THEY SHOOTIN'

Spring is here and time to get the guns out and bust some caps. We went to the range on Tuesday. I got assigned my M-16 and christened her "Matilda" -last year while in Basic I had called my weapon that name and folks thought I was messing around with a 16 year old girl...Funny as hell that was...We prepared for the range last week by going to a simulator called the EST(Electronic Simulation Training). The EST is a huge videogame room except the weapons are real but have been modified to shoot at target scenarios on a huge video screen with laser technology. I hadn't picked up a weapon for any length of time since Fort ILL and after a few sessions I came outta there shooting expert. The news shocked the shit out of everyone at the unit. Video is nothing like real word conditions on the range. Some say it's harder indoors than outdoors. I beg to differ. The challenging part of this is having your helmet on and making sure you rifle butt is tucked in the crook of your shoulder while jocking for space with your ballistic vest(Interceptor Body Armor aka IBA) on. We look like a bunch of Ninja Turtles with all this gear on.

So this past Tuesday, we go way out into the boonies of Bragg to the ranges. I was a bit nervous but motivated to "gun clap" for most of the day. My first time out I hit a dismal 9 out of 40 targets. I was amped on yerba mate and my breathing was hurried which affected my trigger squeeze and stance. I felt a certain amount of pressure because one's measure of self/"soldierness"/masculinity is measured by how nice one is with a weapon-just like a playing sports especially basketball -which brothas often use to measure one's coolness/blackness, etc. So second time up, I shot a 16 outta 40- just warming up and getting a feel for number 7 where I was shooting from. Folks are starting to look at me funny- I was one of four who didn't qualify at this point. I was coached on my shooting stance and sight picture. Cool I got it. I knew what I had to do...3rd time up, I shot a 30 outta 40 and scored Sharpshooter. I was one with Matilda knocking down targets at 300m, 200m, 150m, 100m, 75m, and 50m and could of gotten expert if I hadn't shot low on 4 targets. The best score in our unit was 33 out of 40. I know practice makes good and I was just warming up. I uncovered something I like to do but I hope going forward, I don't have to shoot anyone who might be a threat to my life.

AFGHAN WHIG OUT

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

The above quote is from Rudyard Kipling.

Last Friday our unit was informed of a possible June departure to Afghanistan as part of the "surge". The announcement came in a restaurant after we finished a generous lunch bought by the commander. Looking back, I wonder if the lunch was symbolic of "fattening us up before the kill" ;-) I felt the timing of his announcement at lunch was kinda questionable especially after we just left an Army suicide prevention lecture (btw, the Army is experiencing unprecedented suicides from those who have been deployed and not deployed). I thought this announcement should of been done back at our unit office. It left quite a few of us in shock and surprise. As it stands now, we are still awaiting official word and follow up. Here's a couple of articles I came across recently that I hope our (CnC) Commander and Chief and his crew are reflecting on.

March 13, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

How to Leave Afghanistan

By LESLIE H. GELB

ONLY if our troop levels hit 100,000 and fighting floods over into Taliban havens in Pakistan will Washington be likely to look hard at the alternative policy for Afghanistan — withdrawing most American forces and refocusing our power on containing, deterring and diplomatically encircling the terrorist threat. But by then it will be too late.

President Obama is now confronting the classic problem from hell: either do more to stave off defeat and hope to get lucky, or withdraw and face charges of defeatism and perhaps new terrorist attacks. Mr. Obama’s goal is to “ensure” that Afghanistan is not a sanctuary for terrorists, which effectively restates his campaign call for victory there. Thus, he recently decided to add 17,000 American troops to the more than 35,000 already in Afghanistan. But his goal of eliminating the Taliban threat is not achievable.

Mr. Obama needs to consider another path. Our strategy in Afghanistan should emphasize what we do best (containing and deterring, and forging coalitions) and downgrade what we do worst (nation-building in open-ended wars). It should cut our growing costs and secure our interests by employing our power more creatively and practically. It must also permit us — and this is critical — to focus more American resources and influence on the far more dire situation in Pakistan.

We can’t defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, as the last seven years have shown. Numbers are part of the problem: most Taliban are members of Afghanistan’s majority tribe, the Pashtuns. More confounding, the Taliban and their Qaeda allies have found in northwestern Pakistan a refuge that has proved almost impregnable. These factors make overcoming the enemy in Afghanistan infinitely harder than it was in Iraq.

What we can do is effectively reduce the risk of terrorist attacks from Afghanistan against its neighbors, the United States and its allies. We can do this in a way that would allow for the withdrawal of American forces, though economic and military aid would continue.

The first step is to provide significantly increased economic support, arms and training to friendly Afghans as United States combat forces gradually depart over, say, three years. We could use the intervening time to increase present counterinsurgency operations to better protect Afghans and give them a boost to fight on their own, if they have the will.

The second step is to try to separate less extremist elements of the Taliban from their leadership and from Al Qaeda. Mr. Obama is already considering reaching out to Taliban moderates, and he could do this through the Afghan government and covert contacts. No group is monolithic once tested with carrots and sticks, as we saw in Northern Ireland and Iraq.

The Taliban are no exception. While most of them want to drive America out, they have no inherent interest in exporting terrorism. As nasty as the Taliban are, America’s vital interests do not require their exclusion from power in Afghanistan, so long as they don’t support international terrorists.

Third, while we should talk to the Taliban, Washington can’t rely on their word and so must fashion a credible deterrent. The more the Taliban set up shop inside Afghanistan, the more vulnerable they will be to American punishment. Taliban leaders must have good reason to fear America’s military reach. Their leaders could be hit by drones or air strikes. The same goes for their poppy fields, from which they derive considerable income. Most important, Mr. Obama must do what the Bush team inexplicably never seemed to succeed in doing — stop the flow of funds to the Taliban that comes mainly through the Arab Gulf states. At the same time, he could let some money trickle in to reward good behavior.

Fourth, President Obama has to ring Afghanistan with a coalition of neighbors to show the Taliban they have no place to seek succor, even after an American departure. The group would include China, India, Russia, NATO allies, and yes, Iran. They all share a considerable interest in stemming the spread of Afghan drugs and Islamic extremism. China and Russia should be more willing to help in this anti-Taliban effort as the American military presence recedes from their sensitive borders.

Then there’s Pakistan, both the heart of the problem and the key to its solution. The peaceful future of the region depends on the resolve and ability of Pakistan’s secular and moderate religious leaders to provide decent government to their people. China, India, Iran and Russia might cooperate with Washington simply because there’s no motivation greater than the nightmare of extremists controlling Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

India in particular wants to combat extremism in Pakistan. It could do that by reducing its forces on the border with Pakistan, for example, thereby allowing Pakistani moderates to focus their attention more on the growing and already formidable extremist threat within.

Withdrawal need not mean defeat for America and victory for terrorists, if the full range of American power is used effectively. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger proved that by countering the nasty aftereffects of Vietnam’s fall to communism in a virtuoso display of American power. They did this by engaging in triangular diplomacy with China and the Soviet Union; brokering a de facto peace between Israel and Egypt; and re-establishing American prowess in Asia as a counterweight to emerging Chinese power. By 1978, three years after Saigon’s fall, America’s position in the area was stronger than at any time since the end of World War II.

I don’t know whether the power extrication strategy sketched out here would be less or more risky than our present course. But trying to eliminate the Taliban and Qaeda threat in Afghanistan is unattainable, while finding a way to live with, contain and deter the Taliban is an achievable goal. After all, we don’t insist on eliminating terrorist threats from Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. Furthermore, this strategy of containing and deterring is far better suited to American power than the current approach of counterinsurgency and nation-building.

President Obama and Congress owe it to both Afghans and Americans to explore a strategy of power extrication before they make another major decision to expand the war.

Leslie H. Gelb, a former editor and columnist for The Times, is the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the forthcoming “Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy.”



March 10, 2009
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
In Afghanistan, Less Can Be More
Op-Ed Contributor - In Afghanistan, Less Can Be More - NYT... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/opinion/10keller.html?_r...

By ARTHUR KELLER
Albuquerque

AS President Obama moves to ramp up the United States’ presence in Afghanistan, he might benefit from the lessons learned by one of the C.I.A.’s legends of covert operations, Bill Lair. Mr. Lair ran the C.I.A.’s covert action in the 1960s in Laos, which at its height included 30,000 Hmong tribesmen battling Communist insurgents. I met Bill Lair when he came to the C.I.A.’s training center in Virginia in 2000 to speak at the graduation ceremony for my class of trainees. His agency career had started in the 1950s in Thailand, where he trained an elite force called the Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit. By the early ’60s, Mr. Lair was in neighboring Laos, trying to build an anti-Communist resistance. Corruption was endemic, poppy cultivation was widespread and the poorly educated Hmong tribesmen of northern Laos were barely out of the Stone Age. Yet Mr. Lair and his unit quickly taught the Hmong to resist the Communist tide using guerrilla tactics suited to their terrain and temperament. By 1966, his C.I.A. bosses looked to tap into this momentum and started throwing more men and money at Mr. Lair — personnel and funds he felt only bloated the operation. He knew his initial successes with the Hmong came because his Thai troops were the perfect people to train the Hmong: they looked like the Hmong, spoke their language and understood their culture. Mr. Lair didn’t want or need more white guys from headquarters who couldn’t speak Laotian and lorded it over the locals. When he resisted, his superiors overruled him. As the 1960s progressed, the fighting in Laos intensified. Unfortunately, as United States involvement escalated, the Hmong came to rely more and more on American air power to support their missions. Over time, this dependence on foreign aid eroded the will of the Hmong to fight their own battles. Along the way, tiny Laos became the most heavily bombed country in the world, and the overuse of American airpower led to untold civilian deaths and tremendous resentment of the United States. Eventually it became clear that no amount of bombing would be sufficient to stem the Communist tide. America cut and ran from Laos, and the Communists swallowed up the little kingdom, just as they did neighboring Vietnam. Flash forward 40 years. United States forces scramble to train Afghan Army and police units to take on the Taliban forces crossing the border from Pakistan. Many of these raw Afghan recruits come from poorly educated Pashtun tribes. Corruption is endemic. Drug trafficking is flourishing. Complaints that use of American airpower is killing civilians are routine. As they say, déjà vu all over again. The counterinsurgency lessons that Bill Lair tried to impart to us young spies are relevant today: Keep your footprint small. Don’t use trainers who don’t know the language or culture. Don’t let the locals become dependant on American airpower. Train them in tactics suited to their circumstances. Don’t ever let the locals think mighty America will fight their battles or solve all their problems for them; focus on getting them ready to fix their own problems. Keep the folks in Washington out of the way of the people doing the work in the field. This is why President Obama’s plans to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan should be seen as a mixed blessing. In fact, it may be equally significant that the Pentagon has announced it is sending 900 new special operations people to Afghanistan over the spring and summer, including Green Berets, Navy Seals and Marine special operations forces. Ideally, these troops will be well trained in Afghan languages and culture, and prepared to fight in the dry, mountainous terrain the Taliban occupy. The goal, one hopes, is that these forces will work alongside and train the fledgling Afghan Army commando battalions. Since early 2007, some 3,600 Afghan Army troops have been put through Army Ranger-type training at a former Taliban base six miles south of Kabul. With American help, they have proved adept at such tasks as capturing Taliban leaders, rescuing hostages and destroying drug-smuggling rings. This is not a war we can win ourselves; the Afghans are going to have to win it by fighting to retake their own country from both Taliban thugs and corrupt government officials. While additional American troops may be an unavoidable necessity to provide security in the short and medium term, we should never forget that doing too much for a weak ally can be just as bad as doing too little. Arthur Keller is a former C.I.A. case officer in Pakistan.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Here's a NYTimes piece I came across recently that I strongly agree with. I hope O and his crew will explore the writer's suggestion of greater use of Special Operation soldiers. This issue of the supply routes came closer to home late last week when my old unit -which I got swapped out of my first day here at Bragg- sent word back to the other Public Affairs Units that they needed care packages of toiletries, snack food and cold medicine since the coalition supply trucks driven by foreign nationals are being frequently attacked by the Taliban along the roads into A-stan.


February 4, 2009
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Afghan Supplies, Russian Demands
By GEORGE FRIEDMAN
Washington

The Taliban didn’t wait long to test Barack Obama. On Tuesday, militants bombed a bridge in the Khyber Pass region in Pakistan, cutting off supply lines to NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan. This poses a serious problem for President Obama, who has said that he wants more American troops in Afghanistan. But troops need supplies. The attack was another reminder that the supply line through Pakistan is extremely vulnerable. This means
that the Obama administration might have to consider alternative routes through Russia or other parts of the former Soviet Union. But the Russians were unhappy about the Bush administration’s willingness to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO, and they will probably not want to help with American supply lines unless Mr. Obama changes that position.
In addition to our guaranteeing that NATO will not expand further, the Russians seem to want the United States to promise that NATO forces will not be based in the Baltic countries, and that the United States will not try to dominate Central Asia. In other words, Russia wants the United States to pledge that it will respect the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union. They will probably want this guarantee to be very public, as a signal to the region — and the Europeans — of Russian dominance. This is one guarantee that Mr. Obama will not want to give.There is also no certainty that countries in the Russian sphere of influence, like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, would agree to let the United States use these routes without Russian permission. Here is where Mr. Obama could use some European help. Unfortunately, that’s not likely to come soon. Many Europeans, particularly Germans, rely on Russia’s natural gas. In January, the Russians cut natural gas shipments to Ukraine. As much of the Russian natural gas that goes to Europe runs through Ukraine, the cutoff affected European supplies — in the middle of winter. Europeans can’t really afford to irritate the Russians, and it’s hard to imagine that the Germans will confront them over supply routes to Afghanistan. Pakistan, unfortunately, is hardly a reliable partner either. So how can Mr. Obama reconcile the two goals of strengthening the American presence in Afghanistan while curbing Russian expansionism? The answer is to rely less on troops, and more on covert operations like the C.I.A. Covert operators are far more useful for the actual war that we are fighting (and they can carry their supplies on their backs). The primary American interest in Afghanistan, after all, is preventing terrorist groups from using it as a base for training and planning major attacks. Increasing the number of conventional troops will not help with this mission. What we need in Afghanistan is intelligence, and special operations forces and air power that can take advantage of that intelligence. Fighting terrorists requires identifying and destroying small, dispersed targets. We would need far fewer forces for such a mission than the number that are now deployed. They would make us much less dependent on supply deliveries, which would help solve our Russian problem. Winding down the conventional war while increasing the covert one will demand a cultural change in
Washington. The Obama administration seems to prefer the conventional route of putting more troops on the ground. That would be a feasible strategy if supply lines to Afghanistan were secure. The loss of that bridge yesterday demonstrates very clearly that they are not.

George Friedman is the chief executive of Stratfor, a global intelligence company, and the author of “The Next 100 Years.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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Op-Ed Contributor - Afghan Supplies, Russian Demands - NY... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/opinion/04georgefriedman...
2 of 2 2/4/09 7:36 PM

WAR ANXIETY

"It's beena long time...sorry I kept you..." words from the great Rakim. Mundane army life since my last posting, has started to settle in with daily doses of (PT) Physical Training, occasional army videos to video/edit with direction from high command just as muddled and confusing as any given by civilian commercial clients(the only difference is the uniform) and what to do in Fayetteville -when not heading to Raleigh Durham or going to Walmart to shop for groceries. I did recently find a health food store and an indie theatre where I saw "Slumdog Millionaire." I recently learned Combat Lifesaving and learned how to administer battlefield first aid since medics they tell us, are in short supply. The war in Afghanistan(A-stan for short) got a bit closer when news of one of our sister public affairs units(ironically it was the same unit I was supposed to be assigned with but was switched out at last minute) is needing some "comforts of home"(supplies) since the coalition supply routes are currently under frequent attack by "foreign fighters." Everytime I look around there's another term coined to describe our latest adversary...Insurgents/Al Qaeda/Taliban/H**** what's in a name right? 2012 is my estimated date of separation from the Army and I wonder if the Mayan calendar will ring true and will Obama be up for a second term or will these wars in A & I be at some point of closure or will I even be alive? Interesting times...with moments of anxiety...what's next???

THEME SONGS: "WAR PIG"-Black Sabbath, "STRAIGHT TO HELL"-The Clash

FULL BATTLE RATTLE DOCUMENTARY

www.fullbattlerattlemovie.com

I'd heard about this doc for the past year now. This is the place my unit is tentatively scheduled to go next month for training. I highly recommend watching it or seeing when it plays on the National Geographic Channel or when it comes to a theater/film festival near you.

JUST ADDED AIRDATES: JANUARY 18TH, 4PM, JANUARY 19TH, 5PM
CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS


I hope my new Commander in Chief will find a solution and get us home. BTW, today was another reminder of these wars close to home at Bragg when on NPR news, they announced several soldiers from the 82nd Airborne had been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. A couple of the 82nd Brigade Combat Teams just left for Afghanistan last month.

PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK

This new recruiting initiative by my employer brings me back to 2003 when I went on the US Army "Taking it to the Streets Tour". My employer spends alot of money marketing their brand and do a pretty thorough demographics analysis. For example, the country is divided up into recruiting battalions or divisions and then are broken down into districts or something like that. My employer tries very hard to recruit all ethnicities/demos but honestly, you don't see too many Asians or S. Asians -anyway, if the districts are falling short in one ethno-demo, they make an effort to narrow market/advertise in hopes of reaching their ethno-qouta. The "Taking It To The Streets" tour was targeted towards Blacks and Latinos in under performing high schools(a lot of options there right?) My employer hired several Ethno-owned ad agencies-the ones that mostly do all the colored ads for MickyD's, Burger King, etc. that you see on TV-to coordinate this TTTS tour. So we went around the lower half the country in tricked out pimp my ride hummers complete with playstations/video monitors and alot of freebies. We were dressed up in timberlands, black fatigues and black shirts that had my employer's brand name on it. We were to be the sidekicks to the recruiters when they came to these schools to discuss career ops in the Army. I guess the ad agencies and my employer thought that by pairing homeboys with recruiters, it would make the Army appear less threatening and more hip/cool. So we show up at a high school, give these pseudo recruiter speeches in a language the kids could understand while the recruiters chilled in the background. We pass out promo brochures, free copies of the Army's first person shooter game, and other trinkets to these kids...Damn that was 6 years ago.

Looking back and now seeing where I am-my perspective on that campaign and what the Army is doing now is kinda mixed. Given the current economic downturn and the high cost of education, it's a perfect storm for my employer to get a lot of folks in and in some cases quite a few who don't have the luxury of being discerning about the big picture such a commitment entails. I think like any big corporation, if one is not aware of the hustle/game-one will get got and taken advantage of. It is also easy for a lot of us-who are a few rungs up on the socio-economic ladder to thumb our noses at practices that my employer takes to get people signed up. But here's something to think about, alot of these kids/young adults might not of had the same ops as you and I and therefore do not know or aren't aware of the big picture or have the ability/means to make better choices. So they join the army/military to hopefully create/make options for themselves-so they can possibly get a leg up on that ladder like you and I and hopefully climb. I consider myself a liberal but I also know that label is easy to hide behind and throw rocks with nothing on the line, it's like a dog all bark, no bite...comfort is king and we pick our battles-God forbid we get caught out there...I'm not one to laugh at anyone's misfortune at this dark period in our country's economic life but this recession/depression will least for some, bring a few of them down a couple of notches. And maybe possibly it will open their eyes see how the other side has to get by. HUSTLE IS THE NEW WORD-cause that is what each and everyone of us is gonna have to do/refine/create or find in order to be comfortable...Health/dental benefits, a check on the 1st and 15th, housing and educational opportunities in such things as the corporate hierarchy, foreign policy implementation, college tuition and physical fitness during this economic downturn against the backdrop of 2 wars might be a tempting offer instead of unemployment/eviction/foreclosure and possibly a brush with petty crime. Interesting choices...

New Army recruit joke: "How do you know a recruiter is lying?"
Ans. "He or she moves their lips."

The article below reminded me of that 2003 Army tour.

---

January 5, 2009
NY TIMES

Urban Tool in Recruiting by the Army: An Arcade

By JOHN LELAND

PHILADELPHIA — Amid the last-minute shopping bustle, the voice in the Black Hawk helicopter simulator shouted with an urgency that exceeded even the holiday mall frenzy.

“Enemy right! Enemy right!”

Triggers squeezed. Pixels exploded. Shopping waited.

At the Franklin Mills mall here, past the Gap Outlet and the China Buddha Express, is a $13 million video arcade that the Army hopes will become a model for recruitment in urban areas, where the armed services typically have a hard time attracting recruits.

The Army Experience Center is a fitting counterpart to the retail experience: 14,500 square feet of mostly shoot-’em-up video games and three full-scale simulators, including an AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopter, an armed Humvee and a Black Hawk copter with M4 carbine assault rifles. For those who want to take the experience deeper, the center has 22 recruiters. Or for more immediate full-contact mayhem, there are the outlet stores.

The facility, which opened in August, is the first of its kind. It replaces five smaller recruitment stations in the Philadelphia area, at about the same annual operating cost, not counting the initial expenses, said Maj. Larry Dillard, the program manager. Philadelphia has been a particularly difficult area for recruitment.

The Army recruited 80,517 active personnel in the fiscal year that ended in October, slightly surpassing its goal of 80,000, though as in recent years it fell below its goal of having 90 percent of recruits be high school graduates.

In recent years the Army has tried a number of ways to increase enlistment, including home video games, direct marketing promotions, a stronger online presence and recruitment-themed music videos. In 2007 it added bonuses of up to $2,000 for Army reservists who signed up new recruits. Civil liberties groups have criticized the Pentagon for its efforts to reach high school students.

But while recruitment remains strong in rural areas where there are military bases, it is weak in cities like Philadelphia, Major Dillard said. “The question is, how can we get our stories out to urban centers where most of the population lives, but where we don’t have a big presence?” he said. He added that the center did not recruit anyone under 17.

On a recent afternoon, about a dozen more-to-less-likely recruits stepped away from the mall’s screaming markdowns to try the simulators and play free video games, including Madden football and Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Mikel Smith, 19, and Jovan McCreary, 21, sat at Alienware game stations, maneuvering the camouflaged antiterrorist troopers of Rainbow Six through a series of casinos under siege. Muzzles flared on screen; sounds burst in their headphones.

“We’re just here to play the games,” said Mr. Smith, who said he was not considering enlisting in the Army. At the sign-in desk, where visitors fill out an information sheets and receive bar-coded photo identification cards, he indicated that he did not want to be contacted by a recruiter.

Beside Mr. Smith, Mr. McCreary leaned back in his black mesh chair. “I got the same game at home, but it’s better here,” he said. He, too, was not interested in the Army Experience Center’s other purposes. “We’re going to college next year,” he said.

First Sgt. Randy Jennings, the supervising officer on this day, said the center’s intent was not just to recruit personnel, but also to inform young people about the Army, in an area where they have little contact with service members. Most recruits live near rural bases.

If the program is deemed a success, the Army might replicate it in other cities.

“We want to put people in the Army, but that’s about our third priority,” Sergeant Jennings said, gesturing to a kiosk with descriptions of 179 jobs in the Army, including details on salaries and benefits. “Most people think joining the Army means being a grunt, and that Iraq equals death. We try to show them that there’s more to the Army than carrying a gun. If people come in here and they learn that but they don’t join, that’s O.K.”

Most of the staff — both military and civilian — wore casual clothing; there was no hard sell. Conversations with recruiters might take place in an adjacent room or the central lounge area, where there were comfortable leather chairs and a soundtrack of Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But on this afternoon, the only action was on the video games and simulators.

The three simulators play out missions to support the delivery of humanitarian aid in Iraq or Afghanistan; unlike in the video games, the participants do not come under fire.

In recent years, the Army has had great success with using video games like America’s Army to attract recruits. But for the Army Experience Center, the results so far have been less than spectacular. Since it opened, about 35 visitors have enlisted. That is slightly below the previous recruitment rate at the five smaller stations, Sergeant Jennings said, at a time when the slumping economy would be expected to drive more people to enlist.

“We’re not at the point where we can say this is an effective strategy,” Major Dillard said, adding that the Army had not set a numerical threshold for success for the center.

“We won’t be measured by the number of people we put in the Army,” Sgt. Jennings said. “We’re basically a learning lab for the military, a way for us to interact with kids and find out what they’re interested in. People are going to join the Army, whether we had this or four or five recruitment stations.”

At another video console, Graceson George, 29, a graduate student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, led a squad of Army special forces through the battle zones of the game Ghost Recon.

He said that he was considering enlisting, but that he had spinal problems that might limit his ability to serve.

“I just wanted to see exactly what they provide,” Mr. George said. “We got a briefing on what the Army is all about. It’s a great experience serving this country, and it takes commitment and determination. They said there were other areas I can get involved. So I said, give me time.”

Mr. George said he did not think the video game accurately conveyed the combat experience.

“In this one, you can die as much as you like, but in real war it’s not possible,” he said. “The reality of military service is beyond what you think. Here you can go back and replay, but in real life if you get shot you get shot. So it’s an entertainment, but it makes you think.”

He turned back to the combat on the screen. In the cocoon of the headphones, he did not hear the sound of prices hitting the floor.

We'll soon be called employees

Happy New Year. 2009. The George W. Bush, "We Be Thugging It Tour " is coming to a close and will be under new management. Barack Hussein Obama is about to take the show on the road...What's the deal Chief?

Not sure where I am going with this post or what I am trying to say...random musing...I was in a finance/benefit meeting where we(soldiers) will soon be referred to by the Army as employees. Thought that was kinda funny but it dawned on me and a fellow soldier, that we are employees who work for one of the most biggest and possibly feared/hated companies in the world. The regular Army is like corporate America; hostile takeovers whether provoked or deserved, employee health, dental and pension plans, a dress code and a variety of characters that make one's day better or worse...The Army is an "ubercorporation." So then, what's the difference between a businessman and a soldier besides a paycheck?

MORE TALES FROM THE DOPEMAN

If you followed my postings from last month and back in October regarding the Afghan opium trade and NATO's reluctance to take an aggressive stance, here's the latest:


NY TIMES
December 23, 2008
Objections Hinder Antidrug Effort in Afghanistan

By THOM SHANKER
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A drive by the NATO alliance to disrupt Afghanistan’s drug trade has been hobbled by new objections from member nations that say their laws do not permit soldiers to carry out such operations, according to senior commanders here.

The objections are being raised despite an agreement two months ago that the alliance’s campaign in Afghanistan would be broadened to include attacks on narcotics facilities, traffickers, middlemen and drug lords whose profits help to finance insurgent groups.

During a recent visit here, Gen. John Craddock, NATO’s supreme allied commander, expressed surprise upon learning of what he described as a gap between the decision by alliance defense ministers to authorize aggressive counternarcotics missions and the lack of follow-through because of objections from several of the countries that make up the NATO force in Afghanistan.

As the United States and its allies strive to devise a better strategy to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, American policy makers and military officers say it is critical to choke off the drug money that sustains the insurgency, much as they are working with Pakistan to halt the use of its tribal areas as a haven by the Taliban and other antigovernment forces just across the border from Afghanistan.

Seven years after the rout of Al Qaeda and the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, disagreements over how aggressively NATO forces should go after the insurgency’s chief source of revenue are only the latest hurdle in a campaign that has been troubled by disputes between the United States and some of its allies about what role NATO soldiers should play in a mission cast as “security assistance.”

The disagreements also present a major challenge for President-elect Barack Obama as he tries to fulfill a campaign pledge to shift the focus of the American military toward Afghanistan, where the United States remains much more dependent on foreign nations than it does in the Iraq war, which is largely an American conflict.

The counternarcotics debate is a reminder of how unwieldy the alliance’s military operations can be. United Nations figures show that Afghan insurgents reap at least $100 million a year from the drug trade, although some estimates put the figure at five times as much.

In an interview, General Craddock said profit from the narcotics trade “buys the bomb makers and the bombs, the bullets and the trigger-pullers that are killing our soldiers and marines and airmen, and we have to stop them.”

NATO officials in Brussels declined to list the nations that have opposed widening the alliance mandate to include attacks on drug networks, and no nation has volunteered that it has legal objections.

But a number of NATO members have in broad terms described their reluctance publicly, including Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. Their leaders have cited domestic policies that make counternarcotics a law enforcement matter — not a job for their militaries — and expressed concern that domestic lawsuits could be filed if their soldiers carried out attacks to kill noncombatants, even if the victims were involved in the drug industry in Afghanistan.

As has been the case in a whole range of combat operations mounted by NATO forces in Afghanistan, each country is allowed to state its reservations and opt out of missions that are viewed as too risky, either politically or militarily. Those “caveats” have been a source of enormous frustration to American commanders.

That system of caveats was never intended to halt NATO operations; missions objectionable to one nation can be taken over by another nation’s forces. But commanders say that legal objections to counternarcotics operations have prevented the international mix of troops across poppy-rich regions of southern Afghanistan from carrying out the new responsibilities.

The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan has more than 51,000 troops, including 14,000 Americans. In a parallel mission, the United States has deployed 17,000 additional troops for a separate combat, counterterrorism and training operation.

During a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Budapest in October, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and General Craddock successfully lobbied the alliance to give troops operating in Afghanistan official permission to mount attacks on narcotics “facilities and facilitators supporting the insurgency.”

Gen. David D. McKiernan, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, acknowledged that “some of the precise language still needs to be worked out” with allies that objected to taking on counternarcotics missions.

In an interview, General McKiernan stressed that the goal remained to approve rules of engagement that “give us greater freedom of action to treat narco-figures and facilities as military objectives.”

Halting the flow of drug money to the insurgency is just one of the challenges facing the Obama administration. Others include the 30 percent increase in insurgent violence over the past year, and the painfully slow growth and continued incompetence of the Afghan police.

But General Craddock cited bright spots in the mission of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, including a growing number of people from other United States government agencies who are stepping in to help with economic and political development. He also noted the increasing size and professionalism of the Afghan National Army, which Afghans trust more than they do the office of the presidency.

General McKiernan was put in charge of both the NATO and American operations this year, in an effort to provide more unity of command over the two missions. During a visit to Afghanistan last weekend, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon expected to provide 20,000 to 30,000 more troops to General McKiernan, with a significant portion of that increase arriving by next summer.

Including the debate on how to battle the drug trade, much of the discussion about the way ahead in Afghanistan is similar to policy debates over the past seven years: the need to generate economic growth and build democratic institutions to inspire confidence among Afghans in their government.

Although combat power alone will not defeat the insurgency and its allies in the drug trade in Afghanistan, military analysts say, a problem for years has been that Afghanistan has had too few resources because of the war in Iraq.

“What we need are more troops in Afghanistan because we need security, and eventually we will get a strategy,” said Roger D. Carstens, a former Army Special Forces officer who now is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, which has provided a number of its analysts to the Obama transition team at the Pentagon.

“If the military cannot secure the population, then political development, economic growth and good government will not take place,” Mr. Carstens added.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.





This could get real sticky (no pun intended) for US ground troops especially as we ramp up operations there. Sounds like there's still some dirty cooks in the kitchen...

WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, CAN YOU ADD INTERNET SERVICE AND NEW COMPUTERS FOR OUR OFFICE TOO?

Here's an enlightening article from the NY Times dated 21 Dec 2008 below about the cost of maintaining a 21st century military. There's alot on the list I agree with. We're no longer fighting across huge expanses of territory like in the good ol' Cold War days. Even Russia's invasion of Georgia/Odessa was a low intensity conflict. But the fact remains, we are still lagging in getting up to speed in creating a streamlined, fluid fighting force that reflects today's warfare. Continued guerrilla warfare and information warfare are my predictions of what's ahead. Here's a few things to add on this list:

1. 3G or better internet networks for all Army Public Affairs Offices and Detachments along with better computers(wish it could be a Mac world).

2. Blackberries or Google Android Phones to keep up to date on late breaking command information.

3. A change from the M-4 to the HK416 weapon.

4. Basic combat training that emphasizes more modern conflict scenarios instead of outdated cold war training doctrine.

5. Better fitting Army ACU's like the Marine Corps. Let's hire their tailor.

6. Better chow hall food presentation. As Napoleon once said, "An army marches on it's stomach."

December 21, 2008

NY TIMES Editorial

How to Pay for a 21st-Century Military

In recent weeks, this page has called for major changes in America’s armed forces: more ground forces, less reliance on the Reserves, new equipment and training to replace cold-war weapons systems and doctrines.

Money will have to be found to pay for all of this, and the Pentagon can no longer be handed a blank check, as happened throughout the Bush years.

Since 2001, basic defense spending has risen by 40 percent in real post-inflation dollars. That is not counting the huge supplemental budgets passed — with little serious review or debate — each year to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such unquestioned largess has shielded the Pentagon from any real pressure to cut unneeded weapons systems and other wasteful expenses.

As a result, there is plenty of fat in the defense budget. Here is what we think can be cut back or canceled in order to pay for new equipment and other reforms that are truly essential to keep this country safe:

End production of the Air Force’s F-22. The F-22 was designed to ensure victory in air-to-air dogfights with the kind of futuristic fighters that the Soviet Union did not last long enough to build. The Air Force should instead rely on its version of the new high-performance F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which comes into production in 2012 and like the F-22 uses stealth technology to elude enemy radar.

Until then, it can use upgraded versions of the F-16, which can outperform anything now flown by any potential foe. The F-35 will provide a still larger margin of superiority. The net annual savings: about $3 billion.

Cancel the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer. This is a stealthy blue water combat ship designed to fight the kind of midocean battles no other nation is preparing to wage. The Navy can rely on the existing DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, a powerful, well-armed ship that incorporates the advanced Aegis combat system for tracking and destroying multiple air, ship and submarine targets. The Navy has sharply cut back the number of Zumwalts on order from 32 to two.

Cutting the last two could save more than $3 billion a year that should be used to buy more of the littoral combat ships that are really needed. Those ships can move quickly in shallow offshore waters and provide helicopter and other close-in support for far more likely ground combat operations.

Halt production of the Virginia class sub. Ten of these unneeded attack submarines — modeled on the cold-war-era Seawolf, whose mission was to counter Soviet attack and nuclear launch submarines — have already been built. The program is little more than a public works project to keep the Newport News, Va., and Groton, Conn., naval shipyards in business.

The Navy can extend the operating lives of the existing fleet of Los Angeles class fast-attack nuclear submarines, which can capably perform all needed post-cold-war missions — from launching cruise missiles to countering China’s expanding but technologically inferior submarine fleet. Net savings: $2.5 billion.

Pull the plug on the Marine Corps’s V-22 Osprey. After 25 years of trying, this futuristic and unnecessary vertical takeoff and landing aircraft has yet to prove reliable or safe. The 80 already built are more than enough. Instead of adding 400 more, the Marine Corps should buy more of the proven H-92 and CH-53 helicopters. Net savings: $2 billion to 2.5 billion.

Halt premature deployment of missile defense. The Pentagon wants to spend roughly $9 billion on ballistic missile defense next year. That includes money to deploy additional interceptors in Alaska and build new installations in central Europe. After spending some $150 billion over the past 25 years, the Pentagon has yet to come up with a national missile defense system reliable enough to provide real security. The existing technology can be easily fooled by launching cheap metal decoys along with an incoming warhead.

We do not minimize the danger from ballistic missiles. We agree there should be continued testing and research on more feasible approaches. Since the most likely threat would come from Iran or North Korea, there should be serious discussions with the Russians about a possible joint missile defense program. (We know the system poses no threat to Russia, but it is time to take away the excuse.) A research program would cost about $5 billion annually, for a net savings of nearly $5 billion.

Negotiate deep cuts in nuclear weapons. Under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, the United States and Russia committed to reduce their strategic nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 each by 2012. There has been no discussion of any further cuts. A successor treaty should have significantly lower limits — between 1,000 and 1,400, with a commitment to go lower.

President-elect Barack Obama should also take all ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert and commit to reducing the nation’s absurdly large stock of backup warheads. These steps will make the world safer. It will give Mr. Obama a lot more credibility to press others to rein in their nuclear ambitions.

It is hard to say just how much money would be saved with these reductions, but in the long term, the amount would certainly be considerable.

Trim the active-duty Navy and Air Force. The United States enjoys total dominance of the world’s seas and skies and will for many years to come. The Army and the Marines have proved too small for the demands of simultaneous ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are the forces most likely to be called on in future interventions against terrorist groups or to rescue failing states. Reducing the Navy by one carrier group and the Air Force by two air wings would save about $5 billion a year.

Making these cuts will not be politically easy. The services are already talking up remote future threats (most involving a hostile China armed to the teeth with submarines and space-age weapons). Military contractors invoke a different kind of threat: hundreds of thousands of layoffs in a recession-weakened economy. We are all for saving and creating jobs, but not at the cost of diverting finite defense dollars from real and pressing needs — or new programs that will create new jobs.

The cuts above could save $20 billion to $25 billion a year, which could be better used as follows:

Increase the size of the ground force. The current buildup of the Army and the Marine Corps will cost more than $100 billion over the next six years. Trimming the size of the Navy and Air Force, deferring the deployment of unready missile defenses and canceling the Osprey will pay for much of that.

Pay for the Navy’s needed littoral combat ships. These ships, which operate in shallow waters to support ground combat, cost about $600 million each. Canceling the DDG-1000 destroyer (more than $3 billion per ship) and the Virginia class submarine (more than $2 billion each) will help provide that needed money.

Resupply the National Guard and the Reserves. At the present rate for replacing weapons left behind or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Guard will still be more than 20 percent short of what it needs in 2013. Canceling the F-22 will provide enough money to do better than that years sooner.

•

Some of these changes would have been made already if the Pentagon procurement system were more responsive to present needs and less captive to service and industry lobbyists. Defense Secretary Robert Gates complains about what he calls “next war-itis,” the system’s built-in preference for what might be needed in potential future wars over what is clearly needed now. Privately, most of the service chiefs concede that their budgets, which have seen little discipline since 9/11, have some margin for cuts.

Congress will need to develop a lot more realism and restraint. Lobbyists pushing costly and unneeded weapons systems find ready allies in lawmakers looking to create or protect federally financed jobs in their districts. Big contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics have become masters at spreading those jobs around to assemble broad Congressional voting blocs. Work on the F-22 has been parceled out to subcontractors in 44 states.

Mr. Gates, who will stay on, must make reforming the procurement system a priority. The era of unlimited budgets is over, and Mr. Gates needs to make tough calls and stick to them. Congress must give more weight to the nation’s overall needs and less to parochial interests.

Fixing the Pentagon’s procurement process will require the full backing of Mr. Obama. We believe American taxpayers are eager to support changes that would make the country more secure while making more effective use of their money.

F > N: FACES ARE MORE THAN NUMBERS

The War(s)go on. The economy sucks and the recession is "officially" in effect. For those in the know and on the street, the recession's been with us since 2007.  A steady paycheck, health benefits and a roof over your head is one of the upsides of being in the military during a time like this but there's a price.  Freedom ain't free...LOL.  Since being in this military world for little over a year-I've run across a spectrum of people each with their own reasons for joining. They are as my friend Dylan Black says,  the "soul of the machine."   F >N  is a reflection and commentary on some of those people I have gone through training with and a reality check of what we face while we serve for various reasons.  

Whether you agree or not with one's decision to serve, we are still somebody to someone out there...a face to a number. 

  

CHANGE: T MINUS 72....

CHANGE. The buzzword for almost two years. CHANGE is needed. Our 2 presidental candidates promise it but in the end, who will deliver CHANGE ? Will CHANGE be for the better or for the worse come Tuesday night? A day that will live in infamy to some who won't like CHANGE. I wonder how many times Sam Cooke's soulful " A Change Is Gonna Come" or Dylan's "Times are a Changing" is gonna hit the airwaves? Is CHANGE gonna come to our foreign policy? Will CHANGE get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan where upwards to 12 Billion a month is being spent. Will the casualities both military and civilian from Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom CHANGE? At home, will people address their prejudices and hyprocrisy and hopefully take a chance on a new thought and CHANGE? Will this election CHANGE you, me and everyone else? I hope come Wednesday, November 5th -CHANGE will be in effect. CHANGE is good...and scary too.