Iraqi tanks and dead Iraqi soldiers.

 

It was surreal. Like going on a tour with no tour guide. See blown up sh*t on your left and right out the truck window. You don't know where you're going, all you know to do is to -single file- follow the trucks in front of you (who don't know where they's going either) in a long, long convoy. The first vehicle in the convoy was the company commander (maybe it was the batallion commander) with satelite guidence in an M1A2 Abrams so if there were any landmines, he could safely set them off while the rest of the vehicles followed in his tracks on a safe path. I was always way in the back, like five or six vehicles from the end. The only other vehicle that knew where we were going -with the satelite guidence system- was the last one in the convoy, my boss, with some of our best mechanics to fix any vehicles that broke down along the way so he could catch up to the others.

 

These long, long truck convoys snake through the desert like this at low speeds. Occasionally you stop and wait then go. Sometimes you stop and wait, then you see the M1 is lost and you see him come around driving right past you going back the other way and your friends following him.

 

Easy easy war.

 

I am glad you are still here to enjoy the Hmm, I was goofing around.

[Voltaire 4,556]

You get real good at unloading the truck, opening the shop, setting up tents, setting up a perimiter, dealing with all paperwork. My job was to order repair parts- the mechanics come to me with the part number they from the repair book and I order it and make runs to the supply point to drop off the requests then go around to the pick up area and get the stuff that I had ordered recently.

 

In convoy, the truck I drove wasn't the office, or the run truck, I drove the parts van full of sh*t the mechanincs frequently all the time or were critical to have on hand. Most of the rest of the time I would drive the run truck or sit in the office truck.

 

A lot of sitting around doing nothing. My squad was mostly blacks, good guys, but they were into rap and I hated it -still do- so I often wandered away to hang out with the rock and heavy metal guys in ORF section who were always nearby.

 

Moving around all the d@mn time, the supply point was always changing too and just when you get use to where it was, you'd up and move (they'd move too) and you have to find it again.

[DAVID RUFFIN 1]

[AirRam 3]

[meatwad 2]

[Mungwater 588]

[TylerRoseFan 16]