Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained

Los Angeles Times ^ | Nov 25, 2004 | Scott Gold

[centurion316]

DOÑA ANA RANGE, N.M. — Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said.

[centurion316]

The reporter makes a serious allegation here, to wit: "the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq" The only evidence he provides are some complaints from the ranks, not exactly a rock solid report.

I certainly hope that this unit started with the basics in their training program. Tough to get to the higher level skills if you can move, shoot, and communicate up to standard. I suspect these guys had some deficiencies coming out of the gate.

[bill1952]

>I suspect these guys had some deficiencies coming out of the gate.

I suspect the LA Times has some deficiencies coming out of the gate.

LA Times? Enough said.

[Calif4Bush]

Don't fall for any of this. The California National Guard is a Liberial group of people. I know an officer who was in the California National Guard and told me he was commanding a group of "Girly Men". They complaied about everything.

[alloysteel]

Equipment shortages are only a small part of "ill-trained". Nothing substitutes for discipline and the basics of knowledge of the tools at your disposal. You may not know all the nuances of GPS artillery spotting, but that does not obviate native good sense when entering a hostile zone. Few pieces of sensor equipment are more sophisticated than the sensory perceptions of the members of a patrol.

This is not World War I, where the philosophy seemed to be send in so many raw conscripted recruits that the sheer number of corpses on both sides would deter any advance by the enemy.

[muawiyah]

Sounds like Infantry Basic ~ it's possible there are a bunch of NGs here who had not gone through Basic previously.

The "lockdown" part sounds familiar, now watch them squeal when their drill sergeants take away their comic books!

[Road Warrior ‘04]

California Army National Guard and LA Times! 'Nuff said

[lt.america]

So true. Americans always rise to the occasion and I am sure these Californians will also (if they WANT to). Instead of complaining, how about trying to find ways to make the training better if you feel it is inadequate. We are not dealing with brain surgery here, stay on guard, plan for your missions, and keep your small unit leaders in the loop because that is where this war is being won.

[H.Akston]

Someone in the Pentagon has tried to fight this war with too few troops - of any nationality. They didn't make a good enough case for it to other nations. And why not? It should have been easy. You could start with the fact that Ramsi Yousef's uncle is Khalid Sheik Mohammad, and that the ties between Iraq and the World Trade Center go back to 1993.

[Non-Sequitur]

They also said the bulk of their training had been basic, such as first aid and rifle work, and not "theater-specific" to Iraq. They are supposed to be able to use night-vision goggles, for instance, because many patrols in Iraq take place in darkness. But one group of 200 soldiers trained for just an hour with 30 pairs of goggles, which they had to pass around quickly, soldiers said...The soldiers said they had received little or no training for operations that they expected to undertake in Iraq, from convoy protection to guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs.

You can make all the jokes about the California National Guard and the LA Times you want, but if these allegations are true then it is criminal. They have enough experience to replicate the living conditions but surely after over a year we have enough experience in Iraq to develop realistic training exercises for those being deployed? If they have to learn the same lessons that others learned before them on a trial and error basis then there will be people who die needlessly. Why hasn't the army thought this far ahead?

[Mr Rogers]

My son is a newbie CA Guard recruit who trained in a different location & deploys shortly. His concerns?

1 - Many of his fellow Guardmen are my age. He's concerned that they are out of shape and doing little to correct it. He says they spend more time trying to avoid work than doing it, and complaining the entire time. He's concerned his back will be covered by guys who have spent much of their time complaining instead of preparing.

2 - Leadership. The enlisted don't trust the senior officers. I tried to explain why the officers may have a different perspective than the junior enlisted, but I'm worried when senior NCOs are either unwilling or incapable of bridging the gap. He says morale sucks.

3 - Training & equipment. Says when some of the women failed to qualify in shooting, they were given more bullets until their scores were high enoough to pass, rather than being pulled / trained / retested. He says the equipment is improving, but substandard to what the active duty has.

Overall - from his perspective, a volunteer to go to Iraq who is too new to the military to know what to expect - he's worried that his equipment is substandard & his fellow soldiers haven't transitioned from the civilian world to active duty.

Bottom line: When his sister (USMC) deployed, she trusted her fellow Marines. As he nears deployment, he doesn't trust his fellow soldiers. That is a bad thing, whatever the root cause.

[Poodlebrain]

The soldiers complain they are not properly trained for their assigned mission, and they also complain about being locked down. Just when do they expect to be trained? The Army isn't a 9 to 5 job.

You have to wonder what these soldiers expect conditions to be like in Iraq.

[First_Salute]

I checked. There is a shortage of weapons. Personnel have been buying their own, which in turn, has been confiscated by the military and assigned toward the "most immediate" need.

The Bush Administration ought to get off its butt and make a committment to materiel build-up.

[Ecliptic]

As a Viet Nam vet; one who was trained for combat for 9 and a half months, it sounds unbelievable to coop these guys up for long periods of time.....there is no excuse for not having enough night vision goggles..every soldier should have a pair..period...

We should always have more than enough of ANY kind of ammo available..in 1969 we had more boxes than we could ever use at every range I was at.....

I was regular Army, but in my advanced infantry training there was almost 75% national guard troops being trained also..... they were constantly being berated for being NG by all the officers and training sargents; those in the training company as well as all the ranges and classes we took away from the company area.....

Surely some of this is just standard issue whining...but some of the specifics sound out of line...

[centurion316]

Someone in the Pentagon has tried to fight this war with too few troops... And why not?

The someone is Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowicz. They, and others of their Ilk, believed that we could do in Iraq what we did so successfully in Afghanistan. Strike hard and fast with a small number of troop sufficient to topple the regime, then turn quickly to nation building and relief actvities.

They adopted this course of action for two reasons: the first was so that we could quickly get rid of the Hussein regime and turn our attention to other nations in the axis of evil, either through diplomatic or other means; the second reason was to demonstrate the validity of their plan for transformation of DoD that called for a smaller Army (8 divisions) and more reliance on high technology weapons and systems in the Navy and Air Force

The issues in this article are a symptom of a related problem. The Active Army was cut to 10 divisions by the Clinton Regime, too small for current requirements. While the National Guard has done a magnificent job making up for the shortfall, this is not sustainable. We are approaching the ragged edge of our capabilities to use Reserve Forces in a long term conflict.

[ketchikan]

Would you please give your source re the shortage of weapons, personnel buying their own and the confiscation by the military?

[demlosers]

I agree. I read the entire LA Times article, and nothing of substance supports the Time's assertion that these Guardsman are receiving bad training, but it's the contrary.

It's the usual belly aching from troops.

I suspect this reporter had this story already written before he had a story, as I suspect with many stories put out by the LSM.

[H.Akston]

Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Culpable. Agreed. Also culpable for underestimating the damage Clinton's criminal neglegence and social engineering did to the Military for 8 years.

[Ecliptic]

In the long run, the national guard needs to change: better training, move older guys to admin jobs out of the combat arms..have their 2 weeks training more relevent to current world situations......recruit more people....

[Ecliptic]

During the invasion of Iraq, I thought we would take over in a couple of weeks, "free" the people, and that they would be glad to be shed of terror in their daily lives.....that they would turn their country into one of atleast a semi democracy fairly quickly ....

Who could have forseen what has happened in stead?? I don't remember any freepers warning about this possible outcome.......I imagine that Rumsfeld, et al are just as surprised and chagrined as I am.....

[decimon]

..in 1969 we had more boxes than we could ever use at every range I was at.....

Fort Dix, 1966. We had to spend range time de-linking belts of M-60 ammo to have some to shoot.