Old >>64521167Continuation of Afghan pic and story thread. Contributions and questions welcome.OP's Note: Nothing I am posting is new to the internet. The pics I'm sharing this thread were taken by the photographer in the South African journo team that embedded with us. If I knew his name, I'd credit him loud and proud. I will take no measures to censor anything as it detracts from the image and omits the human elements.
weirdo (probably canadian) poster trying to troll with my opsec can go ahead and stay outta this onethanks nerd>>64525142glad youre continuing
>64525024Thanks for the pics you've posted already. Been appreciated.>64525093That was a typo, my mistake. I meant to say treeline there. Along most of the larger irrigation ditches, the banks are lined with trees. Their roots hold the banks, and their shade is valuable too. These treelines and the ditches they follow were often chokepoints for us, and the most common spots to find or get hit by IEDs.Caption: Some locations I can only infer by the photographer's filenames. This is confounded because he was incorrect with a few. I believe this to be close to Shrine, west maybe.
>>64525170Messed up the post references.Picrel is an example of a treeline crossing. They varied. I realize that the ditch is kinda the main feature and not the trees, so why call it a treeline? I think it's because we mostly saw and thought of them from the peaks above, where you mostly just see trees. It made more sense to think of them in that sense.We subdivided them and named the different segments after colors, black, blue, green, so on. They appeared on all the range cards in the posts and were the landmarks by which we navigated in that part of the AO.
At top left of pic you can see some of the structures up on Sparrowhawk East.
The kids were pretty cutthroat with each other, at least by western norms. Older kids would throw elbows at or kick the little ones to take some candy or a marker we had handed them.Would occasionally witness some of their parenting too. Didn't see much in the ways of compassion or understanding. At least not outside their homes. Lots of getting beaten with a flip flop though.
Presumably west of PB Shrine.
>>64525238The chancla transcends culture.
Oh and if the narrative isn't clear from the filenames, there was TIC on the way to a pow-wow at some compound. The journo must have thought that significant and named the whole folder "gun fight".
>>64525219Great pic!
What was the food situation like for you? Did you eat a lot of MREs? Do you have a favorite MRE?
We referred to the portion of irrigated land in the southern portion of the AO as the greenzone. Sparrowhawk West loomed over it.You could get away with a little more bullshit up on West than about any other position. Command rarely wanted to make the trek over there to check on things personally, so conformity to shaving and uniform regs relaxed while there typically.
Have some vintage photo. Posting my dad (in the center) in 1980 Afghanistan.
>>64525285If you were at the FOB, the chowhall served daily breakfast and dinner of mostly rehydrated freeze dried rations. But it approximated real food and the hot sauce was plentiful. Lunch was always expected to be an MRE for everybody. On some holidays, small quantities of actual meat were flown in. We had turkey on turkey day, ham on Christmas, and steak and lobster on the USMC birthday. If you were on West it wasn't feasible to get the food out there really so you were SOL. A bud and I cooked the squad's lobster tails on Athens. Never cooked lobster before. Despite the tough, often freezerburned nature of these things, they were welcome and I do think it provided a morale bump.On one rotation at West all we had was the remnants of a big wooden crate of those fire team size MREs. I do not remember what they were called. Meant to feed a couple dudes. The only menu left was Szechuan chicken, so that's what we ate for the month.Great question. Thanks for asking.Caption: Another treeline crossing. Real easy to get slowed way down in them, especially when that heavy.
>>64525285>What was the food situation like >for you?Not OP, the other anon. Totally depended on where you were. Nobody ate MREs unless they had too. Smaller FOBs might have like powder eggs for breakfast, but at a larger base you get real eggs. Most larger places had surf and turf every week. SOTF had shrimp cocktail on ice at the salad bar every night. Nothing was 'standard' over there. Pic rel a third serving of breakfast, my dessert for the morning if you will. KAF had three distinctly different DFACs. I'd go to one in the morning and get a plate of half a dozen egg omlette with everything in it, next would be a full plate of fresh fruit, and then the pancake honey hazelnut peanutbutter and bacon sandwiches. Lunch would be a huge salad and a huge plate of fried rice with everything in it. Dinner was whatever. Point was we were eating good if we were in the right place.
>>64525142thread stinks, something off here
>>64525344>>64525355Thanks for the insights. My favorite is the Mexican Chicken Stew or the Beef Goulash.
>>64525285Oh so yeah, MREs. Yes, ate one roughly every day, sometimes more if not at the FOB. I do not have strong food preferences. Especially under the circumstances, it was just sustenance to me. I looked for macros and tended to eat the leftover menus. I ate a lot of Veggie Omelets. Unless it is actually vile to eat I don't really care.Myself and others would occasionally pilfer the NATO stockpile for halal and Brit MREs for some variety though. The jewish ones come with bagel chips lol.>>64525341Incredible. Can you share anything about his time there? Thanks for posting.Caption: You can spot Tower and the tops of other posts up on Sparrowhawk West in the upper left.
>>64525371>The jewish onesthose and the vegie ones were ironically the best imo, the fucking bastards
>>64525355Thank you for pointing that out. Absolutely, at Leatherneck and Manas we ate like fucking warlords or something compared to Zeebrugge. Take as much damn steak as you want and have a box of 100 candy bars to go too.
To OP but open to anyone really.I know we are on /k/ but after your service, do you continue to train and carry weapons? Do you own an AR-15, either built or out of the box? If you do own weapons, how do they compare to your service weapons? My understanding is the weapons you use in the military can often be pretty clapped out and with the exception of full auto, a midrange AR is nicer than a rack grade M4. And any Beretta is miles nicer than the M9s that have been in service since Desert Storm.
>>64525384newer is always better. we replace uppers and lowers for a reason. >do you continue to train and carry weapons?Ironically, no. Never really had a reason to, I don't live in an area where they're really needed and I got all that outdoors shit out of my system by my 30s. Call me soft or whatever, would I buy an AR? Maybe. What am I using it for? Target practice? I know how to shoot. >with the exception of full autoagain, I had a Mk14 issued to me, why would I want to have a downgrade?Don't misunderstand, if I need a firearm I can get access to one pretty quickly, and I have friends that build their own from scratch. I just don't feel the need to constantly wear one like a piece of clothing where I reside.
>>64525376Deets on the vic? Used as an on-base shuttle, or did that leave the wire?>>64525384Shooting with friends continued as a hobby for years after. Lots of ARs have come and gone. I do maintain a few yet with a PC and some other basics. But family, career, and other hobbies occupy me more now so the arsenal largely just collects dust and kills my deer in the autumn. Once in a while I'll get the itch to plink cans with the glock but not frequently anymore.You are correct about service weapons typically being clapped. But again that's conditional. I'd bet the other primary contributor here probably saw a good share of brand new stuff. Our M9s were used to drive fenceposts, rifles got dropped and knocked over, they're out with us in every type of weather. They get beat on. Confirm your zero and carry on.Caption: When going to the greenzone, bringing a ladder was typical. Useful for making your own treeline crossings and gaining access to the upper levels of compounds without necessarily having to enter them.
Another frame from the one controlled det I detailed in previous thread.
>>64525416>Deets on the vic?Was actually hoping that the Russian that posted that pic of his dad might know. It was a running leftover relic from the Soviets that I came across in Farah. It was used for a variety of things but I never had the opportunity to drive it.
>>64525433Neat nonetheless. Hope that guy comes back.
