Todays Military...do you want this for your kid?

[Rotorblade]

Last weekend while traveling from Las Vegas to Southern California I stopped at a Bob's Big Boy in Baker (a small roadside town near Death Valley in the middle of the desert). There were 4 or 5 bus loads of US Army troops eating at the fast food stops in town. They were all wearing camo which seemed a little odd as the nearest active military base is the Marine Logistics center in Yermo. I asked one where they were heading and he said Denver. I then asked him where they originated from and he said a base in Northern California. When I asked why the Army didn't just fly them to Denver he just shrugged his shoulders and got back on the bus.
Is this really how we treat our solders now? The Government wants to give everybody free contraceptives but doesn't have a problem making these kids do a 3 day bus ride!
But wait, there's more..........
I just got off the phone with my nephew who is a Navy Corpsman, he recently was assigned to SOCOM and just finished his SEAR training. He is shipping out to Afghanistan in 3 days and tells me he won't be getting the tricked out M4 or the Springfield 45 as they "ran out" and there is "no budget" for new ones. He will be issued the M-9 ( and I'm assuming an M-16) instead, but......they don't have enough magazines so he has to buy his own!!!!! Also, his med bag or whatever they call them now will only have about 25% of the stuff he is supposed to have when he deploys.....once again...no budget.
This is total BS. I guess I've always assumed that our kids had the best equipment money could buy when they deployed...this was quite an eye opener.
Real Disappointed.....

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[atctimmy]

Times are tough friend and they're only going to get tougher.

[mlr1m]

The Government wants to give everybody free contraceptives but doesn't have a problem making these kids do a 3 day bus ride!

Its not that the Government doesn't have the money. The problem is what they want to spend it on. They will spend it wherever it will purchase the most votes for their reelection.

Michael

[guardmt]

You know what makes me sick....is seeing all these fobits here in Afghanistan, anytime I run a mission to a fob or KAF, I see cooks with tricked out M4s and other people who will never roll off the fob there on the whole time. I see CSMs, LTCs, and all these other higher command rolling around with the new MultiCam plate carriers while most of us still have the IOTV. Its stupid, when you see all these higher command with gear that troops on COBs or troops that live at the Afghan police stations should have first. I could go on ranting all day but the Army to me, is no longer worth my time, even on a state level. When I get back, finish my last two and half years and wave uncle sam the dueces. Okay....Im done ranting.

[NotMallNinja]

You know what makes me sick....is seeing all these fobits here in Afghanistan, anytime I run a mission to a fob or KAF, I see cooks with tricked out M4s and other people who will never roll off the fob there on the whole time. I see CSMs, LTCs, and all these other higher command rolling around with the new MultiCam plate carriers while most of us still have the IOTV. Its stupid, when you see all these higher command with gear that troops on COBs or troops that live at the Afghan police stations should have first. I could go on ranting all day but the Army to me, is no longer worth my time, even on a state level. When I get back, finish my last two and half years and wave uncle sam the dueces. Okay....Im done ranting.

Sounds like leadership failures on several accounts to me. When in charge you should be the last one to have the shiny new gear unless you are out and about with the troops on patrol, etc.

On a different note I sure miss Marysville House. When out in the area for training that place serves fantastic steaks and alcohol. *Mouth Watering*

[Eagleks]

Last weekend while traveling from Las Vegas to Southern California I stopped at a Bob's Big Boy in Baker (a small roadside town near Death Valley in the middle of the desert). There were 4 or 5 bus loads of US Army troops eating at the fast food stops in town. They were all wearing camo which seemed a little odd as the nearest active military base is the Marine Logistics center in Yermo. I asked one where they were heading and he said Denver. I then asked him where they originated from and he said a base in Northern California. When I asked why the Army didn't just fly them to Denver he just shrugged his shoulders and got back on the bus.
Is this really how we treat our solders now? The Government wants to give everybody free contraceptives but doesn't have a problem making these kids do a 3 day bus ride!
But wait, there's more..........
I just got off the phone with my nephew who is a Navy Corpsman, he recently was assigned to SOCOM and just finished his SEAR training. He is shipping out to Afghanistan in 3 days and tells me he won't be getting the tricked out M4 or the Springfield 45 as they "ran out" and there is "no budget" for new ones. He will be issued the M-9 ( and I'm assuming an M-16) instead, but......they don't have enough magazines so he has to buy his own!!!!! Also, his med bag or whatever they call them now will only have about 25% of the stuff he is supposed to have when he deploys.....once again...no budget.
This is total BS. I guess I've always assumed that our kids had the best equipment money could buy when they deployed...this was quite an eye opener.
Real Disappointed.....

That's totally and absolutely unacceptable.

[Cold Shot]

20 hour bus ride - I don't see what the big deal is. There are a bunch of factors that probably went in to the decision.

M16 vs. M4 and M9 vs. 1911 - also not really a big deal. The M16 has a longer barrel, so what? The Beretta vs. Springfield 1911 debate could go on for days, but both are adequate. Sometimes one just has to use the tools at hand.

The 25% of med kit - obviously a huge deal. Shouldn't happen. Maybe this needs to be verified, however.

[stanislaskasava]

Our national budget similar to those people you see at the grocery store, buying things with foodstamps -- and then you recognize them as the people who parked next to you in the new SUV with big chrome wheels and loud stereo. All kinds of money for EVERYTHING BUT the necessities.

[Echo_Four]

The dude is a SEAL and can't get equipment? That has to be an absolute first. There are things that our government does, and has done, that I cannot explain. But one thing they've always done right is make sure that the Special Ops guys have everything they need and that the equipment actually works for their unique mission. As a Marine is wasn't at all unusual to have to go buy something we needed. We had a running joke that if we wanted the government to pay for it we should have been bouncing balls on our nose (which was how we always referred to the SEALS).

When he actually deploys I'd be shocked if he didn't have the equipment he needed. If you wouldn't have said he was assigned to SOCOM I wouldn't have thought anything about it, but I highly doubt that those dudes can't get their hands on what they need.

[kdydak]

US military scrimping on grunt gear while spending on big ticket items built in politically well connected states is nothing new.

Having the best gear in the hands of those closest to reins of power rather then those that need it the most is pervasive in human society and not just a military issue.

Military spending is ultimately controlled by politicians and they will spend it to solve their problems not "our problems". Getting latest gear to grunts wins less votes then flashy new jobs programs to build some useless military doodad.

So the politicians make a perfectly rational decision to that wins them more votes. The people that entered politics without the ruthlessness to send our kids to die without the necessary equipment have lost elections to those that were.

RealClearPolitics - Solving Whose Problem?

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems-- of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.
Many of the things the government does that may seem stupid are not stupid at all, from the standpoint of the elected officials or bureaucrats who do these things.
...
What is stupid is believing that politicians are trying to solve our problems, instead of theirs.

[johns381]

It sucks but it's turned into how many votes can each tax dollar buy. I'd love to hear from somebody that was deployed to Iraq, was it any better under W?

[Caertaker]

In my opinion the U.S. is still the greatest country on earth but this is not the first time I have been ashamed of it. We can do better and hopefully in the years to come we will. I realize hope is not a strategy, its just all I've got at this early hour.

[troutkiller]

That's been going on since Bush got us into Iraq in '03 (at least). Back then, US troops were not provided body armor for over a year and were buying their own. DoD knew they had problems with unarmored Humvees but they kept pushing our guys into the field to get maimed and killed. In response to a question about Humvees is when Rumsfeld made his famous you-go-to-war-with-what-you-got statement.

It's nothing new.

[rstickle]

US military scrimping on grunt gear while spending on big ticket items built in politically well connected states is nothing new.

Yup, I can remember in my day ('64 - '85) they were pulling that crap. One of my big fights was tires! Most EOD vehicles were classed as emergency vehicles (for obvious reasons), but the military kept wanting to put retreads on them... Not something you want on an emergency vehicle! Managed to win that battle most of the time.

[HotGuns]

Its all about priority..

Any one care to guess where the military ranks in this Administration when it comes to priority's?

Thats all I'm gonna say about that, lest I offend some of the liberazis that reside here.