It was a different time.
Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Private SNAFU
Saturday, November 19th, 2016WL Gore & Associates, Inc – ECWCS Prototype
Friday, November 18th, 2016
I’ve seen Extreme Cold Weather Clothing System prototypes. Hell, I was issued one while assigned to 3ID LRS in the late 80s, but the ones I’m familiar with were all made by Raven Industries in South Dakota. During my visit to the WL Gore & Associates, Inc mothership in Maryland, I spied this garment on display.
It shares many of the traits of the ECWCS parka prototype I wore, although the face fabric was a better print, with true Woodland pattern coloring instead of the bright Green and light Brown of the prototypes we used at 3ID LRS. Interestingly, the hung liner is Green, rather than Brown, but the front closures are Velcro and the shoulder pocket is on the right side rather than the left like other developmental variants. While the rank tab has an exposed snap rather than the covered ones in later variants, the pocket layout was also true to the issue garment with handwarmer pockets and internal Napoleon pockets.
What’s really interesting about this garment, dating from 1983-84, is who made it.
Marmot did quite a bit of work early in this war, but I had never seen any of their work for the military dating back that far. Has anyone else run across one of these?
Update: This jacket was owned by Marine Nick Allen, formerly on the Gore military team and currently with Camelbak. It’s a Marmot jacket, referenced in the comments. Love the seam sealing.
Kickstarter – Last Flight Of The Vulcan
Sunday, November 13th, 2016As a kid the RAF Vulcan was my favorite bomber. Probably because of its huge batlike structure, but also because I got to check out the cockpit on quite a few occasions because my dad’s wing would deploy to RAF Waddington regularly and they’d send a Vulcan across to our annual airshow so he knew many of their maintainers.
Fans of the Vulcan know that the type made its last flight just over a year ago with airframe XH558. Artist Nick Harrison commemorates the event with this Kickstarter campaign. It’s a great looking print.
SSD Saturday At The Movies – The M-151A2
Sunday, November 13th, 2016Tonight’s features is a short, an Army training film on the M-151A2 ‘Jeep’. The Jeep was just transitioning out of service as I entered the Army. It was a capable beast and great on narrow roads and trails, but it was prone to rollovers and not very safe. Please enjoy the Army classic.
Happy Birthday Devil Dogs!
Thursday, November 10th, 2016Since 1775, Marines have been there when your nation called.
On behalf of the United States of America, Thank You!
USCG Beach Patrol – 1941
Sunday, October 30th, 2016
Operation Urgent Fury
Tuesday, October 25th, 2016
On the morning of October 25th, 1983 America awoke to reports that our troops had invaded a small Caribbean nation named Grenada in order to liberate American medical students from danger posed by political instability. Joined by Regional Security System troops from a variety of Caribbean partner nations they swiftly overwhelmed the Grenadian and Cuban troops. While Operation Urgent Fury was in name, a joint force operation, and included the use of Special Operations Forces, it highlighted many interoperability issues such as use of joint operational overlays and communications issues.
Several stove pipe issues suffered by the pre-Goldwater-Nichols military were identified during this operation. Additionally, Urgent Fury was conducted with many systems still in use which dated from the Viet Nam war. Our next time at bat, in Panama, saw several new weapons developed during the Reagan buildup such as the F117 stealth fighter and the Marine Corps LAV. Grenada was a great learning experience for the US military as it highlighted issues with joint service operations, particularly in the comms arena as well as interoperability between Special Operations and General Purpose forces. For example, SOF also took a much more prominent role in operation Blue Spoon during the Panama invasion. We’ve come even further in the past three decades.
Finally, as with any conflict, lives were lost. Let us not forget the 19 Americans killed in action and the 116 who were wounded. Unfortunately, there were also 24 Grenadian civilians also killed in the conflict.
Those Were The Days
Sunday, October 23rd, 2016
