BIG AL

I saw someone looking for a guy from Penn. Reminded me of a guy in the HHC 8th Engineers. His name was Al Fursa. He was the battalion photographer. This guy knew everything about film speeds, cameras, how to take a good picture, how to develop it, and honest injun, he couldn't take a decent picture. His job was to take pictures and it was amazing how he would botch every picture he took. He had a real mental block. He could tell you how to take great pictures, but couldn't do it himself. He would always have one of us guys go with him when he was called to take pictures for command and tell everyone it was just to have a backup camera taking pictures. His pictures never ever turned out...and our pictures were always the ones that had extra copies made. We helped him out and told anyone who asked that the good pictures were the ones Al took, just so he could keep his job, but he was the sorriest photographer that ever picked up a camera.

I remember one good picture of him. He was new in the company, an FNG, and wanted a picture to send home.....something real military and he wanted it to look as if he was doing some serious stuff. So, we posed him in this hole that had been recently dug....he was crouched down, looking down the barrel of his
M-16, steel helmet on, a bandoleer of ammo over his shoulder, with a couple of frags laid out by the top of the hole....the picture came out real good. What he didn't know, was the hole had been dug for a piss tube, but the tube was slow in arriving, and we'd been using the hole for a couple of days anyway....and there he was, combat ready, looking good, down in the hole half the company had been using to urinate in for the last couple of days.

We waited till he got the pictures developed and had sent several home before we told him....what the hole was for....Big Al from Bristol, Penn.

Originally posted on 1st Cavalry Association Guest Book
by, and included here with permission from Steve Richey

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