Hello all,
Im new to this forum, but have found it to be a wealth of knowledge pertaining not only to the greatest battle rifle ever made, but other interesting topics as well. Let me just start off by saying, Ive got a lot of respect and admiration for Vietnam War vets, especially my infantry breatheren be you Army or Marine. We are fighting the same kind of war today, except you guys got the raw end of the deal when you got home and thats just plain wrong.
I am an Army Infantry combat veteren, I served in combat with 1 BCT, 2/327 Infantry Reg, 101st Airborne Division HHC Sniper section. Our MTOE slots us in the bat. HQ scout platoon, so we work side by side with the battallion scouts. As a shooter in this section I had access to the standard M24 SWS and the M107 Barret (dont get me started on that loud obnoxious, heavy beast). These two booms sticks are what I took into country with me, along with my M4 and M9 sidearm. Rolling all this crap through Kuwait, then onto COB Speicher, then trickling down via CH-47 to FOB Brassfield-Mora, then finally covoying out to our tiny Patrol Base, PB Olson just on the edge of a little town called Samarra, Iraq.
At this time in 2007 the 82nd Airborne was having a hard time containing the insurgency in this town and were sustaining substantial losses. AQI controlled this town from the bottom up, and most of the IP and IA were corrupt or bought off. The town, especially west of the mid-point (40th st) was heavily saturated with EIDs, and complex attacks were almost assured if static for more than 5 min.
OUR task was IED reduction and hunting these groups that would look for US. Small Kill Teams were the order of the day, conventional sniper operations were out the window- you needed the support of at least 2-4 other guys in the city, a crew served was always handy. Well anyway, the short comings of the M24 in urban operations became apparent during our first engagement which lasted over 4 hours against an overwhelimg force. Thank God for QRF. One thing that sucked was, although my bolt gun was accurate and i could put rounds downrange quickly- i needed to be able to lay down scunion quickly, from the usually short exposure time of the enemy, to stopping vehicles. An auto loader was in order- and the M107 was too damn heavy to be useful. You were useless in the streets with this stick, and it was prone to malfunction, was unweildly, and ammunition was very heavy. Dont get me wrong, the 107 has its place, but not for fluid combat operations. (sadly, most commanders hear the word "barret" and they want it used...."Sir, i CAN stop a vehicle with 7.62.... PROMISE)
Enter the M14. Most of our 14s in the arms rooms were rack grade, mostly old reissue weapons made in the 60's. I took them up on the roof (had a nice little 800M range off the roop top on the tigris, another advantage to being away from The Brass at a small PB). Testing of over 10 rifles, only 2 were 1 MOA rifles. Working with the armorer and tinkering around we assembled a rifle that shot just a hair over 1 MOA- a winchester reciever and some other parts. properly headspaced. Stuck a leupuold M3A and a ARMS mount on her and boom- now we have an autoloader. Stuck a sage stock on her and she gave me good service for a good while. Stopped vehicles (usually by destroying the navagational piloting device and any other adjacent units within the vehicle.... if you catch my drift).
She served me well, but one day upon a trip to the big COB i was raiding the company arms room and I found an M14 NM- TRW i believe. She shot very well, and she became my new stick. I made friends with an ODA team and they let me borrow their SR-25 from time to time, only advantage being that it had a can- but ive always loved the M14. Never a failier to fire, goes bang every time and she always put my rounds where they were supposed to go. More importantly, 7.62 hardly ever needs a followup shot. 175 grains in the right place doesent leave a whole lot of room for nagotiation on the part of haadji (er, i mean a male of arabic decent between the ages of 16 and 48 with possible hostile intentions)
This rifle will always be near and dear to my heart. Whenever I pick one up, im reminded of those rough days in a place where we made a difference, fought, closed with and destroyed the enemy- took the fight to the enemy and won. I also feel the history of this distinguished rifle, and I feel apart of something greater.
This photo was during a cheesy overwatch mission for the theater commander who wanted to come and poke his head out and see the Golden Mosque. Thats a Navy EOD bomb dog used to sweep the building for the old man. Wish i could have taken the dog AND the M14NM home with me!
Thanks for reading.
Drill Sergeant Chris K.
US Army (now im a reservist)
3Thanks
M14s in Iraq, Tried and True 
...I couldn't pass it up!!
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