Last month I ranted about lack of true support for our military troops in the USA. Sticking a magnetic "Support the Troops" sticker on the side of your car just doesn't hack it in my opinion. It's bad enough that we send troops into a war without adequate training, body armor, or armoured vehicles. The Army is "worn out", it can't recruit enough replacements so much so that felons and gang members are now filling the military ranks. Then you have the effects of multiple tours of duty, extended tours and the back door draft. All of this, for a war we were lied into by a President with questionable military servce who appointed a Secretary of Defense who has been desribed as the worst Sec. Def. in history.
That's bad enough. The Iraq War has resulted in a huge number (>50,000) of severely wounded or injured soldiers. A number that also is being misrepresented by our government. Now we find that living conditions and treatment of soldiers in our premier military hospital, Walter Reed (I think Bethesda Naval is far better), is substandard. That is also unacceptible. But the fact that the government knew about this state of affairs at Walter Reed is what really gets to me. Not just the hospital officials but congressmen too. Republicans Bill Young (R-FL) and Tom Davis (R-VA) specifically. According to Press Sec. Tony Snow, even Pres. Bush was aware of the problems.
Now, the guy that is likely directly responsible for this mess, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley is being put back in charge of the facility. Replacing scapegoat Gen. Weightman who has only been in charge for six months or so.
As I write this post I notice that one of my favorite congresspersons, Louise Slaughter (D-NY), is calling for Gen. Kiley's immediate removal. Of course Gen. Kiley has Sen. Lieberman on his side.
No sir. A magnetic sticker on a car just doesn't cut it when it comes to really supporting the troops.
2 comments:
I agree. I just found out that another good friend of mine is being sent back over for his THIRD tour . . . WTF?!?!?!?
When my son went over in 2003 with his Army reserve combat engineer group they took all of their equipment. In 2004 they were relieved by a reserve unit from Puerto Rico. My sons group left all of the equipment there. When they returned they had nothing for months. The finally recieved the PR reserves equipment which was junk and over the last three years they have slowly been replacing items. Then today I saw this;
Updated: 7:45 a.m. ET March 2, 2007
Nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated "not ready" -- largely as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars' worth of equipment -- jeopardizing their capability to respond to crises at home and abroad, according to a congressional commission that released a preliminary report yesterday on the state of U.S. military reserve forces.
The report found that heavy deployments of the National Guard and reserves since 2001 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other anti-terrorism missions have deepened shortages, forced the cobbling together of units and hurt recruiting.
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