Pollywogs!

I’ve been home for about 4 months now and thought I had forgotten all the things that had gone on Iraq. Unlike a lot of other stories here, I wasn’t a front-line troop, but as we all know that doesn’t mean I was out of danger, and it doesn’t mean that I didn’t see the disorganization, rampant waste and corruption that is part of the fabric of our operations in Iraq… We went to Iraq in November of 2003. We went with flak jackets as armor, and with 5 unarmored humvees.

We had 6 out of 29 people who were scheduled to get out of the Ready Reserves in the year over there. I myself was scheduled to get out in January 2004. Because of some desperate need to get us into country ASAP, we weren’t given an in-briefing. No rules of engagement, host-country sensitivities, etc. We were flown directly from Germany to Baghdad International Airport. When we arrived no one seemed to know what to do with us. Our unit was cut apart and shipped around the country. I served with the 101st in Mosul, the 1st Armored Division and around Baghdad.

In the Green Zone officers would ride in their newly leased SUV’s, windows up, air conditioners on, 1 or 2 people max, while enlisted would ride around in humvees. To my knowledge the SUV’s were rented at $90,000 a year, but if destroyed would be replaced without cost. If the Army has humvees, why do we rent SUV’s? Ostensibly it was to fit in with the locals in non-military vehicles, but anyone in a brand new SUV in Iraq with tinted windows was obviously a foreigner. And most of these vehicles were only driven around the heavily fortified and defended Green Zone.

Besides that, there were contractors for everything. And sadly, often these contractors would work alongside Army personnel who were trained to do the exact same thing, but paid about 1/3rd as much. Once again, if the Army already has something to do the job, why do we need something else to do it, and pay them more? Finally, the saddest thing was the PSD, or Private Security Details. Mercenaries, or civilians paid to bear arms and armor. Doing the exact job of the military, but once again being paid many times what the military was paid. Although many of these civilians were highly trained or specialized, there was enough talk among soldiers who wanted to do their time, get out, and then join these civilian security companies, because they were such a better deal. Not only does this prove how poorly treated our own troops are, but hiring these people actively increases our own recruiting problems. All three of these issues just point to one underlying, glaring point: we were not ready.

http://troopnet.iava.org/publicView.jsp?supporter_KEY=4783457

Pretty insightful, and sad. To think of the waste, the money stolen directly out of our pockets, by those crooks who were ‘elected’ into office. The entire Iraq operation is simply a money pump, a way to launder the money from OUR PAYCHECKS through an intermediary (government budget) and into the hands of the Military Industrial Complex.

May I recommend a new movie that came out recently? ‘Why We Fight’: here and here