Head: Countdown
Torso: Repeater
Arms: 2000 Big Ben
Waist: 2000 Duke
Legs: Bazooka


This was my second attempt at an Airborne custom. The first was borne of my perennial lack of an Airborne figure and my stumbling on Countdown, a figure unknown to me but who I found to be a spitting image of Daniel Tall Tree. I wanted the first figure to be special, so I used my favorite fodder parts that I felt went together seamlessly. The 91 Duke waist combined with 85 Bazooka legs is a combo I always felt worked well, and in 2000 there was no shortage of cheap Big Bens on the shelves that utilized the newer, more flexible hands to prevent thumb breakage. Originally, I used the 91 Duke torso in the mix and painted the figure up in Desert Storm choco-chip camo.

A couple things changed. For one, I read Blackhawk Down and then saw the movie. Second, I decided to use the 91/2001 Duke torso as a "modernization" of the original web geared look common to O13 Joes (Grunt/Stalker/Hawk/Breaker/Snake Eyes.) So, I decided to replace the torso with Repeater's, a figure that I had come to appreciate as one of the finest of the vintage line. I repainted the Desert Storm camo with the more modern DCU pattern, and took a cue from some of the newscasts I was seeing of troops readying for the campaign in Afghanistan. Since our troops were hastily mobilized, not everyone had flak vests and body armor in Desert Camo, so as a nod to this, I gave Airborne's vest the previously more common woodland BDU look. It made a nice contrast.

The figure itself was a fine addition to my Desert squad that became the ill-fated Delta Force team led by Duke that was rescued by the Joes.

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