invited to do a screening of At War at Ft.Bragg. More specifically he
was invited to do it for the 4th BDE, 82nd ABN Division. I could not
say why as it was not official yet, but this is the reason why. The
Brigade is being sent over to become a major part of Task Force
Phoenix, which is the part of the Afghanistan mission who is charged
with training and mentoring of the Afghan Army and Police.
The request for these soldiers has been outstanding since 2007 when
they gave us (I was part of TF PHX at the time) the task of training
the police. It has been a void since then and the dual-purpose
mission of training the army and police with the originally sized
force for just training the army has hamstrung the Task Force ever
since.
Well now the Army is sending the mighty 82nd over there. Personally I
think that is a mistake because they are not suited for this type of
mission. However I will hold that rationale for another posting. For
now, the purpose of this blog is to call the Military Newspaper,
Stars and Stripes to task.
The following article was emailed to me knowing that I would want to
blog about it. I have pasted the article that was sent to me in its
entirety down below. The reason I have done this is because I want to
highlight the fact that they for one; seriously disrespect the
National Guard and most specifically every National Guard member that
has served as part of Task Force Phoenix. Second is to note that they
apparently have realized what this guy Jeffrey Schogol
(Jeffrey.schogol@stripes.osd.mil) wrote. If you click the link below
you will see that the story has been changed significantly on the
website.
The line I have the biggest issue with is the following "Until now,
the military has relied heavily on inexperienced National Guardsmen
to fill out the teams". Hey Jeffrey you didn't quote anyone else
saying that so I can only assume that you came up with that witty
piece of journalism. Well I invite Mr. Schogol to take his
double-latte sipping ass out of his comfortable Washington DC chair,
pack up and head over to Afghanistan like Scott Kesterson, Andrew
Lubin, Micheal Yon or PJ Tobia have done and still are doing and
embed with some of those "Inexperienced National Guardsman" to get a
firsthand look at what inexperience looks like for himself. I am
shocked that a writer for such a military friendly and essentially
backed newspaper would make such a statement. Don't get me wrong,
there were idiots over there from both Active Duty and National Guard
that did not have the experience to be there and should have never
been mobilized, but they are a very small number compared to the
thousands of damn good troops (regardless of Active Duty or National
Guard) that spend a year of their life doing good things, leading the
fight and directly contributing to the overall good of Afghanistan and
security of our country.
I am writing Mr. Schogol an email as soon as I am done with this
posting and I invite you to do the same if you feel his level of
disrespect needs called out.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61638
4,000 4th BCT, 82nd Airborne paratroopers going to Afghanistan to
train security forces By Jeff Schogol , Stars and Stripes Mideast
edition, Saturday, March 28, 2009 WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama announced Friday that 4,000 paratroopers with
the 82nd Airborne Division will head to Afghanistan this fall to
train Afghan security forces. "For the first time, this will fully
resource our effort to train and support the Afghan Army and Police,"
Obama said. The 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, which
is currently slated to deploy to Iraq, will likely be sent to
Afghanistan instead to fulfill the training mission, Defense
officials said Friday.
The deployment will fill the request by Gen. David McKiernan, the top
U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for a brigade of trainers, a
White House official said Thursday. In a sign of the new importance
the administration is placing on the mission, the 82nd Airborne
troops will be broken into 10-to-14-member advisory teams, a Pentagon
official said. Until now, the military has relied heavily on
inexperienced National Guardsmen to fill out the teams, though
Marines have also filled that role.
"The change couldn't be more dramatic," said retired Lt. Col. John A.
Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, a
nonpartisan defense think tank. "The 82nd Airborne Division is the
nation's shock force."
The need for trainers goes back to March 2007, when commanders first
requested 3,400 trainers, mostly for the Afghan police.
Initially, Afghan police were trained by private contractors, but the
efforts floundered and the Afghan police lagged far behind the Afghan
army.
The need for trainers went largely unfilled throughout 2007 because
most of the U.S. military's trainers were in Iraq.
Since early 2008, a growing number of Marines have been used to train
Afghan security forces. The senior administration official said
Thursday that the training mission in Afghanistan had been
under-resourced for the past few years, and that the president wants
to fix that. Ultimately, the goal is to train an Afghan Army of
134,000 and a police
force of 82,000, he said.
McKiernan had requested a total of four additional brigade combat
teams' worth of troops and an additional combat aviation brigade. So
far, the Defense Department has announced the following units will be
sent to Afghanistan to meet his request: The 3rd Brigade, 10th
Mountain Division; 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade; 5th Stryker
Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division; and 82nd Airborne
Division's Combat Aviation Brigade.
The increase in forces to Afghanistan comes as the U.S. military moves
to draw down in Iraq. Even before Obama took office, there were clear
indications that the U.S. military was shifting its focus from Iraq
to Afghanistan. Most notably, former President Bush signed an
agreement with Iraq that calls for all U.S. troops to leave that
country by the end of 2011,
regardless of conditions on the ground.
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