Picture of the day

Recce21 said:
Thank you bearhunter for your service.
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Recce21, I didn't serve. I was considered a merc. I was recruited while going to school at BCIT. I wanted to be a world betterer but was so naïve I had no idea how to go about it. I was very handy with WWII weapons. Angola was floating with them, they needed someone to maintain what they had. Their own people had already left or were transferred back to Portugal. Portuguese armorers were and likely still are very good at what they do. The only thing that would stump them was lack of parts and tools.

I was offered very good money, for the time period and was given a modified field commission. Like many nations, they didn't allow foreigners to hold officers rank.

I along with the Matabeles that were trying to get out, spent most of our time running and ducking. To tell the truth, we were decimated. We were also a political embarrassment to anyone that would deign to take us in. Ugly is a good term for it. No, the only service I performed was to save as many of my friends as I could to repay the same efforts they made to save me. That's it in a nut shell.

Being a Merc sounds exciting. It isn't. You sell your services to whomever will pay. Sometimes the pay is good and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you actually get to fight on what you consider to be the RIGHT side. When it's over, you get the hell out as fast as possible. Trust me, the locals have zero love for you. Even if they loved you while you were there and on their side.

Thanks for the sentiment though. Save it for the people in Canada's Armed Forces. They deserve it. Poor pay, then the thanks they get when they get home, is to be ignored when they need medical services for injuries and PTSD. They fight under restraint and mostly still manage to get the job done in a relatively humane manner, if there is anything humane about war.
 
Hearing older war stories and juxtaposing it against the current Iraq/Afghan conflicts always make me think of this Terminal Lance cartoon. Best modern military life cartoon out there.
 
I think the enlisted men and women today, have a very tough go of things.

They've been socially engineered to abhor defending themselves, let alone be aggressive in many situations where that is the only way to win the battle.

I can't say how many men and women I've met that joined up to serve in a different military than we have now. Deployment off shore was expected, police actions were expected but misunderstood. For some reason, they thought they would be only doing humanitarian missions.

Reality is a hard friend. I don't know how many people are totally taken by surprise when confronted with it then feel guilt/shame/fear/anxiety etc all rolled into one after the adrenaline settles or deployment is over. Friends and family can't, won't or don't know how to help either. Many succumb to their own pervasive demons. In all honesty, I don't know if PTSD is really curable. Such things are either buried away by the foolish crap that you never speak about what happened to you or anyone else with you in those stressful days, or often, just to afraid to subject family and friends to the harsh realities of life over there.

Racism, greed, religion, cruelty and avarice abound from the top to the bottom. It is a way of life. Right up close and personal. No one holds it against you. Maybe things are really changing???? Somehow, I have a feeling that it's just mainstream media hype.

What a crock. Talk about it, people want to hear about it. I used to get the stories from the WWII vets and Korean Vets. I met an Englishman that hired out his services and spoke to him often. He just didn't show up anymore. I inquired after him to his daughter. He committed suicide.

NO, I am not suicidal by any means, nor do I suffer from PTSD. The reason for that, IMHO, is that I had a goal in mind that wasn't politically oriented and forced upon me by untrustworthy politicians and their minions.

I see the young people going to the middle east deployments today and marvel at their sense of service and bravery. They are thrown into an unwinnable mess without knowing what they are doing it for. There is no idea of winning or losing. The government that agreed to send them had no intention of winning the war, just participating. No wonder so many people get confused.

My hat is off to all of you that serve today and have served in the past. Your load is much heavier than mine ever was.
 
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bearhunter said:
Recce21, I didn't serve. I was considered a merc. I was recruited while going to school at BCIT. I wanted to be a world betterer but was so naïve I had no idea how to go about it. I was very handy with WWII weapons. Angola was floating with them, they needed someone to maintain what they had. Their own people had already left or were transferred back to Portugal. Portuguese armorers were and likely still are very good at what they do. The only thing that would stump them was lack of parts and tools.

I was offered very good money, for the time period and was given a modified field commission. Like many nations, they didn't allow foreigners to hold officers rank.

I along with the Matabeles that were trying to get out, spent most of our time running and ducking. To tell the truth, we were decimated. We were also a political embarrassment to anyone that would deign to take us in. Ugly is a good term for it. No, the only service I performed was to save as many of my friends as I could to repay the same efforts they made to save me. That's it in a nut shell.

Being a Merc sounds exciting. It isn't. You sell your services to whomever will pay. Sometimes the pay is good and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you actually get to fight on what you consider to be the RIGHT side. When it's over, you get the hell out as fast as possible. Trust me, the locals have zero love for you. Even if they loved you while you were there and on their side.

Thanks for the sentiment though. Save it for the people in Canada's Armed Forces. They deserve it. Poor pay, then the thanks they get when they get home, is to be ignored when they need medical services for injuries and PTSD. They fight under restraint and mostly still manage to get the job done in a relatively humane manner, if there is anything humane about war.
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my dad very nearly went to rhodesia for many of the same reasons, lucky for me though, i wouldnt have ever been if he had.

i apologize if you dont want to talk about those days, i really like to hear from people who were there
i think this was the dawn of commercial "tactical" goods, i have a set of american style BDUs in rhodesian camo that was marketed around that time, and i have seen several commercial add ons for equipment like SA 70 pattern webbing. did you ever buy any of this stuff? i have come across portugese soldiers wearing what looks like british 37 pattern stuff in angola what did you use for webbing/uniforms? what sort of stuff did you find most useful for day to day life, tools, mess kits, etc? did an AR-10 ever cross your path?

thanks again for sharing this with us
 
scott585 said:
my dad very nearly went to rhodesia for many of the same reasons, lucky for me though, i wouldnt have ever been if he had.

i apologize if you dont want to talk about those days, i really like to hear from people who were there
i think this was the dawn of commercial "tactical" goods, i have a set of american style BDUs in rhodesian camo that was marketed around that time, and i have seen several commercial add ons for equipment like SA 70 pattern webbing. did you ever buy any of this stuff? i have come across portugese soldiers wearing what looks like british 37 pattern stuff in angola what did you use for webbing/uniforms? what sort of stuff did you find most useful for day to day life, tools, mess kits, etc? did an AR-10 ever cross your path?

thanks again for sharing this with us
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We used whatever we could scavenge. One of our best days was when we came across and abandoned warehouse full of a mixture of uniforms and glory be, boots.

AR10, never saw one in the field. Portuguese troops in Pattern 37 webbing, they would have been colonials. My Matabele friends had some but they were originally issued with it and felt comfortable in it. There was better stuff to be scavenged and more appropriate to the equipment we mostly ended up using.

I didn't get to see much of Rhodesia, we were turned away at the border crossing. We tried to sneak in and pass through but were turned back again. Those Rhodesian troopies were very good and very capable. The blacks they had with them were tough as nails as well. All of them were under the impression they were protecting their homeland and way of life. Lots of different Swahili tribes in Rhodesia. Many of my Matabele friends had family there and left at that point to try to get to their families and blend in. No one blamed them at all. You did what was needed to save your family and survive.

There were a lot of different tribal dialects spoken in Africa. Still are. There were three basic languages spoken while I was there. Bantu or Pidgun. Swahili and English. There were others as well but those three seemed to be the basics.
 
Strangely, South Africans white or black can tell the difference between Zimbabwe or Angolan or other blacks. My very good SA friend was a captain in SA special forces that did a lot of work in Angola. It was really interesting during dinner when I heard 9mm shots some 500 M away in a drug gang dispute in Jo'burg!!
Henry
 
It's a picture and discussion thread about the pictures, and frankly the last three pages have been some of the most interesting reading I've seen on here in a while. Thanks Bearhunter!
 
bearhunter said:
We used whatever we could scavenge. One of our best days was when we came across and abandoned warehouse full of a mixture of uniforms and glory be, boots.

AR10, never saw one in the field. Portuguese troops in Pattern 37 webbing, they would have been colonials. My Matabele friends had some but they were originally issued with it and felt comfortable in it. There was better stuff to be scavenged and more appropriate to the equipment we mostly ended up using.

I didn't get to see much of Rhodesia, we were turned away at the border crossing. We tried to sneak in and pass through but were turned back again. Those Rhodesian troopies were very good and very capable. The blacks they had with them were tough as nails as well. All of them were under the impression they were protecting their homeland and way of life. Lots of different Swahili tribes in Rhodesia. Many of my Matabele friends had family there and left at that point to try to get to their families and blend in. No one blamed them at all. You did what was needed to save your family and survive.

There were a lot of different tribal dialects spoken in Africa. Still are. There were three basic languages spoken while I was there. Bantu or Pidgun. Swahili and English. There were others as well but those three seemed to be the basics.
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you said you were recruited, by who? were you paid by a company, or a government? did they initially supply you with anything or was it a buy your own deal?

thoughts on the foreign legion?
 
Some Hungarian Csaba armoured cars:

Nebelwerfer.jpg


IMG_5740.jpg


CSABA.jpg


Cool looking little rig. :)
 
scott585 said:
you said you were recruited, by who? were you paid by a company, or a government? did they initially supply you with anything or was it a buy your own deal?

thoughts on the foreign legion?
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There were and still are private recruiters AFAIK. There were four of us that used to go to a dance hall/bar called the RED BARN in Burnaby. We ran into a couple of men there that were just different from the run of the mill students that were destroying as many brain cells as possible so they could do stupid sh-t and claim they couldn't remember.

I had a part time job at the old Lever Arms on Dunsmuir. No, not on the counter. I was one of the drudge monkeys that cleaned up the stuff that went to the show room.

One of the men by the name of Butler, blonde hair, red beard, approached me and some of the guys I hung out with. The process just went from there. Back in the sixties it wasn't uncommon for a recruiter to make it known he was in town and looking for people. Usually, they set themselves up in a hotel or motel and even dilapidated shops that could be rented cheap.

This group made all of the arrangements, took my passport, gave me some money and less than a week later, I was on my way. Never did get all of the money coming to me. Never saw Butler again nor any of his people again after we were delivered to Angola. I never saw my passport again either. Can you say foreshadowing??? I was very naive.

In 1974, I ran into George Gray of Rhodesian Selous Scouts fame. He had a crazy to me idea about putting a bunch of troopers on horses to scout and get quickly into a fight. At the time, some of the Matabele tribes in Rhodesia were not happy with their situations on the TTTs. I had seen similar units, fielded by the Portuguese farmers in Angola. The blacks were terrified by mounted, armed men on horses. Especially in close quarter situations, it is very unnerving to have a 1200 pound horse and rider trying to run you down, with a crazy bastard shooting from its back or swinging a machete.

Nothing came of that meeting as he was looking for some very specialized people. No, I wasn't interested in going back into that crap. Some people live for the adrenalin rush, some people are just plain ruthless and some people just look at it as a job or way of life, not really considering the consequences or minding them if they did. I didn't like it and would do everything I possibly could to avoid doing it again.

Canadian troopies I've come across have been for the most part very decent people. They are like all troops all over the world, profiled by their social engineering. Most think and act within the box. They do their jobs as well as possible under the circumstances. Like every other job in the world, some are better and more suited to different things. In pretty short order, they are segregated to where they are needed or if they really shine at something (not just in their own minds) directed into special units for extended training. They live by a different code than a civilian.

Look, I hijacked this thread because some people were curious. Also, I know there is a pervasive Esprit de Corps that seems to stick with almost all soldiers. That is not to share their experiences with civvies. It's one of those "just isn't done" things. For some reason it isn't considered tough or manly to talk about misgivings/deeds/shortcomings of time in the service. Even when they get screwed over on their benefits after serving for many years.

I came forward with some of my experiences because of so many impressionable gamers that are very young. They have no idea of the realities of off shore postings. Many think that they are invincible because they don't die behind the joystick or keyboard.

All I can tell you is glory is for the armchair warrior. The rest is plain BS. Maybe that's why ex troopies stay silent??? I can't tell you how often I soiled myself from fear/excitement. I can tell you the pain of losing a close comrade, male or female, is gut wrenching at best. The thing is, you don't start emoting until it is safe to do so. Everything that is thrown at people today, indoctrinates them to instantly turn emotional, rather than make a quick assessment so that they stand some sort of chance at survival and don't get other people hurt or killed as well.

There is nothing that teaches this as well as first hand experience. Just telling it is often like speaking to the clouds.

I'm not knocking video games either. They can be a lot of fun. Not my bag but I've sat with may grandson through a few and can understand the excitement. Just don't get under the impression they are reality. Don't live your life around what goes on in them. They are mostly bad dreams, created by warped minds.

One of the board members here contacted me and related to me that he is suffering from PTSD. I don't know what to say, other than hang on in there and talk to someone. There is no other way to get off the razor's edge. Trying to work it out in your own mind, makes people think you're different and shy away. Even if you do talk many shy away.

My first Christmas back in Canada, I spent on top of a mountain in the Monashee Range. I went up with a horse and a couple of weeks of food for both of us. There was about 3 feet of snow. I stayed in a little sheep herders cabin that had cracks between every board. Good thing there was an old tarp in the shed that was big enough to wrap two sides with. The other sides were piled with snow. The cabin was about 3m x5m. It contained a rudimentary table and bench, a rope bed and an airtight stove in dubious condition. It could be stoked full and the Balsam would burn hotly for about two hours.

The horse, was my savior. He liked to be warm, so he would lean against the side of the cabin where the stove was, under an overhanging roof. We would go out during the day, just to walk, I only rode him up the mountain because he was much better at breaking trail than I was. I rode him back down again as well. While we were walking, he wasn't attached to me in any way. He was also a very gregarious fellow. He just walked along, either beside me or behind me and would make little noises as I talked my head off. His ears would be pointed ahead and he reacted in a manner very similar to a good dog. I loved that horse. He passed on from old age about 15 years later.

Talk to someone or something. Dogs, cats, horses, parakeets, it doesn't matter. Just let it out. Many people think they need to be forgiven. I never felt that way, so I was luckier than some. Life goes on and on. You owe it to yourself, the people that love you and if you left someone behind or traded their life for yours, you owe it to all concerned to live that life as well as you possibly can.

I won't hog any more of this thread. Don't really know why I went this far. Who knows. Hopefully, you all can address your personal demons and the God or Gods that worship/acknowledge/disavow will protect you and yours in the New Year. Good luck to all. Don't be afraid to live.

I talked to a FFL fellow once. Good guy, liked to fish. Didn't say much, other than that France takes care of their FFL people quite well, if they stay in the force until they are to old to get into the thick of things. They are first response troops and expendable. Many are supposedly criminals and have no other place to go. The FFL will not take anyone that walks through the gates. You have to be evaluated psychologically and be deemed fit to join. They aren't looking for thrill seekers or berserkers. On the contrary. The FFL operates in a different manner. You must either learn or already speak and read fluent French and hopefully some other foreign languages. Basic education is a must, the better credential you have, the easier it is to get in. You must also be in good physical condition or be capable of getting that way quickly.

There is no shortage of wannabes for the FFL. After the Soviet Union collapsed there was a plethora of career soldiers that easily qualified and liked the lifestyle offered. They have some different rules from the rest of the French forces but discipline and Esprit de Corp is demanded and expected. If it isn't immediately obvious or becomes visible that it isn't present, it is grounds for immediate dismissal.

I hear their DIs are some of the most brutal in the world.

Anyway, that's it on this subject for me. Be well all and stay aware of your immediate surroundings. That is the best weapon you can hope to carry at any time.
 
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We were still using de-turreted Shermans as Kangaroo APCs at the Armoured Corps School in 1965. They were fun to drive and rode well across country. The M113A1s arrived at the school in Camp Borden that summer and put the old Shermans in the crock park. The school also used a couple of Shermans as target vehicles for the SS11 and ENTAC ATGMs with dummy warheads.
 
purple said:
We were still using de-turreted Shermans as Kangaroo APCs at the Armoured Corps School in 1965. They were fun to drive and rode well across country. The M113A1s arrived at the school in Camp Borden that summer and put the old Shermans in the crock park. The school also used a couple of Shermans as target vehicles for the SS11 and ENTAC ATGMs with dummy warheads.
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Just out of curiosity, how cramped were those units when carrying a full load people?? At Camp Vernon, there were a couple of them for a few years and some of the turret shells may still be on the hillsides, where they practice.
 
You are testing my memory here Bear. The crew compartment was rigged up with some wooden benches on either side. As I recall we could get a 10 man section inside in addition to the crew commander. The mounting drill had you get aboard by stepping inside the drive sprocket where the driver could see you. You dismounted by bailing out over the sides and jumping to the ground ( I wouldn't want to try that now). There wasn't much to hold on to for the passengers, but the Sherman was a heavier and longer vehicle than the M113 and actually provided a comparatively smooth ride.

The Kangaroo APC was a Canadian innovation which was first used in Normandy in Operation Totalize, the drive on Falaise. The idea was to get infantry forward quickly with the tanks with some measure of armoured protection. It was reasonably successful in this with the obvious disadvantages that there was no protection from overhead artillery fragments by reason of the open turret and the fact that troops were very exposed when dismounting over the top of the vehicle. All subsequent APCs have featured a rear door or ramp with the aim of having the passengers exit quickly while the APC faces the enemy and hopefully provides some suppressive fire during the dismounting process. Kangaroos were used for the balance of the war in Europe with both the Brits and Cdns fielding a regiment of them which was mostly equipped with converted Cdn built Ram tanks which were made redundant by the issue of Shermans with a more powerful gun.

The first Kangaroos used in Normandy were actually M7 SP Artillery vehicles which were fitted with a 105mm howitzer. These were withdrawn from the 3rd Cdn DivArty and replaced with the ###ton SPs armed with the standard Brit/Cdn 25 pdr. The Kangaroo conversion process involved removing the 105 gun to make space for the troops and welding on additional steel plating for protection on the front and sides of the vehicle. This was done in a big rush before Operation Totalize. My late uncle, who was a RCEME tank fitter, was involved in this and his unit worked around the clock to get the job done in time. A lot of the steel plating that they used was salvaged from German beach obstacles and stranded landing craft. One of our neighbours, who was a gunner in the 3rd Div, used to razz my uncle about stealing "his gun" to convert it into a Kangaroo.
 
Charlemagne70 said:
Yes,

Thank you bearhunter. It's been some of the best reading I've done on CGN.
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I agree, especially the encouragement for those suffering PTSD. There's NO SHAME is seeking professional help. You'd be surprised how helpful mental health professionals truly are these days. The science has come a long way since the Woody Allen-type psychotherapy of the 1960s. If you're feeling poorly, then go get help. Life is tough enough without feeling crappy all the time. I know this from personal experience.
 
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