thedrifter
11-25-03, 06:21 AM
11-21-2003
It’s About the Troops, Stupid!
By Paul Connors
Like it or not, we’ve been at war since 9/11 and a lot of people, from politicians to movie stars have weighed in on the subject. Of late, more and more average Americans are doing the same.
So what are the “talking heads” and “Hollywood expert” concerned about? Those high-profile military experts such as Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Aniston and Sean Penn – all high school graduates, mind – daily instruct the White House and Pentagon on the immorality of our campaign to liberate Iraq. They would have a lot more credibility if they placed their attention elsewhere, on real issues of concern.
Here’s a hint: We should focus on the individuals who are carrying out difficult, challenging and dangerous missions on our behalf.
He’s the 19-year-old 11B assigned to the 4th Infantry or 101st Airborne Divisions on patrol in Tikrit or Baghdad. He’s the 21-year-old Marine lance corporal who does the six-month “float” on an amphib, waiting for the U.S. government to issue another 911 call for help with an emergency anywhere, any time. Then there’s the 20-year-old Air Force jet engine mechanic, working on a Pratt & Whitney or GE engine, pulled out of the back of an F-15 or F-16 or perhaps removed from the engine nacelle of a KC-10 or B-52. He or she is working in 130-degree heat, risking sniper fire on the ramp at Baghdad International Airport or Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.
And guarding these bases? Some of the finest and most dedicated people anywhere: the Air Force’s own light infantry, the men and women of the Security Forces. They’re active duty, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard. They too have a serious job and it’s one they take very seriously. These professionals keep the folks inside the gates safe so that they can do their jobs.
Let’s not forget the Army reservists and National Guardsmen from line infantry units, MP companies, transportation companies, ordnance battalions, military intelligence units and Special Forces groups that have provided people (just like you and me) when their nation called.
Our smallest service and the nation’s oldest sea-going branch, the U.S. Coast Guard is part of this mix, too. With cutters in the Gulf and port security personnel in Dharan, the UAE and elsewhere, they ensure the safety and integrity of supplies coming by ship to the legions of Americans manning the ramparts.
We have an expeditionary force in the Middle East and it’s a mixed force of regulars and members of the reserve components. This force is truly diverse, it includes men and women and members of the wide spectrum of races and ethnic groups that make up our armed forces. They come from every corner of the country and some aren’t even citizens, yet. They have voluntarily placed themselves in harm’s way so that you and I can live our lives as we see fit.
As an organization and as individuals, we should all be proud of them. They are doing what we cannot or will not do.
To be sure, these men and women have a seemingly thankless job. They have Iraqis and Afghans or other hate-filled sociopaths trying to kill them. Yet they wake up every morning and continue the march. They do the jobs they were trained to do.
But what really irks me is that they have arrayed against them (in addition to the idiots in Hollywood and the news media who do nothing but blame them for following the legal orders of their superiors) a government that of late, is led by business executives, whose only real driving force is the bottom line.
The Defense Department, that entity that employs all of our armed forces (with the peacetime exception of the Coast Guard) has compiled a dismal record of failure when it comes to supporting our modern-day centurions. What do these soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coasties have to deal with from their own government? Here are two examples:
First, the Pentagon has recently launched studies that will determine whether the military commissaries should become for-profit businesses (meaning, higher prices for our under-paid troops). The proponents of capitalism and free trade want to raise prices in the discounted DECA commissaries to reduce the subsidy these same stores receive from the taxpayers.
While beneficial to the civilian taxpayer, it does nothing for GI Jane or Joe or their spouses and children who will be faced with increased costs, just so the grocery lobby can increase its profits.
Second, out in San Diego County, Cal., the Marine Corps is faced with some very serious shortages of affordable housing for its junior enlisted personnel and their dependents. In 1999, under the 1993 Base Realignment and Closure Act, the Marine Corps closed El Toro MCAS in Orange County. In addition to the loss of the runways, the closure brought with it the loss of 933 military family housing units, which today sit empty.
Until three years ago, Marine families whose head of household served 27 miles away at Camp Pendleton were able to use the housing, but that too has ended. Today, Marines assigned to the San Diego area have found (much to their chagrin) that their Basic Allowance for Housing, Type I has not kept pace with civilian rental costs in the greater metropolitan area.
In the last quarter of 2003, military census figures show that more than 5,000 Marines were forced to live in Orange County, Cal., and commute to Camp Pendleton and MCRD San Diego because they cannot afford to live closer. This is what these Marines have received from an administration that told them, “Help is on the way.”
Numerous military advocate organizations and the news media have addressed these issues, but the Marine Corps and the administration seem to be turning a deaf ear. Despite the financial hardships being endured by these young Marines and their families, we haven’t heard a peep out of the Hollywood Left on these issues or others like them.
We are fighting guerilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and hopefully, we’re still hunting down Osama bin Laden and his henchmen. We have committed $87 billion for the re-building of Iraq, while ignoring the needs of 5,000 Marines here at home. When you stop to think about it, it’s enough to make you sick. We are short-changing our most precious resource, the men and women of our military, to train, feed, house and provide medicine for the very same people who are trying to get us to leave their country. We are abandoning our own while we make our recent enemies comfortable and remove any incentive they might have had to help themselves.
We have forgotten the people who defend the rights of the whiners, the crybabies, the demagogic politicos (whatever their persuasion) and the self-indulgent celebrities of the week. I hear their false platitudes and I get sicker by the day.
The ones who matter most to me – and should matter the most to all Americans – are the guys and gals in desert camouflage and woodland BDUs. It’s about the men and women in chambray shirts and denim bell-bottoms. It’s about the CPOs and officers standing bridge watches and the fighter pilots providing 24/7 air defense alert coverage for the homeland.
It’s about the troops, stupid! We should never forget it.
Paul Connors is a Senior Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at paulconnors@hotmail.com. © 2003 Paul Connors.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=266&rnd=723.391211154791
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
It’s About the Troops, Stupid!
By Paul Connors
Like it or not, we’ve been at war since 9/11 and a lot of people, from politicians to movie stars have weighed in on the subject. Of late, more and more average Americans are doing the same.
So what are the “talking heads” and “Hollywood expert” concerned about? Those high-profile military experts such as Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Aniston and Sean Penn – all high school graduates, mind – daily instruct the White House and Pentagon on the immorality of our campaign to liberate Iraq. They would have a lot more credibility if they placed their attention elsewhere, on real issues of concern.
Here’s a hint: We should focus on the individuals who are carrying out difficult, challenging and dangerous missions on our behalf.
He’s the 19-year-old 11B assigned to the 4th Infantry or 101st Airborne Divisions on patrol in Tikrit or Baghdad. He’s the 21-year-old Marine lance corporal who does the six-month “float” on an amphib, waiting for the U.S. government to issue another 911 call for help with an emergency anywhere, any time. Then there’s the 20-year-old Air Force jet engine mechanic, working on a Pratt & Whitney or GE engine, pulled out of the back of an F-15 or F-16 or perhaps removed from the engine nacelle of a KC-10 or B-52. He or she is working in 130-degree heat, risking sniper fire on the ramp at Baghdad International Airport or Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.
And guarding these bases? Some of the finest and most dedicated people anywhere: the Air Force’s own light infantry, the men and women of the Security Forces. They’re active duty, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard. They too have a serious job and it’s one they take very seriously. These professionals keep the folks inside the gates safe so that they can do their jobs.
Let’s not forget the Army reservists and National Guardsmen from line infantry units, MP companies, transportation companies, ordnance battalions, military intelligence units and Special Forces groups that have provided people (just like you and me) when their nation called.
Our smallest service and the nation’s oldest sea-going branch, the U.S. Coast Guard is part of this mix, too. With cutters in the Gulf and port security personnel in Dharan, the UAE and elsewhere, they ensure the safety and integrity of supplies coming by ship to the legions of Americans manning the ramparts.
We have an expeditionary force in the Middle East and it’s a mixed force of regulars and members of the reserve components. This force is truly diverse, it includes men and women and members of the wide spectrum of races and ethnic groups that make up our armed forces. They come from every corner of the country and some aren’t even citizens, yet. They have voluntarily placed themselves in harm’s way so that you and I can live our lives as we see fit.
As an organization and as individuals, we should all be proud of them. They are doing what we cannot or will not do.
To be sure, these men and women have a seemingly thankless job. They have Iraqis and Afghans or other hate-filled sociopaths trying to kill them. Yet they wake up every morning and continue the march. They do the jobs they were trained to do.
But what really irks me is that they have arrayed against them (in addition to the idiots in Hollywood and the news media who do nothing but blame them for following the legal orders of their superiors) a government that of late, is led by business executives, whose only real driving force is the bottom line.
The Defense Department, that entity that employs all of our armed forces (with the peacetime exception of the Coast Guard) has compiled a dismal record of failure when it comes to supporting our modern-day centurions. What do these soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coasties have to deal with from their own government? Here are two examples:
First, the Pentagon has recently launched studies that will determine whether the military commissaries should become for-profit businesses (meaning, higher prices for our under-paid troops). The proponents of capitalism and free trade want to raise prices in the discounted DECA commissaries to reduce the subsidy these same stores receive from the taxpayers.
While beneficial to the civilian taxpayer, it does nothing for GI Jane or Joe or their spouses and children who will be faced with increased costs, just so the grocery lobby can increase its profits.
Second, out in San Diego County, Cal., the Marine Corps is faced with some very serious shortages of affordable housing for its junior enlisted personnel and their dependents. In 1999, under the 1993 Base Realignment and Closure Act, the Marine Corps closed El Toro MCAS in Orange County. In addition to the loss of the runways, the closure brought with it the loss of 933 military family housing units, which today sit empty.
Until three years ago, Marine families whose head of household served 27 miles away at Camp Pendleton were able to use the housing, but that too has ended. Today, Marines assigned to the San Diego area have found (much to their chagrin) that their Basic Allowance for Housing, Type I has not kept pace with civilian rental costs in the greater metropolitan area.
In the last quarter of 2003, military census figures show that more than 5,000 Marines were forced to live in Orange County, Cal., and commute to Camp Pendleton and MCRD San Diego because they cannot afford to live closer. This is what these Marines have received from an administration that told them, “Help is on the way.”
Numerous military advocate organizations and the news media have addressed these issues, but the Marine Corps and the administration seem to be turning a deaf ear. Despite the financial hardships being endured by these young Marines and their families, we haven’t heard a peep out of the Hollywood Left on these issues or others like them.
We are fighting guerilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and hopefully, we’re still hunting down Osama bin Laden and his henchmen. We have committed $87 billion for the re-building of Iraq, while ignoring the needs of 5,000 Marines here at home. When you stop to think about it, it’s enough to make you sick. We are short-changing our most precious resource, the men and women of our military, to train, feed, house and provide medicine for the very same people who are trying to get us to leave their country. We are abandoning our own while we make our recent enemies comfortable and remove any incentive they might have had to help themselves.
We have forgotten the people who defend the rights of the whiners, the crybabies, the demagogic politicos (whatever their persuasion) and the self-indulgent celebrities of the week. I hear their false platitudes and I get sicker by the day.
The ones who matter most to me – and should matter the most to all Americans – are the guys and gals in desert camouflage and woodland BDUs. It’s about the men and women in chambray shirts and denim bell-bottoms. It’s about the CPOs and officers standing bridge watches and the fighter pilots providing 24/7 air defense alert coverage for the homeland.
It’s about the troops, stupid! We should never forget it.
Paul Connors is a Senior Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at paulconnors@hotmail.com. © 2003 Paul Connors.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=266&rnd=723.391211154791
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: