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I am curious, did your bloodbrother talked about the train-up prior to deployment? Was there train-up any good? I know ours was the worst training I have seen in my 12 years in the military. We had reserve water purification guys teaching infantry tactics.

As far as the war over here, the thing the MSM really misses is the courage of the Iraqis. These guys are going out without IBA in toyota trucks and trying to do their job. It is really something. Having said that, from were I am sitting it will take us a minimum of ten years to get a handle on the situation. And that is if we can secure the borders. And the Iraqi border patrol is less trained and less equipped that our border patrol.

I don't think the majority of the American people have the will to see casualties like we've been taking for ten years. And I am sure that at this point we do not have the man power to keep this level of troops in country for ten years. If something should happen in Korea or over Tawain, we would be up a creek without a paddle.

I am curious, did your bloodbrother talked about the train-up prior to deployment? Was there train-up any good? I know ours was the worst training I have seen in my 12 years in the military. We had reserve water purification guys teaching infantry tactics.

That was a mixed bag. The Arkansas Brigade is an "enhanced brigade", they've been to JRTC a bunch and have had a lot of regular army training and advisors over the years. A lot of those guys served in the regular army before. Their first day of training some 19 year old just trained to be a trainer started them off on what an M-16 was. You can imagine that it caused a bit of grumbling for an enhanced infantry unit to be taught basic infantry tactics.....again. There was initially some Regular Army - National Guard tension. Frankly, the Regular Army assumed they were idiots and went from there which, I think, led to the vice versa.

The latter stages of the training were, according to him, good and dealt with the situations that had been experienced in Iraq in wargame form. They had access to those who had been over there and were run through a lot of Baghdad-like scenarios. I believe he was satisfied with the latter portion, disgusted with the early portion. (However, that training might have been useful to new guys or to units that were not "enhanced" units.)

As far as the war over here, the thing the MSM really misses is the courage of the Iraqis. These guys are going out without IBA in toyota trucks and trying to do their job. It is really something.

His statements reflect that. His opinion is very high on the Iraqi National Guard guys they deal with.

Having said that, from were I am sitting it will take us a minimum of ten years to get a handle on the situation. And that is if we can secure the borders. And the Iraqi border patrol is less trained and less equipped that our border patrol.

I don't think the majority of the American people have the will to see casualties like we've been taking for ten years. And I am sure that at this point we do not have the man power to keep this level of troops in country for ten years. If something should happen in Korea or over Tawain, we would be up a creek without a paddle.

I agree that the critical factor is the homefront, and the Democrats and media are doing everything they can to break that, and doing a good job of it.

Let's face it, the American people love the troops. Its the American people's love for the troops that our political opponents exploit. We love them so much that we hate to see them harmed and their safety becomes more important than any mission. When the safety of the soldiers is more important than anything else in the world, then there is no conflict that you are willing to send them into, because there is no conflict anywhere that is safe and risk-free. In that environment they essentially stop being soldiers and start being hostages. We let the guys in Vietnam down by treating them as if they were responsible for the war they fought and how it was fought. Its possible we are letting them down this time by overprotection and not letting them be the American soldiers they want to be out of concern for their immediate safety. We fear the casualties of taking Najaf so make a deal and pull back, thus guaranteeing even more casualties when they have to go back in...one...more...time.

I've said before, that we've forgotten 911. I'm afraid that we are going to let these Islamists hang around long enough to hit us hard again before we really "get" it.

1,000 casualties is a terrible thing, and the loss of limbs on these young people kills me. But this is a war, and its not a war like Vietnam where there is no direct danger to the United States. We could have stayed home from Vietnam and survived, we could not have stayed home from World War II and survived. This war is much more like the latter than the former but the media treats it as if it has no more purpose than Vietnam.

We had the third anniversary of 911 and the media decided that it wasn't appropriate to show us anything about it other than the memorial services because showing scenes from the actual event might be traumatic. Imagine if they decided not to show pictures of Treblinka and Buchenwald because they are "disturbing", or if they had locked away the Pearl Harbor videos. It's a whitewash. Those 3,000 killed in one hour are not worth showing us, but 1,000 killed in the response over a year and a half is made out to be Vietnam. We lost what, about 3,000 dead on D-Day alone? We lost 2,000 aircraft in the two months leading up to D-Day in preparation. We lost over 50,000 dead in the Battle of Normandy including air and ground forces.

We have completely lost our sense of proportion. If a war is necessary then the costs of victory are worth it because it is a matter of survival. If a war is not necessary, then the costs of one life is not worth it. Which do we have here?

You are probably right that we do not have the will to stay there ten years. We did on Sept. 11th. Who has been whispering in our ear since then? I'm afraid our enemy may, if we continue to lose our will, give us a very painful booster shot. Losing our will in Vietnam led to a pullout and the end of the war. Losing our will here will lead to a pullout, but it will not lead to the end of the war, it will lead to a wild resurgence of our enemy and an increased effort to destroy us utterly. There is no way out but victory and its just a matter of how soon we realize that as a people. We either realize it now, or realize it later.

The casualties we've had are remarkably light in comparison with wars of the past.
The media spins everything into a "Doomed! Doomed! Doomed!" mantra in hopes of ending what it sees as an assault on their power base.
The liberals tend to play more to the whims of other countries and our enemies.