Wrong Turn in Nasiriyah Led to Soldiers' Capture Maintenance Company Drove Into Waiting Ambush

Washington Post ^ | April 13, 2003 | Peter Baker

[STARWISE]

The media will take anythinbg unsuspecting people will give them .. she should have known better.

[Maigrey]

Self Ping for later reading.

[Destro]

Did most Freepers forget the meaning of Breaking News?

[ibtheman]

The most likely reason for weopons jamb, not enough oil (lubrication)! I served in the Marine Corp. I noticed in the Motor Transport platoon, they did not take very good care of ther weopons, while out into the field! Especially in the desert environement your weopon should have a very thick coating of oil! This is propably what happened to this army motor t. unit! So please do not blame the weopon, I was trained with the M-16 A2 An outstanding weopon when propably maintained.

[k2blader]

Bump!

[Terp]

I do not mean to denigrate any of these troops, but if I had to guess whether a) the rilfes don't work in sand (how many complaints from the infantry have we heard?) or b) these were rear echelon troops, who never expected to have to *use* their weapons, and didn't maintain them... I'd go with B.

Roger that.

[Destro]

No it is extended news, i.e. more information on a previously occuring news item -- not breaking news at all.

[NMFXSTC]

Here is a case of one of two things:

1. Everybody wanted a "piece of the action" and the REMFs figured here was a nifty chance w/o a lot of chance of hostile fire

2. Clear evidence that relying on Reserce and guard call ups for war on a front is bad juju!

And...remember the Code of Conduct? Damn little compliance with it in this case, eh?

The USMC, airborne and 3rd ID have not reported weapons jams! And...siungle load/single fire on an M-16? That is a real trick (and story?)

[Destro]

Changes of story also count as Extended news...thats why its called extended. But that is just my opinion.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Two things struck me about this article. #1 their weapons jammed up. There is no excuse for us to give our soldiers weapons that will not work properly in combat.

There is something else to this. The M16A2 is not a bad weapon. It does require preventive maintenance. These were rear echelon guys. They may not have been doing everything they needed to keep the weapons ready to go.

Walt

[El Gato]

1. Everybody wanted a "piece of the action" and the REMFs figured here was a nifty chance w/o a lot of chance of hostile fire
2. Clear evidence that relying on Reserce and guard call ups for war on a front is bad juju!
And...remember the Code of Conduct? Damn little compliance with it in this case, eh?

These were not reserve or Guard troops. They were support troops, and you can blame Congress for not funding enough training for them and the front line troops. Given that lack, the Army wisely spent the training $ on the front line troops. Besides which, they didn't go looking for the fight, they stumbled into it. Shit happens. I still think they gave a pretty good account of themselves. They didn't surrender until they had no way to resist. They were out of ammo.

As far as the code of conduct goes, what substantive violations do you detect? AFAIK, they gave the enemy no useful military inforation. They hardly had a choice of being filmed and shown on TV, that was an Iraqi violation, not theirs.

[Iwo Jima]

In light of this report, why do you believe that they ran out of ammo? It seems clear to me that they had to surrender because their weapons were jamming, not due to a lack of ammo. Of course, it's possible that one soldier ran out of ammo, but we haven't heard that and in any event that would not have caused the entire group to surrender.

It also seems to me that other posters are correct that improper maintenance was the most likely cause of the jamming. Improper training, if that occurred, did not seem to be the cause of this problem.

In any event, I hope that this episode prompts a review of how support troops are used, trained, equipped, etc., as there is no assurance that they will not be in the thick of combat, perhaps even targeted by the enemy due to their increased vulnerability. I'm sure that the support troops will learn from the misfortune of others and demand more training and will do everything that they can to keep themselves and their weapons combat ready.

Just trying to get the facts straight about this very compelling story.

[cherry]

I can't get some of you guys...

first, its the "women" in the military....

and now its the "reserves"...

This has been a remarkable military onslaught and all some of you can do is critique ....

I don't know where we would be without the guard and the reserves...or for that matter women in the service...

but don't let our marvelous success on the battlefield stop your diatribe...

[NMFXSTC]

"I will never surrender of my opwn free will" (Code of Conduct)

Out of ammo? single laod and single fire on an M-16? Isn't that a T.O. 200 round issue of ammo?

And blame who? Blame the one who assigned REMFs to a solo job, out of thier MOS without adequate leadership, contingency plan, land nav. saavy, etc.!

[Recon by Fire]

Dead on. I carried a M16A2, and rarely had problems with it jamming. Daily weapon maintenance does wonders. I think you're spot on with this one.

In defense of the maintenance personnel, they are usually too busy repairing the vehicles of the fighters.

I know this is no excuse, but that is the way it is.

If vehicles are not running and chow is not ready, people get pissed, so weapons maintenance suffers.

[Faithfull]

I agree with you. Geraldo is far better than the other liberals on TV and although he is far from being my favorite FNC reporter...there is no need to bully Geraldo all the time.