National Guard Scared of the Dark ??

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I was watching WWL (the CBS affiliate station in New Orleans) on cable in Houston last Thursday or Friday evening when I saw a segment that put my jaw on the floor. They had tape and a story on a NG unit from Oregon or Washington state that was guarding an already partially looted grocery store. OK so far, although I was a little surprised that they had enough NG troops on hand at that point to watch a relatively low value commercial property that had already been "picked over". Video of troops and looted store. Then came the kicker - they announced that the troops were leaving because it was about to get dark and they didn't have night vision goggles!!! :eek:

Now I sincerely do not mean to slight the outstanding job being done by many NG, LEO, and other groups and individuals under truly horrible conditions in and around New Orleans, but I really don't know what to make of this. Here we have troops armed with automatic weapons leaving a post because there might be persons with bad intent in the area after dark? Excuse me, but I thought the purpose of an army was to spend about half its time in the dark in the vicinity of opponents much more dangerous than the possibility of a thug looking for a six pack.

I can understand the desire of a commander to not put his troops at risk for no reason, but if the post was worth guarding during the day why wouldn't it be worth guarding at night too? I would be completely in favor of the troops performing some more productive duty, but why tell a news crew you were leaving due to a lack of night vision? :confused: I really did not get the impression the intent of the story was to make the Guard look like fools, in fact quite the opposite, but that is the way it ended up looking to me.

Did anybody else see this item and what do you think of it?
 
Excuse me, but I thought the purpose of an army was to spend about half its time in the dark in the vicinity of opponents much more dangerous than the possibility of a thug looking for a six pack.
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And that is the problem. In a war zone you can simply shoot at anyone that breaks your perimeter. In this country you actualy have to identify your target, challnge them, and wait for them to threaten you. Thats a whole different ball game.
 
I can remember plenty of early morning convoys in the dark where no
one had night vision and we couldn't shoot at anyone unless they were
a visible threat, had a weapon, and continued to approach us even after
they were first waved off then given a warning shot.

In Iraq, the mission had to continue. In NOLA it's ???
 
Some years ago, an Army officer I knew was in charge of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection program at USAJFKSWCS at Ft. Bragg, NC. This was shortly after the time Special Forces began accepting volunteers from all arms, not just the combat arms. SFAS was set up to help save the Army the expense of having those who were unlikely to make it through the Special Forces Qualification Course (aka the Q course) for predictable reasons fail the course by weeding them out before they PCSed to Bragg- SFAS was a TDY assignment.

He told me once that one of his problems was that so many of the volunteers for SF were afraid to spend the night in the woods... seemed pretty incongruous to me, but that is what he said.

Go figure.

lpl/nc
 
unfortunately, we get alot of folks signing up for the college money. doubly unfortunate, these folks tend to gravitate to the officer corps. combine that with the problem that officers are not generally known for their courage or intelligence, and you get more than usually retarded leadership. a unit is defined by their senior ncos and in this case it seems the first sergeant was too much of an ass kisser to tell the captain that the whole thing was downright wrong. no one has any business GUARDING food when people are starving unless it's just so they can distribute said food efficiently and fairly. when you ARE tasked to guard something, night is the most important time to guard it.

general order #1 i will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved.

'nuff said.
 
Who announced that the troops were leaving, because they didn't have NVG's? The NG PAO, some halfwit PFC, or the media (who knows, of course)? As far as bad information and RUMINT goes the military can be worse than high school.

If they get orders to move they're going to move. If they have orders to sit tight, they'll sit tight. Reasons for doing either are often not provided, so the guessing game starts.
 
I've heard it said that the US military is relying too heavily on technology.
 
Lee,

Interesting that fear of sleeping in the woods was a good litmus test.
I guess many deer hunters would pass this....now if only we could
get them to do some running on a regular basis.

Chopin,

You're exactly right about units being defined by their NCOs. I usually
run into a handful who are carrying the rest of their unit's NCOs and Junior
Enlisted. And as far as officers not "known for their courage and intelligence"
you're welcome to find an E5 rather than an O3 to patch you up at the
BAS. There's a good chance both of them got money for college, but
only one went to medical school ;)
 
unfortunately, we get alot of folks signing up for the college money. doubly unfortunate, these folks tend to gravitate to the officer corps. combine that with the problem that officers are not generally known for their courage or intelligence, and you get more than usually retarded leadership. a unit is defined by their senior ncos and in this case it seems the first sergeant was too much of an ass kisser to tell the captain that the whole thing was downright wrong. no one has any business GUARDING food when people are starving unless it's just so they can distribute said food efficiently and fairly. when you ARE tasked to guard something, night is the most important time to guard it.
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Your background and source of information for this damning comment on the courage and intelligence of the officer corps?

Pilgrim
 
Your background and source of information for this damning comment on the courage and intelligence of the officer corps?
Click to expand...
I don't know his background, but in mine (limited to 2 years of infantry), I only saw two officers that I admired for their leadership ability. One was an african american major at HHC/75th Ranger Regiment (I only mention his skin color because as I remember he was the only one there in 1992 when I was there -- maybe someone can attach a name?); the other was a 1st Lt with 2/67 AR through at least 1994 -- he was the platoon leader of the cav scouts there. Both had been NCOs before taking a commission (in the latter case, he was an E6 at SERE (sp?) school for a while.)

I can give you lots of examples of weak leaders. There's the 2lt in my stick at jump school that had me stand in the door for him because he was too scared to do it himself (later ended up at the same unit I was posted to in Germany) for starters. Or the armored guys who thought the best way to move dismounted infantry under fire was to skirt the woodline, in the open, of course...

Bad leadership is nothing new, nor is it particularly rare, in my experience. NCOs, on the other hand, tended to have their stuff together. The exceptions were spectacular, but I'd trust your average E5 in a SHTF situation over your average O3 any day. Well, I'd trust myself first, but you get the idea... :D

And no, I wouldn't trust an O3 back at the hospital -- I remember when a brand-new private dropped a 50-cal barrel on my toe, edge first. Nice, pretty purple ring all around the toe, and a clear split on the X-ray. If course, this was our MORTEP and I was needed if we were to score well. I was told not to remove my boots for the week, and we took best in USAEUR. However, it soured me on army doc's...
 
Sorry to hear about your toe. We'll just let the E5 handle the headwound, too....Come on, are you serious?!
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My wife's an MD. Wanna hear some stories about Navy residents who'd been practicing for a dozen years in the Navy without completing a residency first because the military allows them to do so? :what: Used to have a buddy that screwed up a shoulder on a jump while with the 82nd (static line around his shoulder when he went out the door), and they gave him increasing doses of Motrin for the next eighteen months because, get this, they'd already done more of the kind of surgery he requred than they were supposed to, and were over quota. Fixed as soon as he made it to 1st Armored as our quota was lower, I guess. Then there are the series of army MDs who couldn't figure out why I puked whenever my breathing got out of control (turns out my uvula touched my tongue normally so breathing heavy for me = someone else sticking fingers into the back of their throat. Got it trimmed in the civvie world).

I've got my issues with socialized medicine and the sort of "care" we were offered in the service, and again through the VA. No thank you.
 
I should add that if I needed a trauma surgeon, the Army is the first place I'd look. Apparently their trauma surgery residency is incredibly good.
 
He told me once that one of his problems was that so many of the volunteers for SF were afraid to spend the night in the woods... seemed pretty incongruous to me, but that is what he said.
Click to expand...

This problem predated the current selection course. Back when SF officers went to their own separate school, Phase One had a 4-day compass course (with legs that took up to 12 hours to traverse). It was done solo. While billed as a true compass course--actually very long cross-country navigation--one underlying purpose was to weed out those who were afraid of being alone in the woods, day and night.
 
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