FUBAR in Iraq- Career soldier opinion

Capitol Hill Blue ^

[William McKinley]

Figures. ROFL

[Don Carlos]

why go all over the world when the terrorists are coming to us in droves while we occupy Iraq

In a single sentence, that is the best answer to the leftie a-holes. If the muslim fanatics are willing to go to Iraq and face off with the best equipped and trained army in the world, what more can right-thinking people ask?

Prior to Iraq, they hid in the shadows. At least now, we know where they are!

[Cold Heat]

Prior to Iraq, they hid in the shadows. At least now, we know where they are!

Absolutely!

Not to mention the added intel that we gather when we capture these morons. We find out who supplied them, who got them across the border and who they report to.

This is having the effect of speeding up the process.

The hoover is running 24/7 and the bag is filling.

[Qatar-6]

I've no doubt we'll get him sooner or later

The fish has to be lucky every time, the fisherman only once

It would make things easier. How much so is hard to say.

It would certainly bring a large sigh of relief from a large segment of the Iraqi population

All the best

Qatar-6

[Destructor]

"No exit strategy for Iraq is the main problem. This will get very expensive over time. We should concentrate on destroying terror cells around the world, not get into expensive occupation situations."

President Bush told us that the war in Iraq would be a long-term commitment. Besides, the attacks of September 11th weren't exactly a bargain by comparison! What price do you want to put on the economy of the United States, and our way of life?

[edchambers]

No exit strategy for Iraq is the main problem.

Bull the main problem is liberals and thier willing acomplices in the media undermining the war effort period.And by the way that was the exact same reason we lost in viet nam too.

[Plutarch]

This interview with a "career soldier" is just as bogus as emails from a "Marine in Iraq". There is no specificity.

Specificity is the soul of credibility.

[Plutarch]

This interview with a "career soldier" is just as bogus as emails from a "Marine in Iraq". There is no specificity.

Specificity is the soul of credibility.

[reformedliberal]

It wasn't those qualities. It was a deep tiredness, a cynicism, an emptiness. They were betrayed.

They are still fine people.

[Ronin]

This smells on a lot of different levels.

Too bad. I used to like Doug.

I won't read him again.

[walden]

Well, it was a long time ago-- my sweetie hasn't been tired since I've known him (12 beautiful years and counting!), but I do have to say that he has no use at all for Robert McNamara ("that SOB almost got me killed!"). I'm 13 years younger, so Vietnam didn't hold the same place in my world that it did in his, which is probably a good thing.

[neverdem]

"Come on.... those of us safely at home, don't be so easily scared. Because someone shoots back we must run away home? We have had a great success.... losing great soldiers as we always will in a war, but fewer in the whole conflict than would often be lost in a DAY in Vietnam."

Now Viet-Nam was bad, but not that bad. IIRC, since Iraqi Freedom started we suffered 300+ killed in action(KIA).

During the heaviest fighting in Viet-Nam, i.e. the Tet Offensive in 1968, the weekly toll was about 500 KIAs per week. That rate persisted for about a month. The toll gradually decreased to about 100 a week until our Cambodian Incursion in late April 1970 when it went back up to the range of 200 - 250 KIAs per week while they were in Cambodia. When I first arrived in Viet-Nam in late April 1970, there were about 450,000 troops in-country. After the Cambodian campaign weekly casualty rates gradually decreased. In June 72 when I finally left Viet-Nam there were about 50,000 troops in-country and weekly KIA rates were 40 - 50.

Every once in a while there would be a spike because of less common events, such as small isolated firebases getting assaulted by NVA infantry, a Chinook helicopter losing one of its rotors with a platoon of grunts on board, lucky shots with 122mm rockets finding holes-in-one into large command size bunkers that a platoon size unit would use to sleep. These bunkers had a tall wall of sand bags about 2 feet in front of them. Somehow the rocket just cleared the top of the sand bags and made it into the entrance of the bunker wasting 30 - 40 GIs at once. I was in Germany at the time, reading about it in the Stars & Stripes. I still remember it because it was my old unit and Firebase C-2 next to the DMZ. I went back to Nam in Sep 71.

The story about the old man spitting in the returning GI's face doesn't pass the smell test, unless he was some old commie. IIRC, it was the contemporaries of the returning GIs, i.e. hippy types in groups who would do the disrespectful shit to a GI in uniform usually traveling alone. I brought some civvies with me so I could avoid any crap at Oakland's airport even though I had a duffel bag.

What's going on now in Iraq was entirely predictable. We will be there for a while. We must not fail. And we must let the rats and the left remember that it was Johnson who escalated that war, without a clue about winning it, only a hope he could bribe the commies into a truce, using that cover to pass all his failed Great Society programs.

The Vietnamization program was succeding when our ground troops left Nam in the spring of 1973. The forces of South Viet-Nam were holding their own, more or less. It was the rats who refused to give any more aid to South Viet-Nam in the spring of 1975.

This time we can't afford to fail. As much as I'm disappointed with Bush on domestic issues, he has to be re-elected or we will really have trouble.

[Swordmaker]

Is this "careerist" an Officer or Staff Non-Commissioned Officer? You gave no grade or time-in-service; you gave only the vague "I missed Vietnam" line.

I agree this is bull hockey... on ice.

If this "career" soldier just "missed vietnam" he would be at best 47-48 years old... and 30 years in service... something stinks about this.

[Swordmaker]

Oh brother.... Little heavy on the drama there buddy.

You are absolutely RIGHT. I reread this "story" and concluded that is exactly what it is... a tightly plotted short fiction story masquerading as a news report.

None of the necessary FACTS are present... there is no WHO, there is no WHAT, the WHERE doesn't compute, and the WHEN is incomprehensible... the WHY is the emotion the author evokes in his opening and closing sentences. Quagmire equivalence.

[Plutarch]

The side where the Pentagon got hit overlooks the Navy Annex and Arlington Cemetary, no restaurants that I can recall.

[FreedomPoster]

Good catch. Army brat here, and that's always how I've heard it said.