Wombat
Member
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!!!
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? 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?
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? 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?