Posted on 05/26/2004 1:58:20 PM PDT by 68skylark
Regular Army soldiers in Iraq sleep in fortified accommodations while National Guard troops are in unprotected tents and using filthy showers, according to e-mail messages from several North Carolina soldiers.
Staff Sgt. Roosevelt McPherson of Raeford said in a series of e-mail messages from Forward Operating Base McKenzie near Samarra that the National Guard soldiers have nowhere to seek shelter from almost daily mortar attacks, The News & Observer reported Wednesday.
McPherson serves in the Monroe-based B Battery of the 1-113th Field Artillery.
"The regular Army troops have bunkers, hangars or fortified connexes," he wrote. "It is only by the grace and mercy of God that no one has been injured or even worse."
Army officials said Tuesday that the base is not attacked as often as McPherson claims but that they are working to provide safer accommodations for the Guard troops.
"No conscious decision has been made in this unit to put the interests of Active Duty Soldiers ahead of National Guard soldiers' lives," said an e-mail message from Capt. Ian Palmer, public affairs officer for the 1st Squadron, 4th U.S. Cavalry, the unit to which B Battery is attached.
"We are as eager to get those soldiers out of tents as they are, and action is being taken every day towards that goal."
Palmer also challenged the idea that the base is attacked often, saying it had been shelled by mortars once and "rocket attacks are less than once a week."
National Guard members are citizen soldiers who usually drill one weekend a month and spend two weeks training a year. Unlike the reserves, which are part of the regular Army, Guard units report to state governors but can be activated by the federal government.
With U.S. armed forces stretched thin, many Guard and reserve units have been called to active duty and about 40 percent of the estimated 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are Guard and reservists.
Battery B is one unit of the N.C. Guard's 30th Heavy Separate Brigade. Most of the brigade's almost 5,000 soldiers are attached to the regular Army's 1st Infantry Division in the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.
McPherson said his unit arrived at McKenzie about 70 miles north of Baghdad around March 15 and was told the unit would be out of tents in a month.
There are 25 tents, and when the unit first arrived, only four or five had board floors, McPherson said. The rest had small rocks as a flooring to help keep the dust down. McPherson said if a round hit inside a tent area, with rocks as a foundation throughout, the rocks would join the shrapnel from the explosion.
McPherson called living conditions "filthy" and said E. coli bacteria was discovered in one of the three showers in April.
John Grosvenor of Concord received an e-mail message last weekend from his brother, Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Grosvenor, who is also in B Battery. John Grosvenor said his brother noted "that the real Army were in better shelters and they were in tents."
"The military knows that they have more people over there than they thought they were going to have, so somebody has got to get the short end of the stick," John Grosvenor said.
Lt. Col. Mark Strong, the 1-113th's commander, said in an e-mail message that his soldiers "don't have it great, but they also are not in extreme danger."
"filthy showers", I believe that is an oxymoron.
"unprotected tents and using filthy showers"
They have showers??? Damn! High living! What the heck is a "protected" tent vs an "unprotected" tent?
Protected has a rubber?
Bear in mind that this is the AP talking - slanted to present poor-planning horrid-things "Oh-we-shouldn't-be-there-in-the-first-place" Leftie BS.
Units just getting in country are not going to be in the palaces, for a bit. I'd also venture this: 1st AD took the palaces, so I'm not going to begrudge my active brothers the spoils of war.
"nowhere to seek shelter "
They don't know how to dig a foxhole?
Our guys are in unprotected quarters? Well, gee, Associated Press, go ahead and call in their coordinates for the enemy while you're at it, jerks.
and kerry and rest of the rats want to send more troops over there to live?? in tents.
"They have showers??? Damn! High living! What the heck is a "protected" tent vs an "unprotected" tent? "
Unprotected tents have gun inside...Protected tents have a gun outside!
Ya know, I'd have to say that maybe all this time spent bitching about "no protection" would have been better spent constructing bunkers? I mean, those few have all that time to complain...
If the showers are filthy, then some lucky privates should be granted the priviledge of cleaning them.
My son with the 1st ID wrote this morning from near Samarra ... "the heat is beginning to raise steadily, its been in the mid-100's all week, and due to keep raising."
No one news story should be given too much weight. I agree with that.
But I've seen dozens of stories saying that Guard units get sub-standard equipment. Just a week ago a New York Guard unit suffered many casualties (including one KIA) while patrolling in the unarmored 5-ton trucks -- the most vulnerable of all vehicles. Remember the Illinois Guard helicopters flying without missle-defense gear? There have been lot of other reports of Vietnam-era flack jackets, substandard food, and substandard medical care for wounded at stateside bases, etc.
A Guard unit near me, the 1-293d infantry, returned with lots of stories like that.
Did the AP print a map as well?
Here is an idea to try. Scrounge the materials and build your own fighting bunkers and mortar bunkers. Would you rather whimper and get your assets blown off than to show some initative.
Thank goodness the media decided to publish the location, just in case any rebels or their leftist/media cheerleaders weren't yet aware. < / sarcasm >
Exactly what I thought. At least they have guns. Glad to hear it.
You make a good point.
or pay some Seabees to do it. We accept cash, food, porn, and alcohol.
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