C troop 1989 to 1991. Brave Rifles!
Ken
1 Like
Veterans!
Missed ya by a year or so.
Used to love saluting non-cav officers at the PX and belting that out, they’d stop halfway through saluting, all confused, wondering what the hell I just yelled at him 
1 Like
Not dissimilar to greeting leg officers with “Airborne!” ; “Airborne all the way!”; or “SF leads the way!”
But back to the topic at hand - is it possible troops stored $#!+ wherever they could find space?
2 Likes
Never aimed one on a 113. But if it sucked just as much to jump one would not want to.
1 Like
Of course. The Load Plan in the -10 say one thing, unit SOP says another, and mission, situation, etc. dictates something else. I do remember just throwing them into the back of our track on one exercise. Although we were well understrength at the time as a squad, so there was not so much gear in the track… not to mention much of the fancy stuff dictated in the load plan such as LAWs, mines, full ammo and ration loads…
3 Likes
Bear in mind that I was asking specifically about scout configured M113s…
Unlike the standard infantry carriers, the scouts generally had a crew of five/six so there was less personal kit to stash (all things are relative of course - it was still a very cramped environment).
The official stowage arrangements for the M175 mount were hardly sophisticated. Having that swinging around in the crew space is never going to be popular.
If you pair this with the internal stowage drawing below, most of the ‘extra’ space created by having fewer bodies in the box has been re-purposed anyway.
3 Likes
Yes I was. I was a 19D in Alpha troop in ‘83 and ‘84 when they were in El Paso. I had a camera, so took a bunch of pictures if you are interested. Here’s a couple…
7 Likes
Love your pics, just passed through Alamogordo a few weeks ago, and up through the mountains past White Sands, was flooded with memories of gunnery, Dona Ana base camp, and being in the field out there. Tried to explain it all to my wife, to no avail! 
2 Likes
I volunteered to go to Iraq early to get away from gthere…
5 Likes
Dang!
I must be demented, I enjoyed gunnery 
4 Likes
I was traveling thru that area last year at this time. Actually was raining quite a bit.
3 Likes
El Paso was my favorite duty location, and I was in West Germany for two years (which was amazing). In the desert no ones own the land, so you can dirt bike, camp, it feels open. Wildlife is abundant, even more so than in the woodland of Minnesota, where I grew up. I owned a dirt bike, a baja bug, and a Honda Interceptor when I was stationed there. The problem with Fort Bliss was the leadership. We had to buff our floors every night, for daily morning inspections. When I got to Germany, there was none of that. It was all business.
Nice thing about El Paso is the winters - they last two weeks. I will say this, though, that I’ve never been colder than I was during a maneuver down there. The tracks don’t have heaters. In Germany a broken heater means the track is not combat ready, so they kept them fixed. At Fort Bliss, someone told the brass that the desert never gets cold. We froze our ass off in rainy 35F weather, stuck out there for weeks, no fires allowed, just freeze your wet ass off, and try to grin and bare it.
6 Likes
I didn’t care so much about the weather, although it was hotter than balls that summer before we deployed.
We had no internet, no cell service. I had my car with me so I kept myself entertained on nights we weren’t training, I did not care for the swamp coolers. You wake up feeling slightly damp. The extremely large rattlers we encountered every few days weren’t a problem - we can eat those. But the rabbits, which were everywhere, are a poor dietary choice. Ah, and the tiny gym sucked. We hung rings from our barracks ceiling. We all had to do ten pullups every morning to make up for the lack of equipment.
I will say they had a first rate shoot house, and an excellent flat range for long distance work, but so did Iraq…
2 Likes
I caught one of those rattlers, and yeah we ate it. Took a morning walk to take a dump, and found a rattler all curled up still sleeping. Took it back to show John (the guy with the 60 above). We were holding it, showing it to various people when someone said “Tops coming!” Of course, messing around with snakes is an automatic article 15, so we pulled a huge pair of scissors out of a drawer in the tool truck, and sniped that head right off. We ate it, fried it on a tanker bar over a fire. Tasted like crap - really greasy. I wanted the skin, so skinned it. It didnt’ dry right, because I didn’t know what I was doing.
1 Like
Salt from the mess hall. Piss as well. A few of our guys kept them, I still have one I’ve thought of using for a hat band.
1 Like
Thus, “Snake Eaters”.
KL
1 Like
Salt packs from MREs. That’s how I preserved a rattlers skin that I took at NTC long ago. Gave the rattle itself to a buddy involved.
2 Likes