Modesto Guard members allege bias (training poor for part-timers)

[kskiska]

Soldiers say training is poor because they're part-timers

DONA ANA RANGE, N.M.— Members of an Army National Guard battalion based in Modesto said they have been placed under strict lockdown during their training and treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at this remote desert camp where they are preparing for deployment to Iraq.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year.

"We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said.

They said they believed their treatment and training reflected an institutional bias against National Guard troops by commanders in the active-duty Army, an allegation that Army commanders denied.

(snip)

"Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training," he said. "So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."

more…
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/9552505p-10442045c.html

[yorgatron]

1. good thing they said that here

they won't be heard from in iraq.the reporters only talk to the gung ho morons.