Calling all Belgians

I haven't read enough about this to understand the fratricide part,
and it that was an understandle problem or something worse.

But the coverup disgusts me:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/etick...e=tillmanpart1
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JT
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I haven't watched this yet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0OyihqYfF4
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JT
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Bill C wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/...rss_topstories
Quoted:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman
alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by
superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a
fellow soldier killed Tillman.

O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who
was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004
incident in Afghanistan.

"I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened,
especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I knew
that he and the family all needed to know what had happened," O'Neal
testified. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to
speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."

http://tinyurl.com/2v3xw8

WASHINGTON - The Air Force's top general expressed frustration on
Tuesday with the reassignment of troops under his command to ground
jobs for which they were not trained, ranging from guarding prisoners
to driving trucks and typing.
Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, said that over
20,000 airmen have been assigned worldwide into roles outside their
specialties.

The destruction of our military, which does actually work for the
people of the US, and is us, especially the average stiff, is going to
be one of the lasting legacies of this administration. The best and
brightest from the service acadamies are opting out at an
unprecedented rate. Any General Officer who disagreed was run out on a
rail and given early retirement, or a career ending posting.
Once again we have more examples of the indefensible. This
administration's lieing, propagandandizing, sleazeball, criminal, at
least morally, behavior is astounding for people who claim to support
and care about the military.
Bill C


In one way or another this lie gets told over and over. Recruiting and
morale would die without it. LOTS of people in the military buy into the
whole "Rambo" persona because it's more fun to believe you're a hero
than that you're average. That's really all they were selling here.
Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman were heroes, the military is full of
people just like them, smart bombs always hit within inches of their
targets, etc. You can't expect them to tell the story that the war's
being fought by a bunch of kids, and that sometimes they get frightened
and sometimes they make mistakes. Maybe sometimes they get so busy being
not frightened they make mistakes too. Can you imagine the Pentagon
saying something like that? It'd be like Trek paying for advertisements
saying "Yeah, well you can buy the bike, but you're still no Lance
Armstrong, FATTY!"

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:18:41 -0700, Fred Fredburger
wrote:

It'd be like Trek paying for advertisements
saying "Yeah, well you can buy the bike, but you're still no Lance
Armstrong, FATTY!"

Isn't that Carmichael's line? I always thought KG was a deep cover
shill for him, working up clients on rbr.

OK, OK, the second line is absurd on so many levels...

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

On Apr 24, 6:51 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
I haven't read enough about this to understand the fratricide part,
and it that was an understandle problem or something worse.

But the coverup disgusts me:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/etick...e=tillmanpart1
--
JT
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Hey JT
Sorry this is SO long. Lot's of complicated and conflicted stuff in
all this.
That's exactly my position on this too. The old joke in the military
is "How do you know when the Pentagon is lying? Someone's lips are
moving." The people on the inside excect to be lied to and jerked
around regularly. It's a huge part of the humor, since you know it's
never going to change. There's been sone good stuff recently in some
of the military "families" forums and boards somewhat explaining the
gallows humor.
Once you sign the contract you are totally at the mercy of people who
don't give a **** about you individually. That's why good units are so
tight with each other. They are a family and look out for each other,
and bitch about "The Chain(of command), the "Brass", the Pentagon
etc...
You can't cry about the **** and you can't change it, so you laugh
about it.
Friendly fire is really unavoidable for millions of reasons, but the
big one is people aren't perfect and when your in a world of **** you
don't always make the right decision. The next biggest reason would be
not having all the information you need, or being able to process it
all fast enough.
The studies I've seen indicate that as a percentage these incidents
are increasing due to the changing nature of the warfare and the
increased lethality of the weapons.
We really do expect it, and live with it as one of the hazards of the
job. It's really harder for civilians to accept than for us, as a
concept.
The questions we ask, are related what was the mission? How well
trained were the guys? What was the "Ops Tempo", and how long had they
"been out"? Did they get bad info from a controller or up the chain?
I guess it's not so much questioning that it happened, but why, and
was it because some asswipe pushed those guys way past the point where
they were able to make good decisions.
From what I've seen on the Tillman incident this is exactly what
happened. Sometimes that has to happen too. If you've only got one
asset in place to react to a situation then, the command has to decide
between the risk of throwing an exhausted unit in the way compared to
the damage if they don't.
Most of the choices out there suck, and you KNOW you are very likely
sending people you know to be killed. Special Ops units and a handful
of regular units get pushed a lot harder, used closer to their
breaking point, and do more because they can, and do get the job done
most of the time no matter the shape they are in. The people who can
do the most, get used the hardest. It's the reality, and with massive
amounts of the troops not being even vaguely trained and ready for
this type of mess it's not going to change.
There was an old guy I grew up working with who was one of the few
who went in, with Merrills Marauders, on day one and walked out again.
It was the same thing for them even in WW2. Their casualty rate was
somewhere around 70-80% over the extended mission. That doesn't happen
much today, but very well could.
That's why I have been so ****ed at the way they've been marketing
the military and recruiting. They get these kids thinking that it's
community college with travel and once in a while that's true, but the
vast majority of the time it's not. These kids have no idea what they
are getting into.
They've massively relaxed the standards in both basic and advanced
training, cut the stress by huge amounts, etc...to keep the ranks
full. The problem is that this doesn't make good troops when it's most
important. It makes for massively more problems, mistakes, casualties,
and ineffectiveness.
Recruiting should be basically honest. They've gone so far as to ban
recruiters, and drill instructors from even mentioning that the job
involves killing people, or being killed. How the hell do you get a
kid prepared for war without preparing them for this?
Meesha's worse than I am on this since she went through on of the
"experimental" training programs. They were actually handed "stress"
cards that they were supposed to hand to the instructor any time
things got too tough, and they would then be allowed to go take a rest
and relaxation break, and continue when they felt they were ready. In
the general civilian world this might not be bad, but when you are
trying to teach people to cope with the insane, or find out they can't
do it and get rid of them this was a disaster.
It's real easy to have a love/hate relationship with the military,
and I think almost all of us do. Even with everything, if I could, I'd
go back if they called. My skills are out of date, but I like to think
that there's some stuff about dealing with military life and the
system that I could teach the kids. The other side of that is the
level of BS the troops, from what I'm hearing from friends who are
Guard or Active, are dealing with now is even worse than 10 years ago
and I was ALWAYS ****ed off then. Everything I'm hearing say that this
is about the most unresponsive, to the troops, batch yet, and that is
REALLY saying something. A lot of the **** NEVER gets fixed until it
makes the press, and god help the person who got the press involved.

Bill C

On 26 Apr 2007 12:10:20 -0700, Bill C wrote:

Friendly fire is really unavoidable for millions of reasons, but the
big one is people aren't perfect and when your in a world of **** you
don't always make the right decision. The next biggest reason would be
not having all the information you need, or being able to process it
all fast enough.
The studies I've seen indicate that as a percentage these incidents
are increasing due to the changing nature of the warfare and the
increased lethality of the weapons.

Interesting and doesn't surprise me. Which is why it doesn't **** me
off *that much.* The cover up ****es me off. And w/o the cover-up,
and maybe other coverups, we could slightly reduce the # of friendly
fire incidents, even though they can't be eliminated.

We really do expect it, and live with it as
one of the hazards of the
job. It's really harder for civilians to accept
than for us, as a concept.
The questions we ask, are related what was the mission? How well
trained were the guys? What was the "Ops Tempo", and how long had they
"been out"? Did they get bad info from a controller or up the chain?
I guess it's not so much questioning that it happened, but why, and
was it because some asswipe pushed those guys way past the point where
they were able to make good decisions.

Yes -- questions to maybe avoid another incident. A relative of mine
(through godparents) was shot in a "friendly fire" incident in the US.
He was an off-duty cop and gained control over a guy with a gun during
a robbery. So he was holding the crook at gunpoint when the on-duty
cops showed up and one shot him (he survived). Looked like he was
threatening the other guy. I guess he was...
--
JT
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On Apr 26, 12:18 am, Fred Fredburger wrote:
Bill C wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/...index.html?ere...
Quoted:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman
alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by
superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a
fellow soldier killed Tillman.

O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who
was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004
incident in Afghanistan.

"I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened,
especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I knew
that he and the family all needed to know what had happened," O'Neal
testified. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to
speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."

http://tinyurl.com/2v3xw8

WASHINGTON - The Air Force's top general expressed frustration on
Tuesday with the reassignment of troops under his command to ground
jobs for which they were not trained, ranging from guarding prisoners
to driving trucks and typing.
Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, said that over
20,000 airmen have been assigned worldwide into roles outside their
specialties.

The destruction of our military, which does actually work for the
people of the US, and is us, especially the average stiff, is going to
be one of the lasting legacies of this administration. The best and
brightest from the service acadamies are opting out at an
unprecedented rate. Any General Officer who disagreed was run out on a
rail and given early retirement, or a career ending posting.
Once again we have more examples of the indefensible. This
administration's lieing, propagandandizing, sleazeball, criminal, at
least morally, behavior is astounding for people who claim to support
and care about the military.
Bill C

In one way or another this lie gets told over and over. Recruiting and
morale would die without it. LOTS of people in the military buy into the
whole "Rambo" persona because it's more fun to believe you're a hero
than that you're average. That's really all they were selling here.
Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman were heroes, the military is full of
people just like them, smart bombs always hit within inches of their
targets, etc. You can't expect them to tell the story that the war's
being fought by a bunch of kids, and that sometimes they get frightened
and sometimes they make mistakes. Maybe sometimes they get so busy being
not frightened they make mistakes too. Can you imagine the Pentagon
saying something like that? It'd be like Trek paying for advertisements
saying "Yeah, well you can buy the bike, but you're still no Lance
Armstrong, FATTY!"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There are plenty of real heroes out there that aren't covered. They
don't need to manufacture this crap, or lie about it.
It's easy to build very good morale in a unit without BSing anyone,
and I was in one of the best, and the worst unit in the USAF as rated
by retention, inspections, prosecutions, etc...Even in that unit it
took the C.O. a long time to kill the good morale he inherited when he
took over. There was a subdued party after he was relieved of his
command, because that didn't give all the people he destroyed their
careers back. Having worked with, and tried to train kids who came in
believing the recruiters BS would be true, after they got to their
first duty station, those *******s need to stop lieing, and we don't
need the kids who have been recruited under false pretenses. Most
finally get their heads around the situation and are good troops, but
a large number always are problems, and some are disasters. This
creates havoc with units, especially when they are running on short
manning and everyone has to give a lot extra to get the job done.
Personally I think there should be a daily bag limit on lieing
recruiters.
Bill C

On 26 Apr 2007 12:10:20 -0700, Bill C wrote:

Even with everything, if I could, I'd
go back if they called.

Man, that's a thought that never crosses my mind. If it did, I'd kill
it like a rat. Let's see:

Military (U.S.Army)
Slept in barracks with a bunch of guys
Sometimes got to work seven on, none off,12 hours a day, weeks and
even months on end
Went to work in the dark, a lot
OK, got to work in the dark, by the Army's intention
Top had such a great attitude about life, especially the portion still
living...
I had such a great attitude about life, living and dead
Traveled in the back of a truck, way too much
Why does putting peas in Jello make it its own food group?
And really, that was coffee?

Civilian
Sleep with my wife, occasionally visited by Scotties (the Australian
Shepherd was worse)
Rarely work over 50 hours a week, at least not by much. And have the
weekends off.
Generally go to work in daytime, although DC and Baltimore traffic
aren't especially fun
Pretty much no longer in the dark at work, which is a good thing when
you are both the controller and the HR manager
Boss has a suspiciously good attitude toward fellow human beings (OK,
unlike Top, he is easily identified as a fellow human being)
And I'm thinking much better about most human beings, although I make
exceptions
Mostly travel in the Prius, which is good because I'm not sure I'm
still able to navigate the back of the truck thing
Have recognized pretty much everything I've eaten and drank over the
last few years, and not once has my wife made Jello with suspicious
vegetable additives. We tried the Jello-vodka thing once and it is
nothing like peas or lettuce. A couple of suspicious looking beers and
wines, maybe...
Coffee isn't always perfect, but I've never left cleaner in the pot
before making the first pot of the morning.

Advantages, military:
Got to see the world, at least the part where some of their people
were trying to kill some of ours and vice versa. Universal health
care, including the doctor that misidentified which ankle was
sprained. Local idigenous women, followed by locally applied medicine
by injection (and this was when I was stationed at the Monterey
Presidio...). Reenlistment bonuses paid in cash while surrounded by
guys getting $ 67 a month (You got it, now get it home). And my very
own M16 with my name taped to the stock.

Nah, the only thing that would make me go back is the fact they have
the weapons and seem to be willing to use them damn near anywhere.
OTOH, I'm even more useless to the Army now than when I was 23. Which,
I guess, makes me promotable right back to SSG.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Bill C wrote:
On Apr 26, 12:18 am, Fred Fredburger wrote:
Bill C wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/...index.html?ere...
Quoted:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman
alive, Spc. Bryan O'Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by
superiors not to divulge -- especially to the Tillman family -- that a
fellow soldier killed Tillman.
O'Neal particularly wanted to tell fellow soldier Kevin Tillman, who
was in the convoy traveling behind his brother at the time of the 2004
incident in Afghanistan.
"I wanted right off the bat to let the family know what had happened,
especially Kevin, because I worked with him in a platoon and I knew
that he and the family all needed to know what had happened," O'Neal
testified. "I was quite appalled that when I was actually able to
speak with Kevin, I was ordered not to tell him."
http://tinyurl.com/2v3xw8
WASHINGTON - The Air Force's top general expressed frustration on
Tuesday with the reassignment of troops under his command to ground
jobs for which they were not trained, ranging from guarding prisoners
to driving trucks and typing.
Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff, said that over
20,000 airmen have been assigned worldwide into roles outside their
specialties.
The destruction of our military, which does actually work for the
people of the US, and is us, especially the average stiff, is going to
be one of the lasting legacies of this administration. The best and
brightest from the service acadamies are opting out at an
unprecedented rate. Any General Officer who disagreed was run out on a
rail and given early retirement, or a career ending posting.
Once again we have more examples of the indefensible. This
administration's lieing, propagandandizing, sleazeball, criminal, at
least morally, behavior is astounding for people who claim to support
and care about the military.
Bill C
In one way or another this lie gets told over and over. Recruiting and
morale would die without it. LOTS of people in the military buy into the
whole "Rambo" persona because it's more fun to believe you're a hero
than that you're average. That's really all they were selling here.
Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman were heroes, the military is full of
people just like them, smart bombs always hit within inches of their
targets, etc. You can't expect them to tell the story that the war's
being fought by a bunch of kids, and that sometimes they get frightened
and sometimes they make mistakes. Maybe sometimes they get so busy being
not frightened they make mistakes too. Can you imagine the Pentagon
saying something like that? It'd be like Trek paying for advertisements
saying "Yeah, well you can buy the bike, but you're still no Lance
Armstrong, FATTY!"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There are plenty of real heroes out there that aren't covered. They
don't need to manufacture this crap, or lie about it.
It's easy to build very good morale in a unit without BSing anyone,
and I was in one of the best, and the worst unit in the USAF as rated
by retention, inspections, prosecutions, etc...Even in that unit it
took the C.O. a long time to kill the good morale he inherited when he
took over. There was a subdued party after he was relieved of his
command, because that didn't give all the people he destroyed their
careers back. Having worked with, and tried to train kids who came in
believing the recruiters BS would be true, after they got to their
first duty station, those *******s need to stop lieing, and we don't
need the kids who have been recruited under false pretenses. Most
finally get their heads around the situation and are good troops, but
a large number always are problems, and some are disasters. This
creates havoc with units, especially when they are running on short
manning and everyone has to give a lot extra to get the job done.
Personally I think there should be a daily bag limit on lieing
recruiters.
Bill C


If you had 10 people reporting to you, one took 90% of your time, the
other 9 got the other 10%. I think you should be able to track down the
recruiter who pulled in the 1 and - not kill maybe, but "blanket party"
the hell out of him, at least. Make the penalty for recruiting the
insane ones higher than the benefit.

On Apr 26, 3:21 pm, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:
On 26 Apr 2007 12:10:20 -0700, Bill C wrote:

Friendly fire is really unavoidable for millions of reasons, but the
big one is people aren't perfect and when your in a world of **** you
don't always make the right decision. The next biggest reason would be
not having all the information you need, or being able to process it
all fast enough.
The studies I've seen indicate that as a percentage these incidents
are increasing due to the changing nature of the warfare and the
increased lethality of the weapons.

Interesting and doesn't surprise me. Which is why it doesn't **** me
off *that much.* The cover up ****es me off. And w/o the cover-up,
and maybe other coverups, we could slightly reduce the # of friendly
fire incidents, even though they can't be eliminated.

We really do expect it, and live with it as
one of the hazards of the
job. It's really harder for civilians to accept
than for us, as a concept.
The questions we ask, are related what was the mission? How well
trained were the guys? What was the "Ops Tempo", and how long had they
"been out"? Did they get bad info from a controller or up the chain?
I guess it's not so much questioning that it happened, but why, and
was it because some asswipe pushed those guys way past the point where
they were able to make good decisions.

Yes -- questions to maybe avoid another incident. A relative of mine
(through godparents) was shot in a "friendly fire" incident in the US.
He was an off-duty cop and gained control over a guy with a gun during
a robbery. So he was holding the crook at gunpoint when the on-duty
cops showed up and one shot him (he survived). Looked like he was
threatening the other guy. I guess he was...
--
JT
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Some more good reading that totally disputes those who blindly support
this administration:

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

A failure in generalship

By Lt. Col. Paul Yingling
"You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and
never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of
stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious
conflict."
- Frederick the Great


For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the
prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the
U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate
at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and
deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American
victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive
regional war.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/04/2591168

Wanted: occupation doctrine
The Army has to write it now - for next time
BY RALPH PETERS
Together, the Army and Marines shoulder the combat duties in Iraq,
supported by the other services. But the primary burden of occupation
has been borne by the Army - as it always will be. Given the
difficulty of overcoming the breathtaking range of errors committed by
political ideologues during this occupation's early phases - when it
wasn't even permissible to term it an "occupation" - and the uphill
struggle to salvage the situation now, one of the last things the Army
wants to contemplate is another occupation in the future.

Bill C