SECDEF Visiting the troops
 

December 8, 2004
Troops Put Tough Questions to Rumsfeld
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:05 a.m. ET

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait (AP) -- Disgrunted U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumself on Wednesday about the lack of armor for their vehicles and long deployments, drawing a blunt retort from the Pentagon chief.

``You go to war with the Army you have,'' he said in a rare public airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.

In his prepared remarks earlier, Rumsfeld had urged the troops -- mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers -- to discount critics of the war in Iraq and to help ``win the test of wills'' with the insurgents.

Some of soldiers, however, had criticisms of their own -- not of the war itself but of how it is being fought.

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson, for example, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team that is comprised mainly of citizen soldiers of the Tennessee Army National Guard, asked Rumsfeld in a question-and-answer session why vehicle armor is still in short supply, nearly two years after the start of the war that ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

``Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?'' Wilson asked. A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

``We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,'' Wilson said after asking again.

Rumsfeld replied that troops should make the best of the conditions they face and said the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.

And, the defense chief added, armor is not always a savior in the kind of combat U.S. troops face in Iraq, where the insurgents' weapon of choice is the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device that has killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops since the summer of 2003.

``You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up,'' Rumsfeld said.

Asked later about Wilson's complaint, the deputy commanding general of U.S. forces in Kuwait, Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, said in an interview that as far as he knows, every vehicle that is deploying to Iraq from Camp Buehring in Kuwait has at least ``Level 3'' armor. That means it at least has locally fabricated armor for its side panels, but not necessarily bulletproof windows or protection against explosions that penetrate the floorboard.

Speer said he was not aware that soldiers were searching landfills for scrap metal and used bulletproof glass.

During the question-and-answer session, another soldier complained that active-duty Army units sometimes get priority over the National Guard and Reserve units for the best equipment in Iraq.

``There's no way I can prove it, but I am told the Army is breaking its neck to see that there is not'' discrimination against the National Guard and Reserve in terms of providing equipment, Rumsfeld said.

Yet another soldier asked, without putting it to Rumsfeld as a direct criticism, how much longer the Army will continue using its ``stop loss'' power to prevent soldiers from leaving the service who are otherwise eligible to retire or quit.

Rumsfeld said that this condition was simply a fact of life for soldiers at time of war.

``It's basically a sound principle, it's nothing new, it's been well understood'' by soldiers, he said. ``My guess is it will continue to be used as little as possible, but that it will continue to be used.''

In his opening remarks, Rumsfeld stressed that soldiers who are heading to Iraq should not believe those who say the insurgents cannot be defeated or who otherwise doubt the will of the military to win.

``They say we can't prevail. I see that violence and say we must win,'' Rumsfeld said.

A different perspective on the armor question

Marines

Major "fuck-up."
 

His replies just hurt us!

Guy,
Whose replies? SECDEF's?

From watching the story on the news, the young man from the NG that was complaining hasn't even been to Iraq yet. The unit is apparently in Kuwait preparing to go. The Marines in the article, on the other hand, are in the contested area around Fallujah.

So, we have one that hasn't been and is complaining about something they haven't seen yet and another that has been there and done that and says he's good to go.

I am simply amazed.

These are observations, not opinions.

SECDEF wanted questions from the troops and he got them. The guy had balls standing up and asking a question like that.

What came out of the Pentagon was more interesting to me. According to a Brigadier General, I can't remember his name, policy is all armored vehicles will be driven into Iraq, un-armored are supposed to be trailered in. Unfortunately, the trucks doing the trailering are not armored either.

I can't judge if Rumsfields' answers hurt us but I think he could have come up with something better. Maybe it wasn't the content but the way they were delivered.

My opinion is when an American soldier steps off the plane, his attitude and reputaion should scare the bejeebers out of any enemy. If he/she is worried about driving an unarmored vehicle then the average soldier is going to be at least a little leary of going into a war zone. I would guess that would affect their attitude.

I think that someone somewhere dropped the ball in that when they realized there was a problem with armor they could have at least made it/steel/whatever readily available to the units to at least do the work themselves.

If I had the funds I'd do it myself. I'm not looking forward to my son going back over there.

I know that being a soldier is a dangerous job. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything possible to make it a little safer.

I can't say it enough, stay safe out there.

Ok, go ahead with the fire mission. :eek:

NDD,
Check your PM in a few minutes.

No fire mission , one observation:

If the young man that ask the question has not indeed been to Iraq yet, he should have waited until he goes and sees for himself what the situation is instead of relying on second hand information or supposition. Now, he's going to look pretty silly if he relieves someone there in place and they give him a level 29 UAH as part of the turn over. In other words, he was worrying about a problem that isn't his yet.

That's true, NDD, but on the other hand, If that IED gets him before the turnover point someone is going to catch major hell.

I hadn't heard anything about the problem in a while and was under the assumption that it was rectified. Either way, it's a bad situation. And I hope you're at least driving a Volvo where you're at. :)

Just checking OPSEC issues before I posted.

May they serve well and come home safe.

The SecDef should have had better answers for the troops.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...&article=25928

Amen

Yes!
 

Read his reply to the NG troop again.

Yeah, I know. But that's a whole other issue. Personally, I ain't real keen on these little chats. No SECDEF ever asked me shit about what I thougfht back in the day. And CSMs and 1Sgts. had that shit unmder control.

I'm curious if SPC Thomas is willing to accept the huge tax increase on his LES that would accompany outfitting every soldier, sailor and airman in all the components with the very best armor, the very best gear, the very best MWR facilities, the very best...