Latest Guard Deployment Includes Mostly Women

[NVMojo]

TAYLOR -- Many of the soldiers sharing a sendoff lunch with their families Saturday are following the Army tradition of their fathers, uncles and grandfathers.

But most of them are their families' first women in uniform.

"I think it's the same," said Spc. Desaree O'Donnell, 21, of Hazleton. Her uncle and grandfather served in the military.

More than 20 of the 32 National Guard soldiers being deployed from the Taylor-based 228th Forward Support Company B are women. The soldiers were honored as they prepared to leave today for training before a tour of duty in Iraq. A group of 14 soldiers from Western Pennsylvania joined them.

"I wish I could take her place," said Bryan O'Donnell of Hazleton, Spec. O'Donnell's uncle. "But I know she has to do it."

more....

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13711812&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=416046&rfi=6

[Erika]

1. Some right wing sites say women shouldn't serve

and they should be protected here as wives and homemakers. Hey, if Bush needs their bodies to fight his wars, they are going. He has no ifs, ands, or buts. He has his priorities. Of course his daughters haven't volunteered.

[rodeodance]

2. there was a stroy from MInnesota a few weeks ago that involved

a large percentage of women also going to Iraq-most were truck drivers!!

[dbt]

3. The BFEE is an Equal Opportunity Killing Machine.

If men can die to make Dick Cheney rich(er), women should be allowed to do the same. Reckon they'll keep the most fertile ones in safe areas for re-assignment as Handmaids?

:freak:
dbt

[Ripley]

6. Naw, just the wealthy fertile ones.

Po little Lyndie's? Hell, do you really think anyone wants to use her as breeding stock?

:hi:

[dbt]

13. Hi, Ripley!

Now get back in line, dammit. What's up with all this free thinking?

:evilgrin:

dbt

[mtnester]

37. Lyndie would have been an Aunt...eom

[Megahurtz]

40. LOL!!!

probably not far from the truth!

[Maine-i-acs]

4. Hitler eventually sent 14-year olds to the front.

He didn't get the point that the effort was futile. Will Shrub get it before it gets to that?

[Cerridwen]

5. Just as long as they're not drafting women /sarcasm

So what should we call this Orwellian, Twilight Zone episode of our Brave New World?

[Bridget Burke]

7. They told us passing the Equal Rights Amendment would lead to this...

But...the Equal Rights Amendment was never passed.

[Ripley]

8. Great point.

Funny how all the Bible thumpers and Cons were so appalled by that prospect...now they don't make a peep when women are shipped out.

Typical huh? Women getting the short end of the stick every time.

[CornField]

12. Excellent point

We need to start pushing that 24/7 once again.

[thethinker]

9. Every person I know that has been sent is a woman

I know two people who were sent to Iraq. Both are women. One is the mother of two children. They joined the reserves to get money for college. One is black and one is Hispanic.

The one that is a mother went when we invaded. Stayed 12 months and came home. Now they are talking about sending her back again. The one that is there now has been extended. She should have been home in January. Both of these situations will end in divorce. Is this "family values"? What is this doing to their children?

What kind of a country sends young mothers to fight wars so they don't have to have a draft. Has anyone noticed how few white boys are going over there? Why aren't people talking about this?

[NVMojo]

10. I wonder how we can get a break down of demographics on this?

by gender and by race?? Who is over there? And what the current payscale is?

[Megawatt]

14. No I haven't noticed how few "white boys" are going over there

As a matter of fact if you want to draw conclusions based on expirential evidence I guess I could conclude that only priveleged kids are dieing over there based on the death of Brad Schuder. (Rest in Peace Brad) Brad lived in a $500,000 home a few miles up the road from me.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/bsshuder.htm
A community mourned on Friday night.

Lance Corporal Brad Shuder is dead, and the lives he touched gathered at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in El Dorado Hills to remember his life.

Though the church held less than the 912 capacity crowd, every seat was filled and people stood in the back and along the sides of the sanctuary. The people grieved for the 21-year-old who is El Dorado Hill's first loss in this most recent war.

Shuder died from a mortar shell in Iraq on April 12 near Fallujah, a Marine on his second tour of duty.

"Brad did something extraordinary," said Rev. Michael Bugarin, Shuder's cousin who officiated the service. "He was willing to sacrifice his life for me and you."

Shuder was graced with full military honors at the service. Marines from both Camp Pendleton where he was stationed and the Sacramento area attended the service.

Shuder was born in Korea on May 6, 1982 and was adopted less than two years later by his parents in El Dorado County. He went down to Camp Pendleton shortly after 9/11 and ended up in Iraq for a tour of duty.

________________________________________

But if we want to base mindless internet bulletin babblings on actual facts - here is a webstie for you:

71% of the dead have been white
10% have been black
11% Hispanic
8% other/NA
2% have been women

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/DeRooij_Iraq-Coalition-Toll.htm

_________________________________________

The whole "White people didn't fight and die in Vietnam" meme was bullshit in the 60s , its bullshit now.

[shanti]

17. folsom isn't exactly

a hotbed of liberalism...

[Megawatt]

18. And your point is

......?

[shanti]

31. are you the lone liberal in folsom?

:-)

[Megawatt]

32. No,

There's Muffy and Buffy with the matching SUVs next door. :)

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Megawatt]

27. Mind if I post some actual facts?

http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/vietnam_war_casualty_lists/statistics.html#race

CACCF Record Counts by Race (as of 12/98)
Racial category titles are those used in the documentation created at the genesis of the file, ca. 1967 Race Number of Records
American Indian 226
Caucasian 50,120
Malayan 252
Mongolian 116
Negro 7,264
Unknown, Not Reported 215
Total 58,193
________________________________________________________

Blacks died in the same proportion as to their proportion in the country at large . 12.4%

Whites made up 86% of the casualties.

Hispanics are probably rolled into Caucasian

Only 345 listed Puerto Rico as their home of record.

Currently Puerto Rico has a population of 3.8 million - 1/70th of the US population as a whole. If the same ratio held true in the 60s Puerto Rico should have had 1/70th of the 58,000 casualties - 828. Of course I realize NYC probably contributed what could be termed "Puerto Rican " ethnic group deaths , but in the absence of any documented evidence supplied by you, it is absolutely clear Blacks did not die disproportionately in Vietnam and most probably neither did Puerto Ricans.

[saigon68]

28. BETTER QUESTION-- How many "RICH" boys are going?

Since 98% of them are white.

I can assure you less than 1% of "Rich Boys" are going to go smoke a Rag-Head in Iraq-Nam.

Or get their leg blown off by a MOAIED

Thats Mother Of All Improvised Explosive Device ( The ones that Flip Abrams tanks upside down.)

[Megawatt]

33. Well even if "rich" boys go

they get no respect here - they get "Tillmanized"

As previously noted the man who died from around here, came from a 1/2 million to a million dollar house (of course that's Calif :))

[genieroze]

46. Rich kids don't have to go, many people join to get help with college

Unless there is a draft or a few rich kids have a family history of serving and they want a military career, I don't see them bothering.

[Megawatt]

30. Oh and as long as we are going to go all racial

One could argue that with 19% of the soldier force, African American and only 10% of the dead in IOF, blacks are enjoying the benefits of military service but not the same drawbacks in porportion to their numbers.

http://www.sftt.org/dwa/2003/1/8/6.html

"In the six military operations since then, blacks have comprised 15 percent of combat fatalities while making up 13 percent of the population. Still, say the authors, that 15 percent is 'considerably below' the percentage of blacks in the active-duty army (about 19 percent). Trends suggest that this will be even less of an issue in the future. Today's military finds more blacks than ever in military occupations where they are less likely to physically engage the enemy."

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/DeRooij_Iraq-Coalition-Toll.htm

Race/ethnic group of US-uk soldiers
(1-May-03 – 5-Jan-05) US
number pct UK
number pct
White 864 70.8% 43 97.7%
Black / Afro-American 126 10.3% 0 0.0%
Hispanic 138 11.3% 0 0.0%
Other 41 3.4% 1 2.3%
NA 51 4.2% 0 0.0%
Total 1220 44
Women 31 2.5% 1 2.3%

_____________________________________________

And of course the same thing could be said about women - with an Army porportion of 15% they have only been 2% of the casualties.

[BronxBoy]

35. Do you have these statistics for casualties as well?

I'd be interested in seeing them

[Megawatt]

36. The stats in post 35 are for deaths

nt
10% Black
71% White

[Divernan]

41. This young man was Korean, not "white", adopted as 2 yr. old.

Too sad that his adoptive parents who lived in a half million dollar home did not influence him to go to college instead of enlisting straight out of high school. From the articles about him, he seems to have been a fine young man who was desperately trying to be a patriotic American.

By the way, although it's been years since I lived in
California, I would expect a halfmillion dollar house to be basically a 3 bedroom, 2 bath tract house, and if the family has lived there for 20 years, I expect they are just regular working stiffs who happened to live somewhere where property prices skyrocketed. This kid, like many others, probably had a choice between incurring massive student loan debt, or joining the military. There is a swiftly growing gap between the rich and the poor, and most middle class families are slipping toward the poor end of that divide. College educations have spiraled in cost, out of the reach of many families who want their kids to go to college. That's why so many white kids are in the national guard or enlisted in the regular military. Killing the Pell grants for many kids will create even more cannon fodder for Bush's war machine.

I think one of the reasons the military are unable to meet their recruitment/enlistment goals is that American blacks learned a valuable lesson from the Vietnam war, and have not been such easy targets of military recruiters.

[Megawatt]

48. OK I stand corrected

He was Korean raised by white parents if the picture I saw of them in the paper is accurate. But whenever the white people don't serve meme comes up it's soon replaced by "well only the poor serve" which happened later in the thread. Finally the meme emerges that the only people serving are those too poor to go to college. Which really does a disservice to service people by presuming their motives with no facts in evidence. It doesn't explain Tillman, it doesn't explain my college graduated cousin who joined as an enlisted man after 9/11, it doesn't explain Brad.

You are somewhat correct that Calif has an inflated housing market but I was remiss in estimating houses in El Dorado Hills at 500K, most probably they are closer to 600K to 1M.

http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/InterimSearch.asp?typ=1%2C+2%2C+3%2C+4%2C+5%2C+6%2C+7&mxprice=99999999&mlsttl=&mnbath=0&frm=bymap&pgnum=1&st=CA&mls=xmls&lnksrc=&mnbed=0&js=on&ct=El+Dorado+Hills&zp=&mnprice=500000&poe=realtor&x=13&y=4&areaid=2475

Realtor.com search shows 300 for sale houses in El Dorado Hills - 124 priced between 0 and 500K , 176 priced over 500K

Certainly it is doubtful that people living there can't afford the $943.50 per semester fees that Cal State University of Sacramento was charging in 2001 when Brad would have been deciding to go or not:

http://aaweb.csus.edu/catalog/current/First%20100%20Pages/FEES.asp

Legal residents of California are not charged tuition; however, nonresident and foreign-visa students are required to pay nonresident tuition in addition to fees charged to all students. Fees for auditors are the same as for those receiving credit for a course. Extension and/or Summer Session students, resident or otherwise, pay tuition appropriate to the course taken.

Furthermore the provided link speaks of a note he left his parents which gives an insight into his motivation:

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/bsshuder.htm

Bugarin mentioned a quote from Shuder that his parents had discovered following their son's death. It is a quote that sums up everything about Shuder's service and leaves his family with the knowledge that he did not die in vain.

"I joined because it was my dream," Shuder wrote. "I wanted to protect my loved ones. I wanted to protect the United States."

He signed up for a second tour, even though he said he had premonitions of not coming back from the Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

Sorry to be a stickler - I just think what passes for common knowledge about who is in the service and why is not accurate, is demeaning, and doesn't lead us to any greater understanding.

[FizzFuzz]

39. cuz they're too busy talking about forcing women to give birth, and about

Janet Jackson's boob, and about pornographic rappers and 13 year old sex-bimbos singing at the $$40 mill pReznitzel inaugeration?

on edit: Oh yeah, and about who's a better christian, judged by who hates gay people more.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[raifield]

16. Basically, any National Guard unit...

Not just women, but I think male National Guardsmen are just as unprepared and out of shape (physically, psychologically, etc) as the women. These people are not soldiers and they do not have the equipment or training for the job they've been told to do.

[Zenlitened]

21. I agree. Male, female... no difference.

Some of the kids I've seen on TV as they prepare to ship out just don't seem tough enough at all, physically or mentally. I fear for them, I really do. :(

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ElectroPrincess]

22. I do not concur with your highly uninformed opinion ...

"I do believe there is a reason why men have been the ones to conduct war throughout centuries. I also believe there's a biological reason why the males of the species are the ones to "compete", when they fight for their sexual mates."

I resent your comments above because they were arrived at second hand (talking ex-Iraqi Vets). Although you haven't served in the military, you THINK that you can hold a somewhat thoughtful opinion about women's roles in the military. You're wrong.

However, you are much like many of the men I led as a young Army "Airborne" 1LT in the 1980s. One young Specialist came up to me and stated point blank, "I've never taken orders from a woman and I'm not ready to now." Instead of turning his butt into the Platoon Sergeant, I calmly said, "SP4 that's not a healthy thing to say, as I am to be your Range Officer next week. Also, I will now make sure that I PERSONALLY will be the THE ONE to hook you up when we go for repelling." Nothing more was said by ANY party. ;)

Just for a moment, consider your stereotypes above and then insert "Asian, African-American, Jew, Muslim etc." These women do NOT serve in the Infantry ergo they are not required to hump 50 pounds plus of gear. What? Are you now worried that being in good physical condition may harm our Female organs?

Let me inform you first hand, I'm a highly competitive person. I hate to lose and I love patrolling and assault/raid operational training. The women who are commissioned or enlisted in the MPs are also not your average group of debutantes. And that's fine: Women are not a not a homogeneous population. Believe it or not, there's a significant percentage of women who are highly motivated for police work as you can see within your community.

The women in the MP units have served honorably and MANY have fought the enemy *in combat* by the nature of their patrolling missions. Many of these women have been either KIA (Killed In Action),seriously wounded or have earned Bronze Stars for their bravery.

Unless you plan on personally serving in Iraq within an Infantry or MP unit, you're opinion is blatantly uninformed if not misogynistic.

Kindly pull your head out of you a** long enough to realize that the *majority* of women who freely enter the military for a career or educational benefits are in good physical condition and "meet standard" for their missions, i.e., MP, Signal, Admin, Transportation etc.

Yes, I've heard this all before, but the sheer bias and ignorance that such opinions are based upon never fails to disgust me.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ElectroPrincess]

29. Newsflash: You're done = you're SEXIST, deal with it and move on.

On edit: There's many MOS (Military Specialties) with most open to Women who serve in Iraq, i.e., none but the Infantry hump 50+ pound packs. Well, you'd know that if you had served on Active Duty.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Heddi]

43. Wow! Such skills of debating you have!

"Titties in a bind"...wow. Impressive. COmpletely goes along with the sexist and mysogonist garbage you've been rattling off throughout this thread.

Gotta give you points for consistency, though.

[diamond14]

45. reminds me of the CHILDRENS CRUSADES, when KIDS were sent off

to FIGHT FOR GOD in the Holy Land.....none came back...ALL were killed....sad.....


Heave HO....onward Christian Soldiers...CRUSADING through the biblical lands of Babylon !!!!


What still amazes me is that the parents of these young women just SIT THERE and CHEER for bush* and his crusade.....their daughters will most certainly be breathing 'Depleted Uranium' as the desert dust storms blow around, and drinking foul water, and inhaling burning carcinogenic smoke from the continuous oil fires, suffer permanent nerve damage from insect bites, never seen in America....

so even if they are in a 'support' role....any possible off-spring will be majorly deformed, their daughters will suffer the rest of their shortened lives from cancers, lung-diseases, nerve damage....and these bush*-worshiping parents will be stuck with caring for these women, as bush* cuts Veteran's Benefits.....



"All I really want out of this is to be able to walk again..."
Lt. Jordan Johnson, 23, in charge of a platoon protecting the general of the 1st Armored division, was en route from Baghdad International Airport July 20, 2003 when her humvee crashed and flipped, smashing her leg and tail bone, and putting her into a coma. Another soldier died In the crash. Photographed during rehabilitation at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Tx, March 26, 2004.

from 'Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq'...Disposable Heros...
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0412/purplehearts_intro.html

[Virginian]

15. They probably didn't expect this when they signed up.

They probably didn't expect to be deployed to a foreign country. They probably didn't expect their deployment to be extended.
They didn't think joining the Guard would cost them years away from their families, after all the Guard is called up for local disasters. These mothers probably didn't expect the Guard to take them away from their baby's first steps, first words or first day of school. They thought "weekend warriors" meant they wouldn't be gone from home for extended lengths of time.

Odd, isn't it, that when Dubya signed up for the Guard, he could come and go as he pleased. He knew he wasn't going to be deployed anywhere. Is he trying to make his duty seem more than it was by over utilizing and stressing out the Guard of today?
The Guard is having enlistment problems now that the rules have changed. Why join the Guard instead of one of the regular services when the benefits are less and the deployment is the same?

[Megawatt]

19. Actually the nation made a decision after Vietnam

to rely on the Guard and Reserve more heavily to augment the regular forces, instead of reinstating a draft. In fact one of the arguments about why the Vietnam war was allowed to build up under LBJ is because he refused to broadly call up the reserves, the easier political choice was just to increase drafting 18 yr olds , who had no political power (couldn't vote) wouldn't be missed in their communities etc. In some of the areas these Guard units have been activated from - local fire and police depts and employers are struggling.

[Virginian]

20. Was that part of terminating the draft?

[Megawatt]

26. Yes it was

good article here:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBR/is_2_31/ai_76496208

[thethinker]

34. This isn't fair

It is one thing to volunteer for the army. It is another thing to join the guard to get money for college.

What kind of a country calls up mothers, who happen to be in the reserve, instead of just putting in a draft. They are also calling up people past 50 and pregnant women.

During Viet Nam we had a draft that had plenty of loop holes for the rich. The rich didn't serve. The rich aren't being called up today because they had other means for going to college. If you will notice, no one in the Bush administration was in Viet Nam.

During World War II they drafted the single guys first, the married ones second and only then, called up fathers.

Now we call up mothers! Give me a break. You can't believe this is OK.

[Megawatt]

38. I agree, I am sure most deployed guardsmen and reserves

would tell you if they wanted to be active duty they would have joined active duty.

[Virginian]

47. So, who's minding the ranch?

Who is staying home to defend the homefront?

I think of the Guard as the people who handle domestic problems. They call out the National Guard for riots and disasters. Who is left to handle any problems we may have at home?
I heard they were short of National Guard manpower when it came to protecting the Hurricane victims against looters. Was this true?

[diamond14]

44. Whoaaa....going like sheep to the slaughter...sending their OWN CHILDREN

into the big bush* killing machine...it has to make you gasp !....


read more of their own comments as they send their own children to the bush* slaughter...the bush* brainwashing machine is obviously doing GREAT....one women healing from a lung transplant, sacrifices her own nurse daughter for BUSH*...AMAZING....incredible ignorance and stupidity for the glory of the BUSH GREAT STUPID WAR....

-snips-


Spc. Corchado-Reyes said the hardest part would be leaving her family, especially her mother, Tomasa, who is recovering from a lung transplant.

"She's taken care of me," Mrs. Corchado said. "I hope she's coming back safe."

"I'm really scared watching the news about what's going on over there," Spc. Corchado-Reyes said. "But I have confidence in our leaders, so it's good to be going with people I trust."

She said she wants to see other cultures because she has never been outside Pennsylvania. And she said she hopes to learn skills that will help her study to become a police officer when she returns.

Spc. Jessica Smith, 23, of Harrisburg, said it helps to know they're doing important work.