Part-Time Warriors Find Themselves Fully Committed

[Rose Siding]

snip>
It will be the first time since the Korean War that an entire a National Guard division is fully deployed in combat, and it is thought by division officials to be the first time ever that a National Guard division will command active duty units in combat.

"It was quite an honor to be selected for the mission," Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Taluto, 57, the commanding general of the 42nd Division, said at his headquarters at Forward Operating Base Danger in Tikrit. "We certainly wanted it. Everyone wanted it."
...
The soldiers here are the men and women who deliver your mail, cook your entrees, answer your customer service calls and patrol your streets. They are truck drivers, students, social workers, youth counselors, cosmetologists, doctors, mechanics, firefighters, general contractors, a pool repairman, a tea salesman, the manager of a coffee shop and a lawyer from Long Island who said he represented "slumlords."
...
The National Guard troops are generally older than their active duty counterparts, so the transition from the First Infantry Division, which has handled security in the region for the past year, to the 42nd Infantry Division has resembled an exercise in time-lapse photography. As the new arrivals have replaced their outgoing counterparts, the population on the military bases has suddenly become more wrinkled, paunchy and gray.

http://nytimes.com/2005/02/14/nyregion/14guard.html?hp&ex=1108357200&en=75ca9bb2c66299f6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[MADem]

1. Wow.

No disrespect to the Guard, because they have been doing the HEAVY lifting over in the sandbox this time, but this is indicative of severe stress in our military readiness equation--an entire division, with command and control. I'm astounded. The larder is bare.

I can't imagine BushCo going to Iran without a draft. Supposedly, they plan on doing the USAF high and mighty bombing routine to take care of business, but they fail to understand that if the Iranians can't hit back at us up on high, they WILL come over the Zagros and screw with us in Iraq. They are very nationalistic people, and regardless of whether or not the younger generation especially likes the mullahs in charge, they will defend their country with all of their might. They have a long and proud history, they will not be subjugated easily.

[AndyTiedye]

2. The Just Aren't Telling Us About The DRAFT Yet

Like the "Patriot" Act, the draft is all ready and waiting in the wings
for a suitable excuse to stampede it through Congress.

[Rose Siding]

4. I worry that the cabal will consider nukes

before a draft. What would it take? Some provocation, some propaganda?

[AndyTiedye]

5. They Don't Want to Make All That Nice Oil Radioactive

They wouldn't want to use nukes in the middle east because they would
irradiate the oil.

They might stir up a nuclear confrontation with North Korea though.
That would be ideal for them, since NK's missiles can only reach
the west coast. They can't hit any red states.
Getting some nice blue west coast city nuked would be the sort of
excuse they would be looking for to start up the draft (which would
turn into more of a general mobilization) and Patriot II & III ...

[MADem]

7. Get the 51st state to be our proxy

They use the nukes, because Iran poses a "clear and present danger" in their opinion. We tut-tut, tell them they were bad to do that, they fire the person who authorized it, but we still have to protect them. So then, the game is afoot. The prize is oil and a subjugated region, the penalty is a hellish, protracted war.

Hopefully the 51st state won't go along with that scenario, but who knows? The peaceniks aren't ruling the day over there. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a notebook in a safe somewhere in the high corridors of power with that type of game plan sketched out in it.

[reprobate]

6. We are no longer the world's military super power.

When insurgents with mostly hand me down weapons can fight a multi-billion dollar army to a stand still, it means that what we have been spending our money on for defense has gone to the contractor friends of the administration, and not for our fighting troops.

It shows that our government has become as corrupt as Rome at it's end. And I have come to believe that we are looking at the end of America as we have known it for a couple of centuries.

Bush has reached his goal of destroying the nation.

And you are absolutely right that the Iranians will take it out on our people in Iraq. We have maybe 150,000 troops there who are at the end of their tethers, fatigued, and ill armed. What will happen to them when faced with maybe a million Iraqis and Iranians looking for revenge for the dead relatives we have left them? If we don't bring them home before this happens, the aftermath will be a disaster such as has not been seen in modern times. We were lucky to get out of Viet Nam as almost bloodlessly as we did. I would guess we could lose as many as in all of the Viet Nam follies if this were to happen.

[oasis]

3. "Everyone wanted it" said the general. Reminds me of a rapist saying

"she wanted it".:mad:

[saigon68]

9. She should shut her mouth too

</sarcasm>

[ausiedownunderground]

8. Are National Guard soldiers just part time?

How on earth are part time soldiers going to handle battle hardened guerrillas, who have already more than matched it with regular US troops. I dont think Major General Joe J Taluto is going "Want It" in 6 months time. I don't think this man has a clue about what there all about to come up against? And it ain't "slumlords"!

[Rose Siding]

10. Lost colleagues in WTC- gives him "a reason to be here"???

snip>
Maj. Robert J. Milmore, 52, a retired New York City firefighter from Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y, is a helicopter pilot and an assistant logistics officer with the 42nd Aviation Brigade here. Dozens of his colleagues at Rescue Company 5 on Staten Island, where he was working on Sept. 11, died in the collapse of the twin towers, he said, adding, "It gives me a reason to be here."



How can anyone still associate Sept 11 with Iraq?