newsflash - there is no "rear" in the sandbox. There are no "front lines" for all intents & purposes because you are surrounded at all times from every direction. Nothing like having to pull over on the highway to let the "combat" troops go around you. Yes, the troops with tanks and high octane weaponry & shit who are supposed to get there first to protect your minimally armed ass are in your rear view window - what's wrong with this picture? And once you hang up your shingle and get your airfield setup (hard to disguise aircraft flying in & out) the fun really begins because you are patterned. Not everything & everybody can be flown in and out so you have to use roads - lotsa luck with those remotely detonated "shaped IED" attacks already discussed. And let's not forget Toyota pickup trucks driven by non-uniformed combatants/insurgents launching mortars then disappearing into the rest of the civilian population. Sure you can launch Apaches and hunt them down before they reach town but that's pretty hit-or-miss (no pun intended). Basically the sandbox is a whole nuther breed-of-cat from what you may envision from previous wars.
direct fire or indirect fire? Remote detonation bombs or manually? Suicide bomber shenanigans? Speaking of, these poor burger flippers got more than they bargained for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Forward_Operating_Base_Marez_bombing
Sure. I guess...but that means anybody who's been in an open market or disco in the ME has combat experience. You seem a little defensive. Were you a pogue? Because that's nothing to be ashamed of. Thank you for your service.
I explained this before - I was in an air traffic control unit when I was in Iraq. We were among the very first U.S. forces to roll into Iraq from Kuwait. Spoiler alert we weren't "the first" because when Bush said "let's roll" some folks had already "rolled" it just wasn't officially announced or broadcasted for security reasons. Anyway we set up remote airfields from scratch (in some cases) while providing our own security for better-or-worse, or we took over already existing enemy airfields and turned blown-up shit into a functional state. Our company commander's HUMVEE had a single shot .50 cal for defense. Yes, a single shot! Technically it was a functional .50 cal (borrowed from some other unit) but in reality it had major problems - such as only firing a few rounds before freezing up, eventually only firing one shot despite our armorer doing his best. Side note our unit armorer once brought his pre-teen sons in to work to help pass out M16's when we were still in Germany getting ready to deploy to the sandbox! I'm guessing that's not legal but fuck it I'm no lawyer so who knows? The most traumatizing thing to me (and I'm including having two guys in a HUMVEE getting snuck up on by insurgents and literally chopped up into pieces to the point where investigators could track what direction the bad guys went by the trail of body parts ) was watching Caddyshack II starring Jackie Mason. Was it wrong for me to pray for a mortar attack on our company AO to end my misery? Then guilty-as-charged!
You might be onto something, if only attacking and isolating Iran didn't strengthen Saudi Arabia. You remember Saudi Arabia, right? The guys that actually did 9/11?
Remembering the Iran of my yoot, when it wanted to be part of the world, before religion fucked it up. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/...nning-photos-reveal-life-Iran-revolution.html
No, it wasn't wrong of you. That would fuck anyone up. The problem you seem to be missing is that no matter what horrendous things were visited upon you it doesn't make you the victims. The people killing your friends were not terrorists or aggressors. They were the people of Iraq defending their homes from an invader and when they fought they didn't have tours of duty or safe homes to return to. The families raising children didn't get a discharge date and it wasn't a career for them. They didn't get to leave after however many months or years and spend the rest of their lives being told "thank you for your service" or treated like a hero. They just tried to rebuild what was left of their lives, only for another American bomb to start the fighting yet again. When people talk about Iran recently and refer to Soleimani as a terrorist they have used his actions against US troops as evidence. Doubtless the man was a terrorist and did some dreadful things, but creating bombs to target occupying forces in Iraq is not terrorism. It is warfare. In this case defensive warfare since he was aiding another nation against an invader. We all need to wake up and see the west's part in creating these conditions is something we still overlook in terms of it's scale and impact.
The real terror is that those guys are wearing MC Hammer pants and doing his classic leg pose. And that you won't be able to unsee that now I've pointed it out.
Well, what do you expect? Republicans spent the entire Obama administration screaming that he was a communist and America was becoming a socialist country ... and during that entire time, unemployment was going down, the stock market was going up, and the economy was growing. Is it any wonder that the word "socialism" lost a lot of its power as a bogeyman?
Now if only the U.S. would stay the hell out of it, they'd end up shooting each other. Which they tend to do anyway.
Radical Islam achieved it's current prominence after western powers worked over many years to defeat and discredit Arab nationalism. And the guy your clown of a leader just had murdered was at the forefront of the fight against jihadists. He more than anyone is the reason black flags aren't flying all over the middle east right now. Whatever else he might be guilty of.
meh-doesn't sound all that categorically different from setting up a festival sized concert other than the 'splodey things being in the same continent as you. My buddy Jake who's a sound guy was probably surrounded by more potentially armed aggressors on the last Michael Schenker tour when he went through some states... no rear in GHWB's GW v1.0... so you were surrounded 360 degrees by several layers of continually expanding defense? I mean, we're talking density (which I know you're familiar with), not shape. at least you did right by pulling over to let the people going to actually fight do their thing...
"The problem you seem to be missing is that no matter what horrendous things were visited upon you it doesn't make you the victims. The people killing your friends were not terrorists or aggressors. They were the people of Iraq defending their homes from an invader and when they fought they didn't have tours of duty or safe homes to return to. The families raising children didn't get a discharge date and it wasn't a career for them." - spot funny the Iraqi's I talked with were pretty fucking glad we were there trying to fuck up Saddam. They hated his regime and personally knew people whom his regime tortured, raped, robbed, etc. One of the buildings we took over as our AO had a big photography center, part of some intel operation. There were pictures of Saddam in it (really high quality propaganda pics) and some of our guys kept them as souvenirs. When the Iraqis working with us saw them they expressed their ample hatred toward him & his regime of oppression. But hey, your boots-on-the-ground experiences may differ.
"meh-doesn't sound all that categorically different from setting up a festival sized concert other than the 'splodey things being in the same continent as you. My buddy Jake who's a sound guy was probably surrounded by more potentially armed aggressors on the last Michael Schenker tour when he went through some states..." - spaceturkey yes it's almost exactly the same thing! I'm sure the death rate among U.S. military in the sandbox and music industry workers is almost identical. BTW the "splodey things" were up close & personal on a near-daily basis and a lot of folks got killed & maimed but I'm sure your buddy knows the drill on that. I hear "Wounded Music Workers" is a huge charity in Canada!
It doesn't strike you that there might be a reason they were the ones talking to you? As in, the ones who didn't want you there probably wouldn't be engaging you in chit chat but rather forming insurgencies, becoming terrorists or simply staying well away from you? You know, the ones shooting at you?
Funny how frequently the impressions gathered from @oldfella1962's self-serving anecdotes are entirely at odds with polling data, which is extensive.
@oldfella1962, you might only be able to access the abstract, not sure, but here's an insight into Iraqi perspectives on the US occupation based on what they were saying to each other, not an armed American. Interesting thing is that there was little correlation between generalised opinions on the US (which were mixed and often positive) and American policy in the Middle East (which was overwhelmingly negative). In other words even the Iraqis who like you didn't want you there.
Which also raises the question of how much those stories become contradictory when compared and contrasted. Remember when he was telling us about how dangerous Iraq was and the locals would chop up and mutilate US soldiers given a chance? It was a while back, mind you, at least 12 hours.
We should just give him and every trumpanzee a gun and some ammo and a one way ticket to the middle east. Fuck sending other people to fight glorious leader's war for him. The same should be done with every republican in congress if they vote against impeachment for the war criminal we have leading us. We had the same thing with Bush and before that in vietnam. These people are too stupid to be a part of the human race anymore and they should be on the front lines with their lives on the line. That is really what would fix their asses good. There is no cure for their idiocy, and the world could do without them. We get lower population, more jobs, and we eliminate their DNA from the gene pool. Not to mention they get to fight the war they want.
Impressive. @Marso, you managed to necro a thread from 10 years before WF was created. Did you happen to see any of the threads we lost during the server crash back in what, '08? Was before I joined, I know that.
It doesn't strike you that there might be a reason they were the ones talking to you? As in, the ones who didn't want you there probably wouldn't be engaging you in chit chat but rather forming insurgencies, becoming terrorists or simply staying well away from you? You know, the ones shooting at you? - spot the ones talking to us happened to be local workers that the U.S. hired (and hopefully vetted) so yeah, they did support/accept our presence there. They were taking a risk though, because if some of their neighbors who were not supportive of our presence found out they were working for us they might be killed, and indeed some were. Anyway funny story: the workers noticed that there wasn't air conditioning in the building/compound we took over and wired up for heavy duty power use. This was right around the time Baghdad was in chaos and looting and robbing was everywhere. So lo and behold, the workers show up with a couple of dozen brand new air conditioners they put into our sleeping areas windows for fifty dollars a pop including installation. Considering they got a "five finger discount" on them they made out pretty well on that deal! And the AC was greatly appreciated especially when we came back to the same building a couple of months later (after setting up an airfield near Syria) when it really started getting hotter.
You are correct, that seems to completely undermine @oldfella1962 's claim that it was popular. You do not get killed for doing the popular thing.
"categorically"... either way, you've managed to elude the question of how often you were (n)ever within range of enemy small arms fire fairly nicely during your highly hazardous duties of setting up electrical equipment. I mean, less than 400 US casualties out of over 700 000 in GW v.1, right? Statistically, stage crew workers do have a higher death rate.
Yeah, my grandfather served during the korean war. However, he did not see a lot of combat being stationed in europe.
