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Iraqi Woodland T-shirts

Nkomo: ADMIN; Posts : 4797
Join date : 2010-01-09
Location : USA

Post n°1

Iraqi Woodland T-shirts

by Nkomo Sun Jun 09, 2013 8:28 pm

Interesting story about the camouflage undershirt this Iraqi soldier is wearing. About 5 years ago, I was at one of my favorite surplus shops around one of the US Army bases here in Kentucky. I knew the shop owner very well and he would always save odd items back for whenever I would show up.

This particular day, I bought a huge bag of DCUs and pouches for my collection. As I was leaving, he handed me four woodland camouflage t-shirts and said that some soldier had brought them in and claimed that they came back from Iraq. The shop owner said the soldier also claimed that the t-shirts were given to the Iraqi troops by US soldiers to help supplement the Iraqis uniforms.

To be honest, I thought it was another story someone had made up to sell their items. I really had no use for the shirts and had contemplated throwing them out or donating them to our local thrift shop. However, I kept them in the bag of DCUs and eventually forgot about them.

A few years later, I was doing some research on Iraqi camouflage uniforms and saw several pictures that made me do a double take. Sure enough, there were pictures of Iraqi soldiers wearing the exact same woodland pattern t-shirts. The Iraqi in the picture I posted is also wearing the exact same woodland pattern shirt I was given.

This is just an example of why you never throw anything away until you find out the full story.

Last edited by nkomo on Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:06 pm; edited 1 time in total

kriegsmodell

kriegsmodell: ADMIN; Posts : 1873
Join date : 2010-03-20
Location : Central Illinois

Post n°2

Re: Iraqi Woodland T-shirts

by kriegsmodell Sun Jun 09, 2013 9:21 pm

How true! Great first hand example .....

Nkomo

Nkomo: ADMIN; Posts : 4797
Join date : 2010-01-09
Location : USA

Post n°3

Re: Iraqi Woodland T-shirts

by Nkomo Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:48 pm

Thanks, Lance. From my research, I found out that the practice of US units providing uniforms or supplemental clothing to the newly formed Iraqi Armed Forces and Iraqi Police was relatively common.

I picked up a modified 6-color jacket made by Tru-Spec at Ft. Campbell a few years back. From my research, the modified jacket was worn by Iraqi Special Forces and was likely given to them by the 5th Special Forces when they helped train them.

Pictures of modified 6-color jackets in use with Iraqi Special Forces.

Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) refers to the Iraqi special forces unit created by Coalition forces after the 2003 invasion. As of November 2009, the forces, directed by the Iraqi Counter-Terrorist Bureau, consist of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorist Command, which has two brigades subordinate to it. The Counter-Terrorist Bureau is funded by the Ministry of Defence (Iraq). Most special operations troops in the old Iraqi army were almost all Sunni Arabs, selected for their loyalty to Saddam Hussein, and sometimes used against their own people. Because of this, the current Iraqi commando force had to be recruited from scratch, mostly from Kurds and Shia Arabs. In November 2005, after two years of training in Jordan with Jordanian and US Army Special Forces, the Iraqi Special Operations Force had 1440 men trained, composed into two combat battalions and two support battalions. In March 2008, the force consisted of a single brigade which in turn was made up of an Iraqi National Counter-Terrorism Force (INCTF) battalion, three Commando battalions, a support battalion and a special reconnaissance unit.

Zeked

Zeked: ADMIN; Posts : 2496
Join date : 2011-01-06
Location : St Paul, MN

Post n°4

Re: Iraqi Woodland T-shirts

by Zeked Wed Jun 12, 2013 5:45 pm

Gosh isnt it great having all these pictures to help ID stuff. What a treat for us collectors (but bad when you think of all those faker pukes out there).