So in typing a post on Facebook about airsoft I got to thinking that well some of you guys might get a kick out of some of my memories of older games. Fair warning this is from memory since the majority of things I’m going to talk about happened 14ish years ago. That’s a long time for specific memories but either way I thought some of you might get a kick out of it. Also I don’t often recall who hosted etc, I do sometimes remember where the event was held. But mostly these will be short stories of engagements that I remember etc.
If you enjoy them feel free to post, if no one does then I won’t take the time to dig back through my memory and type them up;)
My first game downstate, I had a Tokyo Marui M16A2 I had bought brand new around 6 months before that. I also was carrying a KWA Glock 19 I bought at the same time. Running Excel 0.2g BB’s because I could buy 3,700 for around $12 and they were excellent. At the time little was known about BB weight and the effects on accuracy etc. It was an era of misinformation on allot of things we take for granted now.
None the less this was a larger game for me where I’d never played with more than 5-6 people at the time coming from the UP with no airsoft scene to speak of. There were around 50 players at this game, black vs. green I don’t recall any armbands nor who setup the game. It was on the West side of the state and I’m drawing a blank on the city name, but it was outside of the city limits. There was a power line down the middle of the field area, and oil wells or pumps spread around in a few areas.
My team who I’d met a few minutes before was sent out to hold one of these oil wells, so we headed out. We hunkered in around 8 of us and we were expecting from the brief that we’d have contact at some point in the next little bit. Well as minutes turned into hours no contact;) No radio comm at the time, they just didn’t reach far enough to get to us. We heard static a few times, but we held position and waited. It was somewhere around 4-5 hours later(I’m 99% sure this is actually the duration but it was a long time ago). I had a splitting headache from the oil/diesel whatever fumes from the well. My other guys are restless all around spread at the tree line and all of a sudden four guys get killed. Then another and another, all of a sudden I’m the last guy alive out of our group holding the oil wells. There were respawns but they had to go all the way back to the start and come back, none would help me. So here I am at the back side just in the trees watching guys coming up near where my guys got killed on the other treeline around 50 yards away. I’m hiding hoping they won’t notice me, and low and behold they moved off and I didn’t fire a shot. I have no idea why they didn’t try and take the objective, not a clue but they didn’t move in and I didn’t make a noise or movement;)
So after this I got radio comms(from memory) that we were supposed to move up and take some other objective. The trouble was I was by myself at this point, so I moved in that direction ended up catching up with some guys from my team and running with them for a few minutes. Then we started taking heavy fire right near the power line clearing, me being a bit gung ho I dove to prone under a pine tree clocking a low branch with my head;) So headache from fumes, combined with branch to the head I was hurting a bit;) This got me a bit confused and I lost my guys at that point. Looking around seeing no friendlies either they got killed and went to respawn or took off in some direction. So I worked my way through the clearing for the power line in the tall grass over to the tree line on the other side. As I moved into the trees I was moving very slowly not sure if I was in front or behind the enemy line. So I sat at the base of a tree and waited for a few minutes to see if I could see or hear someone. Well in front of my location was fairly large tree’s spread out not allot of ground cover. I saw a group of around 6-7 guys moving across my vision from right to left. Here I am sitting in the open in front of a tree, can’t move since I’m in their peripheral vision and they haven’t looked my way. They were around 50-60 yards out, but there I sat for what felt like forever until they moved to the point I didn’t think they could see me without turning around and started engaging guys off to my left. I wasn’t even sure they were enemy at that point, I was pretty sure but not certain. Well I moved up slowly and quietly to sweep around behind them, and finally got close enough I knew I could make a hit. Leaned out from the tree and shot the first guy I saw. He immediately started yelling “camera man!” as I’m apologizing through yells and transitioning to the other guys with him I shot one of their guys as well as getting myself shot in the process. Had I realized he was a camera guy of course I wouldn’t have shot but I’ll blame the headache after all these years, because from memory he was wearing a bright blue sweatshirt;) Either way back to the spawn for me, after probably 5-6 hours in game at this point.
I found some of our guys back at spawn from memory it was Frostee working on his APS2 sniper rifle, which let me tell you was the coolest thing ever at this time;) He was running I believe .36g Maruzen BB’s and well compared to my bone stock TM gun that thing was really cool. Either way I got back in with some of my guys we regrouped and took back some of the objectives but a short time later the event came to an end.
This is one of those events that I remember as being an absolute pain in the ass when I was doing it. Even the drive home I thought several times “what the hell did I travel all that way for”. But as the days, months and years have passed I look back fondly on that particular game. One of the reasons was it was boring but it also was one of the very few times in airsoft things got so low key without contact for so long. That it stressed your “any second things are going to be crazy” it was really psychological and despite the fact that it sucked, it really made the game in a sense. Since when things do happen it makes it all that much more difficult to keep your head in what you’re doing.
There are a few other things I remember from that day but it’s pretty hazy now this long past so I skipped a bit here and there to make it make more sense. But generally that’s what I recall, it might not have been Frostee, it could have been one of the other guys that had an APS2 back then but I’m drawing a blank on the name if it was. From what I recall Hado was there, along with some of the guys that I believe later became ACO, Ryan being one of them. This was before 21st Century Airsoft and Bill came onto the scene. So around that time frame, there was a team on the west side that played regular games at a barn forgot all of their names now. Thinking of it Savage might have been part of their team I believe he was. Knief might have been around then too, since my memory of him is that he may have known those guys or been affiliated with them. There was also a couple guys and a team up north including Xaos and his brother who I’m drawing a blank on his name we played games quite a few times together. Since they were from Gaylord and generally had a small team so we’d just roll with them.
Either way long time ago, but fun to remember and think back on.
Take care!
Luke
EDIT: After typing this I had a thought I could probably pull up the old event thread from back then if I could figure out how to search it out;) Well after a little digging I found this:
http://miairsoft.proboards.com/thread/56/operation-firebrandAs well this was 2003, so my memory of it being my first event could be wrong. Or maybe I played longer than I remember before going downstate the first time. I really don't recall, but it's very possible this may not have been my first downstate game after all. Either way on page 7-8 I mentioned the fumes from the tanks in a post which confirms that it's this game. As well it was in Muskegon with ACO so it was their first game on MIA. And I had forgotten entirely about WTS Mike, who ran Wolverine Tactical which was a local shop at the time. But allot of my other memories were confirmed reading through the thread. So I'm probably mostly right from memory;)
EDIT: Since I'm feeling nostalgic I also found a Tale of Valor written by Hado about that game as well:
http://miairsoft.proboards.com/thread/7167/road-dushanbeTalisman's version:
http://miairsoft.proboards.com/thread/7165/ambushAlso for fun I decided to pull google maps, well things have changed some since then. The houses right near the tanks weren't there back then. I'd say that whole set of houses weren't there, we were in the woods pretty deep. Either way here is a Gmaps link centered on the oil tanks and you can see the power line etc.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/43%C2%B017'11.6%22N+86%C2%B014'17.7%22W/@43.2865549,-86.2393323,421m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d43.286553!4d-86.238238The nearest hour to the East was where we parked for the game, as well as the staging area. If you read the old stories the "trail" often mentioned from memory led from near the house north around 50-100 yards East of the power line up in that area. I never saw the end of it nor a base, I got killed before getting that far.
