Bagram before the war

[WeatherManC130]

I remember seeing in some pics in a post of Bagram before the shoe clerks invaded. Does anyone know where these were posted? I used the search function, but no such luck. Thanks!

[Flare]

Damn. I wish I would have been there in those days.

[bucky60k]

Here's a few more from wayyyy back:

And a one from Kandahar. At least the civilian terminal hasn't changed

[Guest]

Awesome.

[afnav]

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Speaking of Afghanistan, has anyone seen 9th Company? It's about the Soviet experience during their war.

Edited March 3, 2012 by afnav

[Guest Grind]

http://www.flyingsqu...-policy-change/

...I have a lot more photos than I posted there...let me know if you need some more.

Need some more

[WeatherManC130]

Dude awesome pics! Thanks for sharing.

[M2]

Speaking of Afghanistan, has anyone seen 9th Company? It's about the Soviet experience during their war.

9 Rota (a.k.a. the Russian version of Platoon) is a popular movie amongst the AK community, I have it on DVD in Russian (don't buy the dubbed over version!). It's a good movie but honestly The Beast (a.k.a The Beast of War) is much better movie.

Of course, then there's Rambo III...

Cheers! M2

[LockheedFix]

Based on the USAF clamshell hangar and the A-10s on the ramp, shouldn't this thread be called "Bagram at the Beginning of the War"? I find it hard to believe these things were there before the war. Great pics, though. It still looked a lot like that as late as '06. The only things that look the same now are the mountains.

[Guest]

Just to be clear, these aren't pics from "before the war." Even the Russian shots had a war going on.

It was cool to be flying A-10s out of an A-9 base.

[Guest]

I remember seeing in some pics in a post of Bagram before the shoe clerks invaded. Does anyone know where these were posted? I used the search function, but no such luck. Thanks!

FWIW, we had combat wx guys as part of the very first USAF people on the base. They were there before we had USAF iron on the ramp. So were the Sky Cops, Comm, ATC and a I think a couple AeroMedEvac guys although they might have been about the same time as the A-10s.

People like to shit on the shoe clerks but there were non-flyers on the ground at Bagram before we brought the jets in. Some of them had been there long before. USAF ANG ATC (from St Jo IIRC) providing the Tower ATC for the 160th and heavies that were operating at night at the very beginning, long before USAF iron on the ramp. Everyone initially lived in the tower once we got all the debris out and security for the ATC folks was provided by the QRF team (that Jason Cunningham was part of) that lived on the north end of the first floor (FST was on the south end).

There were no fences around the base perimeter and the locals walked wherever they wanted, frequently on the runway. I almost ran over a guy walking down the runway with an AK-47 one night rolling out after landing, he didn't hear me or see me since we landed lights out (IR/NVG filter on the landing light).

There was shit coming in constantly. especially at night. They shot at any light they could see. It is amazing how shitty shots they were though.

We lost a couple people a week to mines for the first six months, mostly mine clearing dudes. I don't know how many mine clearing dogs got smoked, but a lot. There were explosions going off all the time, people stopped paying attention to them since it was impossible to tell if it was from a rocket, a mine or EOD blowing up a pile of UXOs (which were everywhere). Really weird.

Nucking Futs.

Edited March 4, 2012 by Rainman A-10

[HercDude]

If you go inside the "Russian" tower (which is now full of shoes so be careful), inside the conference room on the first floor is a pretty cool picture of that same room from 2002 when it was an opertaing room. I think there is a sign below it stating it was the only certified OR in theatre.

This is a memorial to Soviet SU-25 pilots that were KIA. Unfortunately it we destroyed it to make room for runway expansion.

http://www.themoscow...ial/201961.html

Vyacheslav Fedchenko watched in horror as a Stinger missile fired by Afghan mujahedin struck a Su-25 fighter jet and the pilot, Konstantin Pavlyukov, parachuted out high above the Bagram Air Base.

"It was so close to Bagram that everyone saw it," said Fedchenko, who was at the base at the time. "The worst thing is that we couldn't get to him."

Helicopters attempting to rescue Pavlyukov faced fierce enemy ground fire, leaving the pilot to pull his final maneuver, one that would later earn him the posthumous award of Hero of the Soviet Union.

"He blew himself up with two grenades when they tried to capture him and took the bandits with him," Fedchenko said by telephone from Barnaul, in the Altai region.

Pavlyukov was shot down in January 1988, and later that year Fedchenko and other Soviet soldiers stationed at Bagram completed a monument to Pavlyukov and four other fallen pilots that featured a wooden carving of Pavlyukov's Su-25.

The monument was abandoned after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan the following year. But in a strange twist of fate, it may soon be reconstructed by soldiers from the country that armed the Afghan mujahedin with the Stinger that brought down Pavlyukov's plane.

The U.S. military is considering restoring the monument near the Bagram Air Base, 50 kilometers north of Kabul, after three U.S. soldiers stationed at the giant Soviet-built base appealed for it to be saved from demolition.

The soldiers, U.S. Air Force Sergeants David Keeley and Raymond Ross and U.S. Army Sergeant Tom Clark, last month began work to salvage the crumbling monument. And though the three have apparently been ordered to stop their efforts, the U.S. military is now considering how to proceed and "trying to find an appropriate way to restore the monument," said a spokeswoman with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

In postings on the web site Airforce.ru, Keeley had been chronicling plans to restore the monument. But the postings stopped abruptly, and the web site's administrator received an e-mail from Keeley saying he had been ordered to stop work.

Keeley did not respond to an interview request last week, but in his postings on Airforce.ru, he took pains to explain to Russian online visitors that he had only good intentions.

"No matter if history is good or bad, it must be preserved," Keeley said in a Sept. 15 post. "Ray, Tom and I are 'soldiers,' like the five pilots honored by the memorial. I would hope another soldier would honor us as we honor these five men."

In a Sept. 20 post, Keeley said he was seeking official permission to save the memorial. "Once it is saved, it will be protected as long as Americans are here," he said.

But the following day, Keeley wrote that the military intended to bulldoze the area.

Then, last week Sunday, Airforce.ru creator Dmitry Sribny wrote in the forum that Keeley had e-mailed him to say that, for political reasons, he had been ordered to cease all actions related to reconstruction of the monument and to stop posting on the site's forum.

The U.S. Embassy spokeswoman confirmed the site had been scheduled for demolition and clearing, but said a decision would likely be made this week on what to do with the monument. She said she had no information on whether Keeley had been ordered to stop his work and cease speaking publicly about the project.

Sribny, a former air defense officer who set up the Airforce.ru web site in 1998, called the restoration effort a "noble act."

"The Soviet pilots died carrying out orders from their country, and now Americans and coalition soldiers are dying there," Sribny, currently a software architect based in the Netherlands, said by e-mail. "Soldiers who die for their country deserve to be remembered."

Sribny said the restoration of the monument could help improve relations between Russia and the United States, pointing to several posts in Russian Internet forums.

"I've changed my mind about Americans," one forum user identified only as Airwolf wrote. "Thank you, David."

Another forum user wrote that his "eyes became wet" when he heard about "such good people."

"Even among Americans, most of whom I dislike," he wrote.

Fedchenko called Keeley and his fellow soldiers "great guys who are doing a good thing."

According to Fedchenko, who completed two tours in Afghanistan from 1986 to 1989, construction of the monument was a team effort by members of his Air Force regiment stationed at Bagram. "We had a lot of creative people there: artists, writers, painters, woodworkers," Fedchenko said. "So anybody who had some free time would help out."

The airplane model atop the concrete wall was fashioned out of wood -- no other materials were available -- by a pilot still flying in the Stavropol region, while a self-taught artist stationed nearby used photographs scrounged up from military papers to paint the oil-on-wood portraits of the pilots, Fedchenko said.

"We took the portraits with us when we pulled out in 1989 because we didn't want to leave them for the mujahedin," he said.

Originally, the monument was dedicated to four pilots -- Lieutenants Pavlyukov, Igor Alyoshin and Vladimir Paltusov and Captain Yaroslav Burak. But space was made later for a fifth spot on the monument wall for Lieutenant Viktor Zemlyakov, who was killed Sept. 13, 1987, Fedchenko said.

The possible restoration of the monument would not be the first example of the United States honoring fallen Soviet servicemen. In 1974, the bodies of Soviet sailors were buried at sea aboard the Hughes Glomar Explorer, a ship built for a covert CIA operation to recover a sunken Soviet submarine lost in 1968. The CIA filmed the ceremony, and a video was handed over to Russia in the 1990s.

U.S. actions in Afghanistan in the 1980s were less generous toward the Soviet Union. The CIA provided Stingers, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, to the Afghan mujahedin, who used them to shoot down hundreds of Soviet aircraft.

Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Pentagon officials acknowledged that some of the Stingers might have fallen into the hands of al-Qaida or Taliban militants -- the very people that U.S.-led forces are now fighting in Afghanistan.

Fedchenko said he saw no irony in U.S. soldiers restoring a monument to Soviet pilots shot down by Islamic militants that the United States had armed.

"Regardless of the political situation, all soldiers are the same: They fight to defend their government," he said.

[Murph]

Old pics from Alpha and Charlie ramp.

[afnav]

With all of these great photographs, I could definitely see a Squadron Signal or Motorbooks publication about Afghanistan during both conflicts being very popular. If something like that has already been done, I would certainly like to see it.

[Butters]

Based on the USAF clamshell hangar and the A-10s on the ramp, shouldn't this thread be called "Bagram at the Beginning of the War"? I find it hard to believe these things were there before the war. Great pics, though. It still looked a lot like that as late as '06. The only things that look the same now are the mountains.

He means before the "Shoe war". Yes they are pictures of Bagram at the begining of OEF, but that was a shooting war and shoes don't know anything about that.

Back when the Taxiways were a little small. There is another well publisized pic out there that the AMC A3 saw and wanted to know who approved a C-17 to be on a 40ft wide taxiway so he could chew their ass. He calmed down when they told him "Sir, it was you, that's Bagram".

Edited March 4, 2012 by Butters

[Majestik Møøse]

I almost ran over a guy walking down the runway with an AK-47 one night rolling out after landing, he didn't hear me or see me since we landed lights out (IR/NVG filter on the landing light).

OK, so what happened then? Was he a good guy or a bad guy?

[guineapigfury]

OK, so what happened then? Was he a good guy or a bad guy?

If he was a bad guy he missed an awesome opportunity for a story. I imagine it going something like this:

So there I was, landing roll at Bagram when I saw a glint in the darkness. Imagine my surprise to see a Taliban wandering the runway holding an AK-47. Since I was already in the flare, using the gun wasn't an option. I put in just a touch of rudder to displace from centerline and caught the bastard right in the eye with the pitot tube. Not wanting to slow ops on a busy runway, I taxied to the chocks with this clown dangling from the pitot tube, well and truly skull######ed. Erratic airspeed indications were a small price to say for this glorious moment. After the walk around, I had the crew chief stencil a smiley face with only one eye on the side of the jet. Then we high fived in slow motion, just like at the end of Tango and Cash.

[Guest]

OK, so what happened then? Was he a good guy or a bad guy?

No idea. He didn't shoot at me as far as I know. I called the tower and ops and told them both what I had seen. Then I went to dearm.

A person can become numb to shit like this.

[Herculean]

Amazing pictures and info, thanks for posting it. I just read this article in AF Magazine that reminded me of this thread since a lot of these pictures seem to be taken about the time Anaconda kicked off. Along with a lot of info that has been retold over and over there is some stuff that I hadn't heard of such as T Mike calling the Pakistanis to ask for a temp Hog base at Jacobabad when the jets were already in the air, C17s getting gas from an orbiting tanker to fill the bladders at Bagram, and that the Strike Eagle pass on Takur Gar was the firrst time they had ever strafed. I knew the plan for that op was messed up, I think that is pretty much accepted historic fact, but I didn't know that the CAS plan was so much of an afterthought. Do any of you who were there at that time care to speak on this article?

[Guest]

Real CAS is when you take off to support the mission and find out, OBTW, you're going to land in a different country when you check out with AWACS. A good reason to carry a toothbrush and a pair of spare underwear in your G-suit pocket.

Any of the guys at DM right now need to corner Soup in the bar before he leaves for school and have him tell some stories of what it is like to be a young Capt right out of weapons school on the front edge of the A-10 missions at that time. He was the fucking man, and don't let him tell you anything to the contrary. The Mk-82s mentioned in that article were his flight, X pattern rip 6 MK-82 airburst across a group of soft pudgies that he caught in the open. The guys on the ground were counting shoes to determine how many bad guys were in the group because shoes were about all that was left. They stopped when they got to ~250 KVA and called it good. I contend that was the single most effective CAS mission in A-10 history.

P-stan agreed to allow the A-10s at Jaco as "temporary CSAR" assets with the other USAF "CSAR" assets that were already there. The Pakis weren't all that excited or friendly about having A-10s in their country and it didn't last long.

Anaconda was a shit show. Hagenbeck was an idiot and blamed the USAF for his failure to plan. Anaconda was the first real foray for a Big Green (non-SOF) force of any size outside the wire and Hagenbeck fucked it up. I had to listen to Hagenbeck shit on the USAF in the Battle Update Brief almost every day for months after Anaconda.

[Shortbus]

Real CAS is when you take off to support the mission and find out, OBTW, you're going to land in a different country when you check out with AWACS. A good reason to carry a toothbrush and a pair of spare underwear in your G-suit pocket.

Anaconda was a shit show. Hagenbeck was an idiot and blamed the USAF for his failure to plan. Anaconda was the first real foray for a Big Green (non-SOF) force of any size outside the wire and Hagenbeck ######ed it up. I had to listen to Hagenbeck shit on the USAF in the Battle Update Brief almost every day for months after Anaconda.

2.

Big army was (and still is) trying to validate itself in the face of SOF and Air Force successes. The deliberate exclusion of the Air Force from the planning was inexcusable and idiotic. If things weren't so F-ed up at the time, the screaming match I overheard on AC-10 between two army O-6s (one regular army, the other SOF) about who didn't know wtf he was doing would have been comical. Unfortunately, that particular mission it wasn't quite so funny.

[ClearedHot]

Anaconda was a shit show. Hagenbeck was an idiot and blamed the USAF for his failure to plan.

He brought his Air Defense assets and left his JTACs at home, clearly it was USAFs fault...

[Guest]

If things weren't so F-ed up at the time, the screaming match I overheard on AC-10 between two army O-6s (one regular army, the other SOF) about who didn't know wtf he was doing would have been comical. Unfortunately, that particular mission it wasn't quite so funny.

Standard communication between those two groups at the time. Exactly like this...

[Shortbus]

Standard communication between those two groups at the time. Exactly like this...

Right. I'll let you all decide who was whom irt to regular army vs SOF per this analogy..

[zrooster99]

Now THIS is the type of thread that keeps me coming back to the forum... Beats the shit out of the political pissing match of the week and the latest "why the AF failed me" whine fest... Please keep it up Gents... By the way, if you haven't already, I hope you get some of these memories in writing before they get too fuzzy...