Democratic Veteran :: Damn-it-all continues

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October 17, 2004

Damn-it-all continues

Steve Gilliard has an excellent essay up on a recent and not-so-recent history of "combat refusal". It seems that the practice, if you want to call it that, was more widespread in Vietnam than is generally known, and has a significant history going back to at keast the early 19th century.

"They have set up separate companies," writes an American soldier from Cu Chi, quoted in the New York Times, "for men who refuse to go into the field. Is no big thing to refuse to go. If a man is ordered to go to such and such a place he no longer goes through the hassle of refusing; he just packs his shirt and goes to visit some buddies at another base camp. Operations have become incredibly ragtag. Many guys don't even put on their uniforms any more... The American garrison on the larger bases are virtually disarmed. The lifers have taken our weapons from us and put them under lock and key...There have also been quite a few frag incidents in the battalion."

Can all this really be typical or even truthful?

Unfortunately the answer is yes.

The article also goes into a history of "fragging" as a means for bending the reality of the chain of command, as well as the choice method for seeking revenge on those officers and senior enlisted thought to be to "gung ho".

The article Steve cites also raises another interesting question, suppose entire units decided to begin doing shall we say "forbidden" things, like this:

Symbolic anti-war fasts (such as the one at Pleiku where an entire medical unit, led by its officers, refused Thanksgiving turkey), peace symbols, "V"-signs not for victory but for peace, booing and cursing of officers and even of hapless entertainers such as Bob Hope, are unhappily commonplace.

As for drugs and race, Vietnam’s problems today not only reflect but reinforce those of t he Armed Forces as a whole. In April, for example, members of a Congressional investigating subcommittee reported that 120 to 15% of our troops in Vietnam are now using high-grade heroin, and that drug addiction there is "of epidemic proportions."
...
Early this year, and Air force regular colonel was court-martialed and cashiered for leading his squadron in pot parties, while, at Cam Ranh Air Force Base, 43 members of the base security police squadron were recently swept up in dragnet narcotics raids.
...
For this very reason, our Armed Forces outside Vietnam not only reflect these conditions but disclose the depths of their troubles in an awful litany of sedition, disaffection, desertion, race, drugs, breakdowns of authority, abandonment of discipline, and, as a cumulative result, the lowest state of military morale in the history of the country.

Sedition – coupled with disaffection within the ranks, and externally fomented with an audacity and intensity previously inconceivable – infests the Armed Services:

As Steve points out, we spent 30-plus years getting away from this, and successfully too, I might add. Preznit Fanatical Evangelism has in 18 months managed to raise the specter of this behaviour again, singlehandedly.

What would happen to an entire unit (or ten) that popped positive for pot after an R&R? Would they get sent back to the world? Courts-martials would have an incredibly corrosive effect on the morale of other soldiers, I think, not to mention the time and expense involved. Any alternative that caused the soldiers to be separated, especially for those held over or on a second or third tour in Iraq might seem like a better choice than being stop-lossed or sent back into Iraq. I am certainly not advocating a course of action that violates the UCMJ, but if someone in the Pentagram has not thought about this long and hard, they're not doing their job(s).

posted by Jo Fish on 10.17.04 at 12:57 AM

Comments:

Bush broke the Army. We knew it, we predicted it. At one point it made me physically ill, as this war started my hands started literally shaking with rage as I tried to type. I ended every post with "Bush lied, GI's died". At the time it felt like we were pissing in the wind. But as I recently posted over at Steve G's site in reference to his predictions that this would turn out to be a clusterfuck, (and in response to his onetime succinct summation mid 2003 i.e. "We're fucked"). "Grim satisfaction is still satisfaction."

Nobody brings up the war with me these days, at least no one that is clinging to support of it. Because that would require facing the facts on the ground, and they can't do it.

I sensed from the moment this mutiny story broke that it was going to be huge. How could it not? Non-vets maybe can't comprehend the implications of unit-level mutiny. But the response of the Army over the last 24 hours is telling. They are panicking, they are reflexingly lying, they are denying elements of the story which were established facts from the git-go. "Nope nobody was arrested, nobody was confined, nothing to see, move along."

Because things have to be FUBAR beyond even the limits of my imagination for things to get this far. Not so much the refusal to take the convoy, the fact that some officer felt comfortable enough, or perhaps pressured enough, to issue the order.

I wasn't an officer, just an E-5, but even I know that one of the secrets of successful command is to not issue an order that won't be obeyed. In the last analysis mutiny is a profound command failure.

They broke the Army. Just in time for an election. Hmm.

posted by: Bruce Webb on 10.17.04 at 06:08 AM [permalink]

I got out after 20 years, when I saw that we were going to be stuck with Operation: Enduring Cluster**** for a good long time. I just read that the Blackhorse folks from Fort Irwin are going into Iraq, and are going to be replaced by Army Guard. When you pull the teachers to put them on the front line, things are not going well.

Over in Afganistan opium production is up. In Iraq, civilian addiction to heroin is up. How soon will we see it in the troops?

posted by: on 10.17.04 at 02:30 PM [permalink]

A summary of my deleted response to "More on the damn-it-all front" and Kleiman's asinine contention that it's dumb to refuse orders except illegal orders.
In the military, Democratic Veteran will most certainly agree it is illegal to misrepresent the material and personnel condition of the unit you command or lead. Near and dear to the "heart" of every Naval aviator and Surface Warrior, is the show-stopping scenario of contaminated fuel. Contaminated fuel kills aviators and stops ships. It is career ending, indeed illegal to deliver contaminated fuel or to misrepresent its suitability for use.
Obedience is too easily expected in the military and more easily delivered without thought or debate. Please spare me the idiotic notion that people died in this situation or similar scenarios because some fool did not carry out his responsibilities swiftly. In the US military we kill exponentially more innocent women and children through thoughtlessly decisive execution of malevolent orders than servicemen men we ever put at risk by thoughtful and deliberate consideration of those same orders. So let's put to rest another myth of the US military once and for all.
Finally, bombing from the protection of an aircraft at 30,000 feet against no aerial foe or anti-aircraft challenge does not constitute the "bravest of the brave". So perhaps running a large fuel truck through combat zones without proper protective equipment constitutes a truly brave act without the attendant glory of the aviator in his tight flight suit, hair on fire, and silk dickey hanging from his chest. The only equivalent risk in aviation to ground resupply is a Marine CH-53E lumbering in a resupply mission at 100 feet without escort and armed with two 50-cals.

posted by: usndemveton active duty on 10.17.04 at 03:50 PM [permalink]

I need your help. Ohio needs your help.

I volunteer forty hours a week for the Kerry/Edwards campaign. In my local Democratic Party office, we receive a dozen or more calls a day from people who need new Kerry yard signs because theirs have been stolen, shredded, defecated on, and burned. I always encourage the people to file complaints with the police department.

Today when I arrived at the office, I learned that police actually caught two teenagers in the act of stealing signs. The police filed a report but no arrests were made.

I don't think that anything is going to come of this. I don't think the thieves will be charged with anything. The local government is full of Republicans.

Shouldn't every person be held accountable for their actions? Should Republicans get away with doing whatever they want with no fear of punishment? Are Republicans above the law?

I need your help.

Please write or call my local newspaper and demand that justice be done. Demand that these thefts be taken seriously. Demand that arrests be made and the thieves be prosecuted.

Flood them with letters, emails and calls. Spread the word.

Let them know that the whole country is watching!

Contact:

The Newark Advocate
22 N. First Street
Newark, Ohio 43055

(740) 345-4053

(740) 328-8581 FAX

advocate@nncogannett.com

Thank you for your help! Please leave a comment and let me know that you contacted them.

posted by: Andrea on 10.18.04 at 06:03 PM [permalink]

Neighbor's Kerry/Edwards sign is gone. Public office here prevents taking a stand (nonparitsan position, not an office that party affiliation should affect).

Will have to ask wassup about their sign. Looked to have been vandalized once already...

As for the frigging. This sounds about right. No green zone stories about it? Big surprise there.

Family members made this story. Calling home.

Why no charges? Well improper orders would mean that commanding officers face accountability. Halliburton's account is the focus of their ability, to put this on record in a court of law would be damning.

Let Johnny 'law dog' Edwards get warmed up to this.

posted by: Mr.Murder on 10.19.04 at 07:58 PM [permalink]