Re: OT: How Nookular Boy Supports the Troops

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:56:25 -0600, "dbu," <questionmark@pine.com>
wrote:
[color=blue]
>In article <8M0Fh.3724$ya1.465@news02.roc.ny>,
> "JoeSpareBedroom" <dishborealis@yahoo.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> Yeah, the president's got a heart filled with love and concern for "folks".
>>
>>
>> [url]http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/26/rush.iraq.ap/index.html[/url]
>> U.S. troops to forgo training in rush to Iraq
>> WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad
>> with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their
>> usual session at the Army's special training range in California.
>> They are now making preparations to leave their home bases.
>>
>> Some in Congress and others outside the Army are beginning to question
>> whether that decision means the Army is cutting corners in preparing
>> soldiers for combat.
>>
>> The desert training was designed specially to prepare soldiers for the
>> challenges of Iraq.
>>
>> Army officials say the two brigades will be as ready as any others that
>> deploy to Iraq, even though they will not have the benefit of training in
>> counterinsurgency tactics at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin,
>> California, which has been outfitted to simulate conditions in Iraq for
>> units that are heading there on yearlong tours.
>>
>> Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said Monday she worries about the
>> "less-than-ideal training situation" for the 4th Stryker Brigade of the 2nd
>> Infantry Division, which is based in her state and is one of the two
>> brigades that did its final training at home.
>>
>> That brigade is to go to Iraq in April, one month earlier than originally
>> planned.
>>
>> The other is the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort
>> Stewart, Georgia, which is due to go in May for its third combat tour since
>> the war began in 2003.
>>
>> Instead of going to the National Training Center first, it imported
>> personnel and equipment -- even Toyota pickup trucks like those used by
>> Iraqi insurgents -- from the training center at Fort Irwin for two weeks of
>> final rehearsals that begin Wednesday.
>>
>> "The preferred method is to have them come here," a spokesman at the
>> National Training Center, John Wagstaffe, said in a telephone interview
>> Monday.
>>
>> The main advantage that cannot be replicated in a home station exercise is
>> the vast spaces of the National Training Center, which is located in the
>> Mojave Desert, and the weather and other environmental conditions that so
>> closely resemble much of Iraq, Wagstaffe said.
>>
>> "Your weapon won't jam from sand at Fort Stewart," he said.
>>
>> Murray said she does not doubt the ability of soldiers to adapt.
>>
>> "They have done everything we have asked of them," she said. "However, I am
>> deeply troubled by the president's escalation plan and am committed to
>> questioning the new demands it places on service members."
>>
>> On a visit to the brigade's home station at Fort Lewis last week, Murray
>> asked the top commander there, Lt. Gen. James Dubik, whether the soldiers'
>> preparation for Iraq was adequate without going to the National Training
>> Center, according to a Fort Lewis spokesman, Lt. Col. Dan Williams.
>>
>> Williams said he attended Dubik's meeting with Murray.
>>
>> Dubik assured her it was, Williams said.
>>
>> The general told her he was confident "that they were ready to go" to Iraq
>> even if they had not had 1,300 soldiers imported from the Joint Readiness
>> Training Center at Fort Polk to play the role of Iraqi insurgents and
>> civilians and to observe and control the mission rehearsal exercise.
>>
>> "They went through all the things they know they're going to do in Iraq,"
>> Williams said.
>>
>> Some outside observers say it was inevitable that, in a pinch, the Army
>> would tinker with training.
>>
>> "It tracks with what we should expect when we hurry the units up in their
>> last three months" before a deployment, said Kevin Ryan, a retired brigadier
>> general and former Army planner who is now at Harvard University's Belfer
>> Center for Science and International Affairs.
>>
>> Army commanders are compelled to make "economies," he said, when an
>> accelerated deployment plan forces them to compress some aspects of
>> training.
>>
>> Ryan said he doubts this approach will significantly detract from the
>> soldiers' degree of preparation for Iraq.
>>
>> "`Adequate' is probably a good description of what that training is," he
>> said.
>>
>> "It's not the premiere kind of situation that commanders would prefer, but
>> it is adequate." Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington
>> Institute, a think tank, said, "This shouldn't have a decisive impact,
>> although it carries a modicum of risk."
>>
>> The two units that are skipping their National Training Center sessions are
>> among five Army brigades that are being dispatched to Baghdad on an sped-up
>> schedule as the centerpiece of Bush's new approach to stabilizing Iraq.
>>
>> The first to go, in January, was an 82nd Airborne brigade specially
>> designated for short-notice deployments; it did no full-scale final exercise
>> before deploying to Kuwait and then into Iraq.
>>
>> The next two did their final training sessions at the National Training
>> Center. One unit is entering Iraq now, and the other is due to arrive in
>> March.
>>
>> Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may
>> not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.[/color]
>
>Did you read the copyright at the bottom? You in a heap of trouble boy.[/color]

I suspect the FBI will be calling on him soon.....

--


Scott in Florida