Our military is broken.

[flamin lib]

Our military is broken. We spend more than the rest of the world combined on “defense” and our military is broken. How can that be? How can we spend half a trillion dollars on “defense” every year plus $1.5 billion a year on Iraq alone and not have enough money or time to train our soldiers?

In February members of the Third Infantry Division were deployed to Iraq with nothing more than basic training. The unit didn’t have time to get the usual desert training and missed the advanced Iraq war training because they were needed for Bush’s “surge”. Pvt. Matthew Zeimer, 18 years old from Glendive Montana was one of them. Within two hours of arriving in Iraq Pvt. Zeimer was dead. One hundred and twenty minutes.

At the time White House spokesman Tony Snow was asked about sending troops to Iraq without advanced training and he answered, "Well, but, they can get desert training elsewhere, like in Iraq." I guess you have to learn fast. That’s why they’re called FNGs and nobody wants to get to know them; they don’t live long and it just makes you feel bad when they die.

Ironically the soldier Zeimer was to replace, Spc. Alan McPeek who had only 14 days left in country, took Zeimer under his wing violating the FNG rule. They both died at the same time, McPeek trying to give Zeimer the training he didn’t get before being deployed. If that isn’t enough, it now appears that both were killed by friendly fire. Friendly fire, how sick is that? There’s a much better word: Fratricide; killing your brother. Trust me, there’s nothing friendly about live ammunition.

Bush is going to veto the Iraq funding bill because it calls for a time table for withdrawal. Congress should send the same bill back to him until he accepts that we need to withdraw from Iraq in an orderly fashion. He shouldn’t push congress to do what they did in 1974 and simply cut all funding. He should let our soldiers come home in a reasonable and safe redeployment.

But he won’t. He’s never had the taste of war up close and personal. His daddy fixed that for him.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_di...

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-TSFp2mAherP7M81YPylhPDxW...

[yellerpup]

1. Well said.

Kick! :kick:

[maggiegault]

2. My Brother Will Tell You That Very Thing...

...when he and his company found out that they were going to Iraq, they deployed to Death Valley first for nine weeks of intense, incommunicado training for desert maneuvers.

For his second deployment, the same thing.

He says that these units are coming over to a civil war with basically the kind of training you get in boot camp. Hardly the stuff of safety...and those soldiers are a danger to the trained soldiers.

Do you remember in WWII, when Josef Goebbels created "Folksturmm," which was basically every person with all four appendages and a heartbeat, to fight to satiate a madman's whims?

My brother and his fellow soldiers refer to these new surge soldiers as "Folksturmm."

And as for the friendly fire incident, believe me when I say that the soldier who did the shooting has basically lost his life, too, to anxiety and crushing guilt.

Rest in peace, Pvt. Matthew Zeimer. You were a million times more the man than the maniac who sent you to your death ever was.

[flamin lib]

5. Well said. nt

[catnhatnh]

3. FNG?

Oh Boy, I know who uses that term and it usually is guys with more juevos than me...but you need to edit your line about "1.5 billion a year in Iraq" since you misspoke....

[flamin lib]

6. Better if it comes from you . . .nt

[cliss]

4. Good point & I agree with you.

Hard to believe, isn't it? It just kinda.....shocks you when you find out.

Stan Goff wrote:
"Dollar for dollar and man for man, the U.S. military is the most inefficient in the world".

A bloated, inefficient, wasteful military. We can't even win in a country with no military (Iraq). It's shocking.

We spend billions in Iraq. They might spend $100 for some homemade bombs. An ordinary Kalashnikov can take down a Black Hawk helicopter in certain circumstances.