Posted on 02/22/2008 8:01:39 AM PST by HD1200
OBAMA: You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.
OBAMA: And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.
OBAMA: Now, that’s a consequence of bad judgment. And you know, the question is, on the critical issues that we face right now, who’s going to show the judgment to lead? And I think that on every critical issue that we’ve seen in foreign policy over the last several years — going into Iraq originally, I didn’t just oppose it for the sake of opposing it. I said this is going to distract us from Afghanistan; this is going to fan the flames of anti-American sentiment; it’s going to cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and overstretch our military. And I was right.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Obama just proved he knows nothing about the military. The anonymous source was probably his wife.
That is what I am thinking as well. Damn, I hope we are wrong. It will be a blessing if we can make it through 4-8 years of McCain and I don't even want to think of a Hillary or Obama presidency. We sure haven't been given much to fight for this go round.
Obama Oexcreta. he wouldn’t know a rifle platoon from a tobacco spitoon.
I was going to mention that that may be the case for elite forces, but then a group like that would not be a mere “Rifle Platoon” as he said. He would have embelished it saying something like, “Even our elite units are using...” He is a typical lib liar.
Two glaring problems with Obama’s remarks.
First a Platoon has a Lt in command. A Capt commands a Company.
Second, during my 22 years in the Marine Corps(the Army may be different, but doubtfull) I never saw a platoon split between 2 different theaters of operation.
His comments on captured Taliban weapons are joke, the units deployed to Afghanistan ahve all the eqipment they need, and then some. Captured weapons are destroyed, or given to the Afghan army.
O-1 (2nd Lt,) O-2 (1st Lt,) & O-3 (Cpt)are all Company Grade officers.
Field Grades are O-4 to O-6 (Major, Lt Col, & Col)
then there are the Flag ranks O-7 to O-10 (various Generals)
Thanks, roughman. I think that insight is what a lot of people were looking for.
I read a great analysis of the AK-47 that was related by a SF Colonel (IIRC) in Robert Kaplan’s great book “Imperial Grunts”...he compared it with the M16, and how the M16 is completely unsuited to ragtag forces with little time or inclination to practice marksmanship...how the AK47 is designed with such loose tolerances that magazines cannot be simply “dropped” with a actuation of the release, but must be grasped and pulled, whereas an M-16 magazine can be released by actuating the release and letting gravity drop it into your hand...and how the AK47 was designed that way, because magazines for an AK47 were more important than the life of the man ejecting them, and they didn’t want them getting dropped and lost. You get the idea...I only have a Garand and have never shot more than a magazine out of a M16 and AK47, so I cannot comment directly on the accuracy of those comments, but...an interesting perspective nonetheless.
I was making an overall statement on Obama’s lack of military knowledge and the obvious lies that Obama is spouting. To the average dem voter, that story would resonate with truth!
Your first point is debatable ... your second point is absolutely not true.
Russian rifle calibers (7.62x54R, 7.62x39, 5.45x39) are utterly incompatible with NATO rifle calibers (7.62x51, 5.56x45).
AK-47’s shoot 7.62x39mm ammo, AK-74’s shoot 5.45x39mm ammo, and the M-16 series shoots 5.56x39mm NATO.
I wouldn’t want to try to shove a 5.45x39 cartridge into a 5.56x45 chamber ...
I know Obama's supporters and the media, sorry, redundant, are ignorant, but willfully ignorant? (Actually, we already know the answer to that, I just like asking)
Heh, poor guy. None will let him forget that here!
Point is, libs have such disdain for the military, and since the MSM is at least 80% libs, their stories are rife with inaccuracy. Those of us who have a degree of knowledge constantly grit our teeth when they show a destroyer and refer to it as a battleship, or a cobra and call it a huey...
They just shrug their shoulders and drive on to the next drive by (to reference Rush Limbaugh) because it simply is not at all important to them.
To people like us, it IS important.
Platoons are usually commanded by a 2nd Lt, sometimes a 1st but seldom by Captains. A Captain would be a Company commander.
When you run short of officiers, especially at the platoon level a sergent takes over.
True. See my remark I was typing when you posted. It is not even that they are willfully ignorant. The facts simply are NOT important when it comes to military matters, because they hold the military in such low esteem.
LOL
That would be the Chinese knockoff of “Top Gun” called “Tip Top Full Metal Jacket”
Here is what Obama advisor David Axlerod had to say:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mjc4MDlhY2VjNmJiOWU1MDg5NTk4ZDZmODg0NTM5YjM=
AXELROD: “That was a discussion that a captain in the military had with our staff, and he asked that that be passed along to Senator Obama.”
LOL! That sounds exactly like it! Furthermore, why would a unit be split up like that unless it was a joint unit or something specialized like that? Next Obama will ask Roger Clemens in a Senate hearing about his steroids and football bats.
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