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Rob T | all galleries >> Afghanistan to Iraq >> Over Afghanistan > The hooch, or a tent away from home
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11-APR-2002

The hooch, or a tent away from home

We lived like kings in an Air Force tent complete with heating and cooling and power outlets. Only complaint: the A/C was a bit noisy, but you learned to live with it.



Sony Cybershot
1/125s f/2.2 at 9.7mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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chrissie 13-Oct-2005 13:39
you all look chilled and happy siting there nice to see you all smiling god bless you
CWO Lee Westbrook, USA (Ret) 30-Mar-2004 19:29
Hurt me, hurt me ... make me talk dirty and write bad checks! You guys are breaking my heart! Out of 16 GP Mediums at Kontum Army Airfield (57th AHC) I thought I was living in the lap of luxury when I had the only corner of the only tent that didn't leak like a seive when it rained, and brother did it ever rain! (didn't last long, though)

Lee Westbrook
Ft Worth, Texas
Jim Hogue, CMSGT, USAF ret 01-Mar-2004 16:22
P.S. Damn fine photos. "been there but, unfortunately, never had a good enough camera to do that"

Jim Hogue
Jim Hogue, CMSGT, USAF ret 01-Mar-2004 16:20
All deploying troops in these kind of deployments should be in temper tents.

That the USMC still uses GPs tents is incompetence bordering on actionable. This is the 2ist Century!!

In these kinds of mainly “static” deployments – and I’ve planned and been on more than I want to remember – the USMC is so damn bloody minded (or worse, cheap!) that they still put their troops in GPs. They live in unventilated tents and use their cut down oil drum toilet crappers and jury rig showers from the other halves of the drums they cut down.

All during the Gulf war I was at an Air Base in Bahrain. We had 2,000 USAF and 2,500 various Marines (aviation, POL, munitions maintainers etc) living next to us. In the GPs etc. They never moved forward and spent the same war we did, launching and recovering aircraft.

The USAF had temper tents, showers and toilets. The USAF rates of dysentery, gastric bugs and other assorted conditions associated with primitive living condition were virtually nil. The Marines’ levels were shameful and probably hadn’t improved much over Vietnam era numbers.

The situation was the same again in Somalia. I lived next to the Marines and worked very closely with them – I was a combat counterintelligence collector and the Marines were my security escort when my translator and me made our forays into Mogadishu. Once again, USMC = GPs USAF = Temper tents. At least in Mogadishu both our groups were small enough to share our shower tents.

The US military has the options of making life more bearable on the deployments. That the USMC (and USA and USN) refuses to do so is – in this day and age - inexcusable