Everything you have heard about the war should be viewed with the greatest of suspicion, consider the source as we always say. For instance, while training stateside, we were briefed extensively about this war, the conduct of the war and the situation we would encounter. This orientation coincidentally sounded identical to the political drivel being dished out by our politicians. Remember, hundreds of Bush and Cheney cronies are counting on you to keep those war bucks flowing into their bank accounts!
The first five minutes here in country we learned that truth, and what we were told, are two totally different things. For starters, things are not getting better every day, they are getting worse. The bad guys are becoming more sophisticated and, sadly, thanks to our illustrious leadership at command level, we are becoming more stupid.
For example, during WWII it was discovered that a pathetically low number of soldiers were actually shooting at the enemy. Aggressive training helped up that number during Korea and Vietnam but now weve gone quite over the top. Today, everybody wants to shoot (except old war horses like me who have the crazy idea that we ought to make sure its an enemy we are shooting).
Many commanders are playing cowboy over here, they are showing up with their own agenda and running your taxpayer-funded army units staffed with your children like their own personal fiefdoms. I thought that George S. Patton was the worst egomaniac to command US troops in modern times but he was a mere piker compared to some of the Lieutenant Colonels and above over here.
For example, one battalion commander (who was thankfully relieved stateside) had his own policy for dealing with Iraqis loitering on top of overpasses.
Loitering is sort of a national pastime, either because so many are out of work or perhaps because it gives the locals a chance to socialize. The battalion commander in question had a simple policy for clearing out these Iraqi citizens machine gun them off the bridge. Thankfully his personal opinions on how to wage war were discovered by one of the few remaining people in our military command with a lick of sense and he was relieved.
A few days ago, one of the infantry units here that spend most of their time sitting behind the wire on their FOB, had an IED attack. When the bomb went off, an Iraqi family that was near the blast became terrified and ran away (as anyone would naturally do). The American GIs successfully massacred the mother, the father, the grandmother and one of the two teenage girls. The surviving child was lucky to escape with only having both legs blown off.
Read the full article by Michael Peirce here
"Today, everybody wants to shoot" Sadly, these new soldiers are from the vidya game generation (some actually used by the armed forces) where shooting has no consequences except more points.
Grace & Peace, Rab
The first five minutes here in country we learned that truth, and what we were told, are two totally different things. For starters, things are not getting better every day, they are getting worse. The bad guys are becoming more sophisticated and, sadly, thanks to our illustrious leadership at command level, we are becoming more stupid.
For example, during WWII it was discovered that a pathetically low number of soldiers were actually shooting at the enemy. Aggressive training helped up that number during Korea and Vietnam but now weve gone quite over the top. Today, everybody wants to shoot (except old war horses like me who have the crazy idea that we ought to make sure its an enemy we are shooting).
Many commanders are playing cowboy over here, they are showing up with their own agenda and running your taxpayer-funded army units staffed with your children like their own personal fiefdoms. I thought that George S. Patton was the worst egomaniac to command US troops in modern times but he was a mere piker compared to some of the Lieutenant Colonels and above over here.
For example, one battalion commander (who was thankfully relieved stateside) had his own policy for dealing with Iraqis loitering on top of overpasses.
Loitering is sort of a national pastime, either because so many are out of work or perhaps because it gives the locals a chance to socialize. The battalion commander in question had a simple policy for clearing out these Iraqi citizens machine gun them off the bridge. Thankfully his personal opinions on how to wage war were discovered by one of the few remaining people in our military command with a lick of sense and he was relieved.
A few days ago, one of the infantry units here that spend most of their time sitting behind the wire on their FOB, had an IED attack. When the bomb went off, an Iraqi family that was near the blast became terrified and ran away (as anyone would naturally do). The American GIs successfully massacred the mother, the father, the grandmother and one of the two teenage girls. The surviving child was lucky to escape with only having both legs blown off.
Read the full article by Michael Peirce here
"Today, everybody wants to shoot" Sadly, these new soldiers are from the vidya game generation (some actually used by the armed forces) where shooting has no consequences except more points.
Grace & Peace, Rab
