Friday, July 31, 2009

Military Escort

So, I dropped by the 4th Battalion, Bravo Company HQ today. I took pictures of the T-72 tank there. Built in the Soviet Union and captured in Iraq during the Gulf War (Desert Storm), it was the much touted main battle tank that our forces...or at least the talking heads on the news...were worried about. Turns out they did not need to worry. Our M1A1 tanks, often outnumbered, took the fight to the enemy and knocked them out every time! At one point, 5 M1A1 Abrams encountered an enemy force of about 35 armored vehicles (Tanks, too) and destroyed them all in a matter of 20 minutes. Often, our forces would show up and the Iraqis would jump out with their arms in the air, surrendering...

I had to be buzzed in. I was escorted by a marine. I had to sign in, wear a visitor tag, and was instructed to avoid taking photos of vehicles in the parking lot, the fence, the gate, the buildings...basically, if it was anything other than the tank, I was to avoid taking pictures. For security reasons. I then had to walk back in, sign out and return my tag. Still, the Sergeant who escorted me was most helpful and very friendly. I was surprised he looked so young...guess I am getting old.

I think I did pretty good avoiding other things.

Note the bullet holes in this tank(below), it was knocked out. Note also the wheels...chipped rubber. I could not identify a place where it was hit by an anti-tank round, but, it is still interesting to look at. I will be posting these on my airplane/history site when I get a decent article wrtten up.

1 comment:

frogglet said...

I am glad they let you in to take pictures. looks like you had a good time.