You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Fifth Column
I Call Shenanigans! Fake Military Man?
2004-11-09
This was something Phil Carter (www.intel-dump.com) linked to a few weeks ago. I don't know if this has already been posted, but it deserves to be fisked. One thing jumped out at me was the report of the ambush at Tora Bora. Too bad the ambush was elsewhere during Operation Anaconda. Also, what's the 82nd's retention rate?
Posted by:Tibor

#18  I can tell you that my postings will drop way off when I start knowing things inside of a given organization, instead of knowing them here.
Posted by: OldSpook   2004-11-09 11:40:22 PM  

#17  We have another Dan Rather on our hands. Its his story he can tell it as big as he wants. Doesn't mean that it is true though.
Posted by: JP   2004-11-09 10:50:10 PM  

#16  Who know's, Shipman? He or she might be one. We're everywhere, you know.
Posted by: The Mossad   2004-11-09 9:04:15 PM  

#15  I'd clear that with The Mossad first anon4021.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-11-09 6:52:08 PM  

#14  I'm going to start posting under the name Mossad Agent.

Hopefully, I won't compromise my identity.
Posted by: Anon4021   2004-11-09 6:04:45 PM  

#13  TW - appreciate your concern and thanks for the compliment. I think your one of the good gals here as well :)

Actually I'm thinking about just going with my name from now on here as well like Robert Crawford, Frank G or Mark Espinola do. If I'm going to make statements as an individual I may as well have folks know that it does not reflect my Branch of Service. Our proud moniker I've been using might make people misinterpret my personal opinions with the USMC as a whole which I clearly do not want to do or even insinuate. Since I do not want to bring any discredit upon the Corps with my personal opinions I may just start using my name. Again - appreciate the concern.
Posted by: Jarhead   2004-11-09 3:22:15 PM  

#12  Your post over there was indeed tactful, especially as compared to .com ("Ze poop, she is very deep." Cute!) Nobody posted after you, so perhaps your words did have an impact. But Jarhead, you put a name down -- is that ok? This is the first time I've thought to question your judgement, so maybe I'm out of line, but I don't want you to get in trouble -- you are one of the many good guys I've met here.
Posted by: trailing wife   2004-11-09 2:11:57 PM  

#11  I just posted the most tactfuly thing I could to Clemmon's site, not sure if it will do any good.
Posted by: Jarhead   2004-11-09 9:51:34 AM  

#10  ...Hell, I was in the Air Force, and I can tell this is wrong.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2004-11-09 9:19:26 AM  

#9  For a breath of reality start at this list at Beautiful Atrocities
Posted by: Don   2004-11-09 9:04:39 AM  

#8  Yeah, it's bullshit. Everything from anthrax - which was put on hold a long time ago to the officer vs. grunt story. Just a joke. You can see the officer to enlisted casualty ratio in the Corps alone to see how that's wrong.

Are there problems in Iraq and Afghanistan - sure there are. There have been problems in every single war we've ever fought - and much worse ones then what's transpiring now. Did we cut and run because Iwo and Normandy were messy? Hell no - adapt and overcome. These morons take a zero defects mentality and apply it to the fluid, dynamic and uncertain atmosphere of combat. Some of those posters are just plain stupid beyond words, anybody involved in combat can tell you that any plan goes to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Again, adapt and overcome. This Clemmons guy just got duped big time - but the duping matched his original premise anyways so that's why he posted it.
Posted by: Jarhead   2004-11-09 8:48:38 AM  

#7  "According to him, 75% of all soldiers want Bush defeated in the election and don't care who defeats him; anger and resentment are high."

My son was home on leave from Iraq recently; and from what he's told me about his fellow soldiers' attitudes, this is absolute, pure bullshit.
Posted by: Dave D.   2004-11-09 6:01:14 AM  

#6  Got into the second paragraph and called bullshit.
The information given didn't match the public facts.
As in shit you can read in a newspaper. Some one has an agenda they are/were trying to push.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2004-11-09 2:43:34 AM  

#5  Oh dear god, the comments on that site are just fucked up.

:(
Posted by: Anon4021   2004-11-09 1:23:15 AM  

#4  HAHA

He says that 90% of the officers remain far out of harm's way.

Typical leftist spiel about officers vs "grunts"

These people don't get it. They still have the image of bloodthirsty officers sending young innocent grunts (who are all uneducated minorities) to their death.

HAH.
Retards.
Posted by: Anon4021   2004-11-09 1:14:18 AM  

#3  Well, like one of the commenters said:


This story doesn't pass the smell test.

I'm in the 82d. Humvees don't go 80 mph. There is no 82d unit deployed in Germany. The 82d wasn't at Tora Bora. I never heard anything about a plan to knock off Castro, and if the Seals were involved, we wouldn't know about it until we were in isolation in the 18 hrs preceding the attack. The only Army basic training in North Carolina is PsyOps, and there are no PsyOps guys in the 82nd.

There are several million people in the military, you can find one of us that holds any conceivable point of view. It sounds to me like this guy read a few news stories and imagined that he could get over on someone who didn't know any better. People like this are common in the military. Good odds are he is a desk jockey who's never deployed to a combat zone.

His story betrays a lack of knowledge about the 82d (and the Army in general), conveniently puts him in the midst of a couple of newsworthy controversies, and all his experiences support a particular political position. Bottom line: Fake
Posted by: Rafael   2004-11-09 1:07:53 AM  

#2  The posters are in an echo chamber, let them continue to make up stories to entertain themselves. Just go read the milblogs out there and the disconnect is obvious. A lot of comment posting by writers claiming to be military, but sounds more like fakes. IIRC During the last fiscal year the Army met its reup goal with the active duty component. Next year might be different only because Congress has finally gotten around to rebuild the Army by adding another 24k personnel to the active ranks.
Posted by: Don   2004-11-09 12:32:51 AM  

#1  Definitely bogus "tell 'em what they want to hear" scammer. He oughta write a book. Doesn't matter anymore whether it's shit or shinola - he's got a 48% captive ready-to-believe market to pander to...

A fool and his sanity money...
Posted by: .com   2004-11-09 12:25:26 AM  

00:00