Gear looks good, Keith, both for then and now! Best my poor State Police Dept could afford for the 20 of us who were members of our "tactical" team was to buy some old style surplus Army OD's, field jackets, and combat boots and furnish us with a few boxes of RIT black material dye. Fortunately, my wifemate could handle the dying correctly for me. No patches or name tags or fancy embroidered badges! They did get some money set aside for vests that had a simple patch across the back that said, "Police".

Each squad of five men had two M-1s. Each of us had our duty issue pump 12 guage Model 870 "Riot" guns, and our duty issue Model 19s. There was a good bit of leeway given as to how we carried stuff on our waist as long as it was secure and accessible. All of us carried one or two knives of some sort. And one man was assigned to carry and use, if necessary, a Remington Model 700 off the shelf as a sniper/anti-sniper weapon. M-16s and the 30.06 were assigned based on the best shooter(s) with each of them. The 30.06 was a permanent part of my kit. I was given liberty to make it as accurate as I could without it showing (except on a target) or making it unreliable. I glass bedded the stock and floated the barrel and mounted one of my personal scopes on it in place of the one they bought for it.

We were not burdened down in those days with such things as portable radios, expanding batons, tasers, and later developments for such duty as ours so our load was somewhat lighter than those guys carry today. I dunno how even regular duty LEO's today can carry around all the stuff they carry, and I sure don't see how they can sit comfortably in their patrol vehicles! We could be deployed by one squad, two squads, three or all four depending on the situation anywhere in the State of New Mexico, and we were pretty well divided between north and south by regular duty stations. Usually the closest five man squad would arrive first on the scene and try to hold things down to a dull roar till the rest of the cavalry arrived. Those were the days. Sorry, I got carried away reminiscing!!

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So long ... Ken