My personal hero is my dad, pictured here when he was in the Coast Guard on DE's escorting convoys from New York to the Med.

A picture of my closest friend as he was commissioned into the Marines. Served 26 years and retired as a full colonel. Having missed promotion to General when it became a toss up between him and one other. Retired because he would be holding back other younger men that deserved a chance.

My Dad right after bootcamp.


Horsing around in Japan - This is how "accidents" happen.


"Passing in review" some time after commissioning.


Me in boot:


I don't have any pictures of my older brother in his 'warsuit'.

Paul

A day late on here, but a big thanks to all who have served, or curently are serving!!!

If I ever get my scanner fixed perhaps I'll steal the photo of dad in his far east uniform complete with Aussie bush hat. he did a tour out there, India, Burma, Malaya and ended up in Java ten back to Burma on terrorist control duties. Did't get back to Blighty until 47.

A bit of self-indulgence, but it's funny/interesting to look back.

Notice the "Pass In Review" picture I posted of my Dad. Here is the Pass In Review on Graduation Day when I escaped bootcamp.


Here's a close-up of me, the Yeoman, the Guidon bearer, and a few of the squad leaders. You'll note that we are all at some different stage of "step". In fact, if you look closely, you'll see that the Yeoman is on his left foot and I am on my right!


My company won NO awards for personnel inspections. Never got a personnel inspection "4-Oh" (no gigs). Won no awards for barracks inspections. NEVER got a barracks "4-Oh". But we won ALL of the marching and "infantry" awards. I LOVED to march, and I loved to direct the marching. Occasionally I got yelled at for being "too fancy" when we marched around the base, but we were sharp!

Anyway, the reason we are ALL out of step, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REVIEWING STAND!, is that the whole 9 weeks of training we did was to a RECORD. On the day of graduation, the music was provided by the BAND. They were not nearly as good as the record, but more importantly, they changed the tune right as we were passing in review. We practically fell over ourselves trying to get back in step with the music. If it hadn't been the last day of bootcamp, I'd have been seriously ticked off. As it was, I couldn't have cared less!

Here are a couple more bootcamp shots.
The reason I post this picture in not to "brag". (There's nothing worth bragging about in the picture.) Rather I want you to note the gloves on the battalion commander. Didn't want to have to actually TOUCH the "unwashed" (enlisted men). While gloves - for officers - were optionally part of the Uniform of the Day,  he was the only officer in the Review that had gloves on.


This haircut day was WELL into bootcamp. The FIRST cut left only about an eighth of an inch on top.


Infantry Drills - LOVED that stuff!

Great posts guys. Keep 'em coming.

My dad, uncle, grandfather and great grandfather were all in the Navy, so naturally I joined the Army. I dont have pics of my dad or his dad, but do have a pic of my great grandfather.  He passed away from natural causes during WWII, while serving in Alaska I was told.  Papa was a PT boat mechanic in the Med and Pacific during the war, uncle worked on an ammo resupply ship in the Gulf of Tonkin and dad was an aircraft electrician in Saigon and Iceland.

Me, I've always been into relaoding I guess, check out these pills. 1,400,000 grain (200 pounds) High Explosive 8" Howitzer shells in front of usually about 350,000 grains of powder. I guess you could call them Ballistic Tips:MOGRIN:

Great pics!
 
Love the 'pancake' hat and the "ballistic tips"!
 
Paul

Ok, I'm not a Veteran of anything. I was a "Choco"
 
Here is my Platoon (33 Platoon 1RTB, funny how you still remember something like that) at the 1st Recruit Training Battalion, Kapooka NSW.
 

 
Our Pltn commander was Captain from the British Army, on exchange.
Choco's were never trained with the "Regs" at Kapooka. We were the first guys to go down there and were trained by regular army instructors. We got on like... well you can guess. :lipsrsealed:
In the end it was all good though. They just had to understand this is was not out full time job. I have to say I had a ball at Kapooka.
 
On course for my Driver / Gunner / Sigs for the M113 APC.
That's me on the right. (I look much younger back then.)
 

 
Driving the "cars" through the bush. Our instructor was a "Reg" Sergeant from 5/7 RAR. We thought we would be "in for it" for the duration of the course. He turned out to be a top bloke. Got all our work done and had a great time. Even managed to fit in a bit of "skulking" down at the river.
 
 
 

 
And of course the breakdowns. Fixing some of these cars was a full time job for some. Our car broke down once. We were very lucky. Still as they say, "A second class ride is better than a first class walk." Who would want to be a grunt?
 

 
Here is a good pic. We had M60 GPMG's in our Regiment. These old things had served in the Vietnam war. Really old and worn out. Still, it was fun engaging targets at 600metres with them. One day these F89 Minimi's turned up. This is us learning how they work. "Go for it boys, you will figure it out." F89's were better to carry than the M60's but just no range on the things. maybe this is where I got my love for the .308?
 

Awesome pics. I've always regretted that my health stopped me from joining the reserves. I'll try & find some pics of my father. He retired a Lt Colonel after almost 30 yrs of service. Should've been a full colonel but promotions in senior ranks were more about politics than real ability. He's never been a man to conspire or backstab. He got on with the job and that was probably his mistake if he wanted to rise further up.

Quote from: kombi1976;129172Awesome pics. I've always regretted that my health stopped me from joining the reserves. I'll try & find some pics of my father. He retired a Lt Colonel after almost 30 yrs of service. Should've been a full colonel but promotions in senior ranks were more about politics than real ability. He's never been a man to conspire or backstab. He got on with the job and that was probably his mistake if he wanted to rise further up.

Your dad was the C.O. of the choc unit at Merrylands wasn't he?
What happened to that unit when the land was sold off?

Quote from: 22hornet;129178Your dad was the C.O. of the choc unit at Merrylands wasn't he?
What happened to that unit when the land was sold off?

I don't know that he was CO of that company and I don't know what happened with the land. Like some many other things which benefit out country but cost money it was probably collapsed into another company closed.
My father was CO of 2/17 Battalion Royal NSW Regiment. They had their HQ in Arncliffe and companies in Blacktown, Bathurst, Orange and Newcastle. The saddest thing about him finishing up with the Army Reserve was that not only was he really good at his job, he absolutely loved it. After his command finished he was kept on as a tactical advisor for a little while, which just goes to show how good he was at it, but they couldn't find any other job for him. If he'd been an NCO or even a lower ranking officer I'm convinced he could've continued serving for another decade. But as a Lt Colonel (who, incidentally, completed one very difficult task so well he received an Order Of Australia for it) he wasn't worth keeping. There was some of the "too long in the tooth, time for younger men" in it too.

Could not find a lot of pictures but here is one of my dad in vietnam. I am assuming he is alluding to the fact that he is "short" (getting ready to come home).

 
And here is a picture of a particularly handsome young man posing for a Picture on his first med cruise!!! God Bless.