My team and I (Civil Affairs) operated with a fair amount of autonomy. The guys we helped were a little fuzzy on how much of our butt the CSM was going to be able to chew when our stuff was non-standard and nowhere near their SOP. And, we were far away from our own flagpole so I never had to worry about my boss crying when the CG showed up to hand out impact Bronze Stars to mechanics and wanted to know why in Sam Hell we didn't have our baby tackle dummy corded to our legs.

Anyway...

Even in our situation, common sense and the mission (all too often not the same thing) dictated that we carry the things we needed to get the job done, nothing else, and STILL our individual loads were often oppressive. And, since most guys didn't really appreciate having to take the CA guys out, we often coordinated to redistribute part of the escorting unit's load on us.

We weren't carrying one piece of stupid gear just because some knucklehead said we had to. Still... man... I fondly remember bopping around in an LBV, medium ruck and K pot "back then".

I have to acknowledge that my contemporary operational experience is only in Iraq and can only imagine guys out for days on end with all the crap we carried.