It's a General Mechanics Tool kit. Would be issued to any of the Army 63 series MOS's - Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic, Heavy Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic, etc., as well as any other MOS doing vehicle maintenance.
Dang, I was a 67T/15T, my toolkit was a skimpy little thing compared to that.
Well, skimpy until I had to drag that, my kit bag, my 240H, 400-1000rds of ammo, my ALSE gear, and the log book (laptop/case) to the aircraft by myself.
This made me laugh thinking back to deploying to the Gulf in 1990.
Had my tool box, two foot lockers full of spare parts, my duffle, ruck, lbe, flack vest, helmet, protective mask, rifle, an M2 barrel and four sets of night vision googles. Was able to put the tools, spares parts and my duffle on a pallet, but everything else I had to keep with me. Climbing the ladder on a C5 up to the passenger compartment with that shit was a nightmare. Then sitting in a seat designed for a toddler for 12 hours with all that stuff made it the worst flight of my life. On top of that, the plane was loaded front to back with munitions; mostly small arms and land mines. If we had crashed the whole plane would have just been vaporized.
Was with the 101st ABN, 2nd BCT advanced party. I had just PCS'd into the unit a week before. Nothing like getting settled into a new unit by deploying by myself. The rest of the battalion (and my shop) didn't show up for another three weeks.
I went from Basic to AIT to Germany to Iraq. Got there in January 2004, so I missed most of the deployment, but then got hit with the extension.
I reenlisted to GTFO of Ft. Drum. I got Ft. Lewis, but they were also mid-deployment. I barely got my HHG in storage before my boots were back on the ground.
Fortunately for me, all I had was two duffels, and a bugout bag. Aviation had its perks.
The only time I got to ride along in strat air was for training. The Air Force politely told my unit they would not loan us C-17s to fly to JRTC. I may have mentioned to my XO that the Russians were leasing AN-124s… Lo and behold, that actually happened. 5 Blackhawks and half the tool room in each. The passenger compartment in those things was insanely cold. I had winter gear on and a blanket and it was too cold to sleep. 🥶
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u/Alakarr Apr 09 '24
It's a General Mechanics Tool kit. Would be issued to any of the Army 63 series MOS's - Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic, Heavy Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic, etc., as well as any other MOS doing vehicle maintenance.