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The more things change...

By The Armorer on December 5, 2011 | | Comments (12)

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Clark Corley, left, helps Sgt. Brian Leblanc out of an underground cellar in Dondokay village in the Sayed Abad district in Afghanistan's Wardak province, Nov. 22, 2011. Corley and Leblanc are assigned to the 1st Armored Division's Company A, 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Austin Berne



...the more they stay the same.

24 April, 1967. Operation "Oregon," a search and destroy mission conducted by an infantry platoon of Troop B, 1st Reconnaissance Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), three kilometers west of Duc Pho, Quang Ngai Province. An infantryman is lowered into a tunnel by members of the reconnaissance platoon. Photographer SSG Howard C. Breedlove, US Army Signal Corps photo.

24 April, 1967. Operation "Oregon," a search and destroy mission conducted by an infantry platoon of Troop B, 1st Reconnaissance Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), three kilometers west of Duc Pho, Quang Ngai Province. An infantryman is lowered into a tunnel by members of the reconnaissance platoon. Photographer SSG Howard C. Breedlove, US Army Signal Corps photo.


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12 Comments

By Oldloadr on December 5, 2011 8:22 AM
Differences: 1. steaming jungle/endless desert
2. M-16s with 20-round mags/M-4s wtih 30-round mags.

I think that's about it... (Oh, and smoking is no longer politically correct, so therefore would never show up in a released photo today).
 
By BillT on December 5, 2011 9:15 AM
But the tunnel rat no longer gets lowered head-first, with a flashlight in one hand and an M-1911 in the other...
 
By Joe in N Calif on December 5, 2011 9:36 AM
And there are similar photos of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children on their tour of Pacific islands in the early and mid-1940s.
 
By 11B40 on December 5, 2011 11:58 AM
 Greetings:  especially "Oldloadr"

Yeah, those 20-round magazines still bogle my mind considering the bad guys were packing 30s. One of my co-workers daddy was involved in Southern California's aircraft industry and he managed to send us a box of 30s so that at least our pointmen had them. The only other ones I came across were owned by Special Forces and their indigenous hired help. Apparently there was a bit of a mixed up and a couple of dozen found their way into our rucksacks, but, hey, what the hell, we were mostly on the same team.
 
By Quartermaster on December 5, 2011 12:05 PM
I'm guessing anytime we have to fight a war similar to Vietnam, we will see much the same stuff over and over. No surprise that we need "Tunnel Rats" in the AFG too.
 
By Orsonroy on December 5, 2011 12:35 PM
There's be no real need for rooting around in holes if we got out of all of this "nation building" crud and went back to the good old idea of punitive expeditions......
 
By SFC D on December 5, 2011 2:47 PM
We could use a ffew good tunnel rats down here on the AZ / Mexico Border.  You know, the one that the feds say is "secure"...
 
By Joe in N Calif on December 5, 2011 4:50 PM
Been thinking about this - why not use the time honoured method used for clearing out gophers?  Just need to upsize it.

Toss in a hundredweight or so of calcium carbide, a few hundred gallons of water, cover it with something for half an hour.  Toss in a flashbang or similar.  Watch everything jump as the tunnel network blows.
 
By Blake Kirk on December 5, 2011 6:06 PM
All that those pictures demonstrate is that on a very fundamental level, the infantry's job doesn't change all that much from one generation to the next.  It's an ugly, dirty, nasty job that has to be done, and I for one continue to be absolutely amazed at the quality of the young men who are doing that job for us these days, and this with an all-volunteer force, after ten years of active war.  Back in the long-ago days when I was a corporal, I could barely dream about having troops of that quality to lead.  I hope their leadership appreciates how lucky they are.
 
By Quartermaster on December 5, 2011 7:22 PM
 Joe, I think whatever you thrown in there had better be command detonated, or use a bit of fuse so they have time to get well away from teh hole before it goes.

I used to cave and we used Carbide Lamps when I was active (all my friends use LED headlamps now). One guy wrapped his spent carbide bag a little to tight and about an hour later it ruptured creating a cloud of acetylene around him. The open flame of his lamp did the rest. The party had to exit the cave and the poor sod looked a bit worse for the wear. if you're too close to the hole when it goes up, it mighta bit rough on the poor sod tossing in teh flash bang.

I would like to watch teh tunnels go up, though.
 
By KCSteve on December 5, 2011 8:03 PM
The RodentBlaster is already availble and should be good to go:
http://www.rodentblaster.com/Remote_Detonator_Rodent_Blaster.html
 
By Quin on December 5, 2011 8:31 PM
 this weekend SFC Clark Corely passed away in afghanistan, eastern RIP you really where a true mentor and so caring