Looking through pics I haven't opened in about a decade. Figured anon might might like one or two of them.I'll get into some details as I post. While I was not some SF ricky recon type and this deployment was not at all some COD shit, I believe the circumstances of my time in the stan were uncommon and maybe bear sharing.All of these pictures have been posted openly on South African news media by a journalist or Facebook by squadmates. I will take no measures to censor anything, as it detracts from the images. Yes I'm in there too. Spot me.This pic is from atop Kajaki Dam, viewing the Kajaki reservoir. The dam and its immediate area comprised our AO. Its defense was our mission.
>>64521167what gets me is the complete lack of any greenery despite the huge body of water
I miss when dudes posted pics from their deployments.
>>64521167keep posting photos anon we are very interested>I believe the circumstances of my time in the stan were uncommon and maybe bear sharingif you feel like sharing them I can confirm at least I would like to read it!
My MOS was 0811, Field Artillery Cannoneer. My billet was section chief, and I commanded an M777A1 and its crew and support personnel. However, in the year before deployment we began workups for a mounted convoy op mission.So we trained on that for nearly the whole year. However again, a month before getting wheels up, we were given the Dam mission. Just our battery. The rest of the battalion was to sit on some FOB in a barren Arrakis hellscape part of the province a hundred miles away and just shoot guns in support of the local 03 elements. At this point, we mostly felt we lucked out with the MUCH more interesting mission. USMC artillery hasn't fired in support of its own men on foot much since Vietnam. Nor have they often been tasked with holding an active AO on their own.We did a week at Bragg running MOUT town and did some POW training, got our shots, and off we went. Just kids, and rather undertrained for the task at hand in hindsight.Caption: The HESCOs to the left of the piece were empty, as it allowed us to push them over and perform direct fire at the road leading to our south CP. Never had to do it, but I appreciate whoever had the idea.
>>64521181It's only green where they irrigate. Also when the US and World Bank funded the dam in the 50s, it raised the waterline up into a lot of salt and crap that leeched into the Helmand. Ruined the water, people stopped growing crops they'd grown for 1000s of years there. Then the poppy moved in. On purpose? Maybe. Probably. But the US has fucked these people since before the Soviets even showed up.>>64521206Thank you for your interest. Bear with me. I'm a slow typer because perfectionist/autistic.Caption: We were right about 200 men total, including EOD, intel, comm, etc attachments, our terps (Rambo and John Cena, their chosen English names. Unironically great men. And braver than most of us as they faced it all without a weapon 90% of the time).HQ platoon still mostly did their HQ shit, drinking coffee and sucking each other off. Guns platoon split up into shifts to cover patrols, posts, and QRF duties. One month rotating schedules.
>>64521246Already fucking up. This was supposed to be the terps. Enjoy the bomb sniffer good boys instead I guess.Caption: FOB Zeebrugge (don't fucking ask me, the brits named it) sat (sits? probably mostly still there) about halfway up the eastern cliffs above the Helmand, just south of the dam. Our LZ, and our literal only lifeline to friendly forces was actually outside the FOB over by the dam. No room for it inside.The FOB was a collection of 80s brick and mud buildings that stand out from every other structure in the area. It was built by the soviets as an R&R resort, complete with swimming pool, barracks, mess halls, indoor plumbing, electric lights, etc. Fancy tile mosiacs in places. Apparently used to even have water fountains.We were there during the Fallout part of the FOB's arc. Everything has long since fallen into decay but having real buildings to sleep in was nice. We did not have running water for the first 6 months though. It took an act of God to get parts for the pump out there apparently.
Patrols was nice because you got to leave the FOB every day and it was a good break from the nonstop masturbating that was standing post.And yeah, the camelbak on the hip. Anon has questioned that before. When we arrived our gunners wore theirs on their backs or in the pack, the unit we were replacing had them on hips. The sling ends up on the pack to spare your shoulders during the sometimes 18 mile walk, and the camelbak breaks. Our gunners started wearing them on their hips. And the guys that replaced us showed up with them on their backs again.
Who was that tripfag that used to dump hundreds of historical photos in threads? I miss him.
Some of these are of noticeably higher quality than the point-and-shoot potato pics of the 00s. There was a South African journalist duo that joined us for a month or so and imbedded with my squad on patrols. I understood that South Africa has some financial stake in the dam, making the story relevant there apparently. Whatever, he took some great goddamn pics and just shared his SD cards with us before he left.
I only rode the osprey 4 times. Once was the worst day of my life. My last week on FOB, I developed the shits. Most guys did, as we still weren't adapted to the local water and bacteria. I was vomiting and shitting myself for the flight back to Leatherneck. Really thought it was just upset tummy and so did doc. Spent the whole night in the portashitter at Leatherneck once we got settled. Doubled over in pain. Missed morning formation and they found me. Turns out my appendix blew up and I was fucking dying. Went next door to Bastion and got put on morphine, my only opiate experience. I see why people get stuck on that feeling.
The Brits held Zeebrugge with a battalion before us. Before that, the Soviets. Equipment from everyone litters the FOB and its surroundings. Soviet generators. There was some quad barrel AA piece halfway up to our first mountain post. The Brits left a whole graveyard of ripped open vehicles. Never even washed them out. We ate Brit MREs and canned food that was still stockpiled. Used the materials left behind by the soviets to put roofs on our posts and build a jack shack. Graffiti from all 3 occupying nations everywhere you look.
Cool pics anon, monitoring with interest
I don't have riveting insight for all of the pics.
We only had 4 humvees and two trailers. There was another trailer that hit an IED and needed an axle, but we never got it. 2 trucks for patrols, 2 trucks for QRF, one trailer for each.This severely limited the number of bodies we could quickly move from FOB to the further expanse of the AO. Squad size limited to 10. but still needed to carry another 6 guys worth of shit.As such, I ended up with the low range jammer, my 249, and all my own ammo, and sometimes had to help with the APOBS if EOD wasn't with us to help carry it. Yeah, everyone's back and knees are fucked these days, go figure.>>64521365Thanks. I have to go do some stuff in a while but I'll keep posting.
The town of Kanzi, just over the Helmand from the FOB, and the first thing we pass if headed to the northern AO. The soviets kicked everyone out when they moved in. In my time there, the breadmaker was the only person living in the entire town. The national police station up the road the only other occupied structure within a mile on that side.These captchas are giving me AIDS.
We were unaware that we were falling in on two mortar tubes as well as the three triple 7s when we arrived. Fortunately, fire direction control for mortars isn't much different than for howitzers and we got 4 gun rocks up to speed on their new weapon system pretty quick.Those guys were permanent mortar duty, and never left the FOB, so naturally we all gave them shit at first. I have to credit them though, they went from zero experience on the tube to firing in support of their own fucking friends within 2 days. I doubt that was stress-free. Personally, I may not be here to tell you this if it weren't for some smoke they shot one day.
Everyone likes the after dark muzzle flash pics so here's a 777. Shame the image wasn't like a 1/100 of a second later, to get the full flash.
>>64521271OP check out this documentary about where you were at, it's an interesting watch.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pn2z7zp1V0>don't fucking ask me, the brits named itI was over there for five years, including the time you were there. Protocol was to name all FOBs/OPs over a fallen soldier. I went to look up the name, and it appears to be Belgian. I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of their SF guys, as I ran into one of them on the border in RC-E. He told me that their portion of support was usually smaller squad type things where one or two specialists would be attached to an ISAF counterpart.
>>64521341I liked riding in the Osprey, it was funny watching people almost fall out the back when they took off.
Up in the tower, on OP Sparrowhawk West. We had 3 fixed G-BOSS (spelling? only said this word, never typed it) cameras and one on a trailer we'd tow out to OP Shrine sometimes. Posts had handheld thermal and NV, and thermal sights went on crew served guns every night. We continued the sundown curfew for locals in our AO. If it had two legs and was out after dark, it died. The locals had lived under this with the Brits for years before us.We had a giant mounted set of binos on the tower we called soul searchers. With them, I discovered that the women who do their laundry across the river will take off their clothes and wash them too, believing to be out of site of their men presumably. Best fap I probably had all deployment.
>>64521443When i was there at the end of the war the afghans had their own compunds and werent allowed to come onto our bases without an armed escort, the afghan civilians that worked on our bases also couldnt leave, no children on our bases. So they probably just kept them away when they figured out it was a problem and americans werent cool with it
excellent thread
I miss afghanistan, had an extremely boring and uneventful deployment but it was a really cool place to be in hindsight, well the mountains were, middle of the helmand desert in 2019 was a mind numbing wasteland.
>>64521443I'm not OP, but we'd beat the shit out of them and expel them. My understanding is that wasn't always the case, especially when dealing with the wealthier warlords down south. Up in the mountains they have other weird shit they'd do, like put all the women into their own 'home' when they're on their period, so they all end up cycling together.
>>64521426Thank you, but this pic dump is the first time I've even thought about this stuff in years. I try to not dwell on it.I got back and learned the history of the place. Realized the US has been fucking those people over for generations and they had every right to be as pissed as they were. They just wanted the US gov out of their lives and goddamn if I don't identify with that.I appreciate you explaining the naming convention. That makes a lot of other sense, considering other FOB names I heard.>>64521438The ride in and out, we were buried underneath our own baggage. I don't think we could have fallen out but that's pretty funny.Here's our "motor pool".
>>64521358soviet, brit then american. that's pretty cool
>>64521457It's a beautiful country anon, I loved it over there despite how fucking ass backwards it was.
>>64521443The only interactions I had with actual children was to hand them candy or pens or cigs. I did not witness anything like you describe.That said, I'm sure that at an organizational level somewhere, the policy is likely to just stay out of it. Our mission was to protect the dam. Policing the locals was the mission of the national police there. If it was happening right in front of me, would I act and stop it? Yes, but I can only speak for myself.Better view of Kanzi in the background. Doggo's name was Emmet. At least while we were there. Fucker murdered jackals.
>>64521474how did the dogs even get there?
>>64521483Just local mutts. Some lived, some died. No one cherishes dogs there like in the US so it's not a surprise they stick around the westerners.
>>64521461>I try to not dwell on it.Same, but despite all the shit, I did have fun. I was in the valley when Restrepo happened. Just found out they made a 'sequel' to the documentary, gonna have to see if I can find a copy of it.
Excellent thread, thanks op. Always neat to see this kind of perspective. Wanted to sign up when i hit 18 but fucked knees made me undesirable. >>64521486Poor things. Can't be easy for them either.
>>64521473You damn near quoted exactly what I've said for years. If it were ever possible, a quiet retirement in the Kush to peacefully spend my last years would be wonderful.>>64521494Please, post anything you'd like to contribute. I did see the Restrepo documentary when it was new, years ago. I had some a few close calls, but never saw shit as deep as what was in that documentary.Yeah, we were completely isolated at Zeebrugge too, but the local forces had nowhere that level of manpower or coordination to hit us back with. We fought the Taliban's bench warmers, I think.Have a silly one.
>>64521506Had a Captain obsessed with killing them
>>64521512The hell? Why?
>>64521486Every third world country hates dogs, they're competition for resources. They're like their version of wolves if you were a herder.
Reminder that it never has to end. Why let this be the peak?The world has so much to offer.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts
>>64521516Insisted they were "pests" i.e. he had latent personality issues.
>>64521519Holy fucking shit
>>64521246>Ruined the water, people stopped growing crops they'd grown for 1000s of years there.Stop making shit up, faggot. You can read about the area, and it's far different and more complex than the shit you're spewing.
>>64521512Did everyone know? Was it common knowledge? What a prick. I am a literal sociopath and even I am able to treat a dog humanely.I was buds with this guy. He was a dog handler, and they got their own building so they could live with their animals. Way better than being stuffed into the barracks with all the other enlisted and was even lower housing density than the staff/officer houses. When the first dog handler died, they invited me to move into his room.I did not share to my squadmates how good I had it in there, with a 15x15' room all to myself WITH A FUCKING HEATER while they sniffed 6 other guys' balls in the barracks. Until we got back of course.The guy in the pic lost a leg and his dog, Buckshot, was killed.Captcha 88GAY
>>64521510I'd get a retirement home between Kabul and Jalalabad if I could, or maybe even a little further north in a valley that has an airfield in a perfect world.
>>64521486We had a dog like that on one of our fobs, the afghans had tortured it or something. Some chick from headquarters spent like 5 grand getting it sent back to the states
>>64521537found any cool or rare weapons?
>>64521530If there's new info, point me to it instead of being a gay baby. Of course it's more complicated than I'm going to get into in a 4chud post. It's a very old place with a lot of history and the people I met there very much blame foreign interests, the US included, on the change in crops. They hated us, they hated the dam that brought us there and everything to do with it.Fly on over and ask them yourself how they feel about it. Or just keep being mad at people on the internet, idc.>>64521539In a perfect world. If I ever figure out how to make that happen, I'll make a thread about it. Hope you see it.>>64521551I think the recoilless rifle might have been the most unexpected. Got to shoot PKM, AKs, RPK when we shared Shrine with the national pigs. Those guys were all narcs I just fucking know it. They'd always smile and be polite to your face though.
>>64521574did you guys have a gym at the fob or did you just have to do fucking push ups and lift rocks?always wonder about people's fitness when theyre out in bumfuck nowhere living hard like thatas hard as it is to live in a soviet R&R base i guess
>>64521550That's sweet of her. A little bit of kindness to balance against all the unkindness that happened. Not much but it's something. I'm glad she did that.
>>64521574This was from a castle up in the northern part of the country that the Army had took over.
>>64521525While I greatly look forward to the fall of the Junta I’m equally dreading what will come next once the rebels start fighting each other and Balkanise Burma.
>>64521578I traveled the entire country anon, and it was entirely hit or miss. OP was a Marine, they don't have any money. I doubt he had one.
>>64521593that isnt horrible
>>64521593I never see trees where I live
>>64521216Your first name isn't Nick by any chance is it? I know an arty Nick; an arty Nick that would know a little Rodger and a big Rodger.
nevermind. you're not my arty nick.
>>64521578I cannot find the damn pics but yeah we had 2 "gyms". The one on the FOB was a maybe 20x30' HESCO shack, improvised benches and weights but had one real barbell somehow. I'd suspect it was snuck into a seacan domestically rather than shipped through the mail. Was there before and after me. Second gym on Sparrowhawk West was buckets-of-rocks level improvisation. Getting there took a trek of over a mile across the peaks from the farthest up a humvee could reach. We already did daily resupply humps for water/ammo/diesel, so no one was enthusiastic about trying to improve the gym up there.I was measuring the distance across the peaks. Couldn't recall, and all the up and down you do on that trail makes it seem like many miles.Anyway, looks like some cheeky fuck made a fake business on google maps there. Look at the reviews for a lot of other dudes sharing great pics. Saw a platoonmate on there.
phenomenal thread OP please carry on if you have more but thank you very much for what you've shared with us so far. If I may, the manner in which you write these posts exudes a certain degree of melancholy, but maybe that's just me reading into things. Either way cheers for the excellent photos and descriptions.
>>64521612>that isnt horriblehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRpkjmlJ8QIt was literally the most dangerous place on the planet anon. First time I went there the shithook pilots didn't radio ahead to let them know I was coming, so we came fast and dark and they relied on their nods to land blind outside of the perimeter. Sketchiest shit I've ever been involved in.
>>64521510that goat does not look impressed
>>64521638yeah but you had a bench
>>64521625No sir, no Nicks here. Hope you get to speak to him soon. Speak loudly though, as we are all deaf.>>64521593Rather envious of that setup. And you had more shade trees too. Very good!>>64521640I believe he's used to being mounted. We wondered about that farmer in particular. None of the others hugged their goats but he did.>>64521633Thanks but I'm just pushing keys, I didn't even take most of these. We all shared our pics at the end. Yes, my affectation and speech tend to be flatter and colder than most. I've been described as sterile, but not in a hygienic or reproductive way. I've educated myself on ASPD and sociopathy, and at this time I find I fit that bill pretty well. I am engaged in getting a proper diagnosis, but have many more assessments ahead. You may disagree with this level of self-diagnosis, and that's understandable, and that's why I'm paying to know for sure. I need to know for sure.You're perceptive or I'm really that transparent, idk.
Condition: 1Preworkout: Snortedit's fuckin patrol timeGod, I used to get so fucking amped before heading out. Pic not me, but I respected the fuck out this guy.
>>64521654>yeah but you had a benchand some faggot from the muslim region of eastern Europe getting paid 100k per hit sniping at us. >>64521666You never got to experience Kandahar?
>>64521688you ever get to meet that little fucker?
>>64521271>Zeebrugge (don't fucking ask me, the brits named it)presumably named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeebrugge_Raid then
>>64521693?
>>64521700the shit head sniper. or was that just the word through the base, that it was some uzbek/chechen fucker
Squad got halfway through treeline, someone in the middle spotted something funny. Halves of squad each backed up from line, awaited QRF bringing EOD.Controlled det. Escorted EOD back home. Nice and clean. By month 4 or 5 we started finding completely non-metallic initiation systems. Wooden plunger pushes into a very sensitive compound inside a wooden cup, initiating detcord coming out the bottom to the primary charge. Our Valons, the metal detectors, were useless for these. Only way to find them was visually or if the dog caught a whiff.Got a class on the gunline about them, EOD passed around a recovered wooden plunger system for everyone to see. Deactivated they said. We all pushed it in a few times. The guy two after me wails on it and it fucking blew up. Not hard, he kept his fingers and shit. But it only took the fucking tiniest amount of that compound to split it into a million shards and that peppered his face and eyes. Goddamn contact lenses gave him some DR and he kept his eyesight somehow.
>>64521708I don't believe anyone ever fucking apologized to him for that. You'd think the EOD guy responsible for deactivating it would have felt responsible for it blowing up.Caption: Journos got to tour the power plant. I never got to go in.
Looking back through these, I'm noticing all the times this SA photographer had his head up when it should have been down. Amusing.
Oh hey I found the gym on Sparrowhawk. Fenceposts and javelin tubes and rocks. Fuck yeah.
>>64521740im not even trying to be funny, wheres the gym
>>64521706>some uzbek/chechen fuckeroh lol, got a couple of them, but the last one just lost his job because we decided the juice wasn't worth the squeeze in that area. I think if the deployments were longer and handover, and less state dept bs it would have turned out a lot better.
Tower on Sparrowhawk. I fapped a lot up there and set all the high scores on Microsoft pinball on the GBOSS laptop.
>>64521292I think it looks cool OP
>>64521708Imagine giving marines a “deactivated” bomb with explosives still in it and not expecting them to retard smash it into working
>>64521746At about 3:15, close to the edge. It's the bundles of fenceposts on the makeshift rack, supported by black storage tubes for javelin projectiles. You not identifying that as a gym is very funny to me, thank you.>>64521753It was functional. I had to do same because I carried a jammer. So no backpack and I couldn't cover any of the heat sinks on the outer surfaces. I had to get creative with how I carried all my shit. We all did. And that's why I think you see some unusual gear configs in these pics. A mixture of our lack of exposure to this type of mission, and pure necessity.>>64521760I know, right? Nothing is ever truly Marineproof.
>>64521760Marines are a special breed. Worked with a guy over there that was a Marine, he burned not only his fingertips, but nerve endings, off of his hands replacing a turbo on a running generator over there. Best electrician I've met. We found an MP5 in a connex in Baghdad when we were shutting down and consolidating. Fun times. Iraq is/was (don't know now, haven't visited in a while) a wet country, so they had liquor stores. It was wild driving around that city at night in a civilian truck just doing normal shit. Locals were cool as shit.
>>64521781This image looks very familiar or my memory is failing. Is this Camp Lejeune mainside liquor store? Right inside the front door?Obligatory along-the-barrel pic that everyone takes.
>>64521799you said they cleared out the town, were most of those buildings out there unoccupied?
>>64521799checkedis that the laundry river?
>>64521799nah, it's basically a wallmart in downtown Baghdad in 2009/2010. We just took a hilux and went off base and went shopping, we did it all the time. Nigerians hired by the state dept handled the gates then, so we just flashed ID and got back in easy as shit. It was like getting into the greenzone in 04, just fit the part.
>>64521678Something tells me you're the beanie guy. Don't need to confirm or deny (unless you really want to), I just have a thing where I like to put a face to a story. And since you mentioned you're in the pics...Also just want to say, kind of like other anon did, that your writing is somehow very insightful (and indeed melancholic) and seems to come from a very personal place. Kind of odd for someone claiming sociopathy (or I just don't know what it really implies), but I really relate to it.Anyway I'm just a nogunz noservice tourist here with nothing worthwhile to add, but heck am I glad that I stopped by /k/ when I did to see this thread. Thanks for sharing all of this OP, both pics and your thoughts. Take good care eh?
While I did not like most of my command, I did find most of them to be competent at least. I think it was well understood and respected from the top of the battery down that we were not in our element and to play things safe was the prudent choice, most of the time.That said, we did knock on doors if a particular person caught our interest or was implicated by an elder. Though I suspect that was abused to get rid of people the elders didn't like. We did seize 3 different compounds making explosives from their tips though so they weren't full of shit 100% of the time.Caption: I did not enter this building until it was clear. With the 249 I usually didn't, thankfully. I entered and took a small handstitched flag of red and blue fabric hanging on the wall, about 6x10" and stitched to a small stick with its bark still on. The stitches are all crooked and sloppy. Its simple and crude. I believe made by a child. A gift for a parent, perhaps? I took it, and snuck it home despite the ban on "war trophies". It hangs in my living room now. I find it a very somber thing. A relic of some family's happy times years ago in a place far away.
>>64521246>and sucking each other offare you being funny or for real? is engaging in gay sex out of mind numbing boredom a thing?
>>64521808The town cleared by soviets was Kanzi, just across the river to the west of Zeebrugge. That pic was viewing south towards the yet inhabited areas and on down to Kajaki proper, the bigger town in the area and the namesake of the district.I understand that the Muj/Taliban/whoever were not kind to these people after the soviets left, and more people moved away then too. Most compounds are abandoned, particularly to the west. If you see green though, there's folks there. Or was.>>64521821Yes, it's also the only river. Unless you count the wadis when they flooded in January, but I don't. Laundry area was just to right of that pic, on a rocky beach. Shore? Bank? What's it called for a river? I've been getting high.>>64521826Ah that makes sense. I later saw the through-wall AC unit and realized I was incorrect. Dude, your deployment was a lot more "open world" than mine was. I've enjoyed the much different perspective. Thanks.>>64521839I am not beanie man. In fact I don't even know that guy's name. He must have been attached, not one of us. I carried a 249 and a low range jammer and an M9 (which is actually the weapon I got my CAR with, oddly).
>>64521839Also, I appreciate your kind words. Thank you. Two professors told me I missed my calling as a writer. Can't bear sitting in one place for a living though. I am a tradesman now.As for the personal nature of my writing, I think that is the only quality it could bear. My emotional and social universe begins and ends with me. I can really only speak or write of my own experiences and interpretations because they're the only ones I really understand.>>64521883Being funny, probably. If guys were smashing, they kept it well hidden. I heard of no gay scandals during our deployment.I did get a skin infection on my dick from fapping with filthy hands because dirty and covered in diesel soot was the norm unless you were on posts at the FOB where the showers were. Anyway, maybe I didn't babywipe my hands well enough after burning the shit pots or wiping my own ass, but I got it looked at when I got stateside and went to get my staples removed from the appendectomy. It was an infection caused by poo on the skin and nothing I could say convinced this corpsman than I was not buttfucking dudes on deployment. That asshole has never lit a diesel fire in a big pot of human shit and it showed.Hope I'm not posting repeats. Losing track of what I've already shown.
Bonus Buckshot pic. Inside the dog house. My room had the edgy quote over the door.
>>64521884>your deployment was a lot more "open world" than mine waslol, I got around
>>64521928damn rip buckshot
>>64521929Post more secrets.The left building was the best view I've ever had on a shitter. No wall facing away from post. Had a similar one on Sparrowhawk, but no reservoir view there.
>>64521271I've been around. Went through three passports in 10 years. Almost got jailed in Qatar for illegal entry lol
>>64521884>I am not beanie man.No worries, I won't try another guess then. Still enjoying the thread all the same.>>64521903>Two professors told me I missed my calling as a writer. Can't bear sitting in one place for a living though. I am a tradesman now.And you're welcome. And you know, those are not mutually exclusive. Writing is a great way to sort out your thoughts during downtime. And if it's good enough that others enjoy reading it, it's a win-win.>As for the personal nature of my writing, I think that is the only quality it could bear. My emotional and social universe begins and ends with me. I can really only speak or write of my own experiences and interpretations because they're the only ones I really understand.Absolutely no problem with that. Maybe that's exactly why it's so easy and engaging to read, because it's not trying to pretend it's something that it isn't.(And I chuckled at how you followed up with the second reply, like realizing "hey maybe I should have said something more to that guy", it's hella relatable).
>>64521972i mean i think hes in that post's photo>m249, m9, jammer
Cool pics. They feel like what I thought I was goin to get into when I joined up. War on whatever ended about a year into my service contract. I got a GWOT, ND, GC medals. All while in garrison, fighting covid by not going to work. Getting a phone calls out of the blue to get back into work, and one time I was hours away, balls deep in a girl, with missed calls for about 2 hours. Good times. Maybe we should start a covid while garrison photo dump. SIKE
>>64521945>Post more secrets.Not trying to hijack your thread anon, I like your pics and posts. Thread just hit close to home and wanted to share similar shit on topic in a similar timeframe.
>>64521950Can you share the Qatar story? Also, I'm shocked I never saw potleaf rattle before. That's genuinely funny. Maybe I'm just blind and and missed it.>>64521938He was one of the goodest boys. Another dog, Comet, was "controlled aggression" trained or whatever the term was. He was trained to pursue, bite, and hold (non-Oxford comma users get the rope btw. Your day will come). And I justified my persistent lodging in the dog house to SSgt by participating in the dog training. The sniffers need someone to plant the bags of training compounds for them to find, and Comet needed someone to wear the sleeve and get bit. It was quite an exciting experience and I was encouraged to resist realistically, barring injuring the dog of course. Comet is dead too unfortunately. Stepped on a switch that killed him and his handler. RIP. We all volunteered though.>>64521972I tend to write more or less how I think, so I believe a lot of it to have a simple, stream-of-consciousness feel. I'm purely speculating here, but that may be the relatable aspect.I appreciate your advice on writing. I do have avenues for expressing myself I utilize, just not very often 4chan. And yes, you've deduced my motivation for the second response accurately.
>>64521167Dollar tree sells rip it energy drinks if you want to sit back crack open a warm one throw on some oakleys and take a look through the pics
>>64522004After EAS, to anyone that told me they were interested in service, I said "do not bother." The war was grinding down. Most units I was aware of were not deploying more than once per 4yr contract if at all by the time I went over. I wish I could have told you that. Not something a recruiter will tell a young man hoping to deploy.>>64522010Understandable. Thank you for the compliment and your contributions already.Caption: 500lber iirc. That size of plume looks right for 500lbs, no? I used to be able to judge these things somewhat.
>>64522014>Can you share the Qatar story? yeah, came in on the commercial side, bitch didn't have ink in her stamp deal so no entry stamp for me. Go to the military side to jump out and they think I'm a spy, Qatar thinks I'm illegal (actually enforced there) so it was a whole thing for like 45 minutes until they got it sorted out. >>64522032I'd pound those fucking silver/blue cans all the time. >Also, I'm shocked I never saw potleaf rattle before. That's genuinely funny. Maybe I'm just blind and and missed it.They didn't work during daylight.
>>64522032That does sound fun. One of my sets of deployment oakleys is still my daily driving pair, the frames at least.>>64522049I member those coffees. I do not believe I ever had one cold though.I'm glad you got through without further trouble.
Our armorer flew out early with AP, and had different travel accommodations than the rest of us.
Another of his.
>>64521271If you air balled would you have to be the one to climb up and get the ball back.
>>64522084I've heard that from some after we came back. Maybe guys forgot the details of their experiences over time. I know people tend to view prior service with rose tinted glasses, forgetting how abjectly miserable they were at times.But safety is relative, risking quoting Generation Kill here. I usually felt perfectly safe inside our HESCO posts. I felt unsafe when receiving IDF in that same post though because the roof probably wouldn't stop much of a direct hit.If you mean fear though, that's a much different thing than just acknowledging danger.
>>64522136That's a good question. I don't know, but presumably. I don't play apehoop. There's a lot of fucking C wire on the other side of the HESCOs. It wouldn't be pleasant.
>>64521167Was that you anon from the thread last week? Great job digitizing this and captioning. This is history.
>>64522161I haven't posted in 4chan in a couple years. But I always come back eventually. We all do. I think it's become worse though. And not in a good way.I just felt like engaging with people today for a while. I do apologize for the broad range of qualities. These are from a lot of different cameras and many are smashed with compression.
LZ Something or OtherWe renamed it after an Lt that died but I cannot remember his name now.
>>64521978See>nogunz noserviceYeah I'm very clueless lol. I mean I figured the first two were probably some kind of boomsticks, but didn't put effort into looking up what they looked like. But it makes sense now, I think. Cool.>>64522014Well I'll just say, keep using it, because I think you have a gift for it. Even better if you do it in a better place than this. Wouldn't mind buying a paperback one day.Cheers again and sorry for littering, gonna stop before it turns awkward (still monitoring the thread obv) but I really did enjoy this chance parasocial meeting.
Thanks for the dump, OP.
In the tower.Clustered around the top of all 5 peaks above Zeebrugge were collections of small mud and stone buildings. The Soviets fortified and occupied them. Then the Brits did (they built Sparrowhawk's tower and a lot of other infrastructure). Then we did the same. Except with far fewer bodies, so the center peaks were not permanently occupied.They were:OP Athens, at the end of the road coming up the mountain. Where all supplies bound for the peaks were delivered by QRF on an irregular schedule, as the route there takes them outside our directly observable area. This is the OP with the reservoir view. Never once had contact, because there was no real way to approach it besides crossing the big water. We considered the shift there to be a break. The chance to relax in our cycle.Following peaks were OPs Sparta, then Normandy, then Sparrowhawk East which involved pulling yourself up 2-3' tall rocks. Not so easy with rifle and 5gal of diesel in a leaking can on your back. Last was Sparrowhawk West, of course.The three in the middle had intact structures and posts, though we kept no weapons there. We did keep food and ammo though as they were considered defensible yet degraded.
>>64522241Plenty of anons have expressed appreciation for the thread, though I do agree with the rest of your assertion.>>64522236You are whale cum.>>64522226I appreciate the compliments.
On Athens. We had a motivational noose hanging in the post, with a sign that said, "Hang in There!"But black SSgt said it was racist and took it down.
Towards the end, someone drew some graffiti in the shitter stalls on FOB that was less than flattering to the CO & 1stSgt. It was discovered and the stall doors were removed as punishment.Not long after, certain junior enlisted took to openly masturbating in the stalls, or wiping their ass while standing and facing the back wall, exposing the activity to passersby. This set of stalls was at a major T junction by the south CP. Everyone walked by it all the time.The doors were reinstalled and this was the only time I saw the junior enlisted successfully rebel against collective punishment. It just wasn't mentioned again.
>>64521341>got put on morphine, my only opiate experience. I see why people get stuck on that feeling.Only time I was on morphine I had the same reaction.>ohhh, that's why dad got addicted to heroinwas literally my first thought lmao
The commandant planned to visit around March or April. With him were coming two enlisted female photographers/assistants. Our FOB had zero females. There was no gender specific showers, shitters, or anything else.So the giant shower tent on the FOB that was the one and only source of hot showers, but only hot if you got there before everyone else, was subdivided and 25% of it went to two women while the rest of us shared the remainder of what was already inadequate.You may imagine we did not like this. Only lasted 2 weeks, but still.
>>64522312lol thats such military bullshit, hilarious
I see this as rather tasteless now, but probably chuckled at the time.
Probably doing PMs
We'd occasionally take bangalores, diesel, and thermite, and whatever else we had to blow and burn the holes in the lines larger.Larger crossing points = less likely to lose at hardcore hopscotch.It was havoc on their irrigation ditches though, but we'd keep blowing them up, and the next morning they'd come out and see what we did and start to fix it.
I believe moving people this way is generally frowned upon.
We had javs, AT4s and LAWs. Not being grunts, we don't train with thrown grenades basically ever, so very few guys received those.Me being prior roommates with the armorer, I'd help him with with counts while we bullshitted in my downtime. He had a small stock of Brit munitions, mostly some different types of flares but also five L1-09 grenades. Something I probably learned here to be honest, I knew the maximum delay time on their fuses was shorter than our M67s.By stating I was probably the only one with this information, and therefore specially qualified to be accountable for them, I got him to part with three. Two of which were offered to the Sgts in my squad as bribes to not make me give them back because hey who doesn't like untracked munitions. So I got to use just one frag in stan and it wasn't even American.But it was thanks to knowledge I learned from folks like you.
Am I using too much jargon or too many acronyms? Can the neverserveds understand me well enough?Our replacements showed up, and we began the replace-in-place or RIP. We cycle the new guys into the patrol and posts duties increasingly until they take it over and the last of us leaves. It's a way of ensuring as much legacy knowledge of the AO is transmitted to the new guys as possible. It's not perfect but fairly effective I think.Anyway, we had gained two other SAWs in the squad from the RIP so I returned mine and drew my M16. I removed the ratchet from the burst mechanism, replacing it with a spacer of equal thiccness to keep everything aligned on the pin, and restored the M16 to its more appropriate, crowd-pleasing form.In the aftermath of my appendix trying to turn me off, I rather forgot about all of this until long after that little ratchet part was very gone. I was on severe lifting restrictions with 8, or 9 or so staples on a fresh 3" incision for the flight to Kyrgyzstan. They didn't even let me pack my own bags or carry my rifle.So it never got reinstalled and gun stayed full retard and I figured the next time someone used that rifle for the burst fire segment of Marksmanship Table 2 (I think it's 2), I would be getting a phone call, or visit, or something.But never happened. Hope nobody got hurt because unexpected auto.Oh and I learned that from here too.
Another one, but .50 flavored and facing southwest from PB Shrine.Shrine was our patrol base over the river to the west and our staging point for activity in that side of the AO. It had a permanent national police presence, and due to its elevation, was useful as a base of fire support and QRF staging nearby. Bonus that it's basically a castle, with only one driveable way up the 10-20' tall by 100yd by 50yd stony plateau. It was ringing with C wire and ensconced with firing positions all around. This where we'd park our towable GBOSS. Most javelin fires happened from Shrine.
Porcupine left, jackal rightOn the GBOSS camera. Certainly very far away.
>>64521181what gets me is how fuckin clean and sharp the images are even with jpeg compression. no modern smartphone smear with ultra-sharpening and AI upscaling and shit.
>>64521414Cool contributions OP. Thanks for taking your time to post em.
From Athens, descending to the reservoir for swimming or cleaning clothes was common when it was warm. Come December the water too cold for swimming, but perfect for ducks.I swam to get it because wind was blowing him away from shore. Or beach. I stripped naked because didn't want wet clothes and it was the coldest thing I'd ever done.Very much underestimated how the massive shivering would prevent me from using my full lung capacity, limiting my oxygen. It was not a pleasant swim and I was ignoring feelings of panic the entire time. But I got the damned thing.While I swam, two national pigs came around the shore, or coast, and arrived just in time to laugh at my tiny cold-shriveled cock emerging from the water. They indeed thought it was very funny.
>>64522606it was like 2009-2012 for most of these pics, we didn't have great cameras, but phones were making progress. Just hard to get over there at the time, and most people that had footage never uploaded it. Many such cases.
>>64522522This is /k/, use all the jargon you want.
>>64522606Those are from the SA journos and their big ass camera. I'd agree with you, I think a lot of digital photography is somehow looking worse these days. But I have a limited grasp on that topic.>>64522616No problem. Thank you guys for interacting and refilling my social meter. I'm all set now, and it is late here.OP signing off.
Thanks OP, been a good trip down memory lane. See you around. Remember, it is what it is.
>>64522642>we didn't have great camerasA chunky plastic Canon from Wally World and a $40 18-55 kit lens will genuinely still blow the fucking pants off today's $3000 smartphone in terms of actual objective image quality. Honestly even little pocket point and shoots were still better in some ways, not least of which being if something's blurry, it's because of predictable "the lens is kinda crappy" reasons, not "the phone's super duper AI assistant (required and with no raw available) can't decide if that mess of green lines is a tree, a bush, or Oscar the Grouch.">>64522654Thank you for posting this thread and your experiences, anon.
>>64521167Hey OP, this is the best thread on /k/ in months. Feels like old /k/ before ricky went RRC and the PJ guys left.
>>64522143>If you mean fear though, that's a much different thing than just acknowledging danger.No. The expectation of death at any moment made fear irrelevant. I think that switch is what made it possible. I would go a week or two without bathing, not hot meals, whatever. I knew if I made it back I'd have that, so it was either or. It's not something I've been able to explain, but basically you either get it or you don't, you embrace the chaos and lack of control of the environment just dig in. I woke up in a TIC one time, dude asked me if I was good, I asked him if I was good or needed, and he said nah dog, go back to sleep. I slept like a baby. All these trannies and faggots today could not comprehend that. I have true faith and trust in someone I met yesterday, and we're all being shot at, but we both realize the situation and what the resources are. I wasn't needed, etc. Just wanted to make sure I was good. I think it's more unspoken than anything. Main thing is you either know what you're doing or you don't, and we all know that.
>>64521246I like this picture a lot. Did you name any of your FOB Dogs?
Today OP was not a faggot.
>>64521358That must have been otherworldly. Reminds me of accounts from ww1 of German soldiers digging up roman artifacts while digging their trenches.
>>64521424What was the weather like out there? It looks windswept and cold.
>>64522747nta and neverserved but i feel like i somewhat get that. my take on death is that death is death, if shit happens and i die then so be it, not like ill be around to worry about it.
>>64522775Afghanistan is one of the hardest countries to operate in, period. It's impossible to conqure. We spent years buying them off and corrupting them and we still couldn't do it. >>64522780When you have your own driving range on the top of the shitter/shower building for 'shooting back' with golf balls, getting shot at, and still paying the kids to return the balls so you can do it again tomorrow, it starts to scratch a different itch. This was at a FOB similar to where OP was sent, mostly artillary and a ring route hub.
>>64522654>OP signing off.Awsome thread, OP. You rock.
Thanks OP, was very interesting.
>>64522629Didn't know mallards were present in Afghan. I'll remember that when Avalanche Studios want feedback for a new reserve in COTW.
Awesome, thanks man. >>64522584Saved this one>>64522764Oldie but a goodie
11/10 threadthanks for posting OP
>>64522575That is an extremely large porcupine.
>>64522312>the men do not like us, sir. they accuse us of fuckery>diabolical, 1sgt. Our only logical course of action is to fuck with them more as punishmentwhy does every other story about COs and higher enlisted trying to discipline their soldiers always involve some degree of this lmaoalso, do you think the initial graffiti was justified?
>>64522812honest question, how do the locals do it? I've always assumed that given afghanistan is impossible to hold, the only way to exist there is some combination of low level anarchy (where the highest form of organisation is clumps of villages sharing ethnicity) and semi-constant civil war. And where it's technically a "country", but not because IT drew its borders, but because every other country nearby drew borders AROUND it.
don't listen to >>64522241i liked this thread, & i want you to know at least i care.
>>64523556Correct. There's nothing there, and nobody ever cared unless they had to go through there to somewhere else.The peasants in some valleys can probably trace their lineage back (if they had an interest in history, which they don't) for centuries upon centuries of living in the same valley doing the exact same thing generation after generation: subsistence farming.You don't need a big government if you don't need roads or international treaties or health and safety inspections or hospitals or schools. Whatever is left is petty squables about property rights and reputation.They don't wonderThey don't wanderThey are just animals, part of the local ecosystem. Perfectly content to stay there until Judgement Day.
>>64522370Dayum dat jawline
>>64522370nigga looks like peacemaker
>>64522654Until a couple months ago the last time i was on /k/ or 4chan at all was probably 2019 or 2020 sitting bored out of my mind in a base in Afghanistan. /k/ isnt what it used to be but theres still good threads once in a while and this is the best ive seen in a while. Its threads like this that still make /k/ a magical place
>>64523765did those nets even work?
>>64523786Never got the chance to find out but i heard they did in some cases and i heard they didnt in others. They didnt really make it hard to see when driving like i thought they would so i didnt mind them
>>64522812Is this like the one FOB that almost got overrun and they made a movie about it?> ruck heavy MG and a spotter to the hill over yonder> can grazing fire the whole fucking FOBI basically always wonder how to hold that shit. Put outposts on one of the hills? But then that outpost can get cut off and hit.Seems like OP also had the same problem, what if they just took one of the empty hill outposts?
I see follow up questions.>>64522755Those were some of the service dogs. L to R: Buckshot, Cain, Comet, and I can't remember>>64522766Surreal at times. I didn't get into the full breadth of the 3-nation-occupation experience. Up on the peaks, the cliffsides were still filled with soviet mines. We did not leak the summits for this reason. It was also fun pretending to be SteveMRE and trying some of the Brit and NATO provisions stashed on Normandy. Canned cheese, vegemite, and other novelties. All fairly old.>>64522775I was there autumn through spring, so yeah that was more or less the experience. Nonstop wind during the day. Absolute tranquility most nights though. From the peaks, you'd feel like you could hear a mouse fart miles away it was so quiet.Dry the entire time except January, when they apparently get almost their entire year of rainfall at once. The wadis all flood because none of the soil can absorb fast enough. Made getting around harder, as we often relied on the cover of the wadis to get around less observably.>>64522946I did not either. And I've actually played that game. Pretty good, only hunting game that ever held my attention. I think an Afghan reserve would be amazing, but it'd be pretty light on species variety. It really was just jackals, porcupines, ducks, and the odd donkey or camel. And scorpions I guess. Little bright pale green fuckers. Like the color of those glow-in-the-dark stars and planets people put on their ceilings as kids.>>64522970I still have that one as a wallpaper. Journo was a good shot, I think.
>>64523488Um yeah. And it didn't occur to anyone to educate ourselves on local fauna before arriving (because dumb kids), so we didn't know those were there.My first encounter with one was just after sundown when they start being active. I was returning to Athens from dropping off ammo at Sparrowhawk and my red beam caught what at first I thought was a small black bear 30' off the trail. Switched to white light and identified it, and was very surprised. Only seen them at a zoo, and those were far smaller.>>64523540Top command usually didn't get involved in the punishment fuckery. Not their job, that's Gunny or the SSgts usually at least in my unit at that time. But this time, they were "targeted" so 1stSgt himself laid down the sentencing at an all-hands.And they weren't even specifically targeted. I'll explain, even though it really is quite dumb.Popular parlance for a Marine that did not leave FOB was a "Fobbit", meant to be jestfully derogatory. The graffiti in question, was of a genre that already populated shitters, internet stations, and other places all over.It consists of a caricatural drawing of some particular fobbit, made to look like a pokemon card. They were fobbitmon cards, and the goal was to find or "catch" them all. I said it was dumb. It started with junior enlisted ribbing each other, comms guys and whatnot. But command got pissy once they were on cards.What do you think? Was the punishment justified?
>>64523750If you were wondering who always had bitches...>>64523765Just looking at the image counts of every other thread, I see this one stands out. I did not enter any other threads to gauge their quality though.
>>64523962>leak the summitsLeave
1. Did any significant element ever assault you guys?2. If so, for what purpose?3. What magnification optics are used for observation out there? Variable zoom or no? Basically 20-60x spotter scopes?
>>64523893This was one of two of the more frequent 'ring routes' we'd use to get out to the FOBs or OPs. Not aware of it having anything to do with your description. Basically I'd fly out from Bagram or Jalalabad up there to these two valleys, and I'd spend a short period there to get briefed and then fly out to the wilderness.
>>645240391. I'd say significance is relevant. There was not a high enough concentration of professional fighters in our area for them to undertake assaults like seen at Restrepo and other places. We mostly faced local semi-organized resistance from people who lived in the lands just beyond our reach. The Brits really did the hard lifting in the area before us, and wiped out just about everyone actually living in the AO that wouldn't play nice.Through the war, the US made big efforts to photograph and identify every single person we killed, took, or even just interacted with. Intel sections worked the entire war to piece together family trees with pictures and real names and DNA samples for absofuckinglutely everybody they could.What resulted was the most comprehensive genealogical study ever done in that country. So by the time I went over, if we killed someone and could get a pic, we could usually find out who they were within a few days.We found that we were often fighting the relatives of those killed in the AO by the Brits.tbc
>>645240391 cont. Using Restrepo again, the terrain and occupation history matter a hell of a lot too. Restrepo was lower than everything around it and only constructed for that occupation. Zeebrugge was elevated, and held a commanding position above its surroundings. Also, it was occupied and fortified on and off for the better part of half a century. It was a fucking fortress built on solid rock. There was not a single approach to that FOB that is not covered by manned posts, 24/7 GBOSS with thermal, redundant HESCO lines with stocked fallback positions, interlocking Mk19/249/M2 fires, peaktop positions that face down right into the FOB in case of a breach, etc etc. Every time the stepped at us for real they got pushed back hard. I'd say our position was in effect, unassailable given the enemy's capabilities at that time. I do not believe they could have practically removed us from that position, even with their best effort.So with that context in mind, yes there were times when the organization of and threat posed by a particular attack was more significant than usual.2. These attacks were often performed as a diversion for IED hiding activities somewhere else. Sometimes, they'd push through compounds with a more significant force trying to get closer to the base of the peaks with a crew-served weapon. This was usually while the peaks were engaged with support fires for a TIC elsewhere, and was presumably done to hamper those efforts.
>>64524096heh, I was part of developing that project with DARPA, it was like google maps and streetview where you could just upload the photos and reports with the grid coordinates and we had it all on the database. I think you're the first person I've ever heard talk about it.
>>64524135forgot the obligatory pic
>>64524140Did you grow any tomatoes in the flower beds? (HESCOs)>>64524133Did they ever try to shoot the GBOSS?
>>64524133Note: I am hazy on my details of Restrepo. Correct if wrong, please.>>645240393. On patrols, you've got your 4x acog. SLs usually carried binos too, because pointing your rifle at someone just to get a better look isn't always the best choice. Leopold fixed 8x were popular, I recall. They were hard to break. Had a rangefinder reticle.The soul searcher binos were some batshit fixed 80x or something. Big zoom. Our biggest GBOSS on top of the COC had some crazy 200x or something. You could just barely make out buildings at the base of the mountains that formed the west horizon. No details at all at that distance but still insane.Posts had a variety of stuff. I couldn't possibly remember all the different NV and thermal devices we had. The nerds that kept them working told me some had serials in the Desert Storm range. I wondered how many different theatres they'd seen. Their magnifications were all over the place, 2x, 6x, 20x, whatever. We never had time to get trained on them, and even by the end I didn't have all the features worked out for most of them despite the countless hours staring through them.So, to summarize, we used all the zooms. For other observation methods, we did have drones, but there's not much to say about those. They were primitive and fixed wing, not like we see now that can hover in place. Had two and they both crashed within their first 3 flights from losing connection with the controller while within range and unimpeded. Gay trash, and yielded nothing for us except two more patrols to go retrieve them.
>>64524160I was usually at these places for a week or until the next ring route was scheduled for the location. I wasn't really 'stationed' anywhere, I moved around a lot. I started in that country in the East, then the South, then the West, and then up North, and finally returned to the East where HQ was. Kabul was just a short drive south, and if I needed to get something I had a place on the economy and a fixer on hire.
>>64524133I sometimes think about the reality the petty attacks that were more more prevalent from Haji's POV.>be Haji dirt farmer>20yo, look 35>entire existence is growing poppy and enduring infant mortality>and fixing your ditches that the American pigs keep blowing up>"Oh hey, cousin Amu is taking potshots at the pigs over the river. Bet he's into the hashish again!">Go grab PKM and the boys for a lit Friday night w/ cousin Amu>Fuck the Americans their curfew>>64524160If they did, the aim was so poor we did not notice that was the target. They most frequently engaged us at the outermost edge of their effective ranges. For good reason.
>>64522180I too haven't posted in years. Just wanted to chime in and thank you for a very enjoyable thread.
>>64524200Jesus I need to proofread for skipped words. Sorry, anon.So Haji had a hard time coming at us directly, but he also had a hard time indirectly. They had lots of tubes and projectiles, but they never were able to use them very effectively.This is almost completely due to one thing, our counter-battery radar. The second they fire, our radar sees the projectile moving like a mortar projo would, can instantly calculates the point of origin. The next second, this is loaded into the firing solution calculations, either manually on the chart with calculator & protractor, or digitally on a computer. The solution is compiled into a comprehensive Fire Mission, including projectile type and weight, fuse type and settings, propellant charge, and lastly, the instructions on aiming the piece. This is transmitted to the gunline while the mortar projectile is still airborne.The parts of the mission that take the longest for the gunline to achieve are transmitted first. It is all orchestrated and drilled with precision such that every man on the gun ought to be done with their own portion of making the piece ready to fire at exactly the same moment. The section chief does one last verification that the piece is aimed true, and gives the command "Standby, Fire."If the gun does not need to be displaced and re-emplaced to reach the target, and the Fire Mission is transmitted effectively the first time, it's completely expected to have the first 155mm HE fired with a very stout propellant charge hauling ass on the fastest trajectory possible to exactly where that mortar fired within 35 seconds.And we may not have known much about patrols and banging down doors, but we sure as fuck were good cannoneers. Haji learned to fire one round and get out of dodge. Hard to hit what he was aiming for with no ability for bracketing and walking your shots in.
>>64524135I'm sorry I missed your comment.You're the first person I've seen acknowledge that it happened at all, since I've been EAS'd. It was a monumental effort from a huge number of people. Unprecedented, really. Very cool you got to work on it. Can you share what that was like?Before deployment I went to a company-level intel gathering course, meant to spool up the guys on the ground with what kind of stuff intel was after, so we knew what to look for. They described the entire human catalog thing and I thought it was fascinating. Dystopian, but fascinating.
>>64524200Legit lolled at the grentext, probably pretty accurate. Thanks for the replies.
>>64524250Off-topic, but I do wonder if all of that will be automated in the near future. It's not that hard to put fuck-hueg hydraulics on there and you already have the firing solution anyway. Put a mag on there like the 2B9 Vasilek and they get bursted within 5 seconds instead of 35. But still, 35 seconds is very impressive.
>>64524250>>64524274pic rel>>64524255I was part of the effort to get it all integrated with GBS (all anyone used those systems at the time was killTV). Lot of nerds and mIRC, but it was basically as I described, guys would go up on visits to the locals and get as much data as possible. They were already kinda doing it, but it wasn't in a central database, and with the short deployments we realized data was being lost. I had been on 12 and 18 month deployments in the past, and shit can change pretty quickly in an AO in a year or two. Spend almost a decade there and you will actually have a clear understanding of what is happening.
>>64524289Wtf, you guys got your own Phalanx? Fuck you, spoiled kids!
>>64524291I found a random MP5 when I was inventorying a connex in Baghdad anon, we had a bunch of fun shit. When we got a contract for something there were rules on the paperwork showing what we were authorized to do, wear, and carry. It's a weird world out there. More fellow travelers than you would think.
>>64524274The Paladin, a self-propelled 155mm, is self-loading and iirc is self-aiming as well, both based upon fire missions digitally transmitted to the piece. And I also recall reading about issues with both systems. It can get away with using xboxhuge hydraulics to move the cannon tube and lift the projectiles and whatnot because it is self-propelled and there is no expectation to pick up that vehicle with an Osprey, which was a hard design requirement of the M777. It's weight HAD to be under 10,000lbs. It was 9,995 or something lol, not looking it up but I know that's close to actual weight. Its construction makes extensive use of titanium parts. There are massive titanium castings on those weapons, and I heard rumors of them being stolen for scrap off Nasty Girl armories somewhere.So, automated is very much already here, has been for some time. It just doesn't always fit the bill. A Marine's arm can turn the gear that elevates the tube just fine, and is weightless from the gun's perspective.>>64524289That makes sense, and completely aligns with what we did when visiting compounds most of the time. Neat seeing parts of the bigger picture behind it all. I appreciate you sharing.
>>64524325So, the fancy, digitized, lightweight M777 replaced the old M198, a pigfat castiron sumbitch which weighed in around 16k lbs.For some units, these were getting replaced right around the time they replaced their old 5-ton trucks with the nice new 7-tons. So for a brief interstitial period, gun truck drivers were adjusting to pulling a gun (with a slightly higher center of gravity in the towed config) that weighed 33% less with a truck that had something like twice the actual power at the wheels. Guns flipped over on the road quite a bit for a while.Relayed to me by a SSgt, who insisted that anyone who never crewed a M198 was not a real artilleryman and claimed that the lighter weight of the M777 was a problem.
Getting at the bottom of the barrel for pics that are sorted and of postworthy quality. There's another few folders but they're a mess of duplicates and corrupted files. Not going to go through cleaning that up quite yet.
Just remembered a thing: Squadmates and their "if I get got" requestsJust at any random moment during downtime, a bud might just come over to say something like, "Hey man, a letter for my mom is in my seabag." And you'd just know what he meant. Or you'd occasionally get updates spurred by happenings in their personal lives like, "Wife is divorcing me dude. No updates to that bitch." or whatever.And dudes telling each other they can have their cig and dip stockpiles.
>>64521167Man I would have loved to go fishing in a place like this, instead of being deployed to some COP in the middle of the desert.
>>64522812>It's impossible to conqureSo this is the power of Zoroaster
>>64524416Found FOB gym. It looks waaay fuckin better than I remember. Don't recall having actual plates. Maybe I got it conflated with the one on Sparrowhawk over time.
interesting thread great picturesIm not much of a reader so sorry if you said this already how many rounds did you fire on an average mission? how often did you shoot at specific targets vs just firing in a general area for suppression? also what were the distances to the targets usually?
>>64524417Thank you for reminding me.The national police would fish with their stock of soviet and NATO grenades. We had to demand they start warning us because they were just throwing frags in the fucking river right outside the FOB. I did not recognize one species of fish there.>>64524423These all depend on what weapon you're talking about.
>>64522522Like many anon's here, I appreciate the photography. I was curious how ground dudes did their RIP, or if they even did one, so thanks for answering that question. I returned from a Kingpin (ask your JTAC) deployment earlier this year, so most of Afghanistan, and more so Iraq was seen through the FLIR camera of an MQ-9. It's nice to see a more humanizing view of the ground, that isn't just black and white. Additionally it's neat reading the stories that come with it, even if the reasons for fighting the conflict vanished ages ago.
>>64524437>MQ-9I almost got ran over by one of those fuckers crossing the flight line in jbad at 3AM coming in from an op carrying like 80lbs of extra gear.
>>64524438Forgot caption: The larger posts had diesel burning heaters in them. Literally just a steel barrel that got a dripfeed of fuel from an inverted jerry can into a little combustion chamber. You'd ignite it by priming the chamber and just tossing some burning paper or wrappers in there. Nobody was wasting their matches on that. Once lit, the heat created a draft that drew air and pushed exhaust. Into the post.It would also get blown out with any significant swirl of wind that penetrated behind the HESCOs. Upon relighting, all the loose soot would be blown out the hole at the top by the updraft, usually all over the face and clothes of whomever lit it.Explaining the black soot you may see in a lot of these. We used a lot of diesel. I never could get a good read on what our daily consumption was like. I know it was our #1 delivered commodity. More than ammo or food.
>>645244091. if you don't mind me asking, how many dudes were killed and wounded in your deployment out of 200 ish?2. what night vision did you guys have?3. for reference I'm a medic in the guard, what were your corpsmen like, was there anything you wished they were better at?
>>64524453forgot to add the tax again
goofin>>64524437As for the RIP, I only know that we RIPed in and RIPed out. It's not something I ever asked anyone in other units about, so no idea how widely utilized it is.I'm glad you enjoyed reading this. Thank you.
>>64524454I'm sorry, I'm high and kept saying diesel. We used fucking JP-8, which is a kerosene fuel. Like diesel due to additives but not. I just deal with diesel these days so maybe that's why.>>64524465I remember 5 guys native to the battery were killed. There were more deaths in the attachments, but I really do not remember how many. Completely baseless guess is 4, just sounds familiar.I couldn't say how many other casualties there were because that really depends on your definition of what a casualty is, and I'd rather not get into pedantics over it. More than were killed, suffice to say. Casualties were replaced with fresh bodies over time, particularly the dog handlers, who bore the brunt of the losses.2. Just about everybody had their PVS-14s, and we had the assortment of others I mentioned previously.3. One was suspected gay and a little panicky, but competent. Another was a twink boi and deeply autistic at times. Highly knowledgeable though I doubted his practical abilities. I must not have been the only one to see this because he was permanent FOB duty. Last one was older black guy, 30s, family man, very grounded and realistic person, always calm. You were glad when he was assigned to your patrol the most.I wish autistic doc would have taken me more seriously when I needed him to look at my penis and write me a referral to the dermatologist for my peepee poopoo infection. I was not just trying to get him to look at my dick. But that's the nature of medicine for Marines. You're an angry, drunk 20yo and so is your point of access to healthcare. Terrifying.
>joined up specifically because I wanted to go to afghanistan and see stuff like this>got stationed with 1ID as my first unit>did nothing but bounce back and forth between korea and germany during the final years of the GWOT>never got to actually deploy>mfw this thread>mfw no face
>>64524505Oh and lastly, the battalion doctor was a fat slob and our Gunny openly berated his weight in front of junior men whenever he could. Gunny hated that lazy piggy.
>>64521167Dear diary,Today OP wasn't a faggot
>>64524473Best thread I've read on /k/ in years. It's a pity how much the board has fallen.Fascinating stuff, thank you for the pics and the detail. Bar the Brits being there before you, did you ever interact with someone else of the bazillion random euros that were sent there to waste time?
>>64524510>1ID Such is life in the mech world.
>>64524513kinda reminds me of my battalion PA lol. did you guys get standard TCCC training? did the medics train you at all?if you got seriously wounded how long would it take you to reach a higher level of care? would the corpsmen have to sit on you for a while if you were on patrol?
>>64524510>big red oneI worked with you guys over there, yall got slotted inbetween the back to back deployments that 82 and 101 were doing to lessen the impact on their billets. >>64524524Not OP, but we divied up AOs. While there were some USA elements with these countries, most of them did their own thing. Herat and Farah had Spanish and Italians running it, they had their own liquor store and pizzeria. Kandahar had a mix of guys, lot of UAE and Canadian presence. UK had half of leatherneck, Bastion, and some other OPs in the south. Germans had the north, MeS and some other places. Pic related is their beer garden, they'd setup a projector and watch soccer and drink beer every night.
>>64524419Even Zoroastrianism didn't permeate Afghanistan fully. By the 1890s there were still pre-Zoroastrian Iranic pagans in Afghanistan.
>>64524524At Leatherneck and Bastion, there were Georgians just everywhere. Met some Australians but can't recall exactly who they were. Bastion itself is a British fortification, butted right up to Leatherneck. Or was. All this is past tense now lol.Then there were Kyrgyzstanis in Kyrgyzstan, and Germans in Germany, then home.The women at Manas AFB in Kyrgyzstan looked almost Jap, black hair and all, but spoke some slav shit? Details are fuzzy. I recall that combination being rather sexy af, me not even being really interested in asians or slavs in particular. They were there to cut hair and sell cigs and whatnot.
>>64524571>GeorgiansI thought I had ran into those guys at Lagman, but it's been so long I don't really recall.
Hello OP, my major question is that during the (monstrously) vast periods of downtime I presume you had what did you guys tend to do for fun? What kind of recreational stuff did you have access to? No booze I'm assuming given you're on deployment but how did you get access to cigs and nicotine for instance?
>>64524532Like a lot of these answers, it's relative. If we're close to the FOB, casualty is easy to move, and we think the facilities there stand a good chance of being sufficient, then it's probably not direly urgent. As long as he's stable, we'd might move back to a point where QRF could reach us to take him back. Have the Bn doc look at him and use the FOB's LZ to evacuate if needed. Always preferred to use our established LZ when possible. I just remembered that field LZs were named on the spot and we used a porn star naming convention.If immediate flight to surgery was required, then it depends if there's a bird at Leatherneck available what it's speed is. How much evasion will they run, adding distance to the trip?Just shy of 61 miles between the Zeebrugge LZ and the center of the airstrips at Leatherneck. Your time to higher care is only as fast as a bird can make that round trip + the shuttle ride to Bastion hospital.I'm glad I looked this up and measured and all. Good questions, thank you.
>>64524597>it's not itskms>>64524584I was too busy jacking off and burning things to have downtime, idk what you're talking about.Joking aside, we had a small library. The books were all shit and unengaging but it was better than naught. I read most of them a couple of times. Probably read the Hobbit 7 or 8, and I brought that copy home with me. I left my DVD collection in the library for the replacing unit as recompense for my theft. I still have that copy and read it to my 7yo.Yeah, lots of reading, lots of fapping, lots of just standing around smoking cigs and bullshitting about absolutely nothing. Some guys had golf bats and smacked balls at the mountain. Enough returned in one way or another that it was more or less self-sufficient.You also have time spent cleaning clothes and servicing weapons and maybe some chowhall.And sometimes you just lay on your cot for hours and do nothing but stare at the ceiling and think.That is a very disjointed answer but it's all there somewhat.
>>64524610>chowhall.chowhall duty.
>>64524618Any hits on the Valons, our metal detectors wielded by the pointman, got tagged with a rattlecan for the rest of the file to avoid. I don't think I ever explained all the orange paint.If we were walking outside our constantly observable area, you stayed the hell inside the safe markings. Anywhere else could be instant death, conceivably.
>>64524571>The women at Manas AFB in Kyrgyzstan looked almost Jap, black hair and all, but spoke some slav shit?Kyrgyz are Turks, and much less mixed with Europeans than the Turks from Turkey or even Kazakhstan. So they are very "Asian" looking, because they are.>but spoke some slav shitKyrgyz is a Kipchak Turkic language, but they may have been speaking Russian, most people speak at least some Russian there. If you travel around central Asia, you can get by with just knowing Russian easily. However, despite being unrelated, I think Kyrgyz and other Turkic languages sound very "Russian." Generally has a lot of sounds we associated with Russian.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMQxZzrmKiI
>>64524624That's awesome, and thank you for clarifying. I didn't quite hit the mark, but not terribly off.
>>64524597what was in your ifak? ever have to use any of it?
For reference, this is the mess of remaining pics to sift through. It's a big job, and I genuinely don't know if I'll ever get to it.>>64524658Our policy was to not alter our primary IFAK contents from what is issued in the standard restock kits. This standardization was enforced so no matter whose IFAK you were using, you knew exactly what was going to be in it. Guys were encouraged to carry additional dressings, gauze, TQs, etc as well elsewhere on their kit.Not on myself.
>>64524678Yeah I'm just poking around in this other hard drive now. It's a treasure trove in there. Most are too large to post.Caption: From peaks down at gunline.
Looks like the last ascent up Sparrowhawk East.
Last climb to Sparrowhawk West.
lolWonder what equipment donated the steel?
5-star accommodations up on Sparrowhawk West. Colloquially, we just called it "West" and that's how I'll refer to it from here on.
Tower on West
Buildings on West
A Mk19 pit on West. We had a lot firepower concentrated on that peak. I miss seeing half a dozen beltfeds open up on the same target after dark.
>>64523556it's just a premodern society, that's why attempts to impose modern structures piecemeal fail
Somewhere along the peaksWhat did we do with our casings, dead 1-use batteries, and all the other trash generated by operating in a conflict? Pitched it down the mountain, of course. Same as the Brits and Soviets too. We burned anything organic but the rest got tossed.If I can find a pic that captures the scope of the litter that blanketed the "fighting" sides of these mountains, I'll post it. It was astonishing.
Anyone still following? Don't worry about post limit. If we hit it and I have more, I'll roll another thread. I'd rather people who are following engage so I know you're there. Plus it's been helping to spur other memories.On West.
This guy took a pic of the shitter on West, but not one of the stunning view looking the other way. What an asshole.
We're getting into the grit now. Found the gore and stuff. Won't post that here though. And I found the entire original folder given by the SA journos. All the pics are like 15mb+ though.
>>64524610>do nothing but stare at the ceiling and think.what would you think about anon, if I may ask?also I really gotta know, how did you get access to nicotine
>>64524769Forgot to caption: The backroad up Shrine was generally considered to be safe, but Haji still got a bomb there somehow, right up the national police's backside. Hit one of their trucks as it returned.We patrolled out to see if they lived. In the right foreground is one of our terps, John Cena, and he looks to be holding a door handle from the ANP's Danger Ranger.
>>64524782Not a door handle, but maybe one of the interior "oh shit" handles behind the A pillars.Caption: Somewhere west of FOB, not sure what compounds this would have been.
>>64524745>Anyone still following?Hell yeah, keep going anon
>>64524773Oh who fucking know anymore. I'm a sperg though and I probably thought about guns and shit. No one back home worth thinking about at the time.An Osprey came roughly once a month with a few 3-walls of smokes, toiletries, and other convenience items. Energy drinks or gatorade sometimes. They brought some enlisted clerk with them that would deduct the cash value of your items from your pay. Wasn't a total ripoff either. Smokes were probably $4 a pack.Or if that was still too spendy, you could give $5 to one of our terps and they'd get you two fucking cartons of local haji smokes the next time they visited Kandahar.Caption: The infamous shitter stalls.
>>64524769>>64524782based john cenawere the terps generally better and more trustworthy than ANA guys?
>>64524773>also I really gotta know, how did you get access to nicotineanon, it all depends on where you were at. Majority of people were on the larger bases or a FOB and they had a PX. If you were stuck on a ridgeline doing overwatch you were lucky if you got mail, much less anything else other than bladders of fuel and ammo. I'm not OP, but I've been adding photos to the thread along the way and mentioned this in passing.
awesome thread man, Semper Fidelis
>>64521271>>64521358that's really cool, any kind of soviet memorabilia left over?
>>645248091000% yeah. They were great men, but piss poor Muslims lol. I never knew Cena's motivation for taking up the work, but I know Rambo was contracted to move he and his wife to the States after his term. I learned through squadmates on FB that he was unable to bring his wife over and they ultimately stayed. I wonder his fate from time to time.Caption: He always does.
I can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to dump pictures of his mates (without their permission) and these kids who will now be targets for some islamicist nutter for some insgram whoring level spactic ego freak out on this shithole. Shame on you OP, then again this is probably some unederage cunt or thief who is using someone elses photos. There is always a chance it is someone that fucking thick.
>>64524837no one cares retard.
Lots of videos of bombs and arty missions and A-10s that I'd have to format. And shit like picrel lol.
>>64524817Why do Afghans have to be such dicks to each other? That river is absolutely gorgeous.
>>64524837There are literally millions of pics like these on DVIDS. You sound retarded.
>>64524852Your mates know you are posting this shit here for your ego rush?Fucking retard.
>>64524837You clearly didn't read the entire OP, and your pettiness is unnecessary.
>>64524858Yeah I did. I'd be fucking pissed if I was in one of these posted here.
>>64524857I don't experience ego like most people do. Besides that, we all combined our pics with the shared understanding that they'd be posted anywhere for any reason. Nothing here has not been on the internet before, some in professional publications.Your anger is based on some premise that isn't even there. Going out of your way to be offended on someone else's behalf is pretty petulant as well. Now enjoy the pics or keep being a child. The choice is yours.
>>64524857
>>64524863I don't see you complaining on APnews or even Facebook about the pics posted there..
>>64524745Mallardfag here. Still following. Great thread OP. Doing Jod's work.
Breakmaker in Kanzi. Looks like he had customers that day. He kneeded the dough on a big stone slab with his bare feet, making a bread about and inch thick. How wide was the bread? About a foot.
>>64524848lol>>64524850That's actually the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the NWFP region. These >>64521426 are Pakis across the border.
Piss tubes, for those not familiar. Once in a while a corpsman goes around and dumps some chemicals down them. FOB was very male-centric.
>>64524850>Why do Afghans have to be such dicks to each other?Well, for starters there is no "Afghan" identity. You have three large ethnicities, and thousands of smaller ones. Afghanistan was never a country in the sense we think of, in a European/American nationalistic sense. It was whatever borderland in the mountains the neighboring powers couldn't take over, that sometimes some warlord would claim.The biggest ethnic groups are the Pashtuns, who are tribal and speak Pashto. Next up is the Tajiks, who are not tribal and speak Farsi. Then there's the Hazaras who are tribal, are the descendants of Mongols, speak Farsi, and are Shia. After that there's Turkic groups, and smaller Iranic groups (Baloch, Nuristani, Pamiri, etc). The Pashtuns don't really get along with the Tajiks because they have conflicts along cultural lines (tribal vs not), the Hazaras don't get along with anyone because they're the wrong religion and look different, the Pashtuns don't even get along with eachother because someone from that tribe killed someone's uncle 1500 years ago and they have been murdering eachother ever since, same goes for the smaller groups they're in their valley where they've lived for the last 4,000 years since the Aryans left the steppe and settled the region and don't really give a fuck what someone in the capitol says.The one and only unifying thread in Afghanistan for all these disparate groups is Islam (and even that can be a dividing factor when it comes to the Hazaras). Hence why the Taliban "works" and nothing else does.
>>64524904Based Haji knower. Excellent contribution, thank you.Running the South African folder through compression. Hopefully have those done soon.
>>64524903>Piss tubes>not spent AT4sanon -_->>64524904Thanks my guy, I didn't feel like giving a history lesson. Tajiks are based, the other two are faggots. Literally.
>>64524848https://github.com/chameleon-ai/webm-for-4chando this as long as it isn't over the duration limit. you can also open command prompt inside the folder with the script and type "python webm_for_4chan.py "DRAG FILE HERE" --no_audio size 4" without the quotes obviously replace DRAG FILE HERE with the file by drag and dropping it where that is writtenthis is if you want to post on /k/ or a board without audio. by default the script optimizes for /wsg/ 6mb with audio
>>64524922Missed opportunity.>>64524924I'm already confused by what you're trying to tell me, but I'll have to look through all the vids first and see which are even worth converting. It's not likely to be done today or soon.
>>64524874Big fuckinng ego alright and posting mates here without even asking. Yeah. I won't cop you on. You are what you are that's that's not a good thing. Think don't spam your mates faces around like dickshots retard.
>>64524932remember that it's better to have a smaller resolution to preserve quality if the video is too long because if the bitrate is too low and it's a long, high res clip you get really ugly smearing that makes it unwatchable
>>64524937anon, I'm the other anon posting the majority of the pics. They're already on the internet like OP said, and while I'm not posting specific things, there are still things that we can share for others to learn from. Shit, in six months AI will be able to just make up everything, so who fucking cares. Most of this stuff is 15 or so years old, and it's somewhat theraputic to teach and learn yourself from others asking their questions.
>>64524937I'm disengaging from you because you choose to remain choleric. You can obviously keep posting, I can't stop you, but I'm just going to hide your posts and continue.>>64524946Good tip and noted, thank you.
And we hit image limit. I'll work on the SA journo folder. If I can get a half decent compression on them, I'll look at rolling another thread.Thanks for the engagement, and all the excellent questions.
>>64524960>and it's somewhat theraputic to teach and learn yourself from others asking their questions.this is why i scoff at people who resort to 'just google it' whenever a question is asked
>>64524932>I'm already confused by what you're trying to tell meoh I will try and state it plainly as I candownload the script from the website install python if you don't have it alreadymake a folder and put the script in it make a .txt file inside that folderpython webm_for_4chan.py "%~1"paste that into it the .txt and save the file as a .bat you have to change save type from text document to all as shown in picrelnow if you want to upload to /wsg/ all you have to do is drag a video onto the .bat file in your folder and the script will calculate it for you as long as the duration of the file is not to long to be posted on 4chan and the file is not massive and impossible to scale down to that size it should just werk. I haven't figured quite figured out a drag and drop for /k/ webms but I can explain how to make them with only a little bit more ability if you'd likehttps://files.catbox.moe/i4gi2b.png is picrel btw
>>64522039I wanted to die. Or live to tell about shooting at someone while they're shooting me. Anything other than a pointless dead end job that I was going to do I until died. It wasn't that bad. I'm just disappointed, but I'm glad I went it. I can apply for VA benefits, and if I play sick good enough I'll get that phat check.
>>64525001>I can apply for VA benefits, and if I play sick good enough I'll get that phat check.you're gonna be pissed when you find out what rate all the niggers with shaving profiles are getting paid. >>64524982link the new thread here, I'll keep contributing what I can, but getting close to the bottom of the well for me with contributions about Afghanistan specifically.
based op
>>64524739MARPAT is so good.
>>64525073DSUs were my favorite. Never was a fan of any of the digi shit
>>64522522>jargon or acronyms>Can the neverserveds understand?Neverserved euro, but longtime /k/. Jargon and TLAs not an issue, but sometimes I do not understand the situations, e.g. "blowing/burning holes in lines" - like what "lines" and what was the deal?
>>64525093>"blowing/burning holes in lines"can you present an example in context please? I get the feeling OP signed off.
>>64524904don't forget the Uzbeks, there's about 4 million of them in the north! (no idea what their standing/role is with the other tribes though)
>>64525100They are one of the Turkic groups, yes
>>64525100They do their own thing up there.
>>64525083I like it too, but it can look worse than MARPAT in some situations. I was gonna post a pic but the image limit is reached.
>>64525123meant dcu, whatever. there was something about how they felt that was better than the bdus, and then the digi stuff.
>>64524982Thanks for the wonderful thread!
Fresh baked footbread>>64525142See late questions answered there.
>>64525097Sure. Right here >>64522392 in that post about fucking up the irrigation ditches
>>64524745Fuck yeah this is fascinating.
