A Day Down Range

You probably see a lot of news about the war in the middle east and the coverage usually centers on the big picture so I thought I would show a few pictures of every day life and the little things which go unnoticed in the media. The picture to the right is of one of our .50 cal's with a small silly looking bird attached to the night vision scope. Some of the troops would have little toys like this and would put them in pictures to send home for their kids to see. Most of the time it was a toy which belonged to their child. I guess this gave some connection to home and vise versa                                

When we first arrived in country (very early stage of the war) the vehicles were not well armored, no bullet proof glass or ballistic pannels. This proved deadly so we engineered our own "hardening" from any scrap we could find. most looked like this. We welded panels over the doors and top and bottom of windshield. What you can't see is the 1/2 or 3/8 steel plates under the seats, by the time we finished a 6,000 lb Hummer weighed over 10,000 lbs. but hey it worked. Note double steel panels on doors, the first sheet of steel would deform the bullet and it would have a harder time penetrating the second sheet, there was about a one inch gap between them.

 When we were on convoys we would have to radio in reports at certain checkpoints to give status updates on things like ammo, fuel or if we had enemy engagement or medical evac. etc. These reports had acronyms to go by like LACE or SALUTE etc. some radio operators would write the format out on the inside of the windshield in grease pencil, this allowed them to call in reports without looking down at notes which was also a big help at night because we traveled totally blacked out using only NVG's but they could still be read.

 Many times when we moved about we carried interpreters with us and we knew from experience they could not be trusted  because we learned the hard way they might leak convoy plans to the enemy so we would keep them in their own tents and they would not be privy to any planning. Thus the need for this sign on  the outside of out "internet cafe" and phone center. There were no cell phones of any kind allowed in any camp. Some units used satellite phones but they were strictly controlled.