Recent history, ladies and gentlemen.

You've read or heard a few news reports -- now read it yourself, off the El Paso (Texas) News site. For those who are not familiar with reading military reports, it may be a bit confusing, but stay with it. The imagery will come to you. My active and ex-Army firends and I have been speculating and guessing about this since March 23. Now we have more information to chew on. They'll be studying this and using it in military classrooms for years to come ...

507th Maintenance Co. report

Hi Hollowpoint. That makes interesting reading. It seems to be one of those tragedies where if one fewer mistake had been made it might not have happened. It reinforces the point that most decisions in war, whether made by generals or privates are made by people who are suffering from incredible fatigue and stress.
Martin

The sad thing about it is the civilian world thinks someone should be"punished" for this. I guarantee some (censored) lawyer will bring a lawsuit.

Blaster, I agree with you about the lawyer trying but he (she, it) won't get far. You can't sue the military, I don't think. Someone who knows more about the UCMJ will have to weigh in here but I don't know who you could bring a suit against.

Shaun

The widow of SGT Donald Walters was on the local TV news last night and I'm sure she feels like many of the families do -- she wants to know more about her husband's last days and how he was killed. She also wants to know why no one stopped to pick him up.

So far, the freed surviving POWs from the 507th have been very quiet about what happened, even though they have regularly appeared at baseball games and in the Fort Bliss newspaper -- buying Girl Scout cookies, re-enlisting, etc. It will be interesting to see if they start talking about their experience now.

As far as blaming someone for this incident goes -- I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around and I hope they don't decide to hang some individual for a series of mistakes by several people. I imagine every leader involved feels sick about the whole thing. The lessons learned from this should certainly affect training of units in the future. To me, it reinforces how important it is for soldiers at all echelons to maintain their weapons and equipment.

Very interesting reading. I cannot imagine what they were feeling out there alone with their vehicles disabled and being fired upon from all directions. Talk about a raw deal. This sort of reminds me of the Somalia incident. I think someone will eventually make a movie about An Nasiriyah too.

My fellow contributors--is not this topic a prime example of why we need to re initiate the current events forum? I need your help to convince Jim that this would be a meaningful forum.
DJ

210CAV, I thought at the time that the killing of the current events forum was appropriate. Things were getting pretty ugly over there. Things got pretty heated, to say the least. I agree that this topic would be better in a current events forum but it is awfully hard to police. Maybe if the moderator had some type of big stick. For example, the ability to ban the bad actors from just the current events forum.

Just a thought.

Shaun

Shaun--I was one of the moderators of the current event forum then I got a new job. I disappeared for two months. When I can back, it was gone. A moderator, IMHO, needs to encourage discussion. When I see hitting below the belt remarks, I send the person a PM. Did the trick the two times I distinctly recall reverting to that tactic. Now, I moderate this forum and enjoy it immensely. We have a core of great cross talk people involved and encourage others to share and join in. I can moderate a Current Event Forum without a problem. People want to discuss what is happening today and appreciate the complexity of the situation . I offer for example anything and everything from how the Army is transforming (what a great topic) to why are we in Bosnia? Folks like to kick the can around. I believe it is well worth the investment of time to re initiate and trust I can garnish enough support from my fellow participants to petition Jim for another go.
thanks
DJ

Start a topic on in the Site Talk forum. Throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks, so to speak. I will promise to behave if it gets the nod.

Shaun

I heartily agree. Besides, as I found out you do have the power to censure what is inappropriate. Apparently I used a "NO_NO" word. So, it was removed as it should be. Someone gets out of hand, censure him. we had that guy a couple months ago that kicked up a fuss and decided to "quit". Oh well.

I realize that we are getting off topic here (sorry Hollowpoint) but I too liked the Current Events forum. Although not a big contributor I enjoyed reading people's opinions. I would like to think that if it was reinstated we could keep it civilized.

No problem, Marty.

My original post was meant to inform and provoke a bit of discussion. It was also a bit of a nudge toward returning the Current Events forum. I call it "recent history" because that is what it is. Besides, there is no way this topic belongs in the "Junk Drawer."

Listen, we can discuss issues without resort to the unnecessary commentaries. Apparently when the Current Forum went away so did a lot of my writing pals. I apologize for my unanticipated absence, but the Current Forum is aviable discussion area and I will request Jim reinstate it.
thanks for your comments
DJ