After backing Dan Rather's forged documents, Hackworth can never again be taken seriously.
Posted on 03/22/2005 8:16:25 PM PST by Former Military Chick
Lt. Gen. John E. Sattler Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force Somewhere near Fallujah, Iraq
General,
Congratulations on your splendid Marines' retaking of Fallujah last November. The mission was accomplished in the proud tradition of Iwo Jima, the Chosin Reservoir and Hue City.
During the past four months, your force also cleaned the clocks of some of the baddest guys going in Anbar Province, one of the toughest killing fields in Iraq. I'm convinced that if other units mirror your performance and the American people hang in there, we'll see light at the end of the Iraqi tunnel by the end of this decade.
But as you well know, armies are made up of extraordinary units, good units and a few sorry outfits that aren't up to standards. It all depends on leadership. Good leadership means good units.
Regarding leadership in your command, I've recently received a sea bag full of letters from individual Marines and their families concerning a rash of injustices that violate everything the Corps stands for.
All those involved in this sordid mess are seasoned warriors who -- when asked last year -- volunteered from civilian life to rejoin the Corps as replacements from the Individual Ready Reserves. Read: They did not have to go. As a combat-veteran grunt Marine told me, "How could I say no?"
Last May, in one instance, 200 recently discharged Marines volunteered to re-enlist when asked, with the knowledge that they would be deployed to Iraq as "casualty replacements." Those who qualified were promised promotions to sergeant.
A Marine's mother says: "These brave Marines were all told verbally during the past nine months that they'd be promoted to sergeant. None of them has received his promotion, and they've been called by their battalion leaders as undeserving and not real Marines. ... We are prepared to barrage all of their superior officers and our own congressmen and -women with all the facts and figures as soon as they get home."
"My son is serving in the [deleted] battalion in Iraq. He completed his four years' service in the Corps and was honorably discharged, then after two years of re-establishing his civilian life, he volunteered to re-enlist for a one-year tour when his country asked him to serve to replace casualties in Iraq," adds another Marine mother. According to the mother, her son explained: "My country called. It was my honor to serve once again."
In a nutshell, the Marines who were promised a stripe were met instead with two-bit chicanery: Their test scores, which in the USA were more than high enough to merit promotions, were tampered with once they hit Iraq by unit old-timers who altered both the scores and date of rank in order to put the replacements at the end of the promotion line behind all the connected, regular good ol' boys who deployed with the unit. The volunteers were essentially made ineligible for those promised promotions.
As one parent puts it, "Many of the officers and NCOs apparently consider men they refer to as 'temporary Marines' as unqualified for promotion because they take promotions from enlisted Marines."
Every letter we've received expresses great shock at these machinations. A Marine Vietnam-vet father says, "I know what the system does to anyone who rats out the chain of command."
The families are understandably furious and ready to blow the whistle, except for the fear of retaliation to their loved ones. But expect that to change the minute their nearest and dearest step off the plane.
Your public-affairs officer has been e-mailed chapter and verse by Roger Charles, president of Soldiers for the Truth, a retired Marine officer who has also passed the word to fellow Marine Beltway staffers and warns that SFTT will drop the hammer on your command if this injustice is not quickly corrected.
To treat these hero Marines like boots and to fiddle with their service records stinks. While this type of abuse isn't happening across the board in your command, it's widespread enough to hurt the morale of too many of your outstanding young Marines.
Hopefully you'll form a task force ASAP to nail the perps and make sure the victims get their stripes.
Semper fi, and keep up the good work,
Hack
He is using his mail bag to support this, well, he has a website that just frustrates me. He is fishing (not sure that is the best term) for those who are unhappy or have some grievance with the military .. do not believe me check out his site Soldiers For The Truth (http://www.sftt.org/).
Frankly there may be no greater love than a love of a mother to her son (all parental relationships are groovy too) and if in fact the Marines were mislead then they have recourse through their chain of command to get to the bottom of the disputed situation.
I will have to ask beloved to address this part of the article where "temporary Marines" are mentioned.
Blow the whistle what the eeF is that about? Military Freepers what is your thought on this?
Threatening, that always works wonder's doesn't it?
I have lost any respect I had for Hackworth over the past four years.
He was the guy who was behind the promotion of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal by the leftist media. He has worked against the war in Iraq from the start.
He talks big here about his respect for the troops, but I suspect this is just more of the same. Fishing for trouble.
I don't know if it is permissible for active duty personel or DOD officials to tell the Colonel to get bent, but if it is, they should start.
After backing Dan Rather's forged documents, Hackworth can never again be taken seriously.
Never was that big of a "hack" fan.
He always seemed to be promoting a book that pointed out a weakness in our military. It just seemed wrong for him to make cash by pointing out a soft spot to our enemies.
STFU
I cannot remember the last time one of the talking heads invited Hackworth onto a show to do military commentary. I suppose they caught on that a lot of us where switching channels the moment his turtleneck came into view. Got to where I cannot stand the sound of his voice and can barely tolerate his hackneyed, cliche-riddled tripe.
My father-in-law still idolizes him and delights in tormenting me with Hackworth's latest rendition of The Old Brown Shoe. Of course, I never torment him back . . . no, no, not me. :-)
Don't forget Hackworth's 180 on Wesley Clark. Hackworth invented the term "perfumed prince" with Clark as the prototype, had nothing but the utmost contempt for him. At least, until the media hyped him up as the most likely Dim candidate, and Clark start chirping the anti-Iraq War script just like a trained parrot. Then, Hackworth said he was the greatest military mind since Alexander the Great.
Unfortunately for Hackworth, the Aleaxander the Great that Clark was most like was Oliver Stoned's mincing little gaywad, and not the real one.
What is that line about old soldiers never die, they just fade away, well it is Hack's time to fade.
Who give a royal crap about what you think and say? Please proceed to drop dead! You were and are a disgrace to the military
Sincerely,
Lt. Gen. John E. Sattler
Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force
Soldier is correct...not to degrade the term "Soldier"...but Hackworth is not, was not, and never will be a Marine...Marines are a different breed of cat.
Hack, your fifteen minutes is up.
It occurs to me that if these guys were to be awarded rank for re-upping for immediate combat deployment, they would have been brought back to active duty and promoted on the same set of orders.
Hackworth is shameless.
Another Hack-o-gram from you. Shame, shame.
Sorry, the Hacker has zero credibility. I wouldn't trust him to shine my boots.
He's gone over to the darks side and we should do nothing but shun him.
IMHO, of course.
OPEN LETTER TO HACKWORTH:
I used to have some respect for you. That is no longer the case. You are a disgrace. FO
Smokin' Crackworth strikes again! That guy is a pathetic shell of what he once might have been a long, long time ago.
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