A Black Feather, A poison pen... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carrier Landings, et al. Another sad indicator of just how badly we need to be rid of the Shrub as evinced by this letter from an anonymous soldier to Eric Alterman's "Altercation" Blog at MSNBC.com Dear Dr. E., I have been a soldier both on Active Duty and in the National Guard for fifteen years. I am a lifelong Democrat, but I have voted for Republicans before, in the past when I thought he or she was the better person for the job. I love my country and I�ll die before I�d do something against her interests. I know this all sounds corny, but I�ve got tears running down my face as I type this. Many have heard about the reservists on medical hold at Fort Stewart, GA. Medical Hold Soldiers of the National Guard and Army Reserve were kept in Barracks at Fort Carson, CO that were scheduled for demolition. Many soldiers got sicker during our stay there. The toilet facilities were mostly broken, and mold covered everything. Soldiers that could not stand or walk had to live on the upper floors. Nothing was done about the problem, regardless of who we complained to. I, like others, simply left at the first opportunity to come home. Many of us did not ever get our problems taken care of. Although I am now healthy (relatively speaking) I know of several soldiers of my state who are still sick at home. They cannot work, but have not been paid by the Army for their Active Duty Medical Extensions. The paperwork has either not been done, or has been lost, or something. There are stories like this from all over the country. My unit served in Iraq. We were originally deployed to provide security in Kuwait. We had trained for the security mission, essentially guard duty, for several months, without doing any offensive operations, convoy ops, or any other training. Shortly after our forces secured Baghdad airport, my unit was put on planes to Baghdad, and we began convoy security operations. We also undertook offensive operations against guerrillas in the Sunni Triangle. Please understand that these are bread-and-butter operations for infantry like us, but you need to keep training to keep the edge. We never had the Interceptor body armor, and at times we were low on ammunition, food, and water. We had several contacts. I am so proud of my soldiers. You should�ve seen them. They performed brilliantly, but God alone knows how we didn�t loose anybody. I never will. Since returning to the States, many of the middle-career NCOs have decided they are getting out. I tried to talk a couple of them into staying, because we need good leaders, especially those with combat experience. Both of them said that they were getting out and the war had decided it for them. �They almost got us all killed for no good reason,� said one. Two of my junior enlisted soldiers refuse to come to drill anymore. I haven�t been able to talk them into coming. They will soon be referred for further action at higher levels. That could mean their arrest and prosecution, or simply administrative discharge. This year, my unit�s only training objective is MOUT�Military Operations in Urbanized Terrain. In other words, city warfare. Where normally we would train to attack and defend in various environments, we are only doing urban ops this year. No one will say it, but there�s only one place that leads, probably when the next troop rotation to Iraq takes place in the January-March, 2005 timeframe. Training for this probable deployment will be difficult without weapons, however. We have one rifle, one machine gun and one pistol for our whole unit, for basic familiarization training ("This is a rifle�the bullets come out this end�"). This is for an Infantry company with over 100 men. All the other weapons have been transferred to another state for their impending deployment to Iraq. We have been told that we will get at least a few rifles and a couple of machine guns to train with by Annual Training in June. Hopefully we will get new stuff before the end of the year, but the CO just gave me a blank stare when I asked about it. It seems that we will only have enough weapons to train one platoon at a time at AT. So that means that two thirds of the company will not be training at any given time during the only extended training period we will get all year. May God help us all. I take no joy at all in what I have told you. I fear for the future of the Army, this organization that gave me a home and fed me for so long, and that continues to be a huge part of my life. Please know that for all of this, I love the Army, and the National Guard, and I cannot escape the nagging feeling that I have broken faith with my chain of command. I would�ve volunteered to go to Afghanistan when one of our sister units from our state deployed (with proper equipment), if I�d been healthy in time to go. Afghanistan is a justifiable mission. There�s a good reason for U.S. forces to be there. Iraq, on the other hand, felt wrong to me from the get-go. Liberating an oppressed people is something I will always be proud of, but that�s not the reason Bush gave us for going to war, is it? He and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, of all people, claimed that we were under some kind of Sword of Damocles with all of the chemical and bio weapons that were supposedly aimed at us. That it was a matter of time until Al Queda used Saddam�s gas on us. He lied to us, plain and simple. He also did incalculable damage to the UN and our alliances with Europe, two international structures that have served my country so well for so long. But I want to ask�with the Army either broken, or about to be broken, what the hell are we supposed to do if Korea goes up? What if something happens in South America? The reason I contacted you is that you seem like a reasonable man. I read Altercation, and I agree with most of what I see there. I also know that Eric Alterman probably has resources that I do not have. I need people to know just how bad things are, but if my career crashes into my idealism, then I won�t be able to take care of my soldiers the next time my unit deploys. Please do not use my name or state. Other than that, use what you can. It was reading those two articles on Early Bird, right after reading Altercation, that I decided I needed to say something. For the record, I am a Clark supporter, having served under the General in the past. I am also very comfortable with Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards. In any event, I would vote for the rotting carcass of a dead rat before I vote for the Texas AWOL. You know, it's a goddamned shame that that man will, acording to the UCMJ, have to ultimately report his own AWOL troops when failing to show up for duty is one of the hallmarks of the (p)Resident's military career 11:26 a.m. - 2004-01-23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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