Sailor killed in Al Anbar

[bluestateguy]

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq – One Sailor assigned to 1st Marine Logistics Group died September 16 from wounds sustained by enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province.

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http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5708&Itemid=21

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. Probably either a Hospital Corpsman (medic) or a SEAL, more likely the

fomer.

R.I.P.

[haele]

6. With the new "blue to green" program the Navy has...

He could easily have been machinist's mate or a bo'sun - or someone just out of bootcamp/NTC with just the basic 3 months of "Navy training". There's a lot of trained but lower ranked Navy personnel who have found that they're being "asked" to transfer to a Marine or Army support unit because their training vaguely matches that needed in Iraq. What's really strange are cases like a recent Navy Aviator - a full Lieutenant (O-3)- trained to fly as part of a Carrier Airwing, who was transferred to the Army to fly helicopters. Or a Second Class Petty Officer - a communications specialist I've worked with two or three times who wasn't able to advance from E-5 to E-6 in a crowded rate (job classification) - who's now on patrol with the Marines because he could also shoot marksman and was in fairly decent shape. In fact, I'm a bit worried this guy might be him; I won't know until tomorrow at the soonest.
Neither of those sailors volunteered, they were told that they could either take those orders or leave the Navy.

The Air Force has a similar program, with similar situations.

Rumsfeld's attitude is that it doesn't matter how much money you've sunk into training your personnel or what the qualifications are for someone to do any particular job; it's all manpower - a "fungible asset".
People are nothing more than Risk pieces to him.

Haele

[Kolesar]

7. Then the Navy will recruit someone else, telling them...

...don't worry, in the Navy you don't have to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

[Monkeyman]

2. RIP Navy

[badgervan]

8. No Way

It's not just the Navy that Rumdum is damaging. He won't kill it, but he sure isn't using it as someone with a brain and a plan would. Won't be too long and the rumster will be behind bars, in my opinion. I can tell you from personal experience that Navy communication specialists, though highly trained, are not trained in combat or most ground-based ops. Same with the Air Force com folks. If they are taking these very specialized ratings, and making grunts out of them, then we truly are in bad, bad shape as far as a capable fighting force - not to mention that we have wasted a shitload of money and time training these people. God help us ( not the Decider and the deeply incompetent rumhead; us ).

[rodeodance]

3. dying in desert rather than the sea. just musing.

[Monkeyman]

4. Most Marine Units have Navy Combat Medics

[oneighty]

5. Navy EODs

Explosive Ordnance Disposal Techs serve on the ground there-both men and women.

180

[0007]

9. Pile this one near the water pile!

Grass Bush

Pile the bodies high in Austerlitz and Waterloo Iraq
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; bush; I cover all.

And pile them high in Gettyburg Baghdad
And pile them high in Ypres and Vedum Mossoul and Al Fallaujah

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?

I am the grass bush.
Let me work.

Carl Sandburg


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