My Photo Memories Of The Gulf War
I have always maintained a deep fascination with the camera going back to childhood. While other children during my youth wanted to be Thurman Munson, or possibly A.J. Foyt. I spent my time wanting to travel the world and take photos for LIFE magazine. My fantasies were of capturing war zone action like Henri Huet, Tim Page or Don McCullin. Hard earned hay hauling money purchased a well worn Nikon F (my first real camera).
When I joined the Army in the 1980's as a teenager, that Nikon F reported to basic training with me gaining more dents along the way. The camera was my companion in West Germany chronicling my Cold War experiences riding around in my rucksack taking all the abuse a young soldier could provide. In 1990 my unit was placed on alert after Iraq invaded Kuwait.Knowing we were getting ready to deploy to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield. I used a sizable portion of my savings to purchase an excellent condition Nikon F2 to replace my well worn F
I used the Nikon F2 to photo my tour during the Gulf War snapping hundreds of images. After my discharge in the mid 1990's I placed all my military souvenirs and photos in storage at my grandparents home, eventually forgetting about them for over two decades. My grandparents passed away in 2011, and not long after their deaths, my childhood home burned to the ground, I remembered all my possessions that had been in storage there, and thought everything had been lost. In 2014 my aunt called me telling me that she found a single album of photos I shot during the war, and that she was mailing them to me. The images in this post are some of those surviving images, that documented what I observed during my time in the desert of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. I do not have any exposure information , and I do not remember what film I used. I simply scanned them to digital format so that I could preserve them, no post processing has been done.
89th MP BDE Compound Dammam Saudi Arabia.
Standing in line 4th of July Celebration King Khalid Military City Saudi Arabia.
4th Platoon aka MOPP4 (because we spent so much time in MOPP gear).
Inspecting captured Iraqi armored vehicles 1st Cav forward Log Base Echo.
The author crawling out of the turret of a captured Iraqi T62 tank.
My first look at an Iraqi T72.
My unit in convoy convoy heading towards Kuwait before the beginning of the ground war.
Very cool. I was there too,then, as a teenager. I remember some of my friends' Dads went up on the roof to video tape the SCUD missiles. I spent all of my savings to buy one of those VHS videos. But I have no idea where it is now. It must feel so odd to find old photos from that time.
It was actually really a strange event for me , first getting the phone call from my aunt , and then a few days later receiving a tattered and disintegrating photo album. I was honestly shocked that the photos were still in as good a shape as I received them. Apparently they had been moved to a storage shed along with many other things as my grand parents aged. Which is the only reason they survived. My aunt found them as they were emptying the building out and hauling old items to the dump. I plan on doing some digital restoration work as I get an opportunity to preserve them.
Interestingly enough I remember those SCUD attacks , and the 475th Quartermaster unit that was hit at Dhahran . SCUDS were something we were all afraid of even with the Patriot missile batteries.
It's so funny what things find us years later. Welcome to Steemit!