HERE'S THE JERK
Reporter Edward Lee Pitts
cited an "appalling lack of armor" in Iraq.
Posted on 12/10/2004 8:21:35 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
...Pitts said in the e-mail that because only soldiers were being allowed to question Rumsfeld during Wednesday's session with troops in Kuwait, he recruited two grunts from the Tennessee National Guard unit he was embedded with.
"Beforehand, we worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their vehicles going into combat have," Pitts gloated.
"While waiting for the VIP, I went and found the Sgt. in charge of the microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd."
Sure enough, Pitts' plant, Spec. Thomas Wilson, was given the microphone for the third question. Appearing to be reading from a piece of paper he was holding, Wilson wanted to know from Rumsfeld why soldiers were forced to "dig through local landfills" for scrap metal to protect their convoy trucks because "our vehicles are not armored."
Rumsfeld ultimately admitted, "You go to war with the army you have."
Yesterday, the defense boss said, "I don't know what the facts, are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know, and that's a good thing."...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Might be time to "unimbed" a reporter.
Or to find out who else he's in bed with.
Just another imbed going for Fame and Fortune. Great program, NOT!
So far I haven't heard anything that indicates that there isn't an appalling lack of armour. Just whining and finger pointing.
This angle on the armor story - that the reporter planted the story with a soldier - would seem to leave out free wil on the part of the soldiers, both the one who asked the question and the Sgt. that picked him to ask a question. It also ignores the soldier's own desire to ask the question.
I rode around in an unarmoed HUMVEE in Mogadishu for six months. Where was this punk then? (And yes, they were blowing Americans up with mines then.)
If this miscreant was a true journalistic professional he would have done his homework by looking at the Army distribution of resources to make an informed and truthful presentation. But cheap theatrics and half-truths are all the commie pig has in his bag of slime.
Future Years Defense Program is here: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/70457h_040104/p70457h.pdf. At over 2000 pages, however, a journalist wouldn't be able to loaf and invent reality.
When you're in the military, experience suggests that you go from moments of heroism to moments of FUBAR. People get sent to the Sahara with fleece jackets, or they get sent to the far north with tropical uniforms and pith helmets. Leastwise, that's the way the army always worked when I was in it, and for several hundred years before that. No doubt the Roman army got issued with the wrong kind of spears in Gaul, too.
Everyone does the best they can. What's wrong with scrounging in the dump for home-made armor plate while you wait for the real thing to come through the supply pipeline? At least American troops can think for themselves and take remedial action, rather than sitting around waiting for somebody else in Washington to fix it.
It's also perennial for the troops to bitch and complain. They just don't normally do it in front of treasonous reporters, who are ready to to take these comments out of context and use them to feed the propaganda machine and undermine the war effort.
The tragedy of microencephalia. Cut the guy some slack. It's tough when your neck size is bigger than your hat size...
I'm waiting to hear something.
His tie is too tight.
In addition, we were supposed to wear flak jackets. Sometimes they were so worn out that one guy had the nylon outer shell and another wore the guts. Big deal.
There's no way to prove it, but I suspect that supplies are probably getting to the right places more often than they used to, now that we have computerized systems.
My experience in the military was that people were put into slots more or less at random, and they might or might not be capable of doing the job. When I reported for basic training at Fort Dix, our company clerk was unable to read.
I wouldn't expect complex military logistics to be perfect, not in this world at least.
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