GEARDOLUOLA

My dad just came back from 6 months in Iraq and he brought home some nice pictures to share. He was in Kirkuk AB. This is for those of you that are interested in making ABU kits. To be more specific, my dad is a part of the 315th Security Forces Squadron. He is a Phoenix Raven, which means that he guards the planes when they are in air bases with minimum or no security.

My dad, MSgt. Blakley. A bit of a goofy pose from him.


One of his team members.


My dad.














The "bad ass" pose.


He had quite a few more, but they were mostly scenery and stuff from inside the barracks, so nothing "gear worthy". Enjoy the pics.

-Michael

Well we all know what this means... it means that Geardoluola is finally a real, proper geardo site. I dont think we've had anyone here with almost first hand experience of things down there.

Very interesting pics you have there. Say, did your dad ever encounter any hostiles, or was he lucky enough to stay out of combat?

Custom is in A-stan

He didn't actually have to shoot at anyone, but he did have some stories of some close encounters. He said that the terrorists would have these rockets that they would set up somewhere during the night and launch at the base, but since they didn't know how to use them the rockets hardly ever hit anywhere on the base. The most they did was scare them occasionally. He says he got so used to it that he just slept through it during the night. Rifle fire was limited and never directed towards him (or at least he thought so). There was one incident where someone from another group was I think shot, but he didn't tell me any major incidents where many people were injured. My dad never mentioned having to fire upon anyone, so I guess things were decently calm compared to other parts or a few years ago.

There was a local police academy almost right by the front gate and during a graduation one day there was supposed to be a suicide attack by someone driving a big dump truck (the big yellow ones the size of a small block of flats or something) with a car full of terrorists to follow up and finish things off, but it never happened. He thinks they were caught before it could happen. Then there was one time when a small truck of Iraqi police came up with the back full of bombs that needed to be deactivated, but that wasn't really considered to be a threat.

Nice pics, dig his ''one point sling'', thanks for posting.