Task and Purpose is an online publication covering US military news and culture. They recently published an article awkwardly titled “Meet the skateboarding Green Beret shredding the civilian-military gap.” It’s an odd fluff piece filled with bits like “Klakowicz describes a Green Beret spending time on the range to improve their shooting skills with a skateboarder trying to perfect a kickflip. You’ll fail, but with attention to detail, you can learn that new trick just like you can master clearing a room.” The article includes a couple of embedded video parts as well. I haven’t watched them yet, I’m headed off to read How many Russian generals have been killed in Ukraine? (Hopefully lots…) – Thanks to Heidi Lemmon for the tip. Photos: Brian Godinez

These are stills from a 1998 Time Life/BBC documentary on Erwin Rommel’s death titled “What Really Happened to Rommel – Secrets That Won WWII.” This footage shows Rommel with friends and family riding what appears to be some sort of homemade roller coaster track on a cart that resembles a skateboard. There is no explanation for this event in the voiceover.If the video plays from the beginning, go ahead and skip to the 32 minute mark. – Thanks to Caveman for the tip.

It’s impossible to tell if there is any validity to this story in We Are The Mighty. Their mission is “Capturing, empowering, and celebrating the voice of today’s military community,” but I’m skeptical. It seems more likely their mission is generating click-bait revenue from the military community, but I could be wrong. There’s almost no additional information in the post, other than to say they didn’t adopt them. Check out the story The Marine Corps tested a skateboard unit in the 1990s if you dare. If you leave the window open long enough, it will eventually crash.

Spohn Ranch has put up a detailed video showing the installation of a prefab concrete bowl on the U.S. Millitary base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It’s the first time I’ve seen a prefab concrete installation covered so thoroughly. Regardless of your personal feelings about prefab concrete, it’s really interesting to see it all go down. It’s striking how mechanical the whole operation is. It’s progressed to a point where they almost don’t need more than one guy on the crew who whow skatepark specific concrete finishing, it’s very mechanical. The metal coping is cast into the forms. They lower everything into place, shim it up and then pour the flat and the decks. There’s some patchwork on the seams, then welding and grinding the coping and it’s done. The process seems to work well for non-organic skateparks and single feature bowls. Imagine the equivalent of building a skatepark like you would an HO model train. Pick your pieces and arrange them. Vid after the jump.

Saturday Skateboards passed on these photos to us. There are two guys in the army in Iraq who managed to convince the Commander and First Seargant of Camp Victory to allow them to build what look like a pretty decent miniramp. It’s a lot better than what the other guys are skating in Iraq. Alex and Keane are calling it “Operation Dust Pipe.” Notice the giant concrete barricade surrounding it? I suppose that’s to keep the snipers from pinching them during big airs… The surface looks like it’s been painted white like a giant reflecting oven, which is probably why they are skating at night. Check out the gun leaning up against the side of the ramp. That’s got to be against some regulation! Enlarge the photos after the jump. Thanks again to Saturday Skateboards for sharing. You can see a little of Andrew Cannon skating Saturday’s indoor park in the cross country trip video at the bottom of this page.

Somehow or other we reported on a prefab concrete and metal skatepark being built at Guantanamo Bay by Spohn Ranch, and nobody made any torture jokes. For some reason, Mimi Knoop (with Zach Miller, Adam Taylor and Cara-Beth Burnside) recently travelled there to session the old park remnants as well as some of the new stuff. Photog Athena Lonsdale shot a tour diary, and Spohn Ranch has a set of the concrete shots from Guantanamo Bay on Flickr. – Thanks to Keith Hamm for the tip. [Source: Fuel TV]