Howdy All,

While driving across the country on my way to sunny Florida I began reading a book on OIF that I picked up in the discount bin at Barnes & Noble before I left, it's called 'Generation Kill'....interesting book, but apart from the entertaining read, it brought up this multi-part question in my mind...

First, did anyone in either Desert Storm, or OIF bring along any 'personal' weapons of choice, either overtly or covertly to assist them in their assigned mission?
And, second, did anyone in either Iraq conflict possibly 'liberate' a discarded weapon and add it to their personal weapons load-out?

Part of the reason I ask is because {without going into detail, or potentially starting a 'this weapon is better than that weapon' discussion} for example, the AK is a stoutly usable weapon and since the standard Iraqi practice was to leave the vast majority of their ammo behind, one would theoritically never run out of ammo ;-)
Also, never being a big fan of the K-Bar, I had my own personal knife with me at all times {a hunting knife made by I think a now defunct company called PUMA}. And I have heard reports that some of the British soldiers opted to carry 'Khukuri's' instead of their standard issue knifes.

Any input from you DS/OIF vet's?

tia

Tread.

If I was an American, I don't know whether I'd swop my M4 for an Iraqi AK. You wouldn't have any of the optics and stuff, and who knows how well it's been maintained? On the other hand, if I had access to a packing-fresh AK-47 or AK-74 with all the bells and whistles (like SF probably can), I'd take it over the Armalite family. Here's a couple:

Howdy fellas,

Thx for the replies.
MightyRhinox you bring up a point that quickly coursed thru my head as well, only I was thinking the other way about it...meaning, I would be more concerned my fellow Marines would mistake my fire for hostile. My ammo remark was based on some early reports that several primary need-to-have items were in short supply during the first, initial phases of OIF including, but not limited to; ammo, batteries, and special lubricant for the Mark 19's....

You input spooky6 is appreciated as well. I was never completely impressed with the old M-16 round. Always felt giving up the stopping power of the 14 was a mistake.....but then, what do I know?
Those pics of the tarted-up AK's are nice. Make's the wee beastie look almost 'modern'

Tread.

There was a story about a local company here that made tomahawks Yes I said tomahawks!!! It had all sorts of bell and whistles for a tomahawk like nail remover, shovel, hammer and a bunch of other things in addition to the blade. In the story it was saying that they had to go overtime to keep up for demand by military soldiers going to Iraq. Apparently the soldiers like the weight of the tomahawk as opposed to their combat knife in hand to hand plus it had a bunch of other purposes.

Hope that helped

I was with 3ACR in Desert Shield/Desert Storm and while I did not carry an Ak or any other weapons I did pick up a couple of soveniers.