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Body Armor and Rig
D
uring the first deployment, my SEAL body armor had the
MOLLE system attached to it. (MOLLE stands for Modular
Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment, a fancy acronym for a web
system where different pouches and gear can be attached, allowing
you to customize your webbing. The word
MOLLE
itself is a
trademark for the system developed and manufactured by Natick
Labs. However, a lot of people use the word to describe any
similar system.)
On the deployments that followed, I had separate body armor
with a separate Rhodesian rig. (Rhodesian describes a vest that
allows you to set up a MOLLE or MOLLE-like rig. Again, the
overall principle is that you can customize the way you carry your
stuff.)
Having a separate vest allowed me to take my gear off and lay it
down, while still wearing my body armor. This made it more
comfortable to lie down and still be able to grab everything I
needed. When I was going to be on the sniper rifle, lying behind it
and peering through the scope, I would unclip the strap and lay out
the vest. This made my ammo, which I had in the pouches, easier to
access. Meanwhile, the vest was still attached to my shoulders; it
would come with me and fall into place when I got up.
(One note about the body armor—Navy-issued body armor has
been known to fall apart. In light of that fact, my wife’s parents very
generously bought me some Dragon Skin armor after my third
deployment. It’s super-heavy, but it’s extremely good armor, the
best you can get.)
I
wore a GPS on my wrist, with a backup in my vest and even a
backup old-fashioned compass. I went through a couple of pairs of
goggles per deployment; they had miniature fans inside to keep air
circulating so they wouldn’t fog up. And, of course, I had a
pocketknife—I got a Microtech after graduating BUD/S—and
Emerson and Benchmade fixed blades, depending on the
deployment.
Among other equipment we’d carry would be a square of a VS-
17 panel, used to alert pilots to a friendly position so they wouldn’t
fire on us. In theory, at least.
Initially, I tried to keep everything off my waist, even going so far
as to carry my extra pistol mags in another drop-leg on my other
side. (I cinched it up high so I could still access the pocket on my
left leg.)
I
never wore ear protection in Iraq. The ear protection we had
contained noise-canceling circuitry. While it was possible to hear
gunshots fired by the enemy, the microphone that picked up those
sounds was omnidirectional. That meant you couldn’t tell what
direction the shots were coming from.
And contrary to what my wife thinks, I wore my helmet from
time to time. Admittedly, it was not often. It was a standard, U.S.
military–issue helmet, uncomfortable and of minimal value against all
but the weakest shots or shrapnel. To keep it from jostling on my
head, I tightened it up using Pro-Tec pads, but it was still annoying
to wear for long stretches. It added a lot of weight to my head while
I was on the gun, making it harder to stay focused as the watch
went on.
I’d seen that bullets, even from pistols, could easily go through a
helmet, so I didn’t have much incentive to deal with the discomfort.
The general exception to this was at night. I’d wear the helmet so I
had a place to attach my night vision to.
Otherwise, I usually wore a ball cap: a platoon cap with a
Cadillac symbol adapted as our unit logo. (While officially we were
Charlie Platoon, we usually took on alternate names with the same
letter or sound at the beginning: Charlie becomes Cadillac, etc.)
Why a ball cap?
Ninety percent of
being
cool is looking cool. And you look so
much cooler wearing a ball cap.
Besides my Cadillac cap, I had another favorite—a cap from a
New York fire company that had lost some of its men during 9/11.
My dad had gotten it for me during a visit, after the attacks, to the
“Lions Den,” a historic city firehouse. There he met members of
Engine 23; when the firemen heard that his son was going to war,
they insisted he take the hat.
“Just tell him to get some payback,” they said.
If they’re reading this, I hope they know that I did.
O
n my wrist, I’d wear a G-Shock watch. The black watch and its
rubber wristband have replaced Rolex Submariners as standard
SEAL equipment. (A friend of mine, who thought it was a shame
the tradition died, recently got me one. I still feel a little strange
wearing a Rolex, but it is a throwback to the frogmen who came
before me.)
In cool weather, I brought a personal jacket to wear—a North
Face—because, believe it or not, I had trouble convincing the
supply mafia to issue me cold-weather gear. But that’s a rant for a
different day.
I
would stick my M-4 and ten mags (three hundred rounds) in the
front compartments of my web gear. I would also have my radio,
some lights, and my strobe in those pockets. (The strobe can be
used at night for rendezvousing with other units or aircraft, ships,
boats, whatever. It also can be used to identify friendly troops.)
If I had one of my sniper rifles with me, I would have some two
hundred rounds in my backpack. When I carried the Mk-11
instead of the Win Mag or .338, then I wouldn’t bother carrying the
M-4. In that case, the sniper rounds would be in my web gear,
closer at hand. Rounding out my ammo were three mags for my
pistol.
I wore Merrill high-top hiking boots. They were comfortable and
held up to the deployment.
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