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Thursday, July 05, 2007 |
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Questions? |
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Throughout my time blogging I have fielded hundreds of questions about military matters. Most of the time people email with specific questions and I end up answering the same ones over and over. So here is what I am thinking: since lots of people have questions I think it would be a good idea to field questions throughout the week and then answer them as a post on Friday. So feel free to email me with any and all questions and then Sig or I will get to them on Fridays. All questions will be considered, some will be answered. |
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Monday, July 09, 2007 |
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What's wrong with right? |
With the resurgence of talk lately of a planned date of withdrawal from Iraq there is nothing I can do but shake my head at the stupidity of many of our politicians. Apparently the democrats, and those few weak-kneed republicans who have turned on the president’s plan for Iraq lately, have very short memories. It was only 30 some years ago, (when all of them were alive by the way) that we made an early exit from Vietnam and watched as the massacre that we knew would come ensued.
For those of you who may be wondering why it is such a bad idea to set a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq let me explain using an analogy.
Imagine that you are at the final table at the World Series of Poker. After everyone at the table is eliminated save you and one other guy the casino dumps the 5 million dollars cash down in front of you and you both gaze upon the money greedily. After playing a few hands of poker you lean over the table and tell the other player that you just remembered that your wife was making your favorite dish for dinner and you were only going to hang around for one more hour and then quit regardless of whether or not you had won. Any sane poker player would fold his cards until that hour was over and then claim victory as soon as you had left. It would be the only smart play that a person could make given the situation.
If we set a date to leave Iraq then we are just like the guy who told his opponent he was leaving the game early. We might as well pack up and leave right now instead of waiting around because it would be cheaper. Setting a date to leave will only embolden the terrorists to stick it out until our military is completely gone, whereupon they could come out from hiding and really start to wreak some havoc. Essentially that is what they are doing now. They make sure to kill a few people every day, set off a few bombs, and talk the big talk just to make headlines. They do what they have to do to remind the world that they are there and America is failing at what it is doing. The truth however, is much different. Sure terrorists make headlines with each day but they aren’t making significant headway. If we would just fight this war militarily instead of politically we would finish them off once and for all.
If people think that by setting a timeline we are somehow encouraging the Iraqi government to shape things up they are dead wrong. How many times of late have we heard Iraqi officials say that they still need our help? How many times must they ask for our help before we realize that they are serious? If we leave Iraq now not only are we condemning decent Iraqi people to prolonged and intense misery, we are losing a possible ally in the Middle East (of which we so desperately need).
Politicians that are for a planned withdrawal need to get their heads out of their fourth point of contact and wake up to reality. They need to study history and then think about more than just pleasing their constituents. Since when was doing the right thing the wrong thing to do?
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Thursday, July 12, 2007 |
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Q&A Friday |
As promised today is the day I answer the questions posed throughout the week. I am sure I will answer most of them unsatisfactorily, but I will try to do my best. Some of the time I just don’t have a good answer so I will be sure to say so when it applies.
The first question comes from reader JEP-
Q. “Why is it that you think that the MSM is wholly unreliable regarding Iraq & Afghanistan?”
A. The main reason I know that MSM is unreliable when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan is that I have spent two years deployed to Iraq and have seen reports on places that I had knowledge about and they were blown way out of proportion. If journalists don’t have a juicy enough story they embellish what info they do have. Of course I am pigeonholing all journalists here and not all are as bad as others but this has been my basic experience. There is debate whether this is the fault of the journalists or of their editors but I think both are at least partially to blame.
I often try to explain to people just why the MSM is unreliable and the best way I have found how is to explain that most of them simply do not understand the military way of life. In some cases inexperienced journalists report on Iraq and the way the military operates there without a clue as to what they are really saying.
In 2004 I had a officer buddy in Baghdad who was in charge of securing a certain neighborhood and would oftentimes partake in debriefing the media each day. His unit would put out a call to all the journalists in the area that they were going to share the most recent intel with the hopes that the media would show up and then report accurate information. His unit quit doing so after the media types quit attending. For some reason the journalists felt it would better serve their time to get their info secondhand instead of straight from the soldiers on the ground. This in only one of many stories just like it.
I agree that it is oftentimes tough to tell what exactly is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan but that is why there are excellent blogger/journalists like Michael Yon and Bill Roggio to read. Those men (among several others like them) both have an intimate knowledge of the military and are able to discern and then explain what they see and hear. The only advice I can offer is watch the MSM if you must, but then square what you hear with more reliable men like Yon, Roggio, and other milbloggers.
The next two questions are from reader Alpha.
Q. “For those Iraqi groups and neighborhoods that have embraced our aid, do you see these ‘mayors’ and townspeoples spreading the word to the areas that are tepid or outright against our interdiction? Are they coming forward and telling these areas ‘Hey, they ARE here to help us! They HAVE helped US! Work with them!’ etc.”
A. Well I have limited experience in this category but I will share what I know (I hope Buck sees fit to weigh in here). During my last deployment I was stationed in northern Iraq and the town I was in was very helpful in gaining support for what our military was doing. Every month our base played host to a meeting of all the local sheikhs and other leaders in an effort to get them to air their grievances and lend us a hand with what we were trying to do. From what I heard the meetings went pretty well and we were able to gain a lot of help by befriending the locals e.g. they informed us when attacks were going to happen, aided in the capture of bad guys, and allowed us to work in their towns without much incident. Of course not every town was as helpful but I cannot talk about much more than what I know.
Q2. “This question may seem mundane to you but this country (Iraq) seems to be just awashed with munitions. I read everyday how ‘X’ number of caches have been found and destroyed but it is as if these weapons and munitions are growing on trees and in fields. Are the vast majority being imported in your opinion or are they the remains of Iraqi military?”
A. In my experience most of the munitions we find are left over from the Iraqi military. Saddam stockpiled weapons in locations all over the country and we stumble upon them as we go about our business. These munitions are primarily what IEDs are made out of and are a major concern for us. Of course some weapons are brought in from outside the country but the tend to be more sophisticated and deadly e.g. certain RPGs, rockets etc. I have heard stories of EOD guys finding tons and tons of munitions at a time and then spending days wiring them up for detonation. Fun stuff if you’re an EOD guy, not if you’re out on the roads a lot.
Well that is it for this Friday but keep the questions coming and we’ll see if we can’t do this every Friday.
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007 |
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McCain`s Speech |
I am not the first to link to this speech by John McCain and probably will not be the last, but I think it is worth taking a look at no matter what you think of McCain. The guys at Powerline have excerpted parts of the speech including this powerful section:
"Let us keep in the front of our minds the likely consequences of premature withdrawal from Iraq. Many of my colleagues would like to believe that, should the withdrawal amendment we are currently debating become law, it would mark the end of this long effort. They are wrong. Should the Congress force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, it would mark a new beginning, the start of a new, more dangerous, and more arduous effort to contain the forces unleashed by our disengagement."
"No matter where my colleagues came down in 2003 about the centrality of Iraq to the war on terror, there can simply be no debate that our efforts in Iraq today are critical to the wider struggle against violent Islamic extremism. Already, the terrorists are emboldened, excited that America is talking not about winning in Iraq, but is rather debating when we should lose."
"Mr. President, the terrorists are in this war to win it. The question is: Are we?"
John McCain certainly has his head on straight here, my only hope is that the politicians who are pushing from a withdrawal in Iraq listen to him. Be sure to follow the `Vets for Freedom` link to the left to see how their campaign to D.C. went yesterday, and for further reading head over to Powerline to view more of McCain`s speech. |
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007 |
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Common Sense Article Of The Day |
Over the past couple months I have been an increasing fan of Dean Barnett who blogs at Hugh Hewitt`s site. He tells it how it is and isn`t afraid to piss people off. My kind of guy. Today he came out and said what most of us already know, which is that we aren`t fighting against a relatively small number of Muslim extremists.
"That’s one of the reasons that the Battle of Iraq is so vitally important. If the fans of Sharia (like Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and their tens of millions of philosophical fellow travelers) get the idea that America won’t fight and can be chased from the battlefield, we will have sent them an incredibly toxic message. Remember, they consider the whole world to be part of the battlefield, including Lower Manhattan, Washington D.C., Madrid, London… "
"SO PRECISELY HOW BIG is the problem, numerically speaking? Sorry – it’s impossible to say. But it’s huge. It’s at least tens of millions strong, more likely hundreds of millions strong. I know it stinks, but that’s the truth. We may as well acknowledge it, because it won’t go away just because we ignore it."
I would place my money on the number of Muslim extremists (and fellow Muslim sympathizers) being much larger than anyone thinks. My belief comes from first hand knowledge of Muslim Arabs, not solely from other reports about them. Notice I didn`t say all of them, but in comparison if Bush says Islam is a religion of peace then I am on the other side of the spectrum. Check out the rest of the Barnett`s article here. |
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Thursday, July 19, 2007 |
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The New Republic Is A Joke |
Much talk has been made recently about the write up in The New Republic from a supposed soldier who tells some outlandish stories about his time in Iraq (you can find a good write up about the story here
). I cannot offer much more than has already been said about the “soldier” author in question as I was never at FOB Falcon but what I can do is share some stories about some questionable soldiers that I have had the pleasure to be around.
For starters I believe the entire New Republic story to be a fake, no soldier would ever be able to get away with the things that the author says he did. Not even taking into consideration that most of what he said is basically impossible i.e. running over dogs in a Bradley (a Bradley cannot maneuver quick enough to run over a moving dog), a soldier wearing a human skull on his head (how exactly does a human skull fit like a hat?), and making fun of a woman scarred by an IED (a soldier who said something like that would get his ass kicked by anyone in the vicinity, including me).
With that out of the way I do know some soldiers who are far from the label of “the best and the brightest”.
On my first deployment I was in a unit with a kid who believed that he could curse other people. If he put a curse on you it was as good as gold to him that whatever he said about you would come to pass. Needless to say this kid provided enough material for us to laugh about daily, but in reality I could see him making up a crazy story like the one the soldier did in TNR just to get attention.
On my second deployment I was in a unit with a kid who was a Wiccan and we had to keep taking away his sacrificial knives that he had for his “altar” in his room. Although this kid needed constant watching he wasn’t that bad of a guy, and most of us liked him, and got along with him. However, I could see him making up stories to get attention as well.
I was also with soldiers who told their family members back home that they were going on secret missions with generals, and were single handedly killing al Qaeda on a daily basis.
These types of soldiers are few and far between, but they do exist and they give all soldiers a bad name.
I share this information just to make the point that there are bad seeds in the military who act on their own, and sometimes unbeknownst to their higher ups. We try to keep as tight a rein on them as we can but we cannot be everywhere at once.
If the “soldier” who “told” TNR these stories is real, his stories are not. Sure there have been some unfortunate occurrences in Iraq but nothing like what the author of the article talks about. A story like this one will only do harm to the reputation of American soldiers abroad, and could quite possibly cause physical harm to them as well.
The New Republic should be ashamed that they were suckered into publishing this story. They should be ashamed because they seemed to have been a respectable publication in the past, but they will no longer be thought of as so. That their fact checkers and editors let this one slip by speaks very poorly of them. Their unprofessional decision to go ahead with this story speaks ill of the vast majority of American soldiers who sacrifice so much to bring much needed change to the world. TNR owes an apology to all American fighting men and women for their hurtful story. If you have a subscription to TNR cancel it today and send them a message.
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Saturday, July 21, 2007 |
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I also play video games. |
So who is Sig, and why is he taking up valuable column space on TF Boggs` new web site?
You should have found this out a while ago, but you haven`t exactly caught me at my best. For the last two weeks, I have been doing my proverbial "two weeks in the summer"--in my case, 12 mind-numbing hours per day of Russian language study. Before that, I was a senior counselor for 1st and 2nd grade children--drafted into the task by my wife. Before THAT, I was assuring TF Boggs that I`d have some stuff ready to take up space when we went live.
(Alright, excuses over with.)
Hi, I`m Sig, and I`ve been asked by TF Boggs to contribute to his shiny new site, which you have obviously found. In my civilian life, I was a fat computer nerd, but I enlisted in April of 2003 in the WA State Army National Guard when I decided to do something useful with my life. I shipped for BCT on January 5th, 2004, graduating with acute bronchitis and 20 less pounds of Sig on March 19th. I arrived at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA the following day, where I spent a year learning how to conjugate Russian verbs to defend freedom. I left Monterey for Goodfellow Air Force Base the following March, where I spent several months learning... stuff... and then returned home in August 2005, attending my first drill in September where I learned that we were going to Afghanistan.
During the mobilization beginning on the 1st of November, I switched jobs three times, eventually landing on a tactical kitten rescue team. We arrived in theater and trained for a while before heading out on a series of wildly improbable and mostly boring operations. The nature and rarity of tactical kitten rescue teams is such that we got to see a lot of the country and work with a lot of different units. I have many pretty pictures.
I returned home in January of this year with a lot of knives, a bad back, and occasional screaming nightmares. (I also lost 30 pounds of Sig last summer, but I got him back.) I spent a month looking for a civilian IT job, worked an entire day, and then got back on orders doing Other Duties As Assigned at my unit headquarters through the end of the fiscal year.
So other than my charming little tour experience, what am I bringing to the table? I have approximately four years of increasingly embittered IT experience--none of it recent. I have a semi-useless BA in Political Science. I played tuba in college and am on speaking terms with a bass guitar. My wife and I live solely (and not badly) on my E-5 pay (itself a recent improvement from E-4 pay). I like guns.
I don`t like to comment on Iraq without lots of caveats and cautions because I haven`t been there. I don`t like to comment on Afghanistan without lots of caveats and cautions because I have been there--and it`s too easy to make blanket statements based on limited experiences. Also, getting shot at tends to sour you on the locals somewhat. I am intensely interested in Guard and Reserve issues, particularly equipment and training. I admit to being completely irrational on a variety of subjects, particularly the big three threats: RPGs, IEDs, and MREs.
I`ll probably reference my own site quite a bit in passing; while not properly a milblog at the moment, it`s got a fair bit of material from my time in OEF that will be occasionally relevant. Also, I`m a link whore.
I`m hoping to write a fair bit more--I`ve got a mission trip in August for a week, but other than that I`m done leaving home on Army business for the year. Lately, the only thing I`ve done is a quick poster for Military Motivators. I can spout off on random topics, but I am glad to have feedback and suggestions.
Thanks again to TF Boggs, the webmaster, and everyone involved in making it possible for me to inflict my views on an even wider audience, and I look forward to contributing to the conversation.
Sig |
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007 |
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Why You Should Join |
With all of the recent soldier bashing i.e. The New Republic, some yahoo columnist writing about his relative’s decision to join the military as a terrible decision etc., I thought it would be fitting to talk about why I joined the military and why now is a great time for others to join as well. I intend for this piece to span several days as I want to first lay out why I joined, and then move onto what some good reasons for joining are, and then end with where and how people can join the military in addition to what branch would be a good fit for them.
So first things first: My story. Throughout high school I contemplated joining the military. I wasn’t sure what branch to join, but I figured I would find one that appealed to me upon graduation. I didn’t come from a military family per se, but my father had served four years in the Air Force, I had an uncle in the Navy, another in the Air Force, both grandfathers had served, and other relatives as well. The thing about my family is that no one really made a career out of the military (except for one uncle that is). I had no intentions for the military to be my career either, I just wanted to serve my time and then get out. I talked to a few recruiters in my senior year but nothing really appealed to me at the time so I sort of reluctantly went off to college.
During my sophomore year in college I started thinking about joining again and then got serious about doing so after 9/11. I began perusing the various branches via the web and for some reason liked the army the best. So in February 2002 I went to the recruiter and asked to join (I was a recruiters dream). The recruiters hadn’t been pursuing me or anything to that effect, I just felt like it was the right time to join. So I did. After setting a date for basic training I promptly dropped out of school after winter quarter and got ready to leave. Come April 2002 I did just that.
My reason for joining the army was simple. I didn’t particularly need money, I was fortunate to have my parent’s helping out with tuition, I didn’t grow up poor (just a standard blue collar middle class kid) so I wasn’t seeking a way out of a harsh life, I wasn’t escaping the demise of a bad relationship (you would be amazed at how often people join the military for this reason), and I wasn’t duped into joining by a recruiter as I did all my research on my own and went to the recruiter knowing what I wanted. Now there are some out there like Matt “I Played A Soldier In A Movie Once” Damon who would have you believe that everyone who joins the military is either dumb or poor, or a combination of the two, but that just isn’t the case. There are people from all walks of life in the military and I am just one of the common ones. So back to my reason for joining the military: I just wanted to serve my country like so many good men and women had done before me. I felt like it was an obligation for me to do as a healthy and willing guy, so I did.
I went to basic at Ft. Knox in Kentucky and then off to AIT (job training) at Ft. Lee in Virginia. I made it back home just in time for school to start back up in the fall and rejoined college life like nothing had changed. A couple weeks into winter quarter 2003 I was deployed to Iraq, 10 months after I had gone away to basic. Needless to say my army career got off to a quick start. Here I am almost six years later, two yearlong deployments down and that pesky college degree out of the way. I do not regret my decision to join and am actually thankful for the training and experiences that I got from the military. If I could go back in time with the opportunity to change what I did I wouldn’t change a thing. Not everything in the military has been fun, or particularly appealing to me, but it is what it is and I have learned something from everything I have done in the last six years.
As you can see I am just a normal guy. There is nothing special about me and that will be my main point in the follow up pieces as there is nothing particularly special about anyone in the military. Just about anyone can join the military, hell you don’t even have to be a citizen of the USA to join. The military takes anyone and everyone (almost, you still have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, oh and not have any pending felonies) so if you know anyone of age to join tell them about my site so I can con…convince them to join. Next up I’ll talk about why others should join the military so keep coming back early and often.
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007 |
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Why Sig joined |
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Ooooo, good topic.
I alluded to it a bit in my intro post, but I`ll throw out a bit of introspection that I wrote back in 2003--after I`d enlisted, but before I`d shipped for Basic. Particularly amusing to me is the bit about possibly deploying right after initial entry training, since that is pretty much what happened.
Ray--better known as SPC Ray Joseph Hutchinson, US Army--is the younger brother of a good friend of mine in Texas. Our little brothers enlisted and went to Iraq at almost the same time--only mine came back alive. The boards in question are a forum for disaffected computer nerds, which my friend administers.
All of the discussion about Ray on the boards, combined with [my brother] Micah`s activities and my own impending active duty have got me thinking a lot about what it is I signed up for.
I remember being really upset about some of the attitudes I was seeing, especially at this pro-soldier rally I got dragged to. The general concensus I`d been hearing--especially from people in my church--was how we really had to support our troops--and whew, I`m glad it`s not my kid over there. Support our troops, support our president--just don`t send my children.
That really bugged me. A lot of people were very eager to demonstrate flag-waving patriotism--and why not? It didn`t cost them anything but the cost of a flag. I heard "I`m so glad such-and-such isn`t in the military any more" more times than I can count.
This would be a far greater nation if people would stop waving flags long enough to spend a little time researching so they can cast intelligent votes. It would be a far greater nation if people would pay attention to what their government is doing in the name of preserving freedom, and call them on it. It would be a far greater nation if people would love and respect the freedoms that the flag stands for, rather than fixating on the symbol.
And I think it would be a far greater nation if military service in time of conflict was something to be proud of, rather than something to be avoided.
[Fact: I`ve actually been told that my mother should have slapped me more when I was a child after I admitted to having enlisted in the Army National Guard. By a customer at work, no less--on a Navy base.]
I`m of the firm belief that if you have the ability to do something well that needs doing, there is a responsibility to do so. It disturbs me that military service is seen by so many as the last refuge of the incompetent (sometimes followed closely by teachers). I don`t want my nation`s defense to depend solely on people who barely passed the ASVAB (no offense intended to soldiers in that category).
So I enlisted. Make no mistake--I`m getting a lot out of it. Foreign language training at a world-class school, a security clearance, employment for a few years, the opportunity to play with guns, student loan repayments--it`s not a small list. But it`s not all fun and games, by any stretch. They own me for 8 years. I had to shave my goatee. My base pay is roughly half that of my civilian job (when I have one). I`ll be away from my beloved wife for months at a time. I could be activated right after school and be sent away for a year or more. I could be maimed and spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I could be killed and leave my wife here alone.
[Or I might not. My uncle Dave was in the Guard for 22 years and never got called up until last year.]
If someone offered me those terms on a regular civilian job, I would laugh in their face. Well, I`m unemployed at the moment--I`d think about it for 20 seconds, and then laugh in their face. But I leaped at this opportunity--jumped through hoops and filled out paperwork and peed in a cup and submitted to thoroughly undignified medical examinations.
Why? Because as screwed up, confused, hateful, and worthless as our society has become, there are a lot of good people just trying to make lives here. There are people elsewhere who don`t much care for us--sometimes with good reason, sometimes not--and some of them are trying to kill us. I think I have the responsibility--because I can, because I`m not the lowest common denominator, because I recognize the need--to help our nation`s military try to stop them.
There is self-interest involved--I have a responsibility to my family to secure the best training and opportunities that I can--but I didn`t enlist to learn Russian (though I will) or make money (which I definitely won`t). I enlisted because somebody ought to, and I don`t see people in my nation beating down a path to the recruiters.
I too, will probably have more to say on the topic, particularly as I have been corresponding with a very bright young lady who is in the process of making a similar choice.
Sig |
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Thursday, July 26, 2007 |
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Why it matters |
Tim`s article about The New Republic
and "Scott Thomas" (now known to be PV2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp) has
generated some interesting discussion in the comments. A few questions
have been raised, however, which I feel are deserving of a more
complete response than is really suited to comments.
Actually,
the more I read, the more I foam at the mouth. This particular issue
is pushing a lot of my buttons. I`ll try to be restrained and polite
and measured and all of that garbage--we don`t want to discourage
commenters when we`re just getting started. You can get invective
anywhere, after all.
Knows the Guy writes--
One
of the reasons that people are sure that "things like that" happen over
there is because they read about them in reputable magazines. It`s one
thing to write "stories," and it`s quite another to write factual
accounts which people will assume to be, you know, factual.
Because of my experience--which, alas, doesn`t include much New Republic--I`m
quite sure that things like that are not happening. Isolated idiots
dishonoring themselves and their countries? Yes, absolutely. It`s no
secret that the Army is playing a bit of a numbers game and can`t
afford to be too picky. However, I am equally certain that not a
single one of those incidents--had they occurred--would have gone
without a severe ass-chewing (at the least) or UCMJ action (more
likely).
A further question--
To
risk repeating myself (from the comments), it matters a great deal to
the people who have thrown in their "lives and sacred fortunes" with
the coalition forces against the militant forces. Our foreign policy
is being decided in large part by weathercock politicians deriving
their views from polls, driven by public opinion, driven largely
by--surprise!--media coverage. If the public starts believing garbage
like this, our already tenuous chances to stay long enough to help
these people will dry up and blow away. And those people are
dead--everybody who helped us, everybody who smiled at us, everybody
who shared tea with us, and a lot of others who happen to live nearby.
Don`t believe me? Remind me to write about the guy who was executed by the Taliban for selling us cigarettes.
Another assertion:
But
it doesn`t bother you that it`s a lie? There are thousands of real
stories by real soldiers--I can tell a few myself, complete with photo
documentation. Why couldn`t TNR print some of those? I`m having a
hard time coming up with a reason that doesn`t involve a political
agenda or just sheer laziness, honestly.
It should bother anyone when outright lies are printed as "fact" for a
political agenda--no matter what agenda it is. It bothers me that a
politically neutral segment of the population--our military--is being
exploited and demonized and lied about.
Spock`s death in Star Trek II
was tragic. I freely admit that as a kid I started bawling when
Scotty`s bagpipes started up at the funeral scene. But tragic or not,
it was fiction. Didn`t happen. There is enough real tragedy in this
war--both by and against our servicemembers--without making stuff up.
I
do see this as an affront to American servicemembers overseas and at
home--everyone who has served in this conflict. It`s an affront to the
professionalism and integrity of every joe over there. It`s a vicious
slander on the NCOs and officers of PV2 Scott Thomas Beauchamp`s unit
who supposedly saw these things and did nothing.
Most of all, it`s a slap in the face to people who really are
"being torn apart" by what they see and do--and yet still do their job
professionally, according to the laws of land warfare, theater rules of
engagement, and the orders of their leaders. It is not just a lie, but
a vicious lie, and I have no qualms in saying that Private Beauchamp
has brought great disgrace and dishonor upon the Army that allowed him
an opportunity to serve his country--an opportunity that was wasted on
him. He is a case study for what happens when soldiers fail to
internalize the Army values, and I don`t want him in my uniform.
If
you don`t see it that way, I`m not sure what else I can possibly say to
convince you. Words like "honor" and "integrity" still mean something
to some of us, and a lie is a lie no matter whom it helps--or harms.
Sig
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007 |
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Delayed casualties |
Courtesy of The Times Online, a grim look at the aftermath of the Falklands War...
A total of 255 British servicemen died during the conflict. But around 300
veterans – the equivalent of half a battalion of fighting men – have died by
their own hand since the Argentine surrender to the British task force on
June 14, 1982, in Port Stanley. This week marks the 25th anniversary.
. . .
There are no official British figures because no government has bothered to
commission a study or keep a tally of what happened to the Falklands
veterans, despite warnings from psychiatrists and military doctors that
thousands of men were suffering from PTSD in the aftermath of the war.
Say what you will about the Army`s response to combat stress and injuries, but at least there is a token effort to come to grips with the problem, an acknowledgment that this isn`t going to go away any time soon. There is an effort to document our health and theoretically, at least, to fix what they broke. Part of that is reflected in our Post Deployment Health Assessment (mine pronounced me "healthy and normal") and then later PDH REassessment--the same damn thing, three months later. Even in May, they were still telling us that most of our issues will "go away on their own." Only a very few people with very flagrant problems got help.
[And to be fair, probably only a few more really needed it. As with most combat support units--MPs notably excepted--most of us were never in even audible range of enemy fire.]
Part of the problem is the military culture. Nobody wants to be the wuss that goes to the head mechanic, not when we came off a relatively easy deployment in Afghanistan--the theme park of military deployments (ref. previous link). Ergo, few are about to raise their hands and say, "Yeah, I`m jacked in the head." Another part of it is simple calculation--many of us have civilian jobs employing our same skills (and more importantly, security clearances). Big Army may say she loves you and will take care of you, but documented mental conditions don`t play well after you get your DD214 [release from active duty paperwork] and one-weekend-a-month pay doesn`t go that far.
I don`t know how the regular Army guys do it, but our demobilization was simultanously too long and too short. We spent days at Fort Sill getting the same briefings that we`d already had in theater, and then getting them again when we got back to WA. We showed up for a last day and did virtually nothing and then it was "Good war, everybody, see you next time." And poof--we disperse to the four winds, back to our civilian lives and civilian jobs.
That`s fine if you are fairly well established, have a good support system in the form of family, friends, church, etc. A few tense days, perhaps, but overall, you`re pretty good. But what about the soldier whose family doesn`t support the war, doesn`t want him in the military, and doesn`t really care to hear about his life-altering experience.
[And make no mistake, that`s exactly what it is. My life is now sharply divided into pre- and -post Afghanistan.]
What does that guy do? A civilian job that means nothing to him now, a wife who can`t empathize, kids who barely recognize him, and nothing in particular to look forward to but drill in a few months, where he can again shoot the breeze with Those Who Were There and be himself--the new self--for a brief weekend. I`m not that guy--but I know him.
I imagine that the regular Army joes, still living in close proximity and reporting to work and whatnot, are able to do checks on each other a little more often, to commiserate over a bad day while taking some vitamin b(eer). At least, I hope so. None of my team mates are in the office with me, but there are people there who at least knew what we did, and a few who did some interesting things themselves. At least one of those should probably see somebody, but he`s having a hard time proving to the VA that he was in combat; his NCO didn`t bother to fill out the paperwork for his 30% badge, so it`s only his word for it. It surely seems like someone ought to be able to verify it otherwise, and furthermore, we shouldn`t have to prove that we exchanged correspondence with the enemy to get help.
[This seems to be a philosophical difference between the bureaucracy and myself. As with pay issues: "Bring in your LES copies for the last six months to prove that you never received this pay." Um, no. How about you prove to me that you did pay it? I digress.]
None of these issues are new, but it seems that we`re still struggling to figure out what to do about it. The Army is trying, in her heavy-handed and thick-witted manner. If PowerPoint could solve combat stress (instead of, as I suspect, exacerbate it), we`d be set; we`re all now required to take annual training in PTSD and mildly traumatic brain injuries.
To take it full circle, I just wonder how many "OIF/OEF suicides" we will be reading about in 25 years. Will anyone be counting? And more importantly, what can we do now so our buddies don`t show up on that grim account?
Sig
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Monday, July 30, 2007 |
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Why You Should Join: Part II |
When I first joined the army I really had no idea what I was in store for. I had a vague sense of what basic training was going to be like, but since I didn’t know anyone in the army I was going in pretty much blind. I wasn’t exactly sure what my job would entail, what the reserves would be like, and was completely unaware of anything at all relating to deployments. In time I soon found out the answer to all of these questions and learned a lot more along the way. After only a relatively few weeks in the army I learned that most people are really ignorant of what goes on in the military and believe that if they did know they would much more disposed towards joining.
The first three weeks or so of basic training were spent primarily in the classroom learning all the lingo, history, and values of the army. These weeks were rather boring but what I noticed is that they were starting the process of changing our lives by drilling into us values that are so ingrained into the military. The army uses the acronym LDRSHIP that stands for the seven army values-Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal courage. For a good many soldiers this time is akin to being fathered for the first time. I saw many soldiers leave basic training completely changed men as for the first time they learned how to act in a mature and selfless way. Of course the army doesn’t solve everyone’s problems but it does help further along the maturing process.
After leaving basic and AIT soldiers have money saved up, a job to go to, college money waiting for them, and numerous benefits such as health care and guaranteed retirement money. I have a hard time sympathizing with people who complain about not being able to make ends meet, or not having the right opportunities in life when all they have to do is join the military for a few years to gain valuable experience and get back on their feet financially. Hell the military even pays for housing and food so all the money a soldier makes can be put towards non-essential items. Did you ever notice how many soldiers drive nice cars and have nice things?
At this point you may be saying something akin to “Okay TF I already know all that stuff from military commercials. Quit glossing over the bad stuff like deployments to Iraq.” One step ahead of you…
Don’t be shocked and don’t just chalk it up to me being some kind of ‘Hoooah’ soldier because I am not, but my two deployments to Iraq have been the two best experiences of my life. For those of you who still think I am some army nut let me explain for a moment. I do not plan on reupping after my initial enlistment is over, I was never particularly excited about all things army, and I don’t have an army sticker on my car or an army tattoo on my arm. I am just a regular soldier doing my time until I can break free from Uncle Sam. With that out of the way let’s move onto my deployments.
Deployments with the military are a great experience for any solider regardless of their job. Soldiers have the chance to travel abroad, live among a completely different culture, work hard, and gain valuable experience that is otherwise very had to attain, and all at a young age. Where else would someone have the opportunity to be in charge of others and be responsible for their actions while still in their early twenties? Any job or school would be crazy not to consider these attributes when reading about them on a resume (except OSU law school that is-sorry just an ax I have to grind). Going on a deployment with the military teaches so much about leadership that it is hard to come home from one unchanged.
The other thing about deployments is that they put life into perspective. After you spend a year living in a tent in the desert without air conditioning and good food (Iraq a la 2003) you learn to appreciate the little things in life i.e. running water, proper sanitation, and pretty girls that smell good. You realize that things could be a lot worse so when you go back home and hear your friends complain about missing the best years of their life because they had to work 20 hours a week in order to pay the half of their rent that their parents didn’t cover for them you can laugh because you realize that there a bigger things in this world than you.
By now I am realizing that this series will be a lot longer than three parts. Bear with me as I push forward and remember that I would love to answer any questions for anyone looking to join the military. Shoot me an email at tf@voxveterana.com or email sig at sig@voxveterana.com and we’ll answer any and all questions.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007 |
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Round in the chamber |
VAJoe.com asked us to answer some questions for a little interview type dealie; my responses are over here.
Since I mentioned it in the interview, I will give notice here, as well. My wife and I recently received a warning order from the doctor`s office; we are to expect reinforcement sometime in March of 2008, bringing our total family complement up to 3. My wife takes her role as a "force multiplier" seriously.
OK, I can`t think of any more terrible military metaphors for pregnancy without devolving into the realm of the truly tasteless. As it is, jokes about muzzle velocity practically write themselves over the concept of "round in the chamber."
More scribings are in the works. Have a good one, everybody.
Sig
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