My Iraq worn GENTEX CVC

[Lawdog]

This is my personal camo'd GENTEX CVC that I wore as a .50 gunner in Iraq from April 2009 to April 2010. I logged a total of more than 1.5 million road miles escorting convoys from one end of that miserable desert ghetto to another. The LAWDOG nametape I had made in Kuwait, and those of you old enough to remember, will recognize the significance of "HAJI DON'T SURF!" This is one of my favorite helmets. Interstingly enough , my issued ACH has been painted black and now resides in the trunk of my patrol car with my M4 and my raid vest!

 

[Nkomo]

Another great helmet! Thanks for sharing!

[Lucky 7th Armored]

Outstanding helmet! And its yours!

 

Haydn

[krautpot]

Great helmet! The Haji patch is awesome...

[19delta-uav]

How bad did that suck having to wear that? I threw mine as far as I could once we hit Baghdad and opted to mount my Stryker ACH and Bose headset. The CVC was far too hot as it offered zero air flow, offered little side protection from those pesky roadside ieds and efps, and the frequent helmet swapping when dismounting was enough to make me never look back on my decision.

[patches]

This is my personal camo'd GENTEX CVC that I wore as a .50 gunner in Iraq from April 2009 to April 2010. I logged a total of more than 1.5 million road miles escorting convoys from one end of that miserable desert ghetto to another. The LAWDOG nametape I had made in Kuwait, and those of you old enough to remember, will recognize the significance of "HAJI DON'T SURF!" This is one of my favorite helmets. Interstingly enough , my issued ACH has been painted black and now resides in the trunk of my patrol car with my M4 and my raid vest!

 

 

It's amasing! The cvc is still soldiering on, after what has it been now? 35 year's or so. Although the mesh around the outside of the headphones looks to of a newer design/upgrade. Have you ever seen the israeli cvc, ugly, looks like some thing from a wierdo space movie, not like our streamlined, aestically appealing cvc. the camoflage is very cleverly applied and striking. We can see it was spray painted trough some kind of net. Im gathering it was a camo pattern affected by the whole unit, if not then, was it an indivdual undertaking? Im also curious as how you where able to take it home. Way back when i was in the 1st cav div in 1980-81 and had the occasion to where this piece of headgear, i would have loved to have taken one of the cvc with me when i moved on to greener pasture's in alaska,but as far as i know that would have been tatamount to theft of goverment property. Its is always nice to have some of the gear you had accually worn when in the service, to take home, some guys , lets say most guy's don't want anything.We,ve all heard the stories from guy's who said , when i got out a threw all that stuff in the garbage, or more extremely....burn it.I have only just a few item's that i wore.Let's see i have the two bdu cap's that we had to buy along with the" set's two each" back in may 1982 when we in alaska finally received them. one that i wore constantly in the remaining 7 month's left on my enlistment, and busted out a few times for camping trip's and a couple halloween's as i allways seem to just wear my old army dud's, you know, rather then go through all that handwringing in finding and picking out a costume. I still have my duffel bag,hey which remind's me , do they still stencel the SSN under the name on the duffel bag's, given the recent identity theft problem we have in this country and around the world i guess now too? The last item, is my class A uniform, back in the old day's many of us chose to travel wearing it, it was'nt a requirement (exept when we graduated AIT). Khaki's too, don't forget 1980-81 was the tailend day's of the khaki uniform. I never did like the new pale green shirt that became standard then and that we had to aquire. Those of us who wanted to distinguish our selves as being in the army would always wear the class A and khaki uniform when traveled. Exept for a few unit crest's that all i have. Athough now a have dozen's of other mens uniform by virtue of collecting. I do have however dozens and dozens of photo's from my time in the army, as well as mostly fond memiories of the the guy's i served with and the adventure's i had, and the vietnam vets who where my nco's.

 

Since i joined the forum it's given me a oppertunity to relive those day's, i never startout to write these long replies , but take you for example i just want to reply about your most exellent helmet, and then my mind wander's back when i wore the same thing year's and year's ago, and i just writing, its all relative the thing's i might write, like im not going of on some odd ball tangent, blabering about pizza parlour's and truck tire,s. but it does give me an chance to share some thing's about those day's and hopefully any other forum member's who served in the army before or even earlier or during those day's i was in, can relive their time and look back to those day's, when yes we too!, where young and where soldier's.

[Lawdog]

How bad did that suck having to wear that? I threw mine as far as I could once we hit Baghdad and opted to mount my Stryker ACH and Bose headset. The CVC was far too hot as it offered zero air flow, offered little side protection from those pesky roadside ieds and efps, and the frequent helmet swapping when dismounting was enough to make me never look back on my decision.

 

If you were counting on this to offer any sort of protection from those EFP's, you were in for a long wait. I wasnt nearly as scared of IED's as I was those EFP's. If you got hit with one of those, you were a guaranteed KIA! As for the wind flow, standing name tape defilade in the open turrett of an up-armored humvee for a 13 hour road trip, windflow was the least of my worries.

[Lawdog]

Patches,

I obtained this one "off the books" (and totally legitmately, so my conscience is clear) while I was over there. The camo, and personalization are all mine. I was able to get it home, by simply mailing it to myself just two weeks before we left theatre. Lucky, I did, because, we had a totally analy retentive, by the book Company commander who took the "no souvenier" policy literally and decided to enforce it just after I mailed mine back to the states.

[patches]

Patches,

I obtained this one "off the books" (and totally legitmately, so my conscience is clear) while I was over there. The camo, and personalization are all mine. I was able to get it home, by simply mailing it to myself just two weeks before we left theatre. Lucky, I did, because, we had a totally analy retentive, by the book Company commander who took the "no souvenier" policy literally and decided to enforce it just after I mailed mine back to the states.

 

Very artistic i must say, the job you did in painting it is first rate. How did you like the rest of my reply?

[HoovieDude]

Nice CVC Gary. And the debate of CVC vs ACH while mounted, etc is really a moot point when talking EFP's. Might as well be wearing a tinfoil wrap for all the good they would do if hit by one. We lost one of our guys to one, and the charge was angled just so, to hit the turret on the truck. You can figure the outcome.

 

And I am surprised they let you mail it home. When I left in 06 and early 09, they, being the APO, were not allowing helmets to be mailed home. Saw plenty of them pulled from the boxes and foot lockers by the postal folks as verboten.

[sprprops]

This is just sweet! I love the "HADJI DON'T SURF!" patch! I am just glad that you of all people got to bring their helmet home. Thank you for your service!

[gaz232sqn]

Very cool lid, I Love it and all it's little details, :thumbsup:

[19delta-uav]

If you were counting on this to offer any sort of protection from those EFP's, you were in for a long wait. I wasnt nearly as scared of IED's as I was those EFP's. If you got hit with one of those, you were a guaranteed KIA! As for the wind flow, standing name tape defilade in the open turrett of an up-armored humvee for a 13 hour road trip, windflow was the least of my worries.

 

I bit about 10 EFPs so yeah I have a pretty good idea what they do to helmets, vehicles, and soldiers. With that being said, you stand no chance against the actual slug, thats not up for debate. The ACH v.s. CVC debate in regard to the spauling, rocks, and other random parts of what used to be your vehicle flying through the air, the CVC's high arch in the ear cups provides no protection with all that plastic and foam, where as the ACH goes lower over the ears. I have a soldier who would have had a piece of stray copper go in one ear and out the other had he not been wearing an ACH. It is for that reason, and many other experiences, that I completely banned the use of the CVC within my platoon in baghdad 2009. Guys preferred the ACH and bose anyways.