If we take this report at face value both the tempo of U.S. military operations around the world and training budgets need close attention.
Cutting back on the amount of refresher training Marines receive before they ship out is not a huge problem right now, but the immediate need for troops cannot always trump training. Let’s hope this is just temporary.
More disturbing are quotes from Marines saying that budget shortfalls have put a crimp in live-fire training. When dollars dictate training you might be on a glide-path to the hollow forces of the Carter years.
But my concern is balanced by the strong likelihood that this story is all wrong. Not out of malice or an agenda, just the simple fact that the mainstream media simply has a hard time with all things military. The military is a foreign culture and language for many well-meaning and hard-working reporters.
In recent days I’ve particularly enjoyed/conniptioned over dispatches from Najaf featuring reporters dodging “sniper” fire “from both sides.” It does not conform to the see-saw, ying-yang, shades of grey style favored by many editors, but there is no way Marine snipers are missing their targets left, right, and willy-nilly.
One story even featured a picture of a sniper-team member trying to get Sadr’s gunmen to give up their positions with the old helmet-on-a-stick trick. Typically, the American was IDed only as a “soldier” and no mention of his .50 cal sniper rifle, about two steps away from him with a bipod, was made.
Those rifles are insanely heavy, but are good out to more than a mile, with a round that can stop a truck or cut a man in half.
This helps explain why U.S. forces have not rushed into the shrine: They do not need to.
