-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! SOLDIERS FOR THE TRUTH "DEFENDING AMERICA NEWSLETTER" 27 September 2000 -- "US Airborne in Kosovo and multiple Readiness Issues" "When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen." General George Washington, New York Legislature, 1775 "Our militia will be heroes, if we have heroes to lead them." Thomas Jefferson Soldiers For The Truth Foundation, PO Box 63840, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3840 HTTP://WWW.SFTT.ORG *********************************************************** TABLE OF CONTENTS: SITREP from the President HOT BUTTONS! Hack's Column: War Fighters or Waiters? "Through the Primary Gun Sight" Article 1 - Airborne in Kosovo -- One More Readiness Cover-up The Big Picture: Article 2 - Army: Be all you can leave -- Army gripes Article 3 - Analysis: Paras leave US Airborne at base Article 4 - Corruption in the Office of Navy JAG? Article 5 -- Guard issues: Air National Guard/Reserves oftentimes more experienced Article 6 -- Guard Readiness - The 48th Brigade was ready but Not willing Article 7 -- Navy: A Case for Equal Standards for All Article 8 - Use us for the Proper Reasons, not just to bail out the Regulars Article 9 -- Air Force: Air Combat Readiness and Safety in Question Article 10 - Comments from the Frontlines Article 11 - Cultural values: Appropriate Role Models? Article 12 -- Quality of Life Update: Quality of Life Update: More odds 'n ends G.I Humor: Article 13 -- GI HUMOR - Don't mess with a Vet Medal of Honor: Article 14 -- JACOBSON, DOUGLAS THOMAS, WWII Pacific Theater SITREP: 1. Main topics: 1) Airborne in Kosovo - the right mission? 2) Guard, Reserves and total Readiness3) Readiness priorities 4) Reader opinions 5) Voices from the Frontlines 6) Quality of Life/Healthcare THIS IS AN ABBREVIATED SFTT NEWSLETTER. It consists of the full table of contents, our SITREP and the first two articles. You can obtain the rest of the newsletter from our website at www.sftt.org. 2. Hot Buttons: A. Commo is further improving. Feel free to send me hot topics directly if you can't get through the admin/log net -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] B. WEBPAGE. Our Jedi Knight and Webmaster, John Cloven is working on improving the site daily. Thanks for the positive feedback but also for some of the scathing criticism. C. If you're still relying on a 386 computer, the M4 Sherman of computer operations, you'll have more of a problem than troops with a bit more modern equipment. Talk to us and we'll try to help. You are all important to us and don't want to leave you behind. C. DONATIONS. Thank you for the many responses that are still coming in. Your kind words and encouragements are important for morale. I am always convinced that any spark for political change comes from the people who have ideals and believe in a better future. You are proof that the spirit of the American Revolution is still alive. Your donations are helping and the peasant Army is growing. Thanks again for supporting an organization that stands for the Truth, even if it questions the rules of political correctness. D. Keep the mail coming. If you have something of relevance to say, fire away! !!! NOTE: We will NEVER reveal your true identity unless you give us your approval. We know how vindictive the "system" can be. 3. How You can help: !!! Credit Card donation via our WEBSITE at www.sftt.org. !!! If you think we HIT a target, forward the newsletter to TV, radio and your locale papers. YOU are the frontline recruiters and intel gatherers. Check or Money order: Send to and make payable to: Soldiers For The Truth Foundation, PO Box 63840, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3840. Important: Your donation is tax deductible! SFTT is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit educational foundation, IRS # 31-1592564. If you send us an E-MAIL address with your donation we can immediately mail you a RECEIPT. Multiple contributions: Please remind us when you submit your donation. We will send you a cumulative statement. Prepare for Action -- "Crew Ready! -- LOAD SABOT - DRIVER MOVE OUT!" R.W. Zimmermann President SFTT [EMAIL PROTECTED] =========================================================== Hack's Column ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ War Fighters or Waiters? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By David Hackworth Hang on for breaking news: an Army report has concluded that American paratroopers are overly aggressive. Tell this to former enemy soldiers from Germany, Japan, North Korea, North Vietnam and Iraq. They'll say "old news" and show you their scars. Having led paratroopers in combat, I can assure you the baddest and most aggressive warriors that ever slogged through the Valley of Death are soldiers who drop from the sky. Famed paratroop leader James Gavin said if a man will jump out of an airplane, he'll fight. And fight they will. The renowned paratrooper aggressiveness is a combination of the nature of the beast, unit spirit and a lot of hard training. Now this same trait has gotten one of the proudest parachute units in our Army - the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment -- in a world of pain because members of that outfit "beat and manhandled" ethnic Albanians while in Kosovo. Of course, what's not reported is that these warriors from the outfit the Germans called "the devils in baggy pants" were shot at, booby trapped, grenaded, stoned and manhandled by the ethnic Albanians before our troopers finally did an eye-for-an-eye on their attackers. Nor does the average American know that a few months before the 5O4th deployed to Kosovo as peacekeepers, they'd been preparing to assault into that foul swamp to get up close and nasty with the Serbian Army. Along with the rest of the 82d Airborne Division, the 504th trained for that mission following the time-honored axiom of American paratroopers: "Take no quarter. Give no quarter!" As luck would have it, instead of fighting their way into Kosovo, they were sent over there -- with almost no special training -- as warm and fuzzy peacekeepers. But just because there was a change in mission, their warrior ethic and fighting skills didn't suddenly get left behind at Fort Bragg, N.C. And this underscores the problem the U.S. military has these days as they Robo Cop their way around the globe: how to switch fighters into peacekeepers overnight. How to go from kill-or-be-killed to directing traffic in snakepits like Bosnia and Kosovo and doing Meals-on-Wheels around the rest of the world. Warrior training is ingrained, it's like a correct parachute landing fall. You hit the ground on the right points of contact without thinking. You operate on total automatic. You must in order to avoid the bone doctor or a bodybag. How many World War 11 and Korean vets still take cover when a car backfires? How many Vietnam vets automatically scan for tripwires and mines when hiking in the woods? You can't make a Rottweiler into a Golden Retriever in two or three lessons. Nor can a few weeks peace training convert battle-prepared warriors into cherubic choir boys. There just isn't enough time in the annual training cycle to have it both ways. In fact, there's barely enough time to turn untested soldiers into combat warriors. When the 504th Parachute Regiment deployed to the Gulf in August of 1990 as the tip of the spear that was eventually stuck into Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guard, they were nowhere near good-to-go when they hit the ground in Saudi. It took five months of tough desert training to get them up for the lethal game. Here was a unit that in 1989 had 365 days to get it together for war at Fort Bragg, yet they still weren't ready when the whistle blew. In 2000, there's even less time for combat training because of the Clinton-mandated and General Hugh Shelton-approved Sensitivity and Consideration-For-Others Training. When the Canadian Airborne Regiment ran into 504th type troubles in Somalia, their government resolved the issue by deactivating one of the finest units in the Canadian Armed Forces. That shouldn't happen here, even though Lt. General Dan McNeill, who commanded the division when these incidents occurred, certainly won't take the heat for his boys or resign in the now totally politically-correct army. But he should at least tell the Yo-Yos running the Pentagon that race horses shouldn't pull plows and war-fighters can't be Brownies. I'll bet my old jump boots that if General Gavin still commanded the 82d, he'd tell the Pentagon where to put its investigation that will further reduce the seriously endangered warrior ethic. Or -- for sure -- he would've walked. *** Http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 5210, Greenwich, CT 06831. (c)2000 David H. Hackworth Distributed by King Features Syndicate Inc. =========================================================== ARTICLE 1 - "Through the Primary Gun Sight" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Airborne in Kosovo -- One More Readiness Cover-up ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By R.W. (Zimm) Zimmermann President SFTT 09/23/00 Recent disciplinary incidents involving members of the 82d Airborne's elite 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Kososvo show that peace enforcement is a tough mission. The immediate question is: Should warfighting units be involved in peacekeeping? I can't find the cause for the infractions and the brutal murder of an 11-year-old girl in the type of mission the unit was deployed on. Something else malfunctioned in the 3rd Battalion, especially since the enforcement of peace is nothing but a logical sequel to successful combat operations. The legal experts driven by embarrassed, zero-defects military leaders, say that the 82nd Airborne, was ill prepared because they had not undergone systematic transition training from warfighters to peacekeepers. They quickly fixed blame with the battalion commander and subordinate leaders who "played war" in a hostile peacekeeping environment. They were supporting their thesis by spotlighting the unit motto "shoot them in the face" and with statements by inexperienced junior soldiers who maintained that they weren't ready for this kind of mission. Most of those who believe these fairytales haven't a clue what it takes to command a combat unit and how difficult it is to keep them under control in today's low discipline, high turnover and low quality recruiting environment. The American people should know that the real reason why the 3/504th malfunctioned wasn't the transition from one mission to another but that some of the troops were simply criminals or hoodlums in uniform, the kind of troops you find in growing numbers in many units. The incidents that came to light in Kosovo, occur daily on our own military installations but they don't get national press coverage. During my two years in command at Ft. Carson, I became appalled at the crime rate we were experiencing in our wonderfully reengineered modern military. Gang rapes in guarded barracks; a sergeant murdering another soldier in one of our brigade's Infantry battalions; gunrunner networks involving several military installations in Colorado Springs; drug overdoses, drive-by shootings and recently, a wife hiring a killer to get rid of her husband. But senior leaders maintain we still command the best and the brightest - get real! Take it a bit further -- these "disciplinary time bombs" get shipped overseas with their units on peacekeeping and other missions. That partially explains what happened in the 3/504th. It was almost impossible for LTC Ellerbee, the battalion commander, to predict what some of his folks were going to do when on patrol, unless he would have accompanied every patrol personally. But had he done so, he would have been accused of terrible micromanagement and worn himself down to vegetable status in no time. >From what I know about LTC Ellerbee, I venture to say that he was a good man who did his best with what he had. He tried to give his men a realistic mission and purpose and understood well that neither Serbs nor Albanians were "good guys," an insight far superior to that many of the senior brass and our politicians. His background clearly marks him as an operator: commanded in the 82d Airborne; operations officer for 2-14 infantry, 10th Mountain in Somalia; served with the 7th Special Forces and participated in Haiti peacekeeping operations. He doesn't come across like a dumb killer but a guy who had hands-on experience in low intensity combat operations and peace enforcement. I believe that Ellerbee became the victim of several bad apples who exist in most units in the Army today and of senior leaders trying to cover their own guilt. The latter being ultimately responsible for wrecking our units' morale, cohesion, standards, discipline and for the dismal state of recruiting quality. Although a premier fighting unit, the 82nd Airborne suffers from an overly ambitious training schedule. Like everywhere in the Army, leaders can't decide what's important, so they train on everything. The high attrition and turnover keeps units from becoming cohesive and won't allow leaders to know their troops enough to early identify problem soldiers. >From my own experience, personnel turnover of 33% in a three-month period is almost the norm. The quality of recruits has dropped and discipline is suffering, causing more micromanagement at all levels to maintain decent mission accomplishment. My verdict on the events in Kosovo is that once again, key leaders are covering for themselves and won't admit to obvious readiness problems. Only if we turn our armed forces into full-blooded professionals, will be able to be good at winning firefights and the enforcement of peace in close to humanitarian fashion. We won't get there with more cover-up investigations, surveys by senior guys who never learned the difference between leading and managing and by hanging the wrong people. (c) R.W. Zimmermann, LandserUSA [EMAIL PROTECTED] ============================================================ ARTICLE 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Army: Be all you can leave -- Army gripes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ed.: Another expensive contractor survey by the Army to figure our why quality people are voting with their feet. Just read the responses -- you won't be surprised. It hasn't changed in decades...but where are the fixes? Remove the deficient leadership first! *********************************************************** >From the Washington Times The Army hired a private research firm to travel out in the field and find out why so many soldiers are quitting. We obtained a copy of the company's final report submitted to the U.S. Army Research Institute. Nearly 10,000 officers and enlisted personnel responded to the survey. The top reason for so many resignations is the Army's open-ended peacekeeping missions overseas. Here are some revealing answers to the question, Why are you leaving? A lieutenant: "The incompetence of higher ranking officers; specifically their concern of making themselves look good and not properly taking care of the soldiers. I would honestly not want to go to war now with the leadership I have seen above battalion level.'' Another lieutenant: "The largest problem affecting retention of junior officers is the perception that the senior leadership is completely out of touch with soldiers and their needs. Ticket punching and 'looking good' are the priority.' A senior enlisted man: "The biggest reason I will retire at exactly 20 years is because the civilian and senior military leadership is so out of touch with reality. They are more concerned with votes or their next star or civilian job than that of the welfare of their soldiers.'' A warrant officer: "We are doing too much, moving too fast and I predict more exits. Soldiers will sacrifice much, but without some hope of a family life, they will not stay.'' A captain: "Will terminate my active military service so that I can be a husband to my wife and a father to my children.'' A major: "This is not the Army I joined. I joined an Army whose mission was to fight our nation's wars. ... Today, the context is (the) mountains of Albania? Bosnia?'' Another major: "I do not trust the senior political leadership and do not support our involvement in the Balkans and Yugoslavia operations. This would not stop me from deploying but I do question the motivation behind going.'' A lieutenant: "For an Army that is supposed to be the best in the world, the quality of equipment, tanks and other combat vehicles, is not only old but the ability to get parts to accomplish a field exercise is like requesting parts for a nuclear bomb.'' A staff sergeant: "Soldiers are coming out of basic training without the level of discipline that is needed to survive combat, due to the softening of the Army. The kinder, gentler Army will not work.'' The Army is using the data to figure out ways to keep soldiers longer. =================================================================== ARTICLE 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Analysis: Paras leave US Airborne at base ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ed.: Excerpts from a recent UPI report. Note the capability of the British Paras to switch rapidly from peacekeeping to combat mission, as evidenced in Sierra Leone. I am not sure if I support a UN peacekeeping school for senior commanders. More power ceded to UN authorities doesn't seem the way to go. A school for NATO members seems initially more appropriate. *********************************************************** By Peter Almond LONDON, Sept 20 (UPI) -- British officials are quietly using the US Army's criticisms of the 'combat mentality' of some members of the 82nd Airborne Division that led to abuse of civilians in Kosovo to support their case for a new staff college for UN peacekeeping based in Britain. The 82nd's embarrassment stands in contrast to the recent experiences of the British Army, which is internationally renowned for its pro-active and skillful peacekeeping, with experience in the last year alone ranging from Northern Ireland to Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Sierra Leone. Now, with deep sympathy for America's embarrassment in Kosovo, British officials hope US financial and diplomatic muscle will swing behind Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's offer to establish a UN staff college in Britain. The military college would teach mid-level and senior commanders from around the world the tactical skills of UN peacekeeping and peace enforcement, skills obviously lacking in many forces, including those of NATO. "We're not superior to anyone else, and we've certainly had our own problems, but we do have a professional army and quite a lot of experience," said one senior British officer, who declined to be identified. "Perhaps this is something we can do to support the UN without putting up a dedicated peacekeeping force of our own." British troops are the last to condemn the 82nd Airborne for its 'combat mentality' in Kosovo, not only because their own Paras have a close bond going back to the Normandy invasion of World War II through the Gulf War and to Kosovo, but because the Paras are still embroiled in a bitter inquiry into the "Bloody Sunday" shooting deaths of 13 people in Northern Ireland nearly 30 years ago. Since then, however, the British military has refined the art of peacekeeping. It has learned the significance of patrolling in berets instead of steel helmets, of talking and joking with civilians at the same time as watching windows for the ominous shape of a rifle barrel, of being able to switch to a high-tech warfighting role at the first serious hostage taking. The delicate challenges of the role have been demonstrated over the last few weeks by British forces in Sierra Leone. In May the Paras -- not long out of Kosovo -- flew into Freetown in a warfighting role to evacuate British nationals and prevent the capital from being overrun by rebels. They then switched to peacekeeping, patrolling the streets, steadily expanding UN military influence, gaining intelligence on the rebels and handing over to other UN forces before returning to regular training in Britain. A 300-strong British Army training team of the Royal Irish Regiment remained to help rebuild the Sierra Leone Army. The hostage taking of 11 'patrolling' RIR soldiers last month, however, brought the same members of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment back to the country for a dangerous and complex rescue operation. In a daring dawn operation involving one of the most intense British infantry firefights since the 1982 Falklands War, and which included machine-gunning helicopters, the SAS, SBS and the Paras -- the elite units in the British Army -- the hostages were released and at least 25 of the West Side Group rebels were killed. The cost to the British was an SAS trooper killed, another seriously injured and 10 others slightly hurt.... *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! ****************************************************************************** ******************* A vote for Bush or Gore is a vote to continue Clinton policies! A vote for Buchanan is a vote to continue America! Therefore a vote for Gore or Bush is a wasted vote for America! Don't waste your vote! Vote for Patrick Buchanan! Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party system is a snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties have become nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey... 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