62 years ago today

N

Nubsnstubs

Where is it???
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Jerry
I can't believe it. Today marks my 62 year journey after joining the Army, 11/10/64. I grew up and became responsible for anything I did after that experience. 2 years, 11 months, 17 days of being told how to be responsible for yourself and to assist others when help was needed. It was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. Below is a picture taken somewhere between 10/66 and 10/25/67.
............. Nubs

1794412506850.webp
 
Nubsnstubs said:
I can't believe it. Today marks my 62 year journey after joining the Army, 11/10/64. I grew up and became responsible for anything I did after that experience. 2 years, 11 months, 17 days of being told how to be responsible for yourself and to assist others when help was needed. It was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. Below is a picture taken somewhere between 10/66 and 10/25/67.
............. Nubs

View attachment 295189
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You haven’t changed a bit! Happy Veterans Day!
 
Nubsnstubs said:
I can't believe it. Today marks my 62 year journey after joining the Army, 11/10/64. I grew up and became responsible for anything I did after that experience. 2 years, 11 months, 17 days of being told how to be responsible for yourself and to assist others when help was needed. It was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. Below is a picture taken somewhere between 10/66 and 10/25/67.
............. Nubs

View attachment 295189
Click to expand...
Wow! Did the girls turn around for you?

As my children would say: he looks like a rizzler. (I have no idea what that means)

Happy Veterans Day. We don’t have it in Austria and I never went to the army here but I did six months in the nz navy. I was doing supply inventories. Quite boring but good “craic” as the Irish would say.
 
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  • #13
Tom Smart said:
You’ve got a VII Corps patch and Engineer brass.

Where was the 237th Jerry?
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Hielbronn, Germany. I was a heavy equipment operator assigned a Clark Michigan front loader, but spent most of my time in a line platoon playing combat engineer rather than operating my loader. I was originally supposed to go to just outside Paris, but midway across the Atlantic, De Gaul decided France didn't need the US Army, so got sent to Heilbronn instead. I didn't like that move one bit, but looking back at it, I would accept it again. It was an excellent experience. .............. Nubs
 
Nubsnstubs said:
Hielbronn, Germany. I was a heavy equipment operator assigned a Clark Michigan front loader, but spent most of my time in a line platoon playing combat engineer rather than operating my loader. I was originally supposed to go to just outside Paris, but midway across the Atlantic, De Gaul decided France didn't need the US Army, so got sent to Heilbronn instead. I didn't like that move one bit, but looking back at it, I would accept it again. It was an excellent experience. .............. Nubs
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That was always one of the harder things to do - find projects / training that allowed use of our heavy equipment. Even the dump truck drivers got bored. I was in the 65th Engineers in Hawaii and with the rains, we most often had opportunity to work on the roads and bridges in the training areas. That at least gave our guys some opportunity to use what they were trained for. And other than fuel didn't cost anything in materials, which was another issue that constantly conflicted with trying to plan some good training exercises. I would go talk to the artillery guys about building them some revetments they could move into and shoot from and then go back afterwards and level them out. That was pretty simple stuff but at least something to use the bucket loader and a dump truck on.
 
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  • #17
DLJeffs said:
That was always one of the harder things to do - find projects / training that allowed use of our heavy equipment. Even the dump truck drivers got bored. I was in the 65th Engineers in Hawaii and with the rains, we most often had opportunity to work on the roads and bridges in the training areas. That at least gave our guys some opportunity to use what they were trained for. And other than fuel didn't cost anything in materials, which was another issue that constantly conflicted with trying to plan some good training exercises. I would go talk to the artillery guys about building them some revetments they could move into and shoot from and then go back afterwards and level them out. That was pretty simple stuff but at least something to use the bucket loader and a dump truck on.
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The loader I operated was about 10 years old when I got it. The other 4 companies all had the newer ones with the buckets that opened and instead of having rear wheel steering like mine, they pivoted in the middle for turns. But, I will say I had over 3 thousand operating hours on mine than the other 4 combined. Newer isn't always better.
Here is a picture of one like it. 2 1/2 yard bucket, rear wheel turning, no muffler just straight pipe out the top, no hoods, and no protection from any issues you might incur, like maybe bullets. The model number shown ends with an A, but military equipment usually ended with an A plus M. 1794506291580.webp ..........Nubs
 
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Nubsnstubs said:
The loader I operated was about 10 years old when I got it. The other 4 companies all had the newer ones with the buckets that opened and instead of having rear wheel steering like mine, they pivoted in the middle for turns. But, I will say I had over 3 thousand operating hours on mine than the other 4 combined. Newer isn't always better.
Here is a picture of one like it. 2 1/2 yard bucket, rear wheel turning, no muffler just straight pipe out the top, no hoods, and no protection from any issues you might incur, like maybe bullets. The model number shown end with an A, but military equipment usually ended with an M. View attachment 295223..........Nubs
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I ran one of those at a local sawmill. Owner updated it with the fork kit. The forks slid into pockets on the bottom of the bucket and the bucket was held on by 2 pins. Moving sawdust and piles of lumber. I never used it for anything else.
 
I don't remember the manufacturer of our loaders. Our's looked very similar to that one, ours articulated in the middle. I do remember my platoon sargeant always riding the operator to fill his bucket - operating with a partially filled bucket was inefficient. Most newer operators wanted to tilt the bucket up too early when they drove into a pile, so the bucket only partially filled. I drove it around the motor pool once but never really got an opportunity to actually do some work with it. My CO told me once that it wasn't the platoon leader's job to run the equipment but I always felt like I should at least know the basics and know what we expected the operator's to do. Can't rely on the platoon sargeant all the time.
 
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  • #20
DLJeffs said:
I don't remember the manufacturer of our loaders. Our's looked very similar to that one, ours articulated in the middle. I do remember my platoon sargeant always riding the operator to fill his bucket - operating with a partially filled bucket was inefficient. Most newer operators wanted to tilt the bucket up too early when they drove into a pile, so the bucket only partially filled. I drove it around the motor pool once but never really got an opportunity to actually do some work with it. My CO told me once that it wasn't the platoon leader's job to run the equipment but I always felt like I should at least know the basics and know what we expected the operator's to do. Can't rely on the platoon sargeant all the time.
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Doug, were you an officer. I think I asked once, but can't remember.

"Articulated in the middle". That was the term I was looking for in the above post, but CRS set in and it vanished............. Nubs
 
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