VETS, show a pic while in the Service..and show some Pride

Me in Iraq 07-08 and this is what we looked for.

 

GITMO 2003-04, Army (Looking lost)



Ramstein AFB, Germany 2010 - Air Force (Headed to Balad, Iraq)

 

Middle fingers don't strike me as showing pride. lol

 

pride reinstated

 

Heres one while on mission.. Hard to get a none shaky picture on those roads in Afghanistan!

 

Were you (or are you) Coast Guard? A great friend of mine was...he went to the Coast Guard Academy and was at Kodiak for part of his time in. Coasties do some neat stuff that I never knew about 'till my buddy was in and he told me about some of the stuff he did...drug interdiction, boardings in the Gulf, etc.

 

A few pics from my career...I'm retiring in a few months.

Me and my team...photo day right before we left Afghanistan.


My team and the Italians we worked with. Made life interesting not having an Italian-English interpreter...we had to depend on one guy on my team who spoke some Spanish, and sometimes they'd have someone who spoke some English.


About to head out for a stroll through the neighborhood...


A Christmas tree we got in the mail...


And it wouldn't be a deployment without one of these things going off. We were all ok. The driver of the remaining bits...not so much.


I swear...both in Iraq and Afghanistan, when we got hit (or whenever anyone else got hit), it was always a friggin' Toyota! One of my guys actually e-mailed Toyota and asked them why Toyotas were the suicide bomber's vehicle of choice. Never got a response...

 

thanks for sharing your pics. what you posted about working with the Italian dudes reminded me of this...lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JhuOicPFZY

 

Nice POS M-ATV You got there! Those things are death traps! Sure hope you didnt go driving around RCPs in those! We were always going out and recovering M-ATVs and clearing routes. Sure did love my DO7! ... I miss Afghanistan..

 

Yeah it was funny sometimes. One day we were planning a base defense exercise in which we came under attack. We used every word we could think of...training, practice, exercise, drill, not real, etc. Well...a few fast-movers on standby, nearest quick reaction force spun up, and a phone call from my boss later, we learned that the message didn't quite make it through clearly.

 

Yessir, I was in from 2005-2011. Had a great time, was in Kodiak myself for 2.5 years.

 

I wasn't a fan...I'd have rather had at least MAXX-Pros or Caymans, Cougars...pretty much anything else. But I didn't have a choice. I especially hated the ones with the CROWS...CROWS would be great for a static defensive position, but not on a vehicle. At least I had a couple of turret vehicles.

RCPs used to come out to where I was at now and then. It was pretty funny...I was WAY the hell out in the middle of nowhere (any further west and it would have been a serious international incident), and the RCPs would have to stay overnight. Once they realized that I appreciated them coming out, took good care of them, fed them well, gave them buildings (and sometimes even beds) to sleep in etc, they started coming out much more often.

Where were you at? Like I said, I was waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy out west.

 

my outstanding military bearing. ha, luckily i worked with people with a great sense of humor. this is Capt. Blas presenting my "awards"


apparently reading this in the office was frowned upon

met john kerry... dude would not stop talking

the only time i got to drive a a humvee

last picture is in Kuwait, the others are Kabul Afghanistan

 

I have a ton of them but this is the only one I have on TW, I am the one on the left with a little bit of metal in me after being cleaned up for evac. This was from earlier this deployment and today I get on a bird to head to Merica

 

a few weeks after this picture I stepped on a land mine and lost my leg. Still doing what I do those bastards will not stop me or Any of my brothers. Happy Veterans Day to all past present and future.

 

Funeral detail honor gaurd.

 

Great pics guys.

Thanks for your service and sacrifice.

 

Happy Veteran's Day to all of my fellow Vet's out there. God Speed my brothers and sisters.