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fabiodriven
12-05-2018, 08:35 PM
I was looking at my pictures from my deployment to Iraq in 2003 the other day, and it's amazing to me how old they look now. They look like pictures of the Vietnam conflict and we all look like kids.

It got me thinking I'd like to get all of these pictures uploaded digitally, because almost all of them are actual pictures that you hold in your hands. If anything ever happened to them, they would be gone forever. I'm going to have to scan each and every one of them and get them on my computer. I have some uploaded already, but not that many.

Beyond just uploading them for preservation, there is a story that goes with all of these pictures as well. I was thinking about someplace to upload all of these pictures, complete with the accompanying stories, for people to see. I've put some on the book years ago, but that's not really the same idea obviously. WordPress is good for blog type stuff, but not for pictures. I'm thinking this place might be a good spot for something like this. It's not to brag or say "Look at me!" It's my own version of a war documentary, of which I've viewed my fair share of.

I was an Army reserve 88M truck driver assigned to a tactical fuel hauling unit which used the M818 tractor exclusively as well as some M931's sprinkled in here and there. The 800 series trucks were 1960's and 70's vintage, and the 900 series were likely late 80's to 90's issue. We deployed out of Ft Drum, NY. We arrived at Drum in December of 2002, Kuwait in March 2003, and Iraq not long after that. This was the very beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I was there before it was even named that. It's the most interesting time to see the conflict in my opinion.

So if that sounds interesting I might start posting from time to time in here. It would be a good place to document my experience I feel. Kind of a bummer that guests won't be able to see the pictures, but I still think this is the right place to do this.

ATCKevin
12-05-2018, 08:49 PM
I would love to see some pictures. And also, thank you for your service!

Rob Canadian
12-05-2018, 09:46 PM
First off. Thank you for your service. Yes I am Canadian. I respect all that go out and serve for their Country. I do mean that.

Post pics. And make sure up back them up on a thumbdrive... I lost a whole pile of pics on my son's PC when it took a dump a couple weeks ago. Ya some were loaded up on FB. You never know when the 'grid' goes down.

Scootertrash
12-05-2018, 10:16 PM
Thanks for your service. I would love to see those pics also. Besides saving them to a thumb drive (or Drives) I would also save them to one or more DVD's.

Arky-X
12-05-2018, 11:54 PM
Thank you for your service!

Would love to see the pics and definitely hear the stories.

fabiodriven
12-06-2018, 02:19 AM
Alright, thank you guys.

These pictures will be as chronological as possible. My reserve unit is in Brockton, MA, and that's where the pictures will start out. Then from there I have pictures from Ft Drum. These pictures might not be especially exciting, but they are part of the overall experience. Looking at these pictures, you will see a lot of smiles and good times. We did make the best of our deployment, you had to. Sometimes you just had to plaster a smile on your face, because the alternative would likely end up a sticky situation. Things got really frustrating at times as government run situations usually are. I don't see what it is that had the effect on me it did when I got home, I felt OK overall while I was in Iraq. I'm amazed at how happy I am in these pictures. It wasn't until I was removed from that environment where things seemed to change for myself, and many others seem to experience something similar. It was a very, very difficult deployment. It was trying to say the least, and there obviously were moments the camera didn't capture which were very, very difficult.

So these are the first pictures I have. These are from Brockton. Pictures are with my mom and grandparents. This was the last year of my life I didn't have facial hair, save for some rare exceptions.

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Fort Drum, if you're unaware, is the home of the army's Mountain Rangers. They specialize in cold weather warfare, and their home is Ft Drum of all the places on the planet because Ft Drum gets more snow than just about anywhere there is apparently. It's silly cold there as well. We saw numbers well below zero Fahrenheit there. It's the coldest place I've ever been in my life easily. We got there in December 2002 and trained in order to be prepared for our deployment. We were outside running in the mornings and the Mountain Rangers weren't out doing their PT in it, they were in the gym. We were stuck in WWII barracks on the outskirts of civilization near all the motorpools. There was a little PX store we could walk to and a little path in the woods we could toss back a couple alcoholic beverages in, as we were obligated to not drink. Or not get caught I guess. It gets boring quick in these situations, and people always find things to do. There were no smart phones, no TV's in the barracks, and not much to do. Sometimes we'd play cards or read magazines or books, or listen to CD's. Sometimes things would get ridiculous and people would end up doing all kinds of things to pass the time. The barracks boredom made for some pretty creative pranks and activities.

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This is me. That's snow about up to my waist behind me.

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I know all of the people in these pictures by last name, but I don't want to use their last names here. Instead, I'll be using the first names of the people in the pictures. Because I'm going to be using first names, there might be some people I won't have a name for. I knew everyone's last name, but not everyone's first.

This is Matt. He was my battle buddy. In the army, we are all battle buddies (or battles), but at times you are assigned a specific partner. This is the case here, and Sgt Matt was my battle buddy. He was from Connecticut. The unit in Brockton is actually the main unit of many sprinkled throughout New England, so we had soldiers from MA, NY, NH, VT, and CT.

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So PT first thing in the morning, then we'd bus over to the chow hall for breakfast, then after breakfast we'd play with the trucks or whatever activity we were doing that day.

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Here's an Oshkosh truck I had to pose with. Oshkosh are some of my favorites.

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This is the first picture showing both the 800 and 900 series. 931's are on the left, 818's on the right. The 900 series were much more modern, with CTIS super single wheels, an automatic transmission, a wider cab, and an electronic diesel with a turbo on it. The 900 series also had a four-legged ring mount for overhead weapons mounting, and the 800's had a tripod. We quickly found out why that was, as the washboard roads immediately destroyed many of the cabs of the 800 series trucks with ring mounts being used for for force protection. We had so many cabs break so quickly, we had to get away from using the trucks for force protection and instead mount the ring mounts on our Humvees.

The 800 series had a Cummins 220 diesel with no turbo, what a donkey. The saving grace was the five speed manual transmission, which a real driver prefers. It had a two speed transfer case which operates the same as the one in your pickup. I might have used the transfer case on a few occasions to split gears, but that's only because it was a government issue vehicle. I would never do that to my own vehicle. I used to downshift from fourth high to fifth low by putting the transmission in neutral, revving the engine, dropping the transfer case in low, then getting the transmission into fifth. I'd do it when we were climbing grades empty because there was a huge gap from fourth gear to third, so I'd get that in between gear by doing what I did with the transfer case. Because I found a more suitable gear, I was able to pass the other trucks in the convoy while pulling hills and nobody was ever able to figure out how I was doing it.

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This is an M931.

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This was when I was reunited with my weapon (M249) in Drum.

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This is Jeremy.

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These are some pictures from the ranges.

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This is a start, I have a ton more pictures. That's not even all of them from Ft Drum. Next up from Ft Drum; The railhead. If you don't know what the railhead is, don't feel bad. Guess away though! Anyways, more pictures to come. Thanks for looking.

coolpool
12-06-2018, 08:26 PM
Holy crap fabio, awesome run down; and thanks for your service and thanks for sharing! I got a taste of nostalgia when I seen the 800 series that I operated from 1986 - 1992 in the Canadian Forces. I bet you wished you had a hard cab for winter conditions like we did, lol. And I remember how awesome the NDT/NDCC tires were in ice and snow, eek! As for the down shifting trick that's the first I've heard of that. We used to upshift from 5th low to 4th high but I never went the other way which I want to try right now! Keep the pics coming bud:p

fabiodriven
12-06-2018, 11:54 PM
Holy crap fabio, awesome run down; and thanks for your service and thanks for sharing! I got a taste of nostalgia when I seen the 800 series that I operated from 1986 - 1992 in the Canadian Forces. I bet you wished you had a hard cab for winter conditions like we did, lol. And I remember how awesome the NDT/NDCC tires were in ice and snow, eek! As for the down shifting trick that's the first I've heard of that. We used to upshift from 5th low to 4th high but I never went the other way which I want to try right now! Keep the pics coming bud:p

Funny to hear someone else discovered how to use the transfer case the right (wrong) way aside from me, hahaha! Nice Pete! Yeah the NDT tires were the same exact traction as the NDT boots in the snow. If anyone has ever tried to wear standard issue GI boots with the Non Directional Tread in the snow, then you know how driving these trucks in the snow is with NDT tires. We loved it though. We'd pull the trolley brake and drive around the back roads with the trailers swaying back and forth from one side of the road to the other.

fabiodriven
12-07-2018, 01:45 AM
Continuing on at Ft Drum, these are my last pictures from that place. More motorpool pics and then the railhead. In a couple of these pictures you'll see the billowing smoke these trucks make when you start them at twenty below zero. They would start though!

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I had to fight the women off with a stick when I pulled up in this rig.

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This is an M915A1 or A2. The A1 has a pneumatic 16 speed transmission with a centrifugal clutch, so same idea as our Big Reds and SX's, just with more gears and an awesome foot activated Jake brake. This drive train was not available on civilian vehicles because you could Jake the engine down so low that you could stall it, thereby losing clutch engagement, and that is what is known federally as an "out of control vehicle" at that point. Our sister unit on the other side of Massachusetts had these trucks and I spent two weeks driving through Vermont and Canada in one. It was an absolute blast. I think I was 21 when I did that. I drove it better than the sergeant whose truck it was, he was blown away. He had me drive the entire trip, he just sat there enjoying the scenery, lol! We didn't bring any of these to Iraq.

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So here are some pictures of barracks boredom. The guy visiting the toilet turned 21 that day. The company had an official celebration and we all went to the bar and got sauced. Chris had too much fun, haha!

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There were no drugs or alcohol involved here. You haven't experienced boredom until you've been in the military, and people go nuts.

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Sitting at the table below from left to right are Jeremy, Matt (my battle buddy), The General, then Jamie. Jeremy has been in multiple pictures here already, and I must explain the significance of us serving over seas together. We both went to basic training together, but had never met prior to that. He lived in NY and NH. When basic training was over, I was waiting for my bus to pick me up from Ft Knox to take me to Ft Leonard Wood in Missouri. There was only a handful of other guys waiting for that bus from my whole basic training company, and Jeremy was one of them. Most 88M candidates go to Ft Leonard Wood for basic training because that's also the place they do AIT, or job training. So most people getting trained for 88M go to Leonard Wood for all of their training, one stop shopping. For whatever reason, Jeremy and I both got sent to Knox and then Leonard Wood. Then after all that training, I get home and go to my first drill in Massachusetts, and Jeremy is there. I couldn't believe it! They had him driving down to my unit from NH. Then he transferred closer to home, then a few years later we get deployed, and there's Jeremy again. He was with me every step of the way in the army, you don't see that often.

So anyways, we were headed to Leonard Wood. The unfortunate thing about being a man and going to Leonard Wood for Basic is, you train with women. We had women in our unit when we deployed and there were no issues with that in most cases, but I feel in basic training it should be separated by sex. My drill sergeants were brutal, and I'm glad they did their jobs correctly and I have a respect and appreciation for them that I might guess wouldn't be so ingrained if they weren't allowed to express themselves the way they needed to in order to get their job done correctly. That being said, I had a drill sergeant at Leonard Wood (where we were training with women) who was just pure evil, angry all the time, I could tell he had something going on at home. He smoked us harder than I'd ever been smoked if memory serves me, he was brutal. In that case, he might have gone a tad overboard. Better too much than not enough though so frig it!

I know I'm getting off the subject here, but that same guy busted four or five of us hard one day, it was bad. We were supposed to be cleaning the barracks, but it was all done. It was for final inspection just before graduation and towards the end when everything else is done, they'll just have you clean, clean, clean clean, and clean again. You're actually hunting for something dirty and happy when you find something because the place is kept spotless all the time anyways, so it gets really monotonous. Well wouldn't you know, we happened to sit down for a couple minutes and break out some magazines, the friggin guy comes walking in the door dead silent. He hit the farking roof, I was never so scared in my life, lol! He took us outside and smoked the crap out of us, rolling in the mud, front, back, go's, combat forward rolls... etc... He told us we weren't going to graduate and said we'd have to stay and do the entire class all over again, and that kind of crap happens all the time in the army. He let us sweat for three days or whatever it was, but he let us graduate. He didn't allow us in the ceremony, which was kind of shameful to me, but that was an OK alternative. My parents came to Knox where the men graduate from to see me anyways, they weren't coming to Leonard Wood.

Anyhow...

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So the railhead. I don't know how many got to experience this for themselves, but we had to load our own trucks on to their train cars to get shipped wherever the frig they were going. Obviously they eventually ended up in Kuwait for us to pick them up, but that would take months. Before any of that happens, the trucks need to be loaded on the train cars. Nothing stops railhead work, it is all scheduled down to the minute. It doesn't matter how hard the wind blows, how much snow there is, or how cold it gets. All hands on deck for railhead, 24 hours, until everything is loaded. You rotate out in shifts but the train never stops getting loaded. The decks are cleared of snow and salted for ice, and torches are used to work with the chains and shackles. Absurd amounts of chains and shackles actually. Four chains per front and rear of each vehicle, and in this case our trailers are considered vehicles. You will see the mess of chain work under the tail of the tractor and the nose of the trailer. That's 16 chains per tractor trailer. It took a long, long, long time. It was tough, but we did it. I wonder how many other units loaded their own vehicles like this? I'm curious if that was common place or not. As hard as it was, it was interesting and it was cool.

All vehicles were washed to absurd detail before their deployment. The United States army takes great care washing all of their vehicles obsessively before transporting them to far off countries in order to prevent transferring species to places where they might mess with the ecosystem. We do the same when bringing them home.

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So that's it for state side pictures. Not long after our trucks left we were boarding planes, commercial planes much to my surprise. I didn't complain, but I wasn't expecting it. Seemed a bit ridiculous to me but whatever, haha. The next pictures will be from Kuwait. Thanks for looking.

coolpool
12-07-2018, 11:24 AM
Ah yes that wonderful cold smoke only a cummins can make, know it well. That sweet sticky smell permeates into your clothes too! During super cold conditions when away from base we wouldn't even shut ours off except to check fluids once a day, and you'd better be using winter diesel. Did you ever experience an orange tint of flame coming out of the stack at night when pulling hard? A lot of our motors were clapped out so some trucks were really bad for it; the odd spark would fly too. I'm surprised (as you are) that you were able to keep meeting with you basic training buddy, you're right that almost never happens. There's one PC suspect picture in the bunch, lol. I get it though, it's a bond only Army/Air/Navy buddies can make where you know your boundaries and always show respect.

As soon as I seen those railhead pics I started to get convulsions. You're description of the process is spot on, it's the suckiest job in the world to do! For some reason we had to chock the wheels too?

atc300r
12-07-2018, 01:33 PM
Thank You for your sevice.I have several friends on Drum.I live about 15 minutes from there.Alot has changed in the past few years.

atc300r
12-07-2018, 01:37 PM
I know a couple guys from the Motor Pool that may have been there when you were.D.J Walsh and Bill Elliot.

fabiodriven
12-08-2018, 04:42 PM
I will comment on the last couple posts at a later date, but today I wanted to honor a soldier my company lost just last weekend. I was at the funeral today and it was a terribly sad situation, however after the tears we celebrated who I know as Sgt Jonsson's life. He passed as Sargeant Major Jonsson, as he never left the military, did five tours total over seas, and was given command of more than one unit before he passed.

Jonsson was our model soldier. He was a picture of good health, an exemplary soldier, and always kept things interesting. Nothing is more important than people who can keep things bearable at times when you're ready give up on everything. He was an outstanding soldier and I'm proud to have had the time I did with him.

Jonsson is the reason this thread was started, as it was six days ago I broke out my old pictures after I'd heard of his passing. I feel like I know how such a promising individual ended up leaving us so soon, and I did one deployment, not five.

If you've ever seen or heard me use the term "yam bag" to describe a gentleman's region, that came from Sam.

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Arky-X
12-09-2018, 06:39 PM
Why do the good ones always go too soon?

:cry:

Dirtcrasher
12-09-2018, 06:55 PM
He sounds like an amazing dude, left this planet WAY too early.

I look at these pictures and I think serving your country, even if only for a short time, is a very good thing.

I think it would be good for everyone to serve in some capacity.

There's just so much to learn and so many things to be thankful for.

Look at the chains on that load, serious business right there...

plastikosmd
12-09-2018, 07:18 PM
So sad, I hope there was time to say goodbye

atc007
12-09-2018, 09:49 PM
This will be a hell of a great tribute to Sam Fabs. Very educational also. Thanx for taking the time.

fabiodriven
12-10-2018, 01:39 PM
Ah yes that wonderful cold smoke only a cummins can make, know it well. That sweet sticky smell permeates into your clothes too! During super cold conditions when away from base we wouldn't even shut ours off except to check fluids once a day, and you'd better be using winter diesel. Did you ever experience an orange tint of flame coming out of the stack at night when pulling hard? A lot of our motors were clapped out so some trucks were really bad for it; the odd spark would fly too. I'm surprised (as you are) that you were able to keep meeting with you basic training buddy, you're right that almost never happens. There's one PC suspect picture in the bunch, lol. I get it though, it's a bond only Army/Air/Navy buddies can make where you know your boundaries and always show respect.

As soon as I seen those railhead pics I started to get convulsions. You're description of the process is spot on, it's the suckiest job in the world to do! For some reason we had to chock the wheels too?

I don't recall seeing flames or embers Pete, but we rarely moved at night. There were a handful of times we got caught out after dark, but not many. As far as the wheel chocks, I don't recall, but I'm going to say it's likely we had to chock the wheels as well.

fabiodriven
12-10-2018, 01:48 PM
I know a couple guys from the Motor Pool that may have been there when you were.D.J Walsh and Bill Elliot.

Thanks for looking and thanks for the replies! I don't know either of those names, but there are a lot of reasons for that. My unit, being a reserve unit, didn't work very closely at all with the active duty units. There are a percentage of active duty soldiers who might think they're better than reservists, and I get it. In the military, there are tiers. Marines look down on army, army looks down on sailors... I say "look down on", but there aren't many at all who hold a true disdain. It's more of a pride and ego thing, a casual thing. You'd better believe any American soldier from any branch would be there for their fellow soldier, seaman, or airman when push comes to shove, but that doesn't mean that they all give each other the utmost respect at all times outside of that, lol.

We did work with active duty soldiers many times during our deployment obviously, but it's usually brief. As a unit, we have all our own personnel who handle all of our units respective functions. Unit administrators, the armorer, truck master, mechanics, cooks... Basically we're shown an area, given a task, and we set up and function as a unit. The active duty personnel would likely just point to our area and say "That's your motorpool." Then we'd take it from there.

The other thing is, you wouldn't just be able to point at Ft Drum and say "Go to the motorpool." The thing is, there are a ton of motorpools on Ft Drum and in every military installation. Our motorpool was simply an empty parking lot when we arrived, then we were assigned that area which made it our motorpool. We were one company of many who were on that post at that time, and every company there, every component, every area has their own motorpool. So the guys you know likely worked in "a" motorpool, but I would have no idea which one.

fabiodriven
12-10-2018, 02:27 PM
Thanks again to everyone for reading thus far. I will get back on picture uploading soon and continue on with the story. I'm kind of ADHD with the pictures and I want them all organized. I have actual hard copy pictures you hold in your hand, downloaded pics on my computer, pics on a hard drive, facebook... I'm trying to get them all organized and in the right place, I want to make sure I don't miss anything as the story progresses. I'd been going crazy looking for more pictures that I knew I had, turned the house upside down looking for them and it was p!ssing me off. The day of Jonsson's funeral, I had returned home and changed out of my suit. As I slid the clothes on the rack to make room for the suit, a box appeared on top of a small set of drawers which was covered by the many articles of clothes hanging over it. I knew it as soon as I saw it, another box of pictures. There are only a few army pictures in there, but I don't want to miss one. There was at least one important picture I had in mind which I hadn't found yet and I'm banking on that one and hopefully others I forgot about being in there.

Speaking of Jonsson again, I wanted to say a little more about the funeral and the 325th TC in general. The people I served with, I just couldn't ask for a better group of people. After having not seen each other in so long, it was amazing to see the group of soldiers who showed up to send off Jonsson on his last mission. It was as if we hadn't missed a minute, and it's been so many years. I have aged so much in just the last year or two and seeing how old everyone got was a shock.

Something amazing happened though which brought tears to my eyes. We have a particular Ssgt who was always VERY outspoken and also extremely funny. He used to scream at the top of his lungs and make total arses out of people and anyone around to see it would usually be in stitches laughing, the man is a riot. The thing is, even though it's funny and certain people are expected to laugh, if it's you his attention is directed on, as funny as it is you still have to listen to him and obey his orders. Of course he got serious from time to time, we all have to. Just a very outspoken individual and a bit rough around the edges.

We were at the Jonsson family home after the funeral ceremony and there were about ten of us who served together standing in the dining room. Mr Jonsson was passing through when the aforementioned outspoken Ssgt stopped him and introduced himself. He then introduced each and every one of us to Sam's father and explained who we all were and how we knew his son. He then went into a completely unrehearsed, long, funny, and humble set of stories about his son Sam explaining to Sam's father how important of a soldier he was to all of us and how selfless he was. I'm not sure I've been so humbled in my life standing next to the Ssgt as this interaction progressed, as it was one of the most beautiful moments I've ever experienced. I tried telling someone about the moment yesterday and it took all I had not to cry once I put myself back in the moment and began to vocalize the experience, I had to cut it short. The tears are streaming now as I type this, but I'm by myself so that's fine.

It was amazing to me to see a man who comes off as so brash, if you knew this man, and then to stand there and speak the way he did to Sam's father and have us all reliving and remembering times of which some I'd forgotten. It was inspirational, and that's not a word I would have expected to use regarding this particular Ssgt. That's not to say anything negative about the Ssgt, it was just a surprise to me, that's all.

This was at our little drinking camp in Ft Drum.

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atc300r
12-10-2018, 06:22 PM
Next time I go past Drum I will get a couple pics of the new reserve building and bridge they built.

fabiodriven
12-21-2018, 08:44 PM
I've not forgotten about this thread, I still have a TON of pictures to go through. In light of Sgt Major Jonsson's passing a lot of pictures started surfacing on the book, so I've been downloading a few here and there. I've been off the book but I have to get back on and see if more pictures are on there again soon. This particular picture isn't from our deployment, but I wanted to share it anyways. We were training in Gagetown Canada, doing the laser tag thing. At one point in our mission we were loaded into a Chinook and air lifted to our next spot.

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So getting back to the deployment, it was the beginning of March 2003 and we were getting outfitted with DCU uniforms to replace our BDU's. We were a bit surprised to see we were being issued cold weather uniforms to go fight a war in the desert. Apparently all of the warm weather DCU's had been issued already, or so we were told. We were issued flak jackets, not everyone got body armor at that time in the conflict. None of our vehicles had armor either, all soft skin and all the 50 cal gunners were completely out in the open up in the ring mounts. A flak jacket will not stop 7.62 rounds, so we were not aggressively protected.

We watched "shock and awe" on the TV and it wasn't long after that we were issued our MOPP gear (chemical suit and mask). Loaded up with all of our gear, we boarded a civilian commercial aircraft bound for Kuwait. Upon our arrival to the desert, the heat was stifling, especially in winter DCU's. The Hadji tents in Kuwait are a step above military tents, and they even have A/C in some of them. We were shuffled around from holding tent to holding tent, most of the time spent in our MOPP gear. If a time came when we could take our MOPP gear off, it wasn't but a few minutes after that we'd get another gas alert and have to put it all back on. Sometimes you'd hear rockets go by.

As I stepped off the plane, the intensity of the heat was mirrored by the intense brightness, it's blinding. It's something you get used to and obviously I wore sunglasses, but you will notice the exposure in some of these pictures. It is very bright. From the plane we walked to a civilian bus. An ate up Ssgt from 2nd platoon who was known for his blunders actually left his protective mask on the plane. Now, if you've never been in the military, you might not quite grasp how big of a deal this is. From the very beginning of your time in the military, it is absolutely drilled into your head how important your "sensitive items" are, and they ain't talking about your twig and berries. Sensitive items are high dollar and high value supplies, tools, weapons, etc, which you are borrowing from the army. TA-50 is your gear they issue you which includes your LBE, Kevlar helmet, canteen, ammo pouches, protective mask, amongst other things. If you lose even a lowly ammo pouch, you're in trouble. However, if you lose your weapon or your protective mask, you are in A LOT of trouble. Now, every now and then an ate up private or Spc will lose sensitive items. What usually happens is someone grabs it, it gets turned in to the squad leader, some sort of scenario is dreamt up where the soldier who lost their item will now need that item... You can see where this is going. That wasn't the case this time. This time it was a Ssgt and we were deployed for real. The laughter, commotion, shock, and disgust moved throughout the bus in waves whenever that poor Ssgt started yelling at the Hadji bus driver to stop the bus because he'd left his mask on the plane! I was laughing so hard, but it was even funnier to me because Hadji driving the bus had zero concern for the hapless Ssgt's circumstances.

As the bus was driving us to our first haunt, I got my first look at Kuwait. Every now and then we'd go by armored vehicles posted roadside in a protective posture. Now, I was assuming that these were not hostiles, it seems very obvious, however that was never clarified at first. I knew everything was OK because nobody else was reacting, but I would have preferred to have been told very clearly these are not people you'll be engaging. Anyhow, these bus drivers were absolutely out of their minds. They were driving in formation INCHES from each other, I mean really really really close at very high speeds. Within the first minute and half of the ride there were soldiers standing up and crowding around the driver yelling at him to slow down, but he'd just smile and keep driving. He honestly had absolutely no idea what anyone was saying to him or what the problem could have been. That's just how these guys drive, that's just how it is. It was just another day of racing the bus for him. Eventually everyone got used to the driving but it definitely kept the drive interesting.

Eventually the buses pulled off the hardball and onto a washboard unpaved desert road. Well the washboard desert road was of no concern to Mario Andretti's Arab bus driving cousin, and the off road shenanigans were enough to get all the soldiers riled up and crowding around the driver yelling again. After blasting through the desert at warp speed on a commercial bus, we finally arrive at Camp YOYO, Kuwait. YOYO is an acronym (like most things in the army). It stands for "You're On Your Own". A certain number of soldiers from our company were sent to YOYO, and a certain number were sent to "the pipeline". I'm pretty sure it was exactly what it sounds like but I never went there, I was at YOYO.

When we got to YOYO, we were given our first military tent in theater. It was a classic GP medium with no floor. These tents do a good job of keeping the rain off, but they offer little to no protection from sand. Unless you've been to a place that has sand like Iraq and Kuwait, you don't understand how awful sand is. I've never seen the kind of sand I saw in Iraq and Kuwait anywhere else I've been. The sand in the Middle East is a fine sand, like talcum powder. It stirs up so easily and gets blown around with just the slightest agitation, and in a sand storm it billows inside the tent and hangs in the air. We had no true escape from the sand while I was in theater until the very end of my deployment. You will see the sand hanging in the air in a lot of these pictures inside the tents.

We somehow were issued the new (at the time) modular tents instead of the classic army GP. These things were brand new and we were pretty pumped about that. Unfortunately, once we were assigned a battalion, battalion decided they needed those tents. Rather than just taking our tents, battalion was gracious enough to trade us for crappy old GP's. Oh but it gets better... After taking our brand new modular tents from us, battalion had us set them up for them. It couldn't get worse though, right? Oh it could, and it did. Camp YOYO looked like a ghost town. There were no facilities whatsoever. No toilets, no chow hall, no showers, nothing at all. There was sand and tents, but very few people. I hardly saw any other soldiers other than my company, but there were tons and tons of tents everywhere. So there we are putting up our own modular tents which they'd just taken from us, nobody's around, but once in a great while I'd see someone peek out of a tent. I figured out there were other soldiers there, they were just hiding. There really was no reason to step out of your tent for anything, there was nothing to do outside other than set up tents for other people. Surely it couldn't get worse than that though, right?

So as we're out there setting up our own tents for other people while other people hid and watched us set up our own tents for other people, something very unexpected happened. An MKT showed up (mobile kitchen trailer) and parked in the common area of Camp YOYO. Now normally an MKT is nothing to get excited about, as the food they make is only a step above MRE's usually. On this day however, they had a pile of steaks to cook. I don't know where they came from or who sent them but I didn't care either. So we continued on setting up our tents for other people, when all of a sudden the camp was abuzz. Now there were soldiers everywhere, and they were all heading to the same place; the MKT. By the time we were finished setting up our own tents for other people and got to the common area, the line for the MKT was absurd, but we still got in line. There wasn't anything else to do. By the time we got to the trailer the steaks were gone.

The choppers overhead were non stop. Blackhawks, Cobras, 53's, Chinooks, Apaches, you name it. Somewhere along in there we did stay at Camp Arifjan, I forgot about that. We didn't just sit around there either, they find something for you to do. Well they let certain Hadji's on base to do work around the base, so our job was to hang out with these guys during the day while they did their work and make sure they weren't up to no good. We were locked and loaded, but these guys were just regular Joes, or Hadjis I guess.

Most people who went to the Middle East will have heard of Camp Arifjan. That's where they have A/C and chow halls and ice cream and burgers and PX's on and on and on... What was also very important to me, I could buy CD's for my Discman. They also had military vehicles stacked there like cord wood, tons and tons of military hardware. We didn't get to spend much time at Arifjan during my deployment. While I was there we were usually moving north following the front line, and it was rare we'd head back to Kuwait. It was a huge deal to get the opportunity to go back to Arifjan or Doha in Kuwait. Not only was there food and A/C and places to spend money and do things, but they had phones. In 2003, not everyone had a cell phone. I wasn't sure what time it was when I was calling back home and there was a huge delay when talking to someone, but it was such a big big deal to talk to someone at home. A lot of these moments I'm sharing here I'm re-living as I type.

Anyhow I've got a lot of pictures from Kuwait, this isn't all of them by any means. Please bear with me if I don't post for a while, I do have a life to live, lol. I will come back to this thread even if I'm away from it for a while!! I still have a ton more pictures to upload and this stuff certainly does take some time. Some of these pictures were taken by my buddy Derek, he had a digital camera. All my pictures were taken with traditional disposable cameras that used regular film. Derek and I went almost everywhere together, but he was at the pipeline and not YOYO. Some of his Kuwait pictures are of places I never saw in person.

We hadn't seen the desert yet at this point, this was the very beginning in this picture.

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We got bored as usual, there was literally nothing at all to do in some of these places, like nothing. No smart phones to finger phuck back then either.

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Derek

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Matt, Ashley, and myself. Ashley was one of few civilian truck drivers in our company such as myself, and is one of few drivers I've ever met who is as good as me.

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First platoon's platoon sergeant and lieutenant in a Hadji tent.

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Derek and Josh.

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My twin sister and I. We got to meet up briefly.

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There was a time when I could have told you which countries these vehicles and soldiers were from.

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coolpool
12-22-2018, 11:51 AM
Keep'em coming fabio, you're doing great! A first when I seen that picture from above you caught the guy squatting........then I seen the MRE box beside him. I know rations from any country has the opposite affect :-(

ATC-Eric
12-24-2018, 12:34 AM
Awesome thread man. It is crazy thinking about how long ago it was. Hell back in the 90's the 70's were only 20 years ago. Now the year 2000 was almost 20 years ago. Craziness.

Keep the pics and stories coming.

fabiodriven
12-24-2018, 12:45 AM
Thanks for the replies! I just remembered, going back to my last post and the part about the Ssgt who left his protective mask on the plane. Whenever we got to our tent and the first scud alarm went off, he was without a mask in a combat zone in real life. The funny thing is, it was still funny to us. He suggested to the captain that they strip a private of their mask for him, which brought waves of laughter. "Sergeant, all the privates remembered their masks." The icing on the cake, and I promise I am not making this up, he sinched down the hood as tight around his face as it would go and put a spare protective mask filter in his mouth. I'm laughing to myself right now thinking about it, lol!

atc300r
01-09-2019, 08:13 PM
Fabio here are a few pics I was able to get yesterday. The bridge on Great Bend side .256629 New reserve building 256630 256631 old barracks 256632

keister
01-10-2019, 02:56 PM
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Looks a bit like a young Jerry Seinfeld.

Gabriel
01-10-2019, 03:36 PM
Hey Fabio

Thank you for your service.
You guys are the reason I sit at home and do and believe as I please. I don’t want to speak German or Japanese or Turban-mushmouth.
We’re gonna fight idiots, them or those. Thank you for fighting them OVER THERE and keeping the F’ers out of my yard.
Cold beer for you and anyone else here who served.

fabiodriven
01-11-2019, 08:08 PM
Thanks for sharing the pictures and the posts guys!

fabiodriven
02-17-2019, 02:55 AM
My unit lost another guy shortly after Jonsson. We lost Duclau in January. He had been diagnosed with cancer under a year ago, then he was gone. Duclau was our second youngest soldier (I believe) when we deployed. I believe he was 18 or 19 when we shipped.

Duclau's death is service connected, meaning it's most likely his death was due to his service in Iraq. We burned trash and feces every day and sprayed the roads with diesel fuel.

I didn't say anything about Duclau's passing at that moment, it was a lot right after Jonsson. I wasn't quite as close with Duclau but he was well known and well liked by all, I couldn't think of a bad thing to say about him ever. It's a lot to even think about right now.

Duclau left behind a beautiful young wife and children, and was very active in his local veterans motorcycle club as well as other veteran associations. He owned a restored M818 just like the trucks we drove in Iraq, and he died far, far too young.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190217/36a7ababdc5e70a5b6efeca2137b83b6.jpg

I've decided rather than scanning my pictures at home one by one, I'm going to bring them all somewhere and pay to have them all scanned. It will be a lot easier that way. For the time being, here's a few more pictures.

This is a good representation of everyday life. Sometimes the only shelter was under the trailer. Don't forget to pick up every single piece of gear after your nap to take with you wherever you're going.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190217/a1c686b93528c8abd891eb8b6424be98.jpg

For a very long time when we arrived in Iraq, we had absolutely no facilities. I've never been that dirty for that long of a time. Having sand the consistency of powder in your ears, eyes, nose, and crunching in your teeth was part of everyday life. Sand that could be tainted with fuel, feces, or even depleted uranium from tank rounds. Many of us had big scabs on the insides of our noses and near our nostrils, and many of us did for years after our deployment.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190217/d447e7c2953bab46172aa985c6a92ab1.jpg

There's a story as to why this truck is on it's side and I have a lot more pictures of it, but someone just sent me this picture last week. I'll get to that story at a later date.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190217/ea27bc016305442cfb37d791951d508e.jpg

Here's a nice railhead picture one of my friends shared.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190217/efc6b572b2bd556ff5d1d8836e81d7b7.jpg

Life is crazy, that's all I can say right now. I'm very grateful to still be here and don't aim to depart anytime soon, but that's not always up to us. I've had some serious struggles in life which are shocking to think about for me now, but that was just life then. Fifteen years of chaos, I'm amazed I'm still alive now that I've throttled it back. Now that I've had to throttle it back that is. It's been a series of extenuating circumstances to get to this point, always extenuating circumstances. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but ever extenuating.

To Spc John PBR Duclau, God speed my friend. All gave some, but some gave all. I'm grateful to be here still and I will always remember my times with my fellow soldiers. If you sign on that line there is a good chance it's going to kill you one way or the other, but I am still here. I will live for my fallen comrades as well.

Thank you all for reading.

22R
02-17-2019, 08:36 AM
Much respect ! Thank you and all who hsve served that has kept us free.
God Bless you and the families of your friends who have passed away.

22R