Yes that's a miss. Somewhere today a wife is very happy.

Might want to put some new drawers on as well. Where was that at? One of my ROTC instructors is SF and had a platoon from 1/6 attached to him in A-stan. The Marines at first refused to leave their body armour at home but couldn't keep up with his SF A-team and their indigs. So they eventually had to leave their body armour at their FOB. The mountains are just to steep and high near the border.

I have a friend who was with 2/75 Rangers and said the same thing no body armour. Too much weight. So I was just wondering if that's why he didn't have body armour on.

My philosophy was always when it's your time it's your time. An entire of suit of armour wont protect you. Could have adopted that attitude from my bullriding.

I'd have to agree while with a scout platoon or in a STA platoon we RARELY AND i DO MEAN RARELY wore flaks and helmets when workin. The weight wasn't worth it and if you needed it means you screwed up and the word was....RUN LIKE HELL!!! lol

Outside the Wire without full PPE was a Battalion Level NJP during my last deployment.

Like I've never been to A-Stan. Both deployments were to Iraq. What my instructor makes sense. In order to successfully hunt your prey you have to be able to catch him and if you have armor on and he doesn't that wont happen. They were also near the Paki border (and on the other side) where it's really mountainous where because of the terrain they were forced to leave their armor at home.

Ahill where were you guys at in A-stan. Was it super mountainous? I'm not trying to talk shite. I'm just curious since I've never been there.

quote:

Originally posted by cwubullrider:
Like I've never been to A-Stan. Both deployments were to Iraq. What my instructor makes sense. In order to successfully hunt your prey you have to be able to catch him and if you have armor on and he doesn't that wont happen. They were also near the Paki border (and on the other side) where it's really mountainous where because of the terrain they were forced to leave their armor at home.

Ahill where were you guys at in A-stan. Was it super mountainous? I'm not trying to talk shite. I'm just curious since I've never been there.

I wasn't in A-stan bro, I was referring to OIF when I was in Iraq. Which was a month ago.

Oh that makes sense. Yeah everyone wears their PPE off base. In 2004 we wore that stuff on base most of the time as well. The topic was about wearing body armor outside the wire in A-stan. That's why I was confused.

Hill you and the Bros keep wearing your PPE. If the SOB outruns you then he outruns you but you still live to fight another day and rotate home alive!

With all due respect Brother CWU, any Marine who won't hump his body armor in the hills for any reason has no business being in command of anything. Thats a crock because every leader's primary responsibility is the survival of their Marines. If they get away - they get away. It happens. Well planned and executed flexible strategies win battles, not overly aggressive tactics which get good Marines killed.

Sooner or later the hostiles can dial anyone in and when they catch you flat footed without your PPE a lot of good men die because over amped leaders get sloppy. Its hard enough to survive out there without our own people making it worse thru bad decisions. A-Stan, Iraq or Vietnam makes no difference. The men always come first!!!!!!

I totally agree with you Deano. What my instructor and others have said is the mountains are too steep over by the border to operate with all that body armor on. Too many heat casualties. You can't fight the enemy if everyone has an IV in. The only time they didn't wear their PPE was when they were going up and down, up and down all those steep mts. When they patrolled the villages etc they wore their ppe. Like I said before I can only speak from what others have told me. Both my tours were in Iraq where its flatter than the great plains. In OIF 2 we had our PPE on inside and outside the wire.

Thank God CWU. I worry that you Brothers listen and buy into that maddness which only serves to get you hurt or worse. If the hills are that steep, use the frickin' toys because thats why we have helos and all that good stuff. If command says no, then request mast up the chain until you get the support you need. It wouldn't be the first time grunts took operational concerns to higher headquarters in order to save brother's lives. You're all much too important to be thrown away with that "you're expendable" crap they tried to feed us and we outright rejected. There are NO expendable Marines!

I'm actually very thankfull that we have the PPE we have now. I watch war movies and I wonder how the hell did you guys fight without that stuff on. When I came back home the second time I honestly felt a little naked without my vest, kevlar and especially my weapon. I've seen a guy take a round in the chest and all that happened was he got the wind knocked out of him because he had his vest on. W/O that vest he'd of most likely died almost instantly. I'm sure everyone on here has witnessed events where if it wasn't for the vest or the kevlar (especially the new ones)the guy would have been killed.

As far as Afghanistan in some instances I'm sure it is safer to not have all that weight. Because in some instances speed is safer than being weighed down. I say some meaning a few instances.

We always wore all of our ****, had to train yourself to haul *** in all your gear. Only things that were optional were the throat/nut protectors unless you were in a vehicle. A couple of our Snipers got the ok to try out some plate carriers during the first month, after a couple of dudes got lit up and one guy took a round directly in the back (sapi saved him) they were fully geared from then on. It wasn't that bad to tear up a mountain in your body armor: Mountain Fun , what doesn't make sense is the way they are talking like they want to win a foot race. Let them try and run, I don't know what they were doing but we always had some ****hot mortarmen with us or called in arty/air and enjoyed the show, they rarely got very far. The ol' adage work smarter not harder came into play a lot over there.

Iraq looks just like that. Except for all those mountains. If you look on a map of Iraq I think there's only like three countour lines in the country.

Anyone from 90-91 remember the rock quarry that was straddlin the main MSR and all we had was what one Regiment in country? 2/7 (deployed the day after my b-day August 18th) forget who else were there,1/7? I'm almost positive &th RCt was there first at the port. sleepin in those goddawful warehouses sweatin our asses off. first Task force ripper then they turned us into Task force grizzly so ripper could shoot the hell out of us after we breached the minefield?

Remember them Army bozos goin' around askin for ammo cause all they had was like a mag or 2 I was laughin my *** off. Or the stewardesses (think that's how ya spell it) sayin please put yer guns under yer seats and everyone was roarin laughin.

Gotta say though them Air Force weenies look gay as hell and you sqiddly types too but you had the gear on the ground for us and I was happy as hell you did. I that dumbass saddam had come rippin down that MSR he would have ripped us a new A**. We didn't have squat that would scratch some of that heavy armor.

More power to you young bucks over there now, you keep whoopin *** and takin names!!