BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!

Subject: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: outfidel
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 03:30 PM

I haven't heard of this kind of battlefield insubordination since...since...oh, what was the name of that southeast Asia quagmire?

U.S. Soldiers Complain of Low Morale

Another message from our U.S. soldiers on active duty

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 03:35 PM

Good for them...US citizens expressing their opinions as allowed by the Constitution and not forbidden by the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 03:40 PM

And why not? They always have. Anyone else a member of Phi Theta Alpha fraternity back in the '60s?

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 05:39 PM

Of course Rumsfeld can resign whenever he feels like it, which is more than the soldiers can do.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: outfidel
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 07:06 PM

Soldiers say most of their work involves civilian contractor Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton Corp. The company has contracts to haul fuel, and 319th members are riding along as armed escorts.

"The main reason we're still here is to support Brown and Root," said Sgt. 1st Class David Uthe, 45, of Augusta.

U.S. soldiers deployed mainly to help Cheney's old company

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 07:32 PM

I sorry to see the reporters were stupid enough to pring the men's names. You know damned well that if the colonel gets a phone call, the captain will get a call.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 07:40 PM

Well, ahhhh, Runsfeld should resign or be fired... He has taken it upon himself to go way beyond his duties as Secretary of Defense. He has all but told House Negro Colin Powell that foriegn policy is not a matter for the State Department to worry their pretty heads over. He has made one stupid, insensitive remark after another. He is an egotist og the highest order...

But I personally hope he stays becasue he is hurting Bush's chances for re-selection.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Deckman
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 07:40 PM

Watch the wrath of the military backlash to come down VERY hard on these soldiers. Their only chance for survival is the continued attention of the press and of the continued openess of the internet. Heads are going to fall! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Amergin
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 08:45 PM

maybe that is what the reporters wanted....

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Deckman
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 08:47 PM

Highly likely. The press does NOT come out of this with clean hands. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 10:47 PM

They called it "fragging."

It was done when someone became so dangerous to go out on patrol or into action with that they endangered others and there was no other corrective action open. It was quite simple to do: a grenade in the bunk while the recipient was asleep, a toe-popper mine under the pillow, even a simple bullet in the back. Or perhaps just enough of an injury to send the sucker to the hospital.

It went on in WW1, WW2, Korea. Probably was going on when the Ughs went to war against the Gughs.

It was considered a means of self-defense.

Reporters, as well as military superiors, can be fragged.

I would not like to be a reporter in Iraq right now.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 12:03 AM

Uh-oh. I think I'm with Deckman on this one......dig a deep foxhole, boys. Too bad, but I'll bet it's true........

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 05:48 AM

The poor soldiers were on Channell 4 News [UK] last night, shortly after flaying Rumsfeld they were told in no uncertain terms by a Pentagon spokesman to stop moaning and get on with it.
I always believed that all those Hollywood heroes would have laughrd at a little sand and heat, and then wiped the floor with those guys in the long shifts, but the reality is a long way from the silver screen, they are in for a long stay. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 09:02 AM

If you have no DEROS (date estimated rotation overseas, or going home date), you have little hope -- and less reason to get on with the job at hand. Even volunteers want to go back home sometime.

Are there reservists attached to the 3rd Division?

There will be people getting out of the service, and THEY must be sent home (unless they have been extended for "the duration plus one," which I don't think can be done without a declaration of war). And THEY will be talking, and THEY can't be kept quiet.

"...training is the word we use, nice word to have in case we lose."

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 10:20 AM

If you are on a military deployment, isn't it an understood possibility that the assignment can change without warning?

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 12:31 PM

One would think so, Kim.

I never have supported this "war" and I don't wish for any of our soldiers to be over there at all, but I do think they are sounding a bit naive when they say they need to get back to start college, etc. I know the military has probably misled them about the college support bit, in some ways, but once you sign up, from what I've always seen and family members have experienced, you belong to the military until they say otherwise or you do something dire.

I hope the press will keep the channels open, though, so that we do hear from them as that will keep the pressure on for some kind of resolution. Part of me agrees with Bobert, though...the longer Rumsfeld is in, the worse it will be for the Shrub and that is fine with me!

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 12:52 PM

Nope, not unless they changed the law. You can be sent overseas, to combat, but if you have a date for seperation from the service, you go home. In fact, keeping you on active duty beyond that date (without a declaration of war) cost the military big buck$. More, they have to pay you mileage from the place of your seperation from the service to the place of your enlistment UNLESS there is transportation available from there to there AT GOVERNMENT EXPENSE. Mind you, this is usually enough for a standby air ticket -- being seperated in, say, Ft. Lewis, WA and having enlisted in, say, Chicago get you enough money to fly home and perhaps a few bucks over. Of course, if there's an Air Force plane going from Seatac to O'Hare, and you can get on it, you don't get mileage money. Now, if you take the money and decide to stay in Seattle, the government doesn't care -- they've done what they said they would.

Certain MOSes (jobs) could be extended for a longer, but finite, period IF those jobs are declared critical and in short supply. This usually is for something like speakers of Arabic, etc.

Actually, I think that the military tries to be fair to the troops as much as possible. The politicians, on the other hand....

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: harpgirl
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 12:53 PM

...bunch a crybabies! If they didn't want to hang out in 110 degree weather getting fragged, ambushed, ripped apart...they shouldn't have voted for those Republican sons of bitches! we're getting what we deserve. If you don't like it, votes the bastards out!

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 01:23 PM

Report on NPR this morning. Some of the families back home are getting pretty damned upset also. I hope they remember during our quadrennial opportunity for regime change coming up in November of 2004. Otherwise, we could be doing this all over again in some other country.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 01:35 PM

I'm not talking about separation of service. I'm talking about active duty people. For instance, a friend of mine who is in the Army, was stationed in Germany during the first Gulf War. As a result of that conflict, his assignment in Germany was extended an additional year.

Wrong, harp, if they didn't want to be Over There, they shouldn't have joined up in the first place. If military personnel voted for Republicans, it's because they felt the previous Democrats treated them very shabbily.

However... I do agree that the indefinite deployment isn't a good idea.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: harpgirl
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 01:54 PM

...wrong about which part, Kimmy? I don't know what the military people felt about the Democrats, but it seems to me that the bastards in power are more bloodthirsty than the other bastards! or maybe more greedy or just plain more nuts! so you agree they are being crybabies, right?

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Kim C
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 04:06 PM

Wrong about that they're there because they voted for Republicans. They're there because they signed up. We can't be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that a Democratic president wouldn't have made a military deployment somewhere in the world during his/her administration. It seems to me, if I remember correctly, that Clinton extended the deployment of peacekeepers in Kosovo. Someone please fill me in on that - it's been a long time ago.

Crybabies.... maybe yes, maybe no. On the one hand, they are being told something different from what they were told in the beginning, and this is generally recognized as dishonest, or misleading, or both. On the other hand, the military is its own world, with its own rules, and its own way of life. People know that on the front end, and shouldn't be surprised when the best-laid plans change at a moment's notice.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 04:20 PM

Why the suprise about never-ending missions? Catch-22 comes to mind. From what gets across to the UK it sometimes sounds like Rumsfeld is the only villain. But Cheney's surely lining his pockets? We may be on shaky ground with our monarchy, but how does an established democracy like the US wind up with such an administration as risibly shabby as this one?

And whatever the terns abd conditions governing the troops, they are surely entitled to complain about the the sheer inadequacy of the occupying army to cope with what's een asked of it. As a Baghdad reporter said tonight, winning heads and minds have gone out of the equation for those guys, which surely beckons a catastophe scenario akin to Vietnam.

Bush may be finished, but inheriting the mess will be a poisoned chalice for the dems.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 03 - 04:31 PM

Why assume they voted Republican anyway? Only about one in four of Amereicans entitled to vote did that, after all.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: Hrothgar
Date: 18 Jul 03 - 07:20 AM

I am a little bit bemused by all this.

Now, start from the basis that I reckon all wars are wrong, and this one was worse than most.

Move from there to the point that the best way to protect the troops is to bring them home.

From there, I start thinking these blokes are a bit soft. My father (British regular army, 19 years old at the time) went into France in August 1914, and got out in February 1919. I can just imagine asking these blokes in Iraq to cop that.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Jul 03 - 08:58 AM

It's a matter of plans and expectations. They were originally told that they were going to be in combat for about 60 days, which is the maximum the civilian "planners" originally thought. However, that date keeps being extended, without any end in sight for the soldiers on the ground. It is impossible to maintain yourself at a physical and emotional peak indefinitely. Many of the reservists, who probably represent about 25% of the troops now there, are watching (or imagining) their businesses and careers go down the tube, while they could have made better arrangements if they had known they were going to be gone a year, and would definitely be home at the end of that time.

Subject: RE: BS: U.S. soldiers to Rumsfeld: RESIGN NOW!
From: outfidel
Date: 18 Jul 03 - 11:20 AM

> My father (British regular army, 19 years old at the time) went into France in August 1914, and got out in February 1919.

Hrothgar - I'm not speaking about your father per se, but if a reporter asked a soldier in the trenches at Verdun about the war, what sort of response do you think he'd get? Would he keep a stiff upper lip and talk about soldiering on, or would he tell you that sitting in a trench waiting for mustard gas really sucks?

My guess is that soldiers' response to war is universal. And when you see your friends' dying for no noble reason -- no Al Qaeda, no WMD -- then you tend to get pretty pissed off.