Desert-Storm.com Community Forums

We had one squad stove to share that ran off mogas. The rest of the time I dipped a sock down in my fuel tank and stuffed it in a can I had. I would set that on fire and put my canteen cup on top of that till it was hot. A lot the time we just dipped coffee.

Any body remember a mini- spaghetti junction. I think it was the turn to go to Nasiriyah coming from the direction of Kuwait going almost into Basra.

Is this it?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Nasiriyah&sll=30.610732,47.767181&sspn=0.899428,1.220856&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Nasiriyah,+Iraq&ll=30.403361,47.737956&spn=0.014084,0.019076&t=k&z=16

or this?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=safwan&sll=30.292868,47.833099&sspn=0.451187,0.610428&ie=UTF8&hq=safwan&hnear=&ll=30.131339,47.720768&spn=0.014123,0.019076&t=k&z=16

Thanks Dagger. The Nasiriyah photo is possible. Definitely not Safwan. My memory seems to recall a portion that curved up into the air and went over another portion of the highway. Like an overpass. It does look familiar.

I googled Basra and looked for highways that might be the one heading toward Kuwait but it is difficult. I believe to have found my bearings direction wise But trying to move down the photos has been lengthy but interesting.

After the cease fire our unit kept going north and made it all the way up near An Nasiriyah. There was a large, like you said, spaghetti mix of highways. That must be it.

I have looked at google a lot. Very neat. Yes it was a bigger junction. We pushed destroyed vehicles off the top of it. Lot of dead along through there. Some civilians, a little girl and some RGF in uniform all mixed in. I remember lot of body parts ground up in the dozer tracks. Some bodies getting crushed up against the concrete dividers.

Have you guys seen those things at fairs and parks and beaches that have a whole cut out for you to stick your head in and take a picture that is funny and looks like your face is on a funny body or big muscular body? There was a tomato truck (yes a tomato truck) whose driver had been killed. Whoever shot him cleaned his head right off really neat. He had one arm on the steering wheel and the other out the window propped like we all do going down the road. Several of us got in the back of the truck and stuck our head up where his should have been and took pictures.

While I cannot help but smile and laugh at that, you have to admit that its pretty grisly to think about now.

It's a special humor geared to maintain as you know. I threw all my pictures away back in '93 or so. Wish I had kept some. Most that I had were of things like that. Too much time livin' on the highway. The tomato truck does make me smile but I think it would horrify a "normal" person.

dude.... i"m smiling now.... i remember that feller , did he have a smoke in his hand?? i lit one for him, stuck it between his fingers. lol, looked like he"d had a bad day on the highway...., figured that he needed one. i got some pictures of me an him also.that an bunch more from the highway.

He looked casual. Relaxed arm out the window. Only problem was the huge hole in the winshield and no head. In a tamater truck.

the hole looked like maybe a 105 round maybe....remember that , like it was yesterday........

yeah big hole. Vivid memory. I remember being on another part of the highway. The highway had become a 4 lane interstate. For whatever reason we were dismounted. All the vehicles were off. I was out among some bodies. The wind was blowing it was surreal.

remember that fence that ran along the highway? a mixture of trash, bodies, some blown against it, some hanging from it.....