Posted on 12/08/2004 6:26:38 AM PST by repinwi
Defense chief speaks to soldiers heading to Iraq.
CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait (AP) -- After delivering a pep talk designed to energize troops preparing to head for Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got a little "talking to" himself from disgruntled soldiers.
In his prepared remarks, Rumsfeld urged the troops -- mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers -- to discount critics of the war in Iraq and to help "win the test of wills" with the insurgents.
Some of soldiers, however, had criticisms of their own -- not of the war itself but of how it is being fought.
Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly three years after the war in Iraq.
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.
Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question........
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I wasn't aware of this view. My brother is a weapons controller in the USAF. He just returned a few months ago from a tour in Iraq. He and his pilots have no problem whatsoever with dropping smart bombs, etc. on groups of "insurgents" and their hiding places. They cheer as much as anyone I know when bad guys are killed.
I wouldn't consider it to be piling on if it were my son fighting in Iraq without armour. These soldiers need the best equipment, considering the fact that so many of them are risking life and limb.
~ ps - my reference in this case to the USAF is due to the OFFICIAL view of the USAF that war is NOT to close in and destroy your enemy --- they take a much more PC view. ~
Nah, don't be going there...The services work best UNITED together, each with their own specialty and mission. Besides, haven't seen a PC Warthog, or a PC Puff the Magic Dragon.
I guess I wish we didn't have to balance blowing things up with preserving buildings or mosques even understanding the cost to rebuild will eventually fall mainly on U>S> taxpayers. Sometimes my anger with the terrorists makes me want more shock and awe.
Just tell him the election is over and Bush won so all hell could break loose over in Iraq and he can't do sh!t about it, but cry in his pillow.
Why should he care how they feel? They can't leave the service.
Would be great if he did tell them that.
They joined knowing that they could be abused in this way by the military. They should not have joined if they planned to bitch and moan about how they were being treated. They probably didn't read the fine print. The military isn't doing anything it doesn't have the authority to do regarding choosing how to outfit the troops or how long to have them on the battlefield. People should think twice about getting money from the government. They shouldn't be surprised when the government wants something in return.
yes, I'm sure it made them soooo happy to hear a soldier complaining. War is hell, it never has been danger free. But, apparently this young man has bought into the Dumocrat line. (Kerry promised to PROTECT our troops) Just the very thought that the troops think that we are suppose to protect them not vice versa.
Am I the only one who sees a larger problem here? Rumsfeld gets asked some reasonable questions any soldier may ask. That's normal. No big deal. What is not normal is how CNN (or perhaps the AP) is trying to paint this meeting as something far worse than that. In the AP's mind, this is a rebellion.
The risk here is that normal events is now being completely mischaracterised by a morally corrupt media. This makes it difficult for people to talk to each other openly and frankly, for fear of some "scandal" being manufactured by the press for their own partisan purposes.
I neither ask for nor expect perfection. However, armor for vehicles is a no-brainer. No one denies its value - it isn't perfect, but it helps. Nor is it some high-tech wonder that requires years of research on cutting edge technology.
Here's an example. For years, F-111s had a known defect - the 'chute was too small (it had a capsule design) which led to significant back injuries a disproportionate amount of the time. The USAF spent years looking for a way to fix the problem but never found one - so those of us who flew F-111s did so at our own risk. That was OK by me. They tried to find a solution, they couldn't, so we accepted risk.
But this isn't the case here. There is a solution, and it isn't being used. So our troops are at needless risk.
Frankly, the American military is so strong, it would trump any other military if only every second guy had a gun. However, I doubt one would try and use this to justify taking half the guns away from troops. One should be comparing what the military is to what it could reasonably be, not to whatever the other countries are doing.
It makes me proud to be an American when a soldier can ask these kinds of questions to the SecDef. It took a lot of guts.
I'm hoping you were being sarcastic. You're correct war is hell but we also have a discipline in the military called Force Protection and we (I'm retired now) take it very seriously.
Of all the ignorant statements on this thread, this one wins that prize. And that is quite an accomplishment. The OFFICIAL view of the USAF is to kill the enemy as effectively as possible. Which it is doing in very large numbers, most recently in Fallujah.
As far as better armor for our troops...for some reason keyboard commandos think they care more for the men on the ground in Iraq than the military commanders charged to lead them. For some reason, keyboard commandos think the architects of the most effective combined arms warfare in history witnessed over the last 3 years in Afghanistan and Iraq, aren't also working on the best solutions to keep our men as protected as possible in a combat zone. The trite statement "our troops deserve better" sounds nice, but assumes something that could be done, isn't being done. That kind of sentiment is just as ignorant as that expressed by fat-assed liberals when they say "everyone should have access to free healthcare". Sounds great. Means nothing.
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