Can you send a soldier in Iraq a scope and mounts? Wanna help?

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Dave 3006;

(Ranting mode on)
This thread is about trying to help a guy out who is up to his a*% in alligators, not the appropiate place for your political diatribe. Could you please stay on topic? Give it a rest. Not every social situation is a soapbox for your political opinion rant. I'm going to go out on a limb and say what I think a lot of others are thinking right now. Sit down and shut up. Take it to the political forum and learn to regulate yourself just a little.
(Ranting mode off)
 
El Rojo,

I am sorry for participating in the drift that has occurred in this thread.

Your question about helping out a soldier is honorable, all politics aside. I hope you help him, and I hope he returns safely.

As to the individual who said this soldier is not serving out country, but a failed political strategy, I really think you need to rethink what you are saying. This soldier is doing his duty, no doubt about it. Whether you support the politics or not is irrelevant. The man is doing what his country asked him to do.

If you are sitting at your computer screen in the safety of your home here in the US, and finding fault with a soldier in the middle of a war zone for doing what he was asked to do, then you are a hypocrite, and don't deserve the freedom guys like him provide.

Disagree all you want with the politics of the war, but don't fault the soldiers, and don't minimize their sacrifice.
 
El Rojo, the soldier is not serving our country.
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That right there is about the worst thing I have ever heard on this forum.

I'm suprised at the number of people who would take El Rojo's question and turn it into a political debate. He doesn't care what you opinion on the war is. If he did, he would have started a thread titled 'What is your opinion of the Iraqi war'. None of you debating politics are in any way helping him.

El Rojo -
While I was doing research on building an AR, I found many topics on soldiers/families ordering uppers and optics for their use in Iraq. To me, however, the idea that it would be up to the officer in charge is probably the most logical answer. I think if you two work something out, the most definitive answer would probably be from whoever is in charge of him. I wish you the best of luck in getting him what he thinks could make him a better soldier, and hope thi thread does not degenerate any more.
 
Why don't soldiers with insufficient equipment just take out a loan?

http://www.army.com/money/military_loans.html

"Loans up to $7,500 available at competitive interest rates for military service members (E6-E8)."

That would certainly cover a really nice scope, some magazines, a different pair of boots, or whatever the soldier wants.
 
No can do. Nor do I recommend it.

Tell ya what. Send me and the rest of my reconnaissance crews a bunch of fresh P&W TF-33 engines for our Rivet Joint/Combat Sent/Cobra Ball/Constant Phoenix, or the spare parts to keep them converting JP-8 into noise, and I'll be more than happy to send a scope or two (if it's on his TOE, and Mil-Spec) to your pet soldier.

Hint - his isn't the only unit fighting the Global War on Terrorism.

And if I were his unit armorer once he got back stateside, that privately-supplied stuff on his issue weapon would be ripped off posthaste. What happens to it afterwards is of no concern to the armorer, but if he's doing his job right, he knows it was neither contracted, tested, certified, warranteed, or issued for the pet soldier's particular situation. Nor was aforementioned pet soldier trained or qualified on the item if it arrived out of the blue via parcel post. Like Bogie said, it may be more of a liability than an asset. Sure, everybody wants to play sniper over there and have a nice scope on their M16/M4. But I can imagine the look on Sgt. Hardrock's face when they're getting ready to clear houses room-to-room, and Private Snuffy shows up all grins with a shiny new optic on his M4 for some close-in tap dancing with the jihadists.

If you send him a scope with the understanding you bought him one for use when he gets back stateside for his own rifle, then fine. If you send one with the understanding that his chain of command will allow carte blanche modifications to issued weapons systems, then you may be disappointed. :eek:
 
The arabs may be fanatical, following a false god, and generally despise us, but I think they are definitely capable of rational thought.
Click to expand...

Last I looked, Jews, Christians and Moslems all shared the same diety - they just have different prophets and messiahs that they pay attention to...
 
As for the "validity" of this conflict...

It began a LONG time ago. These folks have been pissed at the rest of the world for hundreds of years.

It started get get worse following WWII.

Began to get truly nasty in the sixties and seventies. Then Russia did Afghanistan...

Now you've got a lot of nation/states and essentially tribal groups that need something to hate. That's their schtick.

We didn't fire the first shots in this thing.

We can either fight this thing over there, where our soldiers can break things with relative impunity, or fight it over here, and you'll likely see your relatives as casualties.

But it's gonna have to happen. Because as soon as we let these lowlifes regroup, they're gonna cook up something gnarsty, and float it into LA or Miami or New Orleans or up the Hudson...

Then we'll make a large portion of the middle east glassy and glowing, but it'll be too late.
 
You guys need to remove your star spangled glasses. The German soldiers that invaded Poland were not serving their country. They were grabbing land to satisfy the political goals of their leader. Poland was not a threat.

Osama despised Saddam because he was a secular Muslim. Saddam did not follow the religious model of running his country under Islam. To think that by invading Iraq, we are fighting Islamic terrorism is nuts. Our insane President thinks he is going to mold the middle east into a democratic community starting with Iraq. He is wrong. We will end up bankrupting the USA and achieving imperial overreach just like all the great powers before us. Then, it will be checkmate for the USA.

You will wake up one day to find that the dollar has plummeted. The trigger event will only need to be one catastrophy or panic from those that hold our IOUs.

All of this is because of our arrogance and not knowing where our limits are. And, the soldiers fighting this stupid war in Iraq are NOT defending the USA. They are pawns in an idiot vision that will destroy us.
 
Last chance to get back on topic before I perform permanent, authorized and duty-specific modifications to this thread. Come on, people, discuss the issue at hand or don't. There are a bazillion threads for all the reasons why you don't support the American soldier or why the American Fighting Man can do no wrong. This is not the time or place for either.

If you don't have something to say on the topic of sending materiel to a soldier for use on duty, you have no reason to post on this particular thread.
 
Okay. I can't send a soldier scope and mounts because I am tapped out due to the excessive gov't taxation of my income. I also don't want to teach the gov't that the citizens will provide the materials as gifts to soldiers for it's foreign wars.

Count me as a big NO.
 
The U.S. invasion of Iraq was a message sent to the rest of the middle east - didn't matter whether Saddam did, or did not, really deserve it. The situation is somewhat akin to the new sheriff in town walking into the saloon, and whuppin' up on the biggest, meanest cowboy in the place. Sometimes you have to meet force with force. The culture respects that.

IMHO, it's nice to send the stuff the the grunts, but odds are that the average grunt either won't need it, or it'd get in his/her way. Possibly in a lethal manner. MOST of the grunts aren't involved in house clearing, nor are they ubertactical snipers. They're doing guard duty, or they're driving, or they're performing essentially police duty. They don't _need_ these scopes. And I'll wager that the soldiers who _do_ need the scopes already have 'em. In a coupla weeks, I'll be seeing the boss at Leupold, and I'll ask him what he's heard about it.
 
Oh, and drawing a lesson from history here...

Back in 1992, I was active on gun boards on WWIVnet, FIDOnet, and USEnet... You wouldn't believe the number of people who rationalized voting for someone who was for extensive gun control over someone who was for moderate gun control. What I've been reading on the "war on terror" in the internet boards reminds me a lot of that.
 
Hey everyone, do me a favor. I don't really care why we are there or what you think about Bush or the war. I have a pen pal, a US citizen who is sacrificing his time and life to be away from his family and to serve our country. I want to see him come home in one piece. If I can get him something simple to possibly make a difference, let me do that without having to hear your non-legal reservations. Those are your reservations, keep em.
Click to expand...

Email the soldier. Ask him what he wants and if he is allowed to have it by his command. From what I gather, most things are ok if they do not perminently alter the weapon and command approval.

Mail directly, in a very plain box. Just his address, your address, and the customs declaration slip. Be accurate in your customs declaration, but don't be overly specific, if you get my drift. "Optics" is better than "Super-Duper MajorBrand red dot sight, with features xyz". Otherwise, it might get "lost" in the mail.


I got mailed a bunch of stuff when I was last overseas. Some things I didn't find overly useful. (Uh, feminine products for instance.) I usually passed them along to buddies. If you'd like a response, include a pre-addressed envelope, with a few sheets of paper and a cheap disposable pen. I feel guilty, but I usually wrote back for those that used this method, and sometimes didn't for those that didn't include a pre-addressed envelope. If you want pics back, include a cheap disposable camera.


Normal 'comfort' items are just as useful as most 'tactical' gear. Tossing a few goodies in the box are nice gestures, nothing overly expensive, and really do remind soldiers that some people actually give a damn.

I got several such packages from the Pagan "Adopt a Soldier" program. Various pagan families and groups mailed me small trinkets and made me smile. I am still kicking myself that I lost their addresses... Did they mail me essentials? Na. Just letters, candy (which I mostly threw out, but still appreciated), books, magazines, small crafts. The niftiest thing I got was a tiny Zen rock garden. Still have it on my desk.
 
Thank you THR members for completely disregarding my request to keep this on topic and going ahead and getting into your own little diatribe about politics and the war. Is it just me or is the quality of THR members going down the tubes? I am becoming less and less impressed with some of our members here. I guess that is what makes this place so interesting, we let anyone remaining civil post, even if they are rude and disrespectful.

Don, keep it open just a tad bit longer, but one more, shut it down and lets give a big thanks to the disrespectful members who could't follow thread etiquite and take it somewhere else. :fire:
 
RevDisk, I got feminine products, too.

But I asked for them. Particularly the maxi-pads. Probably one of the best first-aid compresses ever designed (for obvious reasons), and they're still part of my essential kit. I'm taking them with me on my next rotation over there. This next one will be a doozie, one whole year in-country.

Red, my post wasn't political or disrespectful - it was practical. As one of those old-bastard links in the military chain of command, you wouldn't believe what I see my young troops pack into their deployment bags, saying it was absolutely essential. A LOT of it gets left sitting on the ramp at home-drome. I'm sure they cuss me out behind my back, but I've never had them come to me after they've rotated stateside again and tell me they really needed that widget I made them leave at home.

You can literally kill somebody with kindness.
 
A relatively small scope will weigh about a pound. Maybe more with ubertactical mounts, etc... Add ubertactical flashlights with ubertactical batteries, etc., etc., and before you know it, when it really hits the fan, the topkick will find out that Bubba Grunt left half his ammo load back at the base so that he could hump his toys...
 
Ok. What is your point? That added nothing to this thread whatsoever. Not to mention you guys still don't seem to recognize that I have said repeatidly this isn't an infantry soldier, but a guy sitting guard duty in a tower on a large base in Iraq. If you want to start a thread about over-tacticality, go do it somewhere else already. And as far as the decision on what he needs or doesn't need can be made by him and his CO. I am not making it for him. If he says he would like a scope, then I will look into it. If he says don't worry about it, then I won't worry about it. For a conservative group we sure try to micromanage and use these knee jerk reactionary tactics a lot around here. How is "Don't send him a scope, he might get killed with it" any different than "Don't carry a gun, it could be used against you?" An over emphasis of potential risk in order to paralize action and remain status quo. Again, that is the soldier and his COs decision. I will let them make it.

Man I feel for the moderators around here. It must be like doing this all day long. :banghead:

Ok, Bogie, your answer to "do you want to help" is no. You are excused from this thread. Have a nice day.
 
The Army does not allow their Chaplins to carry a weapon. Ours is a shooter in the civilian world and it was pretty hard for him to do a stint in A-stan and not have one.

If he is carrying one, it is not with the approval of the DOA.....
 
Wow! Don't log in for a day and a thread takes off on a mind of it's own.

I feel to be more of an expert on this issue than most of the people back home. I've been here at LSA Anaconda (one of the biggest "camps" in Iraq) for almost six months and have been to a number of the FOBs in Northern Iraq.

Well, here's the deal. There are very many soldiers here in Iraq with personally owned accessories for fighting. I'm sporting my own EoTech. I had my last name engraved on the top of it. Soldiers will have plenty of time to remove their accessories before/during redeployment. Many soldiers have added flashlights vertical fore grips, rail systems, flashlights, and flashlights. Did I mention flashlights? :D

There are a lot of EoTechs and AImpoints out here (not so many ACOGs unless you're in a Marine AO). Just remember if your buddy's got an M4 it's an easy mount but if it's a M16 it'll need it's own accessories. You see some, but very few, rifle scopes out here on M16/4.

As far as tower duty goes, it's a two man team with a M16/4 and a crew served weapon. Anything at a long distance will be handled by QRF so it's not a huge issue. Also, make sure whatever you send him works with night vision. All the tower guys go to work with NODs.

If you were to send a optical scope, it would need to have very sturdy rings and be a high quality scope that can take a knock or seven and remain on zero.

I'd recommend a red dot. I prefer the EoTech but it's pretty much Ford/Chevy. One thing is that AA batteries are a helluva a lot easier to come by than Aimpoint batteries. Bear that in mind.

Hope that helps.

Mark
 
Citadel... How likely is the average troopie to actually need a scope? I know folks said that this was only for guard duty, but Back In The Day, when I was dressing up like a tree, the general buzz was that one had to be prepared for anything on The Modern Battlefield, due to the fact that the concept of a "front line" has more or less gone away...

BTW, I agree that Achmed with an RPG out 800 or 900 yards is a good excuse for breaking radio silence, and disrupting the nap that your friendly mortar crew is taking...

Also, do you think that optical sights increase aimed fire, or even the likelihood of fire, considering that more than a few soldiers have been known to either blindly dump mags or even not shoot at all during an engagement? If so, they definitely need to be part of the TOE... I'd worry, however, about a video-game focus taking over, with Bubba Grunt getting too intent on what he's seeing through the gizmo, and not keeping situational awareness about other threats.
 
bogie,

Does the average Joe need a scoped rifle? No. 8X-10X scopes aren't too condusive to shooting on the move. 5.56 isn't particualarly effective at long distance. Distant targets are engaged by crew served weapons, mortars, artillary, or QRF.

Optics are, on average, proven to increase accuracy. Some people just don't like them. Some don't want to take the time to get used to them. But when the 82nd started using them qualification scores went up considerably. It's a better system period. Also, consider that many soldiers in non combat arms branches never fire except for qualification twice annually. Sad but true. The Army is doing great things now in changing equipment and the way we shoot and act in training. For instance, there is no more keeping the weapon "up and down range" and shooting ranges. Now soldiers range walk at the low ready position. When we got to Kuwait we had a three day block of instruction from NPRI, a civilian outfit, on reflexive shooting and convoy live fire training that was superb. My brigade (communications unit) was issued approximately one optic per four rifles before we deployed. A number of soldiers brought their own. I already had my EoTech so I brought it so a soldier could have the one issued to me. I wish we had more time to train soldiers with them before we deployed but we didn't. You see a lot of rail systems. Things in this arena are changing for the positive but it just takes awhile--it's a big Army.

I believe that the situational awareness in increased with non magnified optics because shooters are allowed to keep both eyes open during aimed fire increasing their peripheral vision and depth perception. Hell, maybe it is easier for the video game generation to focus in a simple red dot than concentrating on a sight picture. Especially for the guy who doesn't do a lot of shooting.

Non SF units having had a full auto selector switch for years. That was done because of the Vietnam era issue identified with people dumping mags. Yes, people can still do it with three round bursts, but not as quick. It helps to for the guys to see the SF types at the range doing their firing on semi.

Just my thoughts.

Mark
 
You might check over at www.kimdutoit.com for some suggestions. They are supporting an army sniper team over there with shipments of various materials including a couple of Nightforce scopes, so they probably know how to do it.
 
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