Deployment to Iraq.

[fabiodriven]

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]

I would love to see some pictures. And also, thank you for your service!

[Rob Canadian]

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]

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]

Thank you for your service!

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

[fabiodriven]

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.







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.







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



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.



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.











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



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.





This is an M931.



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





This is Jeremy.



These are some pictures from the ranges.









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]

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

[fabiodriven]

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

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]

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!













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









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.







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!







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



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...



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.



















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]

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]

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]

I know a couple guys from the Motor Pool that may have been there when you were.D.J Walsh and Bill Elliot.

[fabiodriven]

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.

[Arky-X]

Why do the good ones always go too soon?

[Dirtcrasher]

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...