End of an Era?

After over 22 years in the Army, the 5 uniform changes that have occurred, and 5 deployments, I always said if there was a war that you should be at my house.

What once fit in a tiny front closet when we got married, now takes up half of our garage.

What is it you ask?  TA-50

I'm sure you have all learned to embrace the plethora of equipment that your husband has been issued.  I've tried numerous ways to organize the crap too.

There were hanging devices.  Stacked crates.  Left in the boxes that they were packed up in.  Footlockers.  Tubs.  The tubs seemed to work the best, because at least I could stack them on top of each other.

How many gorilla trunks are sitting in your house right now?  We got 4 by mail shortly after Gunner returned home.  I was totally not overjoyed to see it arrive.  These were added to the 8 gorilla trunks we already had here waiting for his return.

But.......

In just a matter of time, this stuff will start disappearing from my garage.  Hopefully huge amounts of it.

Soon he can go request a list from CIF with the master list of everything that he needs to turn in.  What will I do without 50,000 pounds of TA50 to move every couple of years?  What if there is a war and we need to hunker down and live off of MRE's and be ready to dig our own trenches or create a new village complete with a multitude of uniforms for everyone to choose from?

But then I start thinking about all the duplicates he has.  You can't just have one e-tool can you?  A Soldier with less than 5 canteens?  That's unheard of.  How could he have been a Soldier without stocking up on 8 sleeping mats?  Less than 20 pairs of boots?  How would that work, since he has to have tanker boots, then there are the black boots, then there are gortex boots, mountain boots, rubber boots, desert boots--you know, the right boots to match the right uniform?

With the right boots you have to have the right accessories.  We have a rucksack in every uniform color.  Don't worry, as he also has accumulated an assault bag in every color.  In case he gets thirsty, he has a camelbak in every color.

There are soft caps, berets, kevlars, pyle caps, pt caps, stetson, mess cap.  We've got 15 duffel bags, all painted with previous unit assignments.  We've got DIFFERENT PT belts from every.single.unit.

The list goes on.  So while I started thinking that we might be downsizing, I realize that my grandchildren should someday be prepared for their Grandpa to be sitting in old uniforms and telling them stories "Back when I was in the warrrrrr....".

So maybe we'll be okay in case of an emergency, because I can't imagine all of this TA50 is going anywhere...