Listen to the Warriors!
By: buzzbolt
Published On: 3/5/2007 2:02:32 PM
Today, I am listening to a Congressional "hearing" exposing vast failures at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Again and again, the soldiers and their families are expressing a complete loss of trust in their leaders. Another theme is that soldiers have no advocates among their "leaders" in a badly broken system. There were no "hearings" until a newspaper exposed massive failures in the system.
The people who made the decision to send our armed forces to Iraq failed to ask the rest of the nation to sacrifice a thing. We are not a nation at war but a nation whose armed services are at war, this fact is well-known and deeply resented among our service members especially when they get alerts for their third and fourth tours. Today we are hearing about dereliction of duty by senior leaders, both military and civilian.
Warnings have been ignored on many more issues, see following:
The divorce rate in the active duty Army is presently above 70%.
Thousands of volunteer soldiers will soon serve their 4th tour of duty in Iraq.
Those who survive can look forward to a 6 to 8 month stateside visit before their 5th tour begins.
Iraq veterans have been showing up in homeless shelters for many months.
Soldiers in Iraq still scrounge for armor in garbage dumps.
Soldiers are disciplined for talking with media representatives.
Soldiers are disciplined as "trouble makers" for communicating with congress members.
Enlistees with below minimum qualifications are allowed to enlist in the U. S. Army up to age 42.
In this piece the term "soldier" can mean any active duty service member in any and all branches of the armed services.
The conclusion is that some day we will desperately need soldiers and there will be none because of the way our warriors and presently treated.
Comments
Absolutely abysmal. (Lowell - 3/5/2007 2:20:11 PM)
Do you believe that our nation needs to fundamentally rething the social compact with those who fight our wars? If so, what would you recommend? Thanks.
History reveals...... (buzzbolt - 3/5/2007 3:23:37 PM)
that the All-Volunteer military ceased to exist sometime in 2003. That year the Pentagon began to issue "stop-loss" directives that retained service members on active duty well past their contractual enlistment periods. Many correctly called these procedures a "back-door" draft. History has also shown that soldiers, whether draftees or volunteers usually come from the lower socio-economic rungs of society.
I believe that a draft, excluding no one, is in the future. Then, affluent and influential parents will see the suffering up close and veterans will have plenty of advocates.
Interesting. (Lowell - 3/5/2007 3:25:40 PM)
In that respect, do you support mandatory, universal, national service?
Yes.. (buzzbolt - 3/5/2007 3:38:24 PM)
but, it would be hard to sell without a great crisis.
You mean like the crisis we're in right now? (Lowell - 3/5/2007 3:56:50 PM)
n/t
Whatever we do in the future about a draft versus all volunteer army (PM - 3/5/2007 4:10:32 PM)
We need to get these irrational jackasses out of office. Here's a new article from Salon on the latest hardline neo-con hire by Condi Rice:
http://www.salon.com...