More and more US troops are “special forces”
June 22nd, 2008 | by Steve O |Thank Gods we have an all volunteer military. Could you imagine if we reinstated the draft?
Pvt. David Dietrich had a history of cognitive problems. He struggled in boot camp at Fort Knox, Ky., striking at least one of his superiors as unfit for the military. Dietrich was so slow at processing new things, some fellow soldiers called him Forrest Gump. His squad leader, Pfc. Matthew Berg, says Dietrich couldn’t hit targets on the rifle range and had trouble retaining information. “He was very strong physically, but mentally he wasn’t really all there,” Berg says.
Recruited as a cavalry scout, one of the toughest specialties in the Army, Dietrich seemed to lack the essential skills for the job: concentration, decisiveness and the ability to move around without being noticed. He was sent for psychological evaluations at least twice, yet somehow Dietrich advanced—from Fort Knox to Germany and on to Iraq in November 2006. Eight weeks later, at 21, Dietrich was killed by a sniper while conducting reconnaissance from an abandoned building in Ramadi.
He died a hero, no doubt, a hero because he volunteered and died for something he believed in. Something he thought was more important than his own life which is a lot more than can be said for our Vice President Dick Cheney. It’s a lot more than can be said for the keyboard patriots at Little Green Footballs. And lets not forget our very own feminist-right-wingnut-Rambo.
3 Responses to “More and more US troops are “special forces””
By Mateo Giovanni on Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
Dietrich, I think I’ll remember that name. I bet ya’ll know, but they already have plans for a draft. It will be done when “The Bush Cabal” baby nukes one of our cities, or the Kitty Hawk is sunk a year earlier than scheduled. It happens to be sitting as close to Iran as they can put a false flag. This will also help kick start our economy as well as their Orwellian govt. Canada will due to disagreements allow draft dodgers, and war objectors again. So this is a victory to me. I am putting my ass on the line currently because I am contacting different country embassies about suing “The Cabal” for their “dry attack run”. It hurt everyone except them because it jumped oil $5 a barrel. How many 100’s of millions of Euros did they make from this, or the deaths of unfit soldiers like Dietrich?
Bastards, and their families deserve what they’ve given the Iraqi’s, Afgans, Palestinians, and all others they’ve hurt!
Peace and Freedom
By Liberal Jarhead on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
Flashbacks to McNamara’s Project 100,000. During the Vietnam war, the LBJ/McNamara DOD took 100,000 young American men whose intelligence test scores classified them as “Category IV”, i.e. not intelligent enough to draft under normal circumstances. “The Best and the Brightest” took a look at the cannon-fodder shortage and convinced whoever needed to be convinced that they would be doing a good deed by giving those 100,000 (cruelly nicknamed the Moron Corps by some at the time) the chance to learn skills, build their self-esteem, and have better lives post-service (those that had lives at all). An awful lot of them ended up in combat arms jobs in Vietnam, and a lot of them died and sometimes got their fellow soldiers and Marines killed, despite the best of intentions and efforts from them.
It seems to be rooted in a combination of things - first, a callous disregard for the cruelty of putting a disadvantaged person into a survival situation where that disadvantage is not only unfair but lethal; and second, the common misperception that it doesn’t take brains or talent to be a grunt, when the truth is that it is one of the hardest and trickiest challenges in human experience.
If the folks making the decisions had any personal connection to people in uniform, it might be harder for them to be so coldly willing to treat real live people as throw-away items.
Some people respond with the throw-away line, “Well, they volunteered.” But that’s crap. When a man or woman raises a hand and takes that oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, that young person is offering up his or her life as an instrument of national policy; but that’s only half the social contract between the soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine on the the one hand, and the nation as represented by the chain of command on the other. There is a willingness to be put in danger and maybe to be maimed or killed, but it’s with the expectation that there be a decent reason for it… “Use me, spend me if you have to, but for God’s sake don’t waste me,” you could say it. Part of that is that the military is supposed to evaluate your strengths and limitations and use you appropriately, not put you in a situation they know you probably can’t handle.
We need to get back to a more egalitarian society in that respect. The rich and powerful need to pay their share of society’s dues not only in taxes but in serving their society and taking the risks, the way things were in World War II - if we had the majority of Congress composed of veterans or parents of service members, things like this would be less likely to happen. I am fundamentally opposed to the idea of the draft, but we need to find another way to get the elites back in uniform.
By mr bigstuff on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
lj,
great point about the all volunteer service and the volunteers expectations of their civilian leadership. most people who support the fool w and his debacle in the desert feel that it is okay to waste the volunteer troops because they did volunteer. for example, let’s say a w supporter (twice) were to catch his house on fire on thanksgiving day because he was too dumb to use a turkey deep fryer without fucking up. lets also assume the w supporters neighbor came over with hose and pail to put the fire out. when the neighbor got there, he realized that his hose wouldn’t reach all the way from his house to the w supporters house. so the neighbor asks the w supporter to hook the hose up to the w supporters water spigot and let ‘er rip. the w supporter, being a w supporter then hooks the hose up to the propane tank out back and lets ‘er rip instantly killing the neighbor in a violent fireball which completely destroys the house. a few days later when the w supporter is leaving the insurance company in his hummer with his check that is for about twice as much as the house was worth because he lied on the insurance application, the w supporter notices the funeral where his neighbors friends and family are crying up a storm mourning their beloveds unfortunate and tragic passing. electronically rolling down the window and releasing about $20 worth of gas powered air conditioning, he tells the person on the other end of his cell phone to hold while he yells out to the mourners “what the hell are y’all crying about, he volunteered to help put the fire out, it’s his own damn fault!”