Pics of the Deuce I drove in the first gulf war.

[ida34]

This picture below is at our camp in the middle of the Saudi desert where we waited 7 months to start the ground war. I was in country in August with the advance units of the 18th Airborne Corp. When we arrived we were a few units in the middle of the desert. By the time we left for the ground war we had constructed a little city that comprised the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters.

The first picture below is looking at my deuce with water buffalo. The camo net is not up. I had it rigged as a garage. By the looks in the picture I would guess we had a sand storm and took the net down before the storm took it down. You can see my fox hole in the middle of the picture and the porch of my tent at the left. It was built with end curtains.

The second one is when we were getting our trucks lined up to be put on the ship as we were departing the county in April 1991.

The last one is me, my deuce, and my rifle.

 

[David_4x4]

Awesome pics!

 

[BKubu]

Very cool to see the trucks doing what they were really designed to do. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

 

[ida34]

I've got more of captured Iraqi equipment and the carnage of t-72's with the turret departed. When I get them scanned I will share.

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

I spent from late August 90 through May of 91 in the same neck of the woods and have commented on how the dust in Saudia Arabia caused many problems. The one thing I did not do was take many pictures and I have always regretted that for what I saw you might not belive in many cases. Thanks for posting these and the rest especially for your service. Did you pass through the ROM at the birm? I might have seen you drive through. On one day while taking some AT-4's up to a forward unit I got stopped on the return by the MP's who blocked the road (mostly a sand trail) I came up on. I asked them why I could not go and they told me the engineers found a bunch of mines in the road. I still thank God for that safe trip.

 

[BKubu]

I concur on the sand eating equipment up. Although I was/am not in the Army, I have two M1009s that I believe were there (both have the inverted V's on the doors and tailgate, and both were painted tan in 1990). There was also a bunch of fine talcum-like dust in places where you wouldn't think sand or dust could get. Anyway, the front right hub on one of the trucks went bad. When it was taken apart, there was all kinds of fine sand in it. I ended up just swapping out the whole front axle with a brand new one purchased from John Winslow. You can't beat having a brand new front axle, hub to hub, for $350.

 

[Armada]

Great pictures Chuck! Glad you are keeping a couple of the old 'war horses' operational now that you are back to civilian life. I look at it as a tribute to our past, present and future soldiers.

 

[ida34]

I spent from late August 90 through May of 91 in the same neck of the woods and have commented on how the dust in Saudi Arabia caused many problems. The one thing I did not do was take many pictures and I have always regretted that for what I saw you might not believe in many cases. Thanks for posting these and the rest especially for your service. Did you pass through the ROM at the birm? I might have seen you drive through. On one day while taking some AT-4's up to a forward unit I got stopped on the return by the MP's who blocked the road (mostly a sand trail) I came up on. I asked them why I could not go and they told me the engineers found a bunch of mines in the road. I still thank God for that safe trip.

I was with the 101st Airborne AASLT. We went way out east and waited on the border for the show to begin. A couple of times we crossed over at night to support SF missions. This was before the ground war kicked off. We had no birms where we entered Iraq. We did have a road the engineers were cutting for us on the way north to cut off the retreat of the Iraqis toward Bagdad. I saw many unexploded ordinance by the side of the road and we did not dare to leave the road. We were told we would probably hear a very load boom if we did. Rolled right through what was left of several Iraqi tank positions. They had them dug in and most of the turrets were about 10 feet outside the birm. I never saw Kuwait except to see the dark sky of the oil fires. I was on towed M198 artillery 155mm so if we were close enough to see enemy something was wrong. Mostly we were given fire missions to take out tanks painted with lasers (Glids if I remember correctly). We were fired upon by Iraqi artillery once. Our radar brothers tagging along picked up the projectiles in flight and tracked them back to the source. By the time the Iraqi battery was trying the second adjust mission we were firing back for effect. The Iraqi captain said all of a sudden things started blowing up around them. They learned not to shoot at us because they would give their positions away. I loved those radar units.

Ditto on the dust. It got in everything. I still to this day can't understand why they issued us jungle boots when the desert warfare manual clearly said to use anything but jungle boots. By noon my feet would hurt from all the sand forced into my boot under my foot through the jungle boot drain holes. I was lucky. I was a driver so I drove the supply truck (the deuce above) until it kicked off then I went to the gun line and drove the 900 series five ton with the howitzer behind. I took some pictures of what the guys in the back looked like after we stopped a few times. We also did not button up the rear. We had the rearmost bow taken off and the canvas rolled back. This was so the air guard could stand up with the M-60 laid out on the canvas and camo net. We had plywood sheets under our canvas on top of the bows. I will have to get busy with the pictures. I see all these videos from guys over there now and it really brings me back.