***I guess if this thread lasts, others can dump LINKS to personal pics they want to show off (?)
But for now here are the requested pics of deploying...***

This is all Afghanistan in the Kandahar Province. This is during Operation Eduring Freedom II (2002-2003). This was my first deployment. It lasted 10 months, and a little publicized war in a place called Iraq (sp?) kicked off 4 months after we got there. This was in the good old days when you signed for a dude's body armor (sweat, stains, and all baby) when he was walking to the plane departing for the US, sleeping on bunk beds made of PVC pipes, and PS2 was TOP NOTCH technology. Hell I didn't even own a digital camera for this deploymenet

Durring this time frame I was a PFC, served as a MK19 gunner, assigned with the 118th Military Police Comapny (Airborne)

Heres a sampling enjoy.

 

Nice album!
Look like fun in the mud pit lol

And that sand house is cool! It looks like a life sized sand Castle lol

 

Yeah that mud pit was the very deffinition of not fun actually The dude on the roof was our interpreter. He garunteed he could guide us through that flood water river... He lied. Afghanistan is/was the most heavily mined country in the world. (i think it has slipped down to number 4... slackers) When it floods, along with normal nasty flood stuff, once a year it rearranges the lay out of some of those mines. Now fording the river and the mud baja course is a little less inviting

That sand castle looking house is how they did it up in the country side. Over the course of 4 or 5 months of patrolling I watched a guy cook his own mud bricks in homemade forms. He would stack them up and mortar them together with more mud. In the end the whole things is covered in mud siding and the sun bakes it dry. Brick by brick baby, Just like they did it 1000 b.c.


i'll share the first trip to iraq in a bit.

 

Well Thanks for your service!

 

x2

 

Thanks for posting them Curtis. I want more though! lol. These pics are great (well as great as they can be considering they are during war...) and it's great for you to share them.
You know if there wasn't a war going on Iraq/Afghan would be a really nice spot for photo shoots.
I'm calling you out to post more pics

 

LOL you are a picture vulture.

Thanks for the support guys. Believe it or not, this job is the easiest crap in the world. We aren't recruiting rocket scientist, brain surgeons, or the Engeineers the designed my failed Blazer. We are getting average slobs like me with no real drive in life that pissed away a shot at community college.
If you can show up on time, where you are supposed to be, and bring what you were supposed to have, you are a superstar in my line of work....

Any idiot can get shot at. We just try to weed out the few that will march to the sound of battle and kill anyone not dressed like them. We are well trained, heavily armed children and lack serious adult supervision. It just looks cooler than it is in movies

iraq dep 1 en route

 

Meh..I'm a picture vulture, you're a tow hook *****. We get along great...lol .

Say..hows that skid pl-- uhhh, nevermind.

 

I'll have to see if I can find the pics when I was in Iraq in '07.

 

Awesome. Would love to see some others on here. That way I will be forced to keep my stories believable. That way guys like you can back me up when i talk about the week long battle of Mahmudiyah when we were being overrun by Saddam clones and what not...