What being in the reserves means

http://www.theomahachannel.com/news/2640629/detail.html

Entire article:

Grandmother Trading Baking Cookies For Combat
56-Year-Old Reservist Being Called To Active Duty For First Time

POSTED: 6:11 p.m. CST November 15, 2003
UPDATED: 6:12 p.m. CST November 15, 2003
LINCOLN, Neb. – At a time when most people are looking forward to retirement, Connie Greenwood is preparing for combat. The 56-year-old Greenwood looks less a soldier and more like somebody’s grandmother. And she is.

But she also holds the rank of First Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserves as member of the 308th Transportation Company in Lincoln. Greenwood has been called to active duty for the first time in her 26 years as a reservist.

Greenwood said the timing of her first deployment could not be better. She said she would rather be called to active duty now than right before her retirement in four years.

Her family does not share her enthusiasm. Her two grown sons, Darin and Robbie, both of Seattle, were floored by the news. Her husband of one year is even looking into taking a civilian job driving trucks in Iraq to be closer to her.

Yeah, my uncle is in the reserves and there’s a strong chance that he’s going to Iraq soon. He’s in his 50s as well, but no grandkids. He was going to retire just a few months ago and was convinced to stay through some evaluation period or something, and now he’s going to be forced into active duty for 18 months.

I had a First Sergeant in the second to last Reserve unit I served with who fit that description: Grandmother, 2nd grade school teacher, in her fifties, was deployed to Bosnia and is most likely in Iraq as I speak.

Of course, she was was all sweet and grandmother-like until you got on her bad side, then she managed to breath fire and brimstone with the best of them. If anything, I worry about any baddies overseas who try to cross her. ;)

Is the US military so desperate that they need to activate people this old? All due respect to granny and everything, but this is sorta sad. And it might be an indication that the Bushies are overstretching US military capabilities.

If they are going to cash their reserve check, send em just like anyone else. If they don’t like it, refund the past 10 years of checks.

Chet

They allow people this old into the reserves?!

I really doubt you can sign up when you’re in your 50s. These folks have been on-board for awhile, I bet.

Food for thought:

http://maxspeak.org/gm/archives/00001588.html

The inescapable fact is that if force doesn’t work when exerted by Americans, it won’t work in someone else’s hands either. Perhaps the U.S. will get lucky and nab Hussein. That might make a difference. Maybe counter-insurgency will start to work. Right now, the proffer of statistics on U.S. ‘success,’ combined with deep paranoia in news management (e.g., preventing news coverage of the return of dead soldiers), reminds me of the old ‘body count’ days. We’ve seen this movie before.

http://maxspeak.org/gm/archives/00001590.html

If my proposal sounds edgy and radical, I’d like to point out that it has a lot of similarity to what the Bush Administration appears to be planning to do. In other words, U.S. soldiers will be withdrawn from “nation-building” duty guarding facilities, keeping order, and presenting themselves as targets to hostile forces. A quasi-sovereignty will be transferred to some configuration of Iraqis. U.S. forces will be stationed in heavily-protected enclaves and venture out at will to attack suspected insurgents. Victory will be declared, again, and the stream of progress reports will continue.

How do I know this? Because I have seen the future, and its name is Afghanistan. Victory in Afghanistan is like the outcome of a “capture the flag” game. The winner stands on top of a hill with a flag. The flag is the nominal control of Kabul. The countryside is under the control of totally self-interested opium and other warlords, the resurgent Taliban, or nobody. No money is coming in, and no nation is being built. U.S. forces sally forth periodically to fight bad guys. Typically the operations go well, but there are always more bad guys.

Are you suggesting they should discriminate against people based on age? These reservist sob stories are so much PR BS. You join the reserves understanding the fact that you could be called up at any time. It’s isn’t magic, free money, you have to earn it. It doesn’t even sound like this woman has any complaints, it’s just her bitchy family.

And should I even bother to bring up the fact that the military is “overstretched” because it’s size was drastically reduced during the Clinton administration? Everyone thought making the reserves the backbone of the military was a dandy idea, until, that is, units start getting called up for service. The, all of a sudden it’s a travesty, an injustice that shall not stand! I know, let’s bring back the draft, that’ll solve everything!

You have to admit it’s not every day you hear about someone’s Gram being called in to fight a war. Like you say, it’s a new system. It’s going to take a little time getting used to all the consequences.

And should I even bother to bring up the fact that the military is “overstretched” because it’s size was drastically reduced during the Clinton administration? Everyone thought making the reserves the backbone of the military was a dandy idea, until, that is, units start getting called up for service.

Well I guess Clinton had enough sense to think that occupying two hostile countries at the same time was a bad idea.

Lucky for him he didn’t have to deal with massive strikes to the mainland.

Actually, he did: The 1st WTC bombing. 1,000 casualties and $500 million in damage.

Thanks, Chet, I was going to bring up exactly that point. I don’t think Clinton’s plan for the military envisioned invading and occupying multiple countries simultaneously. What a wimpy liberal! Our army should ALWAYS be large enough to conquer at least, oh, say, a good 25% of the planet. Right, Bob? Are you with me here?

. I don’t think Clinton’s plan for the military envisioned invading and occupying multiple countries simultaneously. What a wimpy liberal! Our army should ALWAYS be large enough to conquer at least, oh, say, a good 25% of the planet.

sorry, this trash can’t be passed without clarification.

Clinton had no response to the 1993 Towers bombing.

He passed on Sudan’s offering up of Bin Laden after knowing full well it was BinLadden who trained those that murdered our soldiers in Somalia. He allowed him to take his money and run to afganistan

Then al queda killed 15 US soldiers in Saudia Arabia.

Then the bombing of the USS Cole happened

Clinton made pathetic attempts to ‘tighten’ security with lame duck window dressing bills through congress and a few lobbed missle attacks to intelligence-less locations left a lasting impression on terrorists that the US was not serious about retalliation.

He gathered info on terrorist groups but never did anything, save handing off the football to the next administration. We call that passing the buck

You’re right Quat, the right response is to do nothing. Sit on our heels until the UN says it’s ok to do something.

We can’t blame it all on Clinton, though. An inept intelligence (crippled by legislation), a hostile congress(Republican controlled), and a public more interested in who was sucking his dick instead of who was trying to kill americans did not allow him to do much else except save some somalians, hatians, bosnians, and his own skin.

Apart from apprehending several of the people behind it, making Al Qaeda the number one counter-terrorism priority, preventing a planned series of airplane attacks by Al Qaeda operatives, ala 9/11, and handing a full-featured anti-Al Qaeda plan to the incoming Bush administration, who promptly ignored it until 9/11?

He passed on Sudan’s offering up of Bin Laden after knowing full well it was BinLadden who trained those that murdered our soldiers in Somalia. He allowed him to take his money and run to afganistan

Utter bullshit. You’ve been listening to too much talk radio, Mulligan. The offer was bogus - US operatives tried and tried and tried to confirm it, and to make it happen, but it was a non-starter. The only way to get Bin Laden would have been to invade, because there was never an actual offer on the table to hand him over.

We can’t blame it all on Clinton, though. An inept intelligence (crippled by legislation), a hostile congress(Republican controlled), and a public more interested in who was sucking his dick instead of who was trying to kill americans did not allow him to do much else except save some somalians, hatians, bosnians, and his own skin.

It’s nice to see that the sucessful interventions (and the lives saved thereby) mean so very little to you, Mulligan. Funnily, I hear similarly dismissive comments from a lot of recent hawks. Apparently military intervention can only be moral when it’s done by a republican, regardless of how it turns out.

…and we can’t say there’s much of a difference between the results of Clinton’s “doing nothing” and Bush’s “flip out and kill everybody”. Bin Laden and Hussein both are probably still alive; even if not, it appears that Al-Qaeda certainly is getting by without Osama and Iraq is not a country unilaterally grateful for the removal of Hussein.

Meanwhile, American soldiers are being killed daily instead of all at once aboard the USS Cole, and in far greater total numbers. Bombs are exploding in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. I sure don’t feel any safer. The only real difference is, Bush has ruined America’s budget.

It’s nice to see that the sucessful interventions (and the lives saved thereby) mean so very little to you, Mulligan.

Nice tactic, pretend I care little for saved lives. Why don’t you just post things saying I like to see people killed? That might be even more effective.

How exactly did Clinton thwart, “planned series of airplane attacks by Al Qaeda operatives” ???

And if Bill Clinton made Bin Ladden the #1 terrorism priority and invasion was the only option, then why did he default on his duty by not invading? Not to mention letting him escape to afganistan with all of his finances for which seizures were not even attempted under the advice of then treasury sect. Robert Rubin?? They knew he was going to kill more americans, at any time, any place, any cost !! You just proved my point, their policy was to do NOTHING.

Wait, you honestly feel that it’s a President’s DUTY to invade a soverign nation, risking the lives of thousands of his troops and thousands of foreign citizens, to capture one man? Particularly when, as in the case of our own military adventures, those efforts to catch “one man” end up being totally unsuccessful?

I call BULLSHIT.

The military drawdown started and had its largest cutbacks during Bush 1. The Cold War force structure wasn’t needed anymore. Bush I proposea a spending plan his last year of office, Clinton followed it nearly to the letter, and all military spending bills were passed with bipartisan support.

The “Total Force” concept which the reserves being required to deploy the army was developed in the 1970s by the Army, who never wanted to be placed in a Vietnam situation again. They set it up that the reserves and guard were needed for combat operations on purpose. They wanted to make it hard for the politicans to deploy the army without mobilizing the reserves and making sure the political will was there.

Get your facts right.