Forum: Air Force Life

TC wrote:

Hey Mike, I notice in your pics from ODS, that you, Stutler, and some of the others are wearing standard BDUs. Did you guys not receive "Chocolate Chips" during the war?

Laughing

Geez, a pi$$ pot and an A1, with no body armor. That'd be about my d@mn luck. Rolling Eyes

Yes, we were a thousand little bushes scurrying around the desert with our woodland BDU's. Of course being as we spent the majority of our time on the concrete ramp in a fairly well built up area on base the camo probably wouldn't have done all that much anyway. The only ones issued chocolate chips were the SP's and EOD, who tended to spend more time out on the 'terrain' (same with the kevlar pots, flak vests and nighttime desert 'parkas'...) Well, I take that back, everyone who worked in supply also seemed to be 'kitted out' pretty well.

In the woodland we did feel pretty 'exposed' out by the runway for decon though, especially when we had the little gunfire incident, where we all tried to instantly make like gophers, as I was on the 'brick' to MOC:
"MOC, Decon 1. There's somebody shooting out here..."
"Say again Decon?"
I'll write more later...

I found that my summer weight BDU's lasted an even shorter time on the ramp in the sand than they did back at TJ, and within a couple of months mine were looking pretty ragged - and supply couldn't get replacements, so I mail-ordered a set of chocolate chips and a boonie hat from Brigade Quartermaster (http://www.actiongear.com) who gave us a really good deal on stuff mailed to the Gulf. Uniforms were defiantly a 'low priority' (as opposed to some of the stories that I've heard about al Udeid today) - I wore the deserts for months without name & USAF tapes or rank and my Fairbairn-Sykes knife on the belt - and no one ever said anything...

Old steel helmets as well with out M-16A1's (we could have stepped right out of SEA - except for all the frickin' sand). I wish I could find the picture, someone had donated a WWII photo book to our base library, and we noticed a shot from the Pacific with a group of guys washing their socks in the helmets out in front of their tent - so we recreated the same thing (except with clean socks, damn, we had to wear those helmets...)

Mike

3.7 million pounds of ordinance, 1303 sorties, 42 days. The 'Forgotten 1000'.
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Ah, the good ol' GI ingenuity at its best!

You know, I still see guys in OIF footage (mostly Army), who have to wear mixed uniforms. They'll have on DCUs, or ACUs, and then have BDU body armor or helmets. Good thing the branches are phasing out the BDUs. We need to be geared more towards going to the desert, and I think that's what they're finally trying to do.

Then again, just like with the title of this thread, one can never tell what will happen...