The Army Reservists Who Refused to Follow Orders

In a nutshell, that the US armed forces are generally a lot better equipped than their allies- I speak from having served alongside US personnel to whom being sent/buying your own armour/boots or whatever due to shortages was pretty much unheard of.
 
The point I'm making is that your forces are only just starting to get familiar with the term 'overstretch'- and the problems with shortages that some US personnel may now be experiencing because of that are not a new concept on this side of the pond.
 
Most of the world doesn't have armor. The guys who went into Vietnam hardly had any armor. The guys who ran into machine gun fields in Normandy definately had no armor. Old grand pappy getting shot at in the hills of Korea had no armor.
Those Iraqi insurgents have no armor.
 
Sure, and obviously not all units are supplied with it as a basic piece of kit if it's not necessary to their job, those who should have it issued though should not go short.
Times have changed slightly since Normandy, Korea and Vietnam though, armour might not have been issued then but then neither were NVGs and the like. As far as the insurgents are concerned, simply because they don't have armour isn't really a reason not to issue it to the frontline units that are facing them.
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, just trying to point out that your guys aren't that badly off... and you can add boots or whatever you like to the list... :(
 
i know what you are saying, but when you need to deactivate a bomb i think you feel much better to take the shrapnel to your armour rather than your gut
 
I don't think anyone would argue with that! It's just that when you said about US troops being badly kitted out, the first thing I thought of was of the mates of mine who were running around the desert in green kit and winter boots... :o
 
I was wearing a desert uniform, desert boots, OD green flak jacket, OD green web gear, had an a OD green ruck, OD green rain gear, drove an unarmoured OD green truck and I did not complain or refuse orders.
 
drilldownmaster2004 said:
but were you thinking about active duty at the time before you were sent in, or were you just that patriotic

What are you driving at here, drilldown? We have Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard components overseas at this time, and each of them are equally, to my mind, patriotic.

And I would suggest you get a little more experience under your belt before you make a statement like this:

well...WELCOME TO BUSHLAND, I..ahh, I mean America. Here we fight we die and DON'T have armour


You haven't done a damn thing, to be blunt.
 
Redneck said:
drilldownmaster2004 said:
but were you thinking about active duty at the time before you were sent in, or were you just that patriotic

What are you driving at here, drilldown? We have Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard components overseas at this time, and each of them are equally, to my mind, patriotic.

And I would suggest you get a little more experience under your belt before you make a statement like this:

well...WELCOME TO BUSHLAND, I..ahh, I mean America. Here we fight we die and DON'T have armour


But the fact is you still got the point, so it doesn't matter if it passes your level, I still got the point across


You haven't done a damn thing, to be blunt.
 
drilldownmaster2004 said:
But the fact is you still got the point, so it doesn't matter if it passes your level, I still got the point across

It would be smart to can the attitude, kid.
And, no, you did not get any point across, if you wish to participate in discussions here, make the effort to explain your positions, even if it requires you to make posts that are longer than a sentence fragment.
 
I think the whole thing comes down to professionalism. I'm not saying that anyone in particular is less professional than the other, it just happens that the people that in this case disobeyed orders happened to be reservists that probably didn't want to be there in the first place and equipment shortages just seem to be a convenient justification for them.
Like I said, I don't want to do down the reservists because it's not fair to tar everyone with the same brush, but this must surely be the first time in a while that the US has been stretched to the point where they've had to deploy them. For all the shortages the UK media have publicised over recent years, and all the places both the UK and the US have deployed, this is the first time I can think that I've heard of anyone from either country using such a lame excuse to disobey orders.
In fact, as I said before, unless those orders were illegal in the first place, there's no excuse at all. :cen: , they'll be wanting to talk to their union rep next.
 
I dont like the stance some people are taking against reservists. Yea these guys refused an order, so now you blame all reservists for being sorry soldiers?

My unit has outperformed our active counterparts every year we have conducted training. So now its all active troops are sorry soldiers just because someone outperformed them? Our reserve unit has been told we set the standard at several actions taken. One for example is rail loading and unloading...guess what? We arent quartermasters. The active guys were amazed at our performance. Guys dont drop ignorance because of an opinion. If these same troops who acted this way were air force, would you consider the air force as a whole just like these people? Do we really have to sit here in an open discussion and trash our fellow soldiers...even reservists have died in Iraq and other areas across the world, please dont forget that. Fellow reservists who have been injured are on waiting lists due to better medical care going to the active side of the house. We're sucking it up and driving on, I suggest you do the same.

As far as the topic goes, these guys should be punished, what should be the question here is why they did it? Intestinal fortitude? Lack of leadership? Lack of a good security detail? They have said its due to lack of armor, but we have had one of our battalions return who had to run around in soft top humvee's....yet they did their jobs as soldiers, not as measley reservists.
 
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