Ace of Spades HQ...
What a fucking moron...
HQ = Hand Queer.
Thing is, these numbskulls never read any real military history. If they did, they'd know that over a long campaign/war, units are never what they should be, be it divisions, brigades, battalions, companies, platoons, etc.
War = mess!
Parade ground generals who could never hack it in combat. These dumbshits remind me of the Himmelstoss character in "All Quiet On the Western Front".
Good on you, Hub! Second everything you said. :o)
Perhaps the fu**ing clue that, just perhaps, proves that the American Army is stretched thin are the 15 month tour of duties, unprecedented in history since World War 2?
Perhaps the fact that these tours are continuous, one after the other, for 6 years, might clue these people in?
Perhaps google "stop loss", which means that even though the soldiers have finished their contracts and served honorably the length of time stipulated, the government (of course, different laws for these folks)simply told them that they cannot leave and are signed on indefinitely.
Perhaps those things might just... ahh, who are we kidding - these people are not rational. There is no discussion with them.
Yeah, it's always the same with these fucks.
They support The Military, as if it were a Platonic ideal. They never realize that it's an actual institution made up of actual people, and not simply a figment of the imagination of the nutty conservative movement. So, when anyone criticizes foreign policy, or military strategy, or unit tactics, that person is attacked as opposing The Military, even if the criticism would help out military people, families, or the institution itself. Interestingly, even when military people make the critiques, those criticisms are not valid in the eyes of the right-wingers. Oh, no. Anyone who objects to The Military instantly becomes another category of Platonic ideal, The Traitor. The objector is instantly vilified as a quisling, irrespective of the usefulness of the objection one raises. It's much easier to reflexively attack critics than to examine oneself.
Assholes.
They do the same thing with The Family. Sure, they think they support family life. But when you get into actual details about how to help families--child care, health care, maternal leave, birth control, reproductive health, living wages, and so forth--the shrill denizens of the right vociferously oppose all of these measures that substantively help actual families. Instead, they support bullshit window dressing that, at best, has no effect on families, and at worst materially deprives real people--gay marriage bans, ending abortion & birth control, regressive taxation, no child support, privatization of health care and pensions, etc.
You can look at any pillar of the conservative movement, and you'll see the same thing. Man, these fucks piss me off.
The only "military" these rubes idolize above the fantasy US military they have in their heads ... is the "military" of the Confederacy.
They do that Stephen Ambrose wrong history for simpletons. Where the 101st Airborne wrapped themselves in the flag and won the Bulge all by themselves. In fact Bastonge was a combined arms battle. An organic light infantry unit would have gotten clobbered without tank and artillery support.
Anyway from the US Army history:
The highway nodal position which made Bastogne so necessary to the Germans also set up a magnetic field for the heterogeneous stragglers, broken infantry, and dismounted tankers heading west. Realizing this fact, Colonel Robert's got permission to gather all stragglers into his command...It is impossible to reckon accurately the number and the fighting worth of those stragglers who reached Bastogne and stayed there.....Many of these men, given a hot meal and forty-eight hours' rest, could be used and were used, but they appear as anonymous figures in the combat record (thus: "100 infantry left for Team Browne").
Ace is an idiot. The whole modern history of the US Army is "Task Forces" and "Teams" created from bits and pieces of what's available to serve the mission. There hasn't been a military organization in history where the TO&E jibes with reality.
"Gathering of Kleagles"
ROTFLMAO.
Damn, HS. If that's yours, take a bow. That was authentic genius.
One of those blue collar comedy guys, Ingval I think, must have had Ace in mind when he said, 'You can't fix stupid.'
HS,
As we are daily force-marched through the ever-higher peaks of wingnut bullshit, writing like this is a hit of pure oxygen, infused with mint and fists.
Many thanks.
Then you were supporting my nephew who was with the 10th last year up in Northern Afcrapistan. He's back and out of the Army, thank the FSM.
It was a rough year for the family. Many thanks.
Hit 'em again Hub' - harder!
Damn, Hubris Sonic, what do you think of opponents of the war who don't know this stuff? Do you think we're "stupid fucks" who are "not able to breathe?"
I don't know this stuff, and probably a lot of readers here don't, either. What's your level of contempt for us?
Are we worthy of reading your posts?
Are you trying to run off your loyal readers? Following Jesse's example?
You know, Hubris, most people misunderstand my line of work. That doesn't mean I think they're stupid fucks who aren't able to breathe.
How typical of you troop-hating liberal traitors, sneering at the expertise of real patriots like the Ace of Spades.
The thing you don't appreciate is that he's spent thousands of man-hours in his bathroom -- er, I mean, HQ, feverishly "studying" the collected works of Sgts. Rock and Fury.
Queequeg,
What are you talking about? The difference is you are pretending that you do understand.
stupid typing fingers...
You aren't pretending...
Point is they are criticizing Obama for not understanding how the military works. when the reality is, these people are the biggest hypocrites in the world.
They believe they are the party of the military, so of course Obama is a "liar" because he is a troop hatin' democrat. When the reality is that they don't know their ass from a whole in the ground.
OK, Hubris, I get the hypocrisy angle. I still think that you're way up on your high horse about people who know little or nothing about the military. From my ignorant perspective, it sounds like you are overly contemptuous of anyone who doesn't have basic military knowledge. I guess I can understand have a little contempt. But you seem to have a lot of it, and not just for ignorant chickenhawks. That's the way you come off, even if that's not what you intend. Hey, they're your emotions and it's your blog.
I don't expect anyone to understand the military. UNLESS, they criticize people in this manner...
"He is so mind-blowingly ignorant of the military and its status in the GWOT that he either heard this story and believed it, or thought that nobody less mind-numbingly vacuous and stupid than him would see through it."
That is from redstate.com
from one of these chickenhawks...
I have this contempt Queegqueg, because they are going to cause this Captain to lose his career through the flapping of their gums, discussing things they have no idea about. whilst pretending they do, so they can sound like tough guys.
see my update regarding the pentagon are now looking for this captain... bush's pentagon...
Queequeg, I gotta tell you, the only contempt that I read in HS' post is for chickenhawks who act as if they know something that they clearly don't. I didn't get at all that it had anything to do with anyone else.
I will never serve in the military (and if they ever need me, we are in far deeper trouble than we are now, I assure you 
). I do think we need to understand enough to be responsible citizens. Idjits like Ace of Lace clearly has no clue that this information needs to be based on reality, not talking points.
The news, analysis, media spin, all of it, confuses the heck out of me, because I don't have the basic understanding to make a judgement. And when I've asked him what's going on, Hubris has never treated me with anything less than respect and patience. Very much in the tradition that Steve started, and the GNB conttinues.
are now looking for this captain...
Barack wasn't cracking out of turn. He dropped this deliberately. Any investigation will run into some fierce institutional resistance.
The thing about these rightwing sites is that when it comes to the military they think they are the biggest fucking geniuses in the world. But their analysis of military history reads like a Victor Davis Hanson or Max Boot article(because that is where they stole it from) and really often comes down to hero worship of the Confederate and Nazi armies.
We've had articles on US soldier training and qualifying on AK47s since shortly after the invasion. I think Steve even did a post on it. Some soldiers prefer the durability and knockdown power of the 7.62mm bullet over that of the 5.56mm. The US supplies the Iraqi army with AKs and PKMs and all the light weapons of the former Soviet arsenal as they are plentiful in Iraq, they are tough, and they are familiar. I am not quite so familiar about the operational supply problems but that has been touched on here and there, and there are several accounts of severe supply problems during the initial invasion.
This beatdown shit is pathetic but typical. The ranking member on the armed services committee is going to go have a major or a colonel go dress down a captain for telling a Presidential candidate about the condition of his rifle platoon? The Republicans whole racket is based on petty shit like this, and the political infiltration and intimidation of the military from the top brass down has been shameful. The competent people have been pushed out while the lackeys have lingered on. Gen. Shinseki dissents on the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq? Get the fuck out. Gen. Taguba actually asks questions in the Abu Ghraib investigation that might make Gen. Miller's worldwide torture operation look bad, implicate military intelligence and their CIA civilian contract handlers, and not just make the MPs in the Maryland National Guard the only "bad apples". Yep, you're gone too Taguba. Pace you can stay as long as Rumsfeld is around. Petraeus you can stay too as long as you lie for the Bush administration. But everyone who isn't willing to whore themselves out to this administration and shred every last sense of decency better not be looking for that promotion come spring.
The slow steady grinding destruction of the US military is not a fashionable topic for rightwing types because they have always been interested in the hardware, the leaders, and killing people the most. Our guys aren't worth a whole lot to them unless its to spin tales about those three things. If they were they wouldn't absolutely go apeshit on anybody who didn't toe the Republican Party line in the military.
And oh yeah, the Union Army kicked the Confederate Army's ass when the military leadership out west who never lost and kicked Confederate ass from Arkansas to Vicksburg up and down the Mississippi finally got control of the armies in the East. I might not remember correctly but Sherman seemed to start marching without anyone stopping him, while Confederate generals pushed their men into disastrous frontal assaults in Tennessee as "punishment". And Grant just marched down to Richmond attacking Lee's army whenever it appeared inflicting unsustainable Confederate losses in every engagement. Sorry of that is a bit OT but a ton of rightwing military culture is rooted in Confederate bullshit that simply ain't true.
I don't know this stuff either, and even before considering that someone pressed too hard on these guys soft spots when they were babies, I would lend more credence to Hubris' "no plan survives contact with the enemy" version over the gun-sucking hypocrisy of the "military regulations CLEARLY state" chickenhawk crowd. Nothing goes exactly by the book, particularly when in the field, whether it's software deployment or troop deployment.
And oh yeah these are the same scum suckers who would defend Blackwater in a second whenever they decide to massacre a square full of civilians. You see Blackwater is like the military but COOLER. They're living the dream of toting the cool hardware, blowing up the "bad guys" and bragging about it back at the bar. Seriously, every fat rightwing 101st Keyboarder wants to be one of these guys.
A ton of U. S. rightwing culture, militarily-oriented or otherwise, is rooted in Confederate bullshit.
Queegqueeg, I don't know much about the military, either...but like you, I don't PRETEND I do and use that pretense to possibly make things worse for some poor schmuck wuo told the truth... It is the expounding on subjects that one knows nothing about, and then using that expounding for the worst, that HS has contempt for. It seems to be a specialty on the *other side of the aisle*.
OK, off the subject, I admit it. I don't expect anyone to comment on it, I just want to put it somewhere.
Anyone else see this?
http://www.star-telegram.com/dal...ory/
486413.html
And oh yeah, the Union Army kicked the Confederate Army's ass when the military leadership out west who never lost and kicked Confederate ass from Arkansas to Vicksburg up and down the Mississippi finally got control of the armies in the East. I might not remember correctly but Sherman seemed to start marching without anyone stopping him, while Confederate generals pushed their men into disastrous frontal assaults in Tennessee as "punishment". And Grant just marched down to Richmond attacking Lee's army whenever it appeared inflicting unsustainable Confederate losses in every engagement.
Hmm.
wengler, I think you oversimplify a tad when you describe the Confederate situation vis-a-vis the Union.
The Union started out with a really piss-poor lot of generals. Lee screwed up early on, as well. And famously during the third day at Gettysburg. But Lee learned a lot faster than people like McDowell, Burnside, Halleck, and McClellan. As for Joe Hooker .. best to draw a veil.
The Union advantages were
(1) Raw manpower. They had a larger population base than the South.
That counts, especially in wars where both sides get bamboozled by immature technology and poor information. Those end up being wars mostly decided by attrition.
Witness the fate of the Japanese air forces during WW II. Man for man, they graduated pilots way better than most of the American Army Air Force and Navy pilots. Didn't matter. There just weren't enough of them, and the way the Japanese busted perfectly reasonable candidates out of flight schoool, there were never going to be.
So they were simply ground away.
(2) The Northern concentration on urban industrial economy as opposed to rural agricultural economy. Proportionally fewer Northern draftees came from farm families where a good set of strong muscles HAD to be at home part of the year.
One consequence of this, if memory serves, was a higher rate of AWOL among Confederate troops during harvest season.
(2) The Confederate obsession with slave-driven agriculture. This was immensely destructive in ways not often commented upon. Even by lefties, because some of the crippling effects aren't obvious. They included, but were probably not limited to ..
(2.a) Economic effects of slave-driven plantations on free farms which had to be as corrosive as the effect of latifundias on Italian small farmers 2100 years prior.
How the hell can free farmers compete with slaves? They end up going broke when they are forced to try.
BTW, this theme is now being repeated in the United States as a whole, as a result of mass offshoring. With nauseatingly predictable results.
(2.b) Crappy industrial infrastructure. Everybody was much more willing to invest in plantations. So ...
(2.b.i) Northern raids on Southern rail lines caused damage the South could not recover from. They had to import their steel railroad ties rather than produce them locally, if memory serves.
This worked in pretty much the same way that US destruction of Japanese warships, and attrition of German paratroop units, worked in WW II. These expenditures were from capital, not interest, for the disadvantaged parties only.
(2.b.ii) The South's capability to produce marine engines sucked ass. They had only one facility that could produce marine engines suitable for warships. So the North could afford to lose gunboats the South couldn't even produce in sufficient number to start with.
(3) The Union's civilian supreme commander was Abraham Lincoln. Jefferson Davis was not in Lincoln's league.
Lincoln would not have suffered a fool like John Bell Hood for very long. Hood was the guy responsible for the suicidal frontal assaults in Tennessee you mentioned. Jeff Davis appointed him against Lee's better advice. Davis even ordered him to Texas to raise another army after Hood himself had resigned his commission as full general.
With Lincoln acting as evolutionary selection pressure made flesh, retaining the competent and sacking the incompetent, the Union was going to sort out it's command problem eventually. The South did not have this sort of mind in charge of its military upper echelons, and it paid with hideously compounded interest by the end of the war.
Thanks for this HS. HS or anyone else who knows, I have a few questions. Isn't a platoon usually led by a Leutenant, not a Captain ? If so, what could this mean ? Also, wouldn't it be dangerous for U.S. soldiers to be using AK-47s during a fight because U.S. soldiers in nearby units may not be aware of your presence and instead assume that the AK-47s are from nearby taliban thus inviting return fire. I recall reading that AK-47s do not sound like U.S. Army weapons.
OK, off the subject, I admit it. I don't expect anyone to comment on it, I just want to put it somewhere.
Anyone else see this?
Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally.
Yeah. This story broke yesterday evening. My reference is identical to yours - the Star-Telegram.
I would sure as hell like to know where that order originated. Looks to me like we have somebody, or several somebodies, in the Secret Service who either have their heads up their asses, or are colluding with the sheetheads.
The KKK, in the person of KKK National Knights International Imperial Wizard Railton Loy, is on record as baldly stating that Obama WILL be assassinated should he take office. Here is the interview - on Pox News, of all places.
Methinks somebody in the Secret Service needs to be sacked. Publicly. Soonest.
The KKK, in the person of KKK National Knights International Imperial Wizard Railton Loy, is on record as baldly stating that Obama WILL be assassinated should he take office. Stormcrow
I keep telling my friends and family that they should enjoy the ride, go out and vote for him. But be ready for what will most likely happen if he wins office. Then I go and find a quiet place to pray for the soul of my country.
I think wing-nut culture is an artifact of not having a draft. Could any of them survive boot camp? Improbable.
My experience with vets comes from various relatives (all now elderly or dead) serving in WWII. The guys who went in early (1942) fully expected not to survive the war. Each man commented on just all of the screw-ups, goofs, mechanical failures, etc., that killed military personnel (and their friends) by the thousands. No cinematic glory for these guys, although they died honorably.
But that reality threatens the right-wing meme of "glorious war." To a man, the WWII vets I have known were downbeat on all war, because of the sheer insanity of it all. To them, it was human error on an global industrial scale. Whatever could go wrong, generally did--on a massive scale at times.
Today, the US has generations who've been raised on Rambo for decades. Mythology has replaced painful experience. Hence the screeching from the right-wing.
No wonder our contemporary keyboard kommandoes hate Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. The reality of war is far more awful and pathetic (in original meaning of "pathos") that these illiterate hacks can bear.
Not for nothing, who the hell are "Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike"?
They were the guys from New Edition.
HS,
thanks for the rant... exactly what is needed. In fact, we need to take the fight back to the chickenhawk POS's before the smear gains traction in the so-called liberal media.
Where are the Bush twins? What about the Romney 5? oh yeah, just like the rest of thier yellow elephant buddies in the right-wing miliblogoshpere, they can't be bothered to serve. And their parents? Like 99% of the rest of America, can't be bothered to sacrifice! Arrrrggghhhh....
So let's lay in on the Redstaters, Captain Morons, and the rest of the wing-nut chickensh*ts... and the bankrupt "academics" and "think"-tankers (VDH and Pollack immediately comes to mind) who give them "credibility." And lets not forget the Pentagon PA Office (see Scott Horton's blog at Harpers.org) who will LIE their way thru this one...
And thanks for supporting the troops in a meaningful way! (having been a receipient of on citizen-inspired care package or two)...
SP
New Edition's Cool It Now video. "Ronny, Bobby, Ricky and Mike" can be heard at 2:50
Great story, Sonic, in the best tradition of hell raising Steve! Really.
Thank you!
I love the fact that HS used christams as a swear word. Also from what i recall the south & the north actiuall had parity in officers who had graduated from west point.
Also in the western theater during campaigns such as the wilderness the southerners were outmaneuvered & out generaled. Lastly, McClellan was a southern sympathizer who was probably as traitorous as any southerner.
For folks who are interested a good blog on the American civil war is http://civilwarmemory.typepad.com/
If you have not seen it check out the washington video
Perhaps the top brass in the military sucks in enough crap from these wannabe militarists and rear-echelon motherfuckers that they're starting to believe wingnut reality instead of the reality of the war they're supposed to be waging for AWOL.
It wouldn't be the first time that the truth accidentally gets out about how the right wing is really treating the soldiers they're sending over to protect Big Awl.
In any case, pajama-pantsed wankers who wouldn't know their asses from an AK-47 aren't exactly what I'd call the cream of American manhood. If they're so knowledgeable, why aren't they over there fighting? As long as they're not, and in particular, are sitting around in their momma's basements or getting cranked up at their frat parties, then they're not particularly credible, knowledgeable, nor manly. De-emphasis on the "manly" (which means that whatever puds they're pulling have long since emptied their brains of any reasoning powers).
A pox on these children.
"Isn't a platoon usually led by a Leutenant, not a Captain ? If so, what could this mean ?"
This probably means that the story is from 2003/2004 and the lieutenant got promoted in the meantime, imho.
"Also, wouldn't it be dangerous for U.S. soldiers to be using AK-47s during a fight because U.S. soldiers in nearby units may not be aware of your presence and instead assume that the AK-47s are from nearby taliban thus inviting return fire."
I guess this is a valid point. However, Pat Tilman didn't have an AK47 and got shot by his won buddies nontheless.
"I recall reading that AK-47s do not sound like U.S. Army weapons."
More probably, you have seen "Heartbreak Ridge", starring Clint Eastwood, on TV:
Highway: This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy; and it makes a distinctive sound when fired at you, so remember it.
...
Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Jesus Christ, what was that?
Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: AK-47 Assault Rifle, the preferred weapon of our enemy.
"To a man, the WWII vets I have known were downbeat on all war, because of the sheer insanity of it all."
Right. Not only true for US vets, but for soldiers of all other involved nations, too.
"This probably means that the story is from 2003/2004 and the lieutenant got promoted in the meantime, imho."
Damn, I'm good:
"ABC said the officer was a lieutenant when he led a platoon to Afghanistan in 2003"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23301273/
:D
Also, wouldn't it be dangerous for U.S. soldiers to be using AK-47s during a fight...
Not as dangerous as if they remained unarmed.
The hardware fetish drives me nuts. Anything out of the Military-Industrial-Congressional pork chop complex is "teh best ever!" No matter how many GI's end up dead. See the Osprey.
Wengler - do you have a blog of your own?
If not, why the hell not?!
"Wengler - do you have a blog of your own?
If not, why the hell not?!"
Americangoy, a good commenter not necessarily has to be a good blogger, too. Writing something in response to others, in a discussion, is easier (ok, not always, but different) than writing a story that is able to stand on its own feet. And commenting at a frequented blog is more rewarding, regarding feedback, than investing much time into blogposts that almost nobody will ever read.
Wengler certainly knows best what is more to his liking. And would we want to lose an interesting commenter in exchange for just another new blog?
:-/
To say it with an example:
Commenting vs. blogging = Group sex vs. masturbation
:D
Only one question-- well, a two-parter, Hub--
Isn't a platoon leader usually a 2nd Lieutenant; and captains usually have a company command?
And would the fact that a captain is leading an infantry platoon have some bearing on the state of the US Army (w/r/t troop availability)?
HQ = Hand Queer.
[TMI]Hey, take it easy on us Hand Queers! Some of us are no Brad Pitt and have little recourse but to make do with Mark Thumb and his four brothers.[/TMI]
A ton of U. S. rightwing culture, militarily-oriented or otherwise, is rooted in Confederate bullshit.
Ahem. A small clarification:
ALL of U. S. rightwing culture, militarily-oriented or otherwise, is rooted in Confederate bullshit.
Gathering of Kleagles"
ROTFLMAO.
Damn, HS. If that's yours, take a bow. That was authentic genius.
Seconded. For people in other countries with little familiarity with US history, a kleagle is a recruitment officer for the Ku Klux Klan.
"Wengler certainly knows best what is more to his liking. And would we want to lose an interesting commenter in exchange for just another new blog?
:-/"
It is not necessarily an either / or kinda thing 
I think that wengler has an interesting take and warrants a blog of his own, and pick topics of his own to highlight.
And I do take umbrage at the "another blog that nobody will read".
Harrumph my dear sir!
Boy, bring my dueling pistols!
Crap, late to the party-- the answer was posted-- the captain was a first louie when he was platoon leader.
...i'm no military guy no how at all, my knowledge is pretty much like: "i too read All Quiet on the Western Front" (wengler, come on, Himmelstoss is too good for these guys, they're more like Kantorek!), but i have to say i didn't feel what Queequeg was criticizing, although, i was curious what his misunderstood line of work is...i don't know much about 19th century whaling techniques, it's true...& a point about the civil war, it's maybe small beer next to everything Stormcrow lists, but i think it's significant that the blockade of the confederate ports had virtually dried-up the southern coffee supply by 1862...think about it...& that Obama security shit is plain scary...are they setting that shit up for real?
AKs are also a better weapon for desert environment. the looser tolerances make it much more forgiving when presented with the grit and fine dust that would stymie the working of an m16 or m4. also the slower round of the AK would be preferable for a street fight in an urban setting, giving much smaller chance of ricochet. but, the thing they didn't factor in their screechings of "shenanigans" and "bullshit" was that obama's people were perfectly ready to produce the captain in question to verify the facts of the story.
Late to the party as well:
1. Show of hands from all former & current GIs and Marines --if you ever served in a combat arms unit that was fully up to strength in terms of personnel, correct MOSs and equipment, raise your hands. Yeah, me neither;
2. For Qq and those of similar sentiment (assuming you're being sincere and not just concern trolling): Can't speak for HS, but alot of people who read blogs like this one: 1) think we were lied into Iraq by a draft - dodging coward of a President; 2) don't understand why we went into Iraq in force (much less at all) -- where the enemy isn't -- instead of Afghanistan -- where the enemy is; 3) were pretty sure that, among other things, Iraq would break the Army and the USMC, which it has done.
When we had the termerity to voice these sentiments, we were called traitors, fifth - columnists, etc. by chickenhawks, who were perfectly happy to let anyone but themselves do the heavy lifting. The quote by William of Orange about the Brits fits the chickenhawks to a tee: "The English will fight to the last drop of their allies' blood";
3. Civil War stuff: Probably the most significant quality Grant had (besides being a pretty fair strategist) was his imlacability. After the ending of the bloody stalemate that was the Battle of the Wilderness, the Army of the Potomac was marching down the same road coming to the same intersection which it had done almost exactly one year earlier after Chancellorville. The year before, the Army turned left at the crossroads, taking it north and back across the Rapahannock. This time however, when it reached the crossroad, Grant ordered column right.
A huge cheer went up from the Army; they knew they had a commander who was going to stop fooling around,take them south and win the war so they could go home. And that's exactly what they did;
4. Re: Units in Iraq qualifying with AKs: Probably more than a few readers of this blog are from the "if all fails (there's not a rock handy), use the M-16 I was issued with" but that's a debate for another day.
If memory serves, the story involved an Armor unit whose CO was having the tankers qualify with AKs. What's interesting about this is that Armor units aren't issued with very many M-16s: they've got plenty of crew - served weapons and stuff that goes on tanks, but not a lot of infantry - type weapons.
This matter because the story I read stated that the tankers were qualifying with AKs because they were going to be doing something tankers don't normally do/are trained for -- extensive foot patrolling (they're all about reaching out down range with 120mm of Love) so their unit didn't have enough M-16s to equip them for infantry - type patrolling, which gets us back to "Army and USMC, breaking of".
the AK is also A LOT tougher than the M16. "Eh! What have for cleaning oil is STRICTLY optional."
You can literally have these things lying in the mud for months, pick it up, charge it, and empty the magazine.
And not kill yourself in the process.
And as for being short-handed... the ONLY reason my company had 3 platoons, was that we spread everyone around... 3rd PLT had 12 guys... including the 'toon sawj and El-T.
"But sawj! The Platoon is an organic unit of the Army! You can't send my squad off to Alpha Co.!"
"If you don't getcher ass in the deuce-1/2 by the time I turn around, I'LL show you an 'organic unit!' Now move yer ass!!"
Fuckin' chicken-shit shitbags.
now, now, the right-wingers do support the troops.....as political props
Iraq has to be a war of civilizations for these right-wing trolls to feel like men fighting the good war (safely from home, of course).
Not for nothing, who the hell are "Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike"? Sounds like a bunch of frat boys.
It's a Black pop-culture reference, and a cheesy-ass one at that—“Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike” is a line from an old song by New Edition, the ersatz Jackson 5 80's knockoff that gave us Bobby Brown, who was a member.
In one of their hit songs “Where It All Started” that namecheck rundown is a repeating refrain.
“Ronnie, bobby, ricky and mike
Ronnie, bobby, ricky and mike
The beginning of a dream
Where our ideas were born
(tell em ricky) to understand what this really means
Let's set the record straight
Once and for all and Ill tell you”
Ronnie DeVoe, Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, and Mike Bivins. (Line sung by Ralph “Sensitivity” Tresvant)
Leave it to Ace to try and score cool points by trotting out as a cultural signifier an utterly execrable 80's R&B group. Urrrrgh.
And leave it to me to remember that awful bit of ephemera. 
fbg--regardless of your enlistment MOS every soldier and Marine in Iraq is an 11 Bravo. That "warrior culture" thing that's been promulgated since Rummy wants everybody from the third cook's assistant on up to be light weapons qualified, even if we don't have the equipment.
http://www.tradoc.army.mil/pao/T...er04/
092304.htm
I wonder if there's a way to get the obsession with things military to work for us. Say, spread the meme among the mindless: hey, how good could the US look if our armed guys can't protect the CINC, huh? you may hate him/her personally, but do you really want the incredible religio-military shame of seeing that we can't protect our own?
isn't there some saying that applies, or can't we hearken back to some famous battle where intrepid soldiers (who didn't really like the leader), nevertheless protected him/her and it paid off later, because the leader's ingenuity saved the whole group later on? a movie, maybe...
sigh. I'm sorry, I know it's lame. I just so want us to do something deeply preventive...
Going off topic, or perhaps I should say returning to the second topic:
About the odd decision to reduce Obama's Secret Service protection:
I know Hanlon's Razor says that one should never assume malice if stupidity will explain a situation adequately, BUT--we know Rove instituted a policy of putting Elephascist loyalists into EVERY nook and cranny of the government. That makes it possible that some Elephascist operatives could have been planted even in the Secret Service.
Might the Busheviks be so scared of prosecution if even a DLC Democrat becomes President that they might be arranging for the Democrats' strongest candidate to be assassinated by a "lone racist nut"? [Followed, of course, by the "lone racist nut" being "shot trying to escape" or "killed by angry black prisoners".]
I miss the days before this Assministration when I could have cheerfully dismissed such speculation as tinfoil-hat nonsense.
Alas, in the age of Bush, Cheney, and Rove, if you're not paranoid, you're not paying attention.
"I miss the days before this Assministration when I could have cheerfully dismissed such speculation as tinfoil-hat nonsense."
You mean in the days of JFK?
Perhaps during the Nixon administration?
I was thinking of the Clenis years. Apparently, AG turned paranoid earlier than I did.
The Secret Service thing: The campaign was apparently leaning on the SS detail, at the rate things were going it was going to take hours to get everyone screened (and campaigns get *really* pissy about the schedule, the candidate's every minute, right down to how much sleep he gets, is managed).
That's just rumor, so make of it what you will. I'm a little worried about the "Red Mist" scenarios, myself.
NYT has a ten page story up about the fight in Afghanistan. Not all is well there. Actually, quite to the contrary, the most urgent point being that the troops' deployment is too long, with not even remotely enough home leave (18 days in 15 months!). A must read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/2...ml?
pagewanted=1
"Ronny, Bobby, Ricky and Mike"
is an oddly placed New Edition reference.
Went to the Ass of Spades website. I didn't know whether to laugh or puke when I saw the logo - A skull with crosses sabres?? Jesus Christ, what is this guy -captain of his neighborhood paintball team?
I wish more of the "Greatest Gen" WW II vets had been more forthcoming to their families and others who hadn't experienced it about the horrors they experienced. The relatively few I ever knew who did speak of it were pretty much uniformly dismissive of the literary efforts to convey their own knowledges. Vietnam vets who brought home stories of the viciousness, terror, violence and death were accused of being 'weak,' or of 'complaining.' My own experience was minimal (mostly i was safely ensconced in an air-conditioned trailer, on a mountaintop, above China Beach), but even the little I know of it taught me to believe what others knew and had known.
My revulsion for the whole legion of chickenshit checkenhawks knows no limit. I would not knowingly associate with one, in any capacity.
Yes, the 2 weapons make distinct sounds, therefore, any M-16 firing draws fire from any "bad guys' looking for the U.S Mil...in-as-much as the enemy wouldn't be caught dead using a high maintainence, fragile, easily jammed POS...What now are your questions?
...or as Drill Sgt. Thompson(HillBilly-West Virginia) used to say ".. a sharp, striking blow to the GROAN region"
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