The Moofrs Pics

First, a word about the title. For those who don't know, that's not a typo in my name. Rather, it's a little nickname I was begrudgingly stuck with during Desert Storm. Oddly enough, when I was younger, I always wanted one of those cool military nicknames. You know the one's I mean: "Ace", "Mother", "Tex", etc. Unfortunately, being the youngest person in the Platoon, not from Texas, and not especially any more skilled than my cohorts left my options pretty limited (in fact, I was called "Cherry" for months -- not exactly a moniker that inspires fear or respect).

Enter Specialist Devin Hinote and an unfortunate blunder by a sewing shop. The name tags on the DCU's (Desert Camoflauge Uniform) I wore for much of Desert Storm had been sewn on a bit shoddily. In fact, the thread that attached my name tape overlapped the bottom potion of the E in MOOERS such that from the right angle, it looked a bit like "MOOFRS".

On our stop through Khobar Towers in late March 1991, I met Hinote for the first time. Hinonote is one of those "life of the party" types, who always has something funny to say, so people always listened to hear his next joke. We shook hands, he looked at my name tag, and said "How do you say that? Moof-ers?". Their was a roar of laughter, and the name stuck. To this day, a lot of people still call me Moofrs.

But on to the pictures. I took a Polaroid with me when I deployed to Desert Storm. Unfortunately, I didn't have much film, but here are some pictures that I did manage to save. I scanned these 5 or 6 years ago in preparation for the first reunion.

Here's a nice shot of me and Sergeant Russell petting this camel who wandered into our camp just outside of Tallil in Iraq one morning:


I don't remember where this shot was taken, but I remember that it was cold that day (in January), and really dusty:


This shot was taken in Khobar. At the time, I thought it was funny that the stop sign was in both Arabic and English:


Another one from the "this looks more like the moon" series:


Here's a shot of me in the RATT (RAdio TeleType) rig. (It seems like I'm forever at a keyboard.) Unlike everyone else in the military, the 82nd Airborne didn't have full up shelters for RATT rigs. Instead, they modified a HMMWV ("hum vee" -- or to you civilian types, a Hummer) and put the radio racks and UGC-74 in the rear passenger seat so the whole thing could be heavy dropped.


And here was my team in Desert Storm. From left to right it's me, Cumby Freeman, Michael Dickinson, and Michael Jarrot. I've lost track of Dick and Jarrot (trying to find them), but Cumby and I still talk pretty regularly.