Posted on 01/24/2006 1:58:04 PM PST by ARealMothersSonForever
I was not talking to you, squid!
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Exactly.
yea give him a few years to make a few studies and he'll give you a report on it.
The closing of Rosie Roads may produce the same results in a decade or so also especially if we cut them away also. That move was really dumb. Granted we had a problem with locals over the firing range but we cut our nose off to spite our face. The concern would not just be in PR but also places like Hati where Islamic cells could take hold and spread.
Back to the PI's though I never remember a Filipino causing any trouble on ship. I worked with quite a few of them. The main problem was communications. They did their work, followed orders, and were motivated. I never saw any in the brig either now that I think about it. They just wanted to get their 20 in and to go back home.
I wonder if the Navy is still recruiting there? If so I would think there would be a substancial security risk given the current conditions.
**Things have changed. NG artillery units are being deployed there as well.**
Happened in Desert Storm as well, Arkansas 155's got called up. The way I heard it my unit of 155 arty would of been called up but we didn't have the right computer for something.
As for tieing your unit's lack of performance to the number of nonprior service. I am not buying it, our unit had about the same ratio if not even more nonprior service yet it was steel on target almost all the time. Since the average battery has from 4 to 6 guns that means 12 persons max who is directly responsible for aiming the guns, gunners and assistant gunners out of 100+ man unit. Since I heard that all you need for 13B is a 6th grade education I don't think that lack of skills by the rest of the gun crew is to blame.
Your FDC might of been screwed up but all this goes back to unit training. My old guard unit was constant training, overnighters, some weekends was actual fire missions at the closest range available. Some of our soldiers went to Korea to train with the Regular Army. I would have had no problem going to war with that unit.
I think we can all agree that Clinton screwed us all by his military cuts. But like Rumsfield said you can't go to war with the Army you want but with the one you have.
Let's try this again. ALL guys in my unit were prior service but about HALF WERE REGULAR ARMY or combat Marines. One guy in my section was ex-Marine a cook actually. I wasn't on gun crew I was a suicide jockey. We had two duce and a halfs, a jeep, a M-16 a piece and a 50 caliber. That along with det cord, primer, shape charge, and that pesky box we guarded during training. I say that to validate what I was. If you were 155 you kow what I mean.
Look half the guys could not even read a grid map and some we ex Army. I happened to know how and was asked to be a Forward Observer. When I asked my SGT what the heck that was he said don't do it. The second most likely to get him in combat besides the ammo drivers.
Your unit had the benefit of a firing range. Our closest range was a 450 mile plane ride to FT Pickett, VA. Ft Pickett was a great firing range. You backed the guns up on one corner of the base and fired to the other corner hoping you missed the houses just beyond. Our bivouac area at home was two choices. The nearest was about 50 acres located between trailer parks or a DOD facility an hours drive out still not large enough for the guns {They stayed back at the armory}. This was the DOD facility we were supposed to be ready to defend. The DOD Nuke Crown Jewell of the East DOD Plants wise.
But my point is this only one man in my section was former regular Army prior. The rest of us beside the Marine was either AF or Navy. Air Force and Navy receive NO COMBAT TRAINING in basic. The only weapon I fired was a .22 caliber single shot rifle for 15 minutes. We did train with some guys from Redstone over one matter several times. Would you have like to have done the assembly with your training? I think you understand what I am saying.
Combat is not the place for OJT. It would be safer & quicker for all concerned to train new recruits Army protocols than to have guys in you unit trying to break down an M-16 or 50 caliber who never as much as did an actual live fire.
Putting a group of Prior Army reserves in a combat unit and deploying them overseas is entirely different than sending50/50's. It would be like me taking you down to the HOLE on a carrier and saying here you are watch 2-Bravo's feed water level and while your at it shoot the boiler if the conductivity goes too high. Nor unless you were ex-Navy I doubt you could do basic DC skills. You make one wrong mistake down there on some things and people can die. You make one wrong mistake in a combat situation and people can die.
Todays defenses are much more advanced than even in 1984-85 when I was an NG. You mentioned yourself a computer compatibility issue. The newer technology is great but it should be ones who train on active duty using it. The NG's especially in the case of Iraq should be used in a domestic mission filling in for deployed units. Ours I think in event of that was supposed to go to Fr Sill but you never actually hear of NG units doin that anymore do you? They either call them up for foreign deployment or they stay home.
The NG's is a fine concept that I support but Politicians could not resist the temptation to use them as tools for cutting the active duty End Troop Strengths. Yes I know NG's have went to war. It was the exception when they did and not the rule. NG units have on an ongoing basis been called up ever since Gulf War 1.
I live in a rural area. When my former unit was called up we sent several paramedics, rescue squad members, Volunteer firemen including the chief and an entire patrol shift for the Sheriffs Office.
Let me ask you this though and I really want people to think hard. Our NG forces operate under the orders of their state governors. If the nation is at war and no active duty units can respond it is the National Guards duty to do so in event of attack. How in the name of Defense Cuts By Morons can they do this when deployed to where the crisis of the year is this time? NG's cover local attacks PLUS Disasters and Civil Emergencies. Someone forgot the meaning of the first word "NATIONAL". Sending them into WW2 was one thing the survival of the free world depended on it. Every available soldier was needed. However conducting peacekeeping in Somalia, Haiti, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Bosnia, and Kosovo etc is abuse of mission statement.
They were started as local militia's to defend communities over 300 years ago & never intended to replace a standing ready military. Each time since Post WW2 they have been called up NG's for overseas deployment the temptation to broaden their mission statement has happened and now we see in the past 15 years a new precedent that did not happen before. They did it once crisis at a time and nobody has caught on.
In reality we should have had the NG's replaced now with new recruits from an increased active duty force. Ones recruited immediately after 9/11 when there were persons nearly begging to join were lost. Those troops would be going into their 5th year if they reenlisted. Instead our leaders used the guards and a Golden Oppertunity to richly enhance our defenses was lost. That opportunity never happened because neither congress nor Bush called for the much needed increase in permanent active duty Army troops tah many still curse Clinton over for low numbers. We are operating the Army with the same numbers as we did under Bill Clinton in 1996. { I looked it up} It may be 20,000 or so different now but not much. Most all supporting this in here right now would be in shrill voices cursing any Dem who did this to our military. Does it alkl of the sudden become right just because it's the GOP doing it now and not the DEMs?
As for Rummy? Do you remember the hollow military Carter years? Tell you what I went in under Jerry Ford on active duty and got to the ship a few weeks after Carter was sworn in. The hollow military was already there. Can you guess the name of Fords SEC of DEF? I can. I remember the mess he left.
Was during NG service not Navy.
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