No, it's not what it sounds like (I know, I get those emails all the time...). Instead it's a little-known program in the armed services that allows the occupiers of Iraq to get more boots on the ground without having to call up even more National Guard units.
Basically what it does is to "allow" Navy personnel the "opportunity" to get off the water and onto the sand in Iraq.
According to a recent Stars and Stripes article, sailors are given 12 days training in weapons, IEDs, basic warfare, convoy duty, urban operations, land navigation and first aid.
Twelve days???
When it takes at least four months to train the average ground soldier (counting basic training and advanced training)?
And there are an estimated 10,000 sailors in this great program, with 7,000 actually on the ground in Iraq. Most of them ill-trained in battlefield survival.
Once again the Baby Doc Maladministration shows its utter contempt for America's fighing men and women, and if I hear one more time about how the Rethugs "support" the troops, I'm going postal.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
"Individual Augmentation"
Posted by Farnsworth68 at 4:08 PM
Posts
3 Comments:
I did two months of training at Ft. Bragg prior to deployment... don't believe the hype. Take if from someone that has been there.
The average IA position is more along the lines of helping with supplies and reconstruction. Some reasons why the training is smaller than army/marine basic training include:
1)Not all of basic training is combat intensive. In fact a large portion of it is military indoctrination and classroom time. Naval personnel have already gone through this part and it would be a waste of time to repeat it again.
2)The training is given to focus on self defense in a combat zone. Individual augmentees do not get placed on offensive missions.
As in Vietnam, as opposed to, say, WWII, those in "the rear" in Iraq are not immune from attack.
I was in a so-called "rear" unit (yes, I was a REMF) in Vietnam, and I can tell you from personal experience that we were not immune. We were not put on an "offensive mission" either, but when mortar rounds are dropping into your compound, AK-47 rounds are buzzing past your ear and your buddy hunkered down right next to you catches one of those bullets, that's a distinction without much of a difference.
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