"Where were you?....." Topic

…23 years ago today?….

I was in a TC's hatch of an M113 filled with more radios and had more antennas sticking out than I had even thought possible.

CEOI/SOI around my neck and a map in my hand…and everywhere…vehicles…and sand….and was moving Northward….pumped on adrenaline…

I don't think I slept more than six hours for the next 3 days….

Hooah…

Facing a room full of expectant 7th graders pumped on caffeine drinks and sugar. I was nervous and apprehensive on a sub-zero temperature day, but I survived…
I teach, therefore I am.

In the Main Communications Office, HMS Nottingham, with my feet up on the Rating in Charge desk, twiddling my thumbs and wondering what to do with my radio crew as we had been at absolute radio silence for 48 hours…

In the end we just sat and watched the F111s doing their stuff on the TI LR displays.

And drank absolutely heroic amounts of tea…

London, chatting to people who had been "guests" in a certain country!

Tally Ho!

Stationed at a supply depot near Harrisburg PA, waiting for orders to go overseas.

In a C-130 delivering missiles to A-10 FOLs.

I was going to pick my mustang up from the shop, being denied jobs because I might deploy, even though IRR and was in a non-deployable MOS……that did deploy when I was leaving.

Probably out in the field at Fort Polk, LA, as we (5th Mech Div) trained up our National Guard round-out brigade. By the time the ground war started (and ended), I was at Fort Hood with the division advanced CP controlling the final training exercises for the guard brigade.

Jim

I was trying to collect on the bad loans that my bosses were making. I heard about it on the radio.

Senior in high school, headed out to play in a bastketball game. Scared less the world was about to end.

Starting my last semester of high school.

I remember spending copious amounts of time at my Computer Science for Adults Course explaining to the students that the nonsense being put about by journalists about how Saddam's army was going to make mincemeat of the Western Alliance forces was motivated by complete incompetence.

I was in the Claims Dept of an insurer, trying to sort out the claims submitted by the invasion. When the news had broken about the invasion, we were having a meeting about some policy stuff. The room went silent and then one voice said "".

Why??

Desert Storm

And….I wasn't even born yet.

Working the OTH-B radar in Maine- getting a Cold War weapons system on line as the Cold war ended.

Selling colour film to east germans….

In grade school. And about to hear a bunch of bad puns about Saddam…

I was sitting in front of the news on TV trying to convince my WWII veteran dad, who thought we would get killed, that with the modern weapons we have, we will crush the enemy under our feet

In the desert somewhere. We moved around a lot setting up antennas and then tearing them down.

In middle school

I was at work making exhaust collectors for AGT 1500 engines (as used in Abrams tank). During Desert Shield we put on an extra shift to meet demand for these.

Working late at the office, watching the AA fire over Baghdad on CNN with the rest of my team. Surreal.

Changing diapers?

In the turret of a tank, looking into a formless desert and ready to roll…..

I'd fended off an attempt to borrow USAF's two TC-18E training aricraft to transport supplies. The floors weren't stressed for cargo, there were no tie downs, and no easy access for forklifts. Went home and watched the war on TV.
Grelber

On patrol in the Persian Gulf.

With the 1st Cav. Div. In a huey waiting for the first casualties.

I was the only customer in a Chinese restaurant outside Ft. Dix, NJ, where I was working on mobilizing a couple of Fleet Hospital units. When the three Chinese immigrant brothers who owned the restaurant found out I was from the base, they proceeded to harangue me for close to an hour about mad they were at Iraqi immigrants who were expressing support for Saddam Hussein. "They should go back to where they come from" is a direct quote.

Not in the military, but…running 16-18 calls in a 12 hour shift as a paramedic in Orange County FL

Hey ColCampbell! I was at Ft. Polk in that round out brigade. Got transferred to a regular army company (we were over-strength). Spent the next six months fixing radios a whole hour and a half from home. Talk about seeing the world!

Sophomore in college. Glued to the TV and watching the news instead of going to class.

Working a crappy lob.I dont remember Desert Storm very much,more so the bombing of Bahgdad.

Plotting movements of forces on maps with my gaming buddies.

High School. My time wouldn't come for another ten years.

V/R,
Jack

10 years old… Riding a bike in south texas, playing D&D and videogames, and getting into mischief.

Hmm.… I'd better not say, you'd be jealous!

MacDill AFB covering third shift x-ray for the person deployed with the Medical Group to Saudi. Volunteered every time they needed another body, but never got sent. So spent the war doing kidney stone studies. I swear the major medical reason people got sent stateside was due to kidney stones.

Aboard the USNS John Lenthall, sailing Ordinary Seaman, probably doing an UNREP with another 'Gator Freighter…

Eric

In Germany prepping for deployment to the Gulf.

1st Lt at Edwards AFB working on flight test projects on the MC-130H and AC-130U aircraft. and watching AF special ops flight crew go a bit bonkers because they weren't in the gulf doing what they trained for.

I don't remember. Probably in my College's library, studying. Or perhaps drinking beer with my pals, in the lawn.

Trudging to the British High Commission in Canberra to see if my TA unit had been mobilised since I started a three-month walkabout a month previously. They hadn't (mixed feelings – keen to deploy but a round-the-world ticket is an emotional counter-argument!).

Reserve Lt. Just got called up to Fort Ord to see if the post could still do a round of basic training. Got called up the day before the Iraqi invasion.
Only there for two weeks. As a basic training unit – they never needed us.

Lounging on a beach in Oman, probably.

Watching a whole lot of CNN as a Junior in high school.

Propping up a bar I suppose.

Working in a music store, band practice later that night. It had been raining pretty much every day for three weeks and I remember my boss commenting that "what if all this rain were bombs? That's what the Iraqis had been living through for a month."

Sitting in a traffic jam in London……..