Q&A for Rummy

[gburner]

In an open q&a session today with US soldiers, SECDEF Rumsfeld caught some flack from the rank and file regarding up-armoring HummVee's and other lite armored vehicles and the 'stop loss' program which appears to be holding folks past their legal limit as well as forcing folks who have served their country back into the military.

Soldiers were griping about having to dig through trash pits for bits of armor plating for their vehicles as well as sending back to the states for ballistic plexiglass. WTF. Rummy said that you get to fight with the gear that the Army has.

As far as 'stop loss' is concerned, do we really need to force disabled folks back into uniform or folks who have legitimately served their time and performed their duty. What happened to expanding the parameters for induction. Wasn't the Def. Dept. gonna broaden their minimum qualifications in order to widen the pool of potential recruits. Making folks come back who've already fufilled their comittment SUCKS. I'm almost sorry that we buried my Dad in his USAF Major's uniform four years ago. I'm thinkin' that someone might want to dig him up.

 

[Cactus]

Soldiers were griping about having to dig through trash pits for bits of armor plating for their vehicles as well as sending back to the states for ballistic plexiglass. WTF. Rummy said that you get to fight with the gear that the Army has.

Isn't it just a recent event that humvee's have been armored? I recall that when they originally came out, that they were meant as a replacement for the jeep and small trucks, which were never armored. It does sound as if production of the armored humvee's has been signifigantly increased however. Hopefully they can increase it even more, but it still takes time to get them into troops hands.

As far as 'stop loss' is concerned, do we really need to force disabled folks back into uniform or folks who have legitimately served their time and performed their duty.

I have NEVER heard anyone say that they are bringing back disabled folks! If that's the case, that is rediculous. However, stop-loss has been policy for a long time and is written into the contract as far as I know.

What happened to expanding the parameters for induction. Wasn't the Def. Dept. gonna broaden their minimum qualifications in order to widen the pool of potential recruits.

Would you want to fight beside a person who did not finish high school or couldn't meet the physical standards? I know I wouldn't.

It's not a matter of broadening min. quals. Except for the National Guard, every branch is meeting their recruiting goals, IIRC. The size of the military needs to be increased. We reduced it's size dramatically during the 1990's and it's time to reverse that trend and get back to the size military we had back in 1991.

By doing that, we could reduce stop-loss and increase rest time for the service men and women between deployments.

 

[jrfoxx]

as far as extension of service...

I am active duty Navy, and can say that having your enlistment extended would suck, however, it is well known and clear as a possibility. while i certainly feel for those it has/is happening to, it is the nature of of the 'job'. I will be spending 6 months on an aircraft carrier this summer, and will most likely be held past the date i am scheduled to leave the Navy. For any who dont know, when you sign-up (in the navy at least) you sign up for a total of 8 years...4-5 (depending) is active duty, the the remainder is 'individual ready reserve', which means you can be recalled to active service anytime during the remainder of the 8 years. it sucks, but it is something that happens and should be no surprise to anyone in the military. I also feel for thier funding issues, it's b.s. and should never happen, but it does, i see it every day, luckily (for me) lack of funding is seldom a direct threat to me due to my 'job' but quickly could be to pilots, ground troops, and americans on a whole very easily. Please feel free to write your congressman/state representative and fight for more funding for the millitary. we would all be thankful.

God protect those at the sharp end of the spear!

 

[IZinterrogator]

Nobody ever reads the contract

jrfoxx is right. Every military enlistment contract, no matter if you serve three years or six, involves a potential eight-year commitment. The problem is that everyone thought that something like this could never happen. Of course, I never thought that the NYC skyline would be two buildings short one day. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. I've been in for eight years, two months, so I can stop planning for a potential recall. But I will still plan to be in for up to 18 months after my ETS date.

As for the armor, it's nice to have, but it breeds complacency. That is what kills you, not an IED. We trained prior to deployment to drive our soft vehicles with everybody having their weapons pointed out the door, scanning their sectors. With the add-on armor doors, the driver and passenger have roughly a combined 100 degrees of visibility, as opposed to a possible 300 without the doors. Who is going to spot and engage the enemy first?

 

[guntotin_fool]

On equiping the troops and rummys response.

WE HAVE THE EQUIPMENT, Rummys answer of fighting the war withthe army you have rateher than the army you want is DISGUSTING and insulting to every troop over there.
The HUMMVEE was not meant to be a armored patrol vehicle. It was mean to be an upgraded jeep. We have several different models of armored car/Light armored vehicle available. The Bradley was to be the Fighting vehicle but we turned it into a light tank. The stryker was to be a lav and we turned that into a semi truck, it is HUGE, unable to manuver in tight confines of an urban environment, The Brits in Northern Ireland and the South Africans in The Apartied War both had to deal with armed and vicious "insurgents". Both went to wheeled armored vehicles that had firepower and surviability as well as speed and agility. Let us learn from history. Cheap and plentiful, these vehicles really make a difference in effectivness.

look here
http://www.defense-update.com/products/f/fennek.htm
http://www.defense-update.com/products/d/dingo-kmw.htm

www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/mwa-2lightarmor.pdf

http://www.defense-update.com/products/r/ram2000.htm

we canceled this order actually dropped itfrom several hundred to under a hundred and gave it to the MPs
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/asv.jpg
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/asv.htm

 

[Daren Thompson]

I do specifically remember the 8 year contract thing. When I signed up for the Army in 1993 I knew that the Army had my butt for 8 years. My problem is this stop loss thing for people who have done their 8. It affects me directly as last year Dec 17 I signed on for one more year. (10 years service), Three weeks before my ETS I get alerted and now I am stuck for 18 months. I do not care to go over and do my duty. I probably would have re-upped anyway and not let my friends go without me, however that should be MY choice. I served my 8 and I can tell you that I will not ever give them another day more than I have to because of the stop loss program. If I wanted to stop playing Army 6 months ago then they would have locked me up. Now that they are doing this I do consider it a breach of contract.

Later
Daren

 

[bountyh]

My problem is this stop loss thing for people who have done their 8.

How do you feel about the forced re-activation of the IR (inactive reserve) who have served their active term and served in the reserve and gotten out. Some of those poor people are 50 years old and getting yanked out of their lives after being out of the reserve for a decade or more.

I thought we fought a war to abolish slavery?

Somebody needs to tell the Bush administration about the outcome (slavery lost).

 

[Destructo6]

How do you feel about the forced re-activation of the IR (inactive reserve) who have served their active term and served in the reserve and gotten out. Some of those poor people are 50 years old and getting yanked out of their lives after being out of the reserve for a decade or more.

You're not on inactive ready reserve for the rest of your life. IRR time is the total contractual commitment minus whatever time served active. So, for me, it was 4 years active and 4 years in the IRR (a "4x4"). After the end of that total commitment, you are discharged and they won't recall you. If they could that after discharge, they would probably have recalled me, as I was 8404 (Field Med Tech). I took my IRR time seriously, making sure to stay in decent shape and stay out of trouble.

WE HAVE THE EQUIPMENT, Rummys answer of fighting the war withthe army you have rateher than the army you want is DISGUSTING and insulting to every troop over there.

But we do go, and alway have gone, to war with what we have. That's why the WWII era soldier went to war in the under armored and under gunned Sherman and why those tankers constructed their own hedgerow cutters out of beach obstacles.

Certainly, they should get gear as soon as possible, but that should not preclude them from embarking.

One of my old LPOs handed out a bunch of tough, even unfair, questions to the junior enlisted guys one time when the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Pacific Fleet came through on a Q&A session. That interview reminded me of that occasion.

 

[IZinterrogator]

I'm suprised that nobody has brought up the reporter who planted those questions on his escorts and got the sergeant in charge of the microphone to pull his 'plants' out of the audience for the Q&A. Those sessions are supposed to be for soldiers to speak their minds and inform the SECDEF of their concerns, not for some reporter to get his scoop. If a soldier had brought up that question on his own, that's fine, but for him to be a puppet of a reporter is uncalled for. If this causes the SECDEF to cut back on these meetings, I will be seriously pissed.

 

[Daren Thompson]

I really don't like all the hipe about no up armor on Hummers. Public questions like that in my opinion give the insurgents more motivation to go out and blow up hummers. They know it is working, it shows weakness, a bad thing in a combat environment. Plus hummers were never designed to be shot at with AP type weapons. Even with up armor I think looking aggressive and being aggressive are your best defence.

Later
Daren

 

[FirstFreedom]

As far as 'stop loss' is concerned, do we really need to force disabled folks back into uniform or folks who have legitimately served their time and performed their duty.

Of course we do - remember now, if there's one thing we've learned from gburner and fred, it's that all is fair in love and war, particularly the war in Iraq that's got nothing to do with terrorism, but is still supposed to somehow make us safer.

 

[bountyh]

I'm suprised that nobody has brought up the reporter who planted those questions on his escorts and got the sergeant in charge of the microphone to pull his 'plants' out of the audience for the Q&A.

That is attacking the messenger. The fact that reporters are barred from asking "unscreened" questions of any Bush official speaks volumes and explains why a reporter might do this. For the record, the reporter said the soldier voiced the question to him and he helped him to put it into better words. Either way, it needed to be publicly aired to force the Army to act.

But we do go, and alway have gone, to war with what we have. That's why the WWII era soldier went to war in the under armored and under gunned Sherman and why those tankers constructed their own hedgerow cutters out of beach obstacles.

Certainly, they should get gear as soon as possible, but that should not preclude them from embarking.

they should get gear as soon as possible,

That is the point. It's proven they were NOT getting up armored ASAP because it was not a high priority. One of the contractors who does the armoring confirnmed they had plenty of excess "capacity" that was not being utilized. Hopefully, that will change now that the Army has been publicly shamed. But the fact remains, there have been deaths and injuries which could have been prevented if this issue had been publicly aired sooner.