19 Refuse an order in Iraq -- too dangerous.
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Virtual_Burlesque
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Virtual_Burlesque
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19 separate soldiers in 19 separate places could be 19 separate isolated incidents.mismused said:
19 separate soldiers in one particular platoon all refusing to obey one specific order is a called a mutiny.
BlackSnake
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Court marshall all 19. Other soldiers depend on that support no matter how dangerous it is. Danger is the nature of the business they are in.
Virtual_Burlesque
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BlackSnake
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Virtual_Burlesque said:
They knew the job was dangerous when they took it. Do you think they miss the part about giving their lives in service?
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BlackSnake said:
Yes, I do agree, actually. I'm an Air Force brat and I recognize the need for following orders.
However, these soldiers are probably accustomed to following orders that make sense.
And these are not full-time soldiers. These are accountants and teachers and mechanics and many others who have been forced to continue military service past their alloted time.
A colleague of mine is in the process of declaring bancrupty because her husband is still serving and is bringing home half the salary he was before he was called up. She can't feed her kids, pay her bills.
This situation is ridiculous.
Virtual_Burlesque
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What, exactly is "a contaminated load of fuel," that it needs to be shipped about the country?
Also, how come they can't refuse to take a load, but one location can refuse to accept it?
Respectfully,
All Out of Military Intelligence
Rumple Foreskin
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mismused, and disgusted,
Because those 19 wouldn't go, others had to take their place. Perhaps the supplies were vital, perhaps not. That isn't the issue. Whether serving in direct combat or in a support capacity, whether an assignment is dangerous or just unpleasant, one can not pick and choose which orders to obey in the military.
Odds are, the complaints of that group are valid. However, their failure to perform their duty endangered the mission and forced others to take their place.
I know that sounds cold, even heartless. To you it may be disgusting and impossible to understand. But it's a reality every member of the military must accept.
For what it's worth, I hope they are punished, but treated with leniency. It's not their fault the military is under-funded, under-equiped, under-manned and involved in a long, grinding, anti-guerrilla campaign when the Best & Brightest in the Pentagon and White House said the post-invasion period would be a snap.
But that also applies to the people waiting for those supplies and the ones who had to take their place.
Rumple Foreskin
Because those 19 wouldn't go, others had to take their place. Perhaps the supplies were vital, perhaps not. That isn't the issue. Whether serving in direct combat or in a support capacity, whether an assignment is dangerous or just unpleasant, one can not pick and choose which orders to obey in the military.
Odds are, the complaints of that group are valid. However, their failure to perform their duty endangered the mission and forced others to take their place.
I know that sounds cold, even heartless. To you it may be disgusting and impossible to understand. But it's a reality every member of the military must accept.
For what it's worth, I hope they are punished, but treated with leniency. It's not their fault the military is under-funded, under-equiped, under-manned and involved in a long, grinding, anti-guerrilla campaign when the Best & Brightest in the Pentagon and White House said the post-invasion period would be a snap.
But that also applies to the people waiting for those supplies and the ones who had to take their place.
Rumple Foreskin
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Virtual_Burlesque
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I do understand that, RF, but I would also like to understand what "a contaminated load of fuel" is, and how, when it is shipped somewhere, it can be refused?Rumple Foreskin said:
I was bright enough to understand "sailboat fuel," so I think I could understand this, if explained in simple, one syllable words.
Rumple Foreskin
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VB,
I was never involved with transportation or with what the military used to call, PLO (petroleum, oil, lubricants). I assume contaminated fuel is fuel that has been contaminated, possibly with sand. My guess is the material was being sent to a treatment or disposal area. For whatever reason, when it arrived the facility had no place to store it. Why? Who knows? Most likely, there was either a communications screw-up or things at the receiving point changed while the convoy was on the way.
Remember, it was the military that gave us the term SNAFU (situation normal, all fucked up) and served as the inspiration for Joseph Heller's, Catch-22.
Rumple
I was never involved with transportation or with what the military used to call, PLO (petroleum, oil, lubricants). I assume contaminated fuel is fuel that has been contaminated, possibly with sand. My guess is the material was being sent to a treatment or disposal area. For whatever reason, when it arrived the facility had no place to store it. Why? Who knows? Most likely, there was either a communications screw-up or things at the receiving point changed while the convoy was on the way.
Remember, it was the military that gave us the term SNAFU (situation normal, all fucked up) and served as the inspiration for Joseph Heller's, Catch-22.
Rumple
Nobody gave us body armor. Nobody gave us armored vehicles. They gave us fucking weapons that jammed and fucked up, we took them apart and fixed them.
Direct order is a direct order, go do it. Right or wrong, go do it. It ain't the goddam Campfire Girls...
Way it was, way it is, way it should be. Fix problems later, no time to argue a direct order. Other people die while you argue about it. Time to MOVE!
Some Pussy will say well if it means sure death then why go? Shoot the Pussy and go do the job.
The answer to that is otherwise you just lost your Nation and most of your buds.
Court Martial the whole bunch, jail them...
I did it, they shot the fuck out of us and we didn't even slow down...
More pieces of shit....
MGM
Direct order is a direct order, go do it. Right or wrong, go do it. It ain't the goddam Campfire Girls...
Way it was, way it is, way it should be. Fix problems later, no time to argue a direct order. Other people die while you argue about it. Time to MOVE!
Some Pussy will say well if it means sure death then why go? Shoot the Pussy and go do the job.
The answer to that is otherwise you just lost your Nation and most of your buds.
Court Martial the whole bunch, jail them...
I did it, they shot the fuck out of us and we didn't even slow down...
More pieces of shit....
MGM
In a perfect world, misused, you are right. Hell, I agree with you! Damned shame.
World is not perfect. Bunch of folks out there that think you should be dead..Me too.
Way it is. So in war, people follow orders right or wrong. The alternative is sometimes death. Sometimes following the order means death..but they don't get to choose. There is no alternative.
Yep, sad.
Yea, sure, they want Armor, this and that. Swell...What they need to be is fast and mean!
So fix problems afterwards, we can't talk to this enemy, can't negotiate, they think taking over gradeschools and killing children are proper political efforts. Airplanes into buildings makes a nice political argument.
Been this way for a long time, no peace comes from sitting back and saying, "That's not nice."
Great choice we have. Die or kill...Pick one. Dead serious, no politics, no BS, it is here and it is NOW!
In the next 2-4 weeks I will bet they hit our schools, or our powerplants, or something. Write it down in your notebook.
Then relax. Have a latte. Me? I bought all the ammunition I could afford.
Relax..I will protect you...
MGM
World is not perfect. Bunch of folks out there that think you should be dead..Me too.
Way it is. So in war, people follow orders right or wrong. The alternative is sometimes death. Sometimes following the order means death..but they don't get to choose. There is no alternative.
Yep, sad.
Yea, sure, they want Armor, this and that. Swell...What they need to be is fast and mean!
So fix problems afterwards, we can't talk to this enemy, can't negotiate, they think taking over gradeschools and killing children are proper political efforts. Airplanes into buildings makes a nice political argument.
Been this way for a long time, no peace comes from sitting back and saying, "That's not nice."
Great choice we have. Die or kill...Pick one. Dead serious, no politics, no BS, it is here and it is NOW!
In the next 2-4 weeks I will bet they hit our schools, or our powerplants, or something. Write it down in your notebook.
Then relax. Have a latte. Me? I bought all the ammunition I could afford.
Relax..I will protect you...
MGM
Weird Harold
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Virtual_Burlesque said:
The one report I read earlier that mentioned contaminated fuel said it was gasoline contaminated with water.
However, I've read several different reasons given for the refusal -- The vehicles they were assigned to take were "deadlined for maintenance" (unsafe to drive), there was no armor retrofitted on the vehicles (supply trucks aren't normally armored), there was no armed escort provided, The fuel was contaminated and therefore pointless to deliver, and a couple of others.
Most of the reasons I've seen given could be valid reasons for refusing an order -- refusing to take an unsafe vehicle or certify a vehicle safe to use when it isn't is one I've personally encountered and had first hand experience with: Several times in my career I refused orders to down-grade an aircraft status to flyable when it was in my opinion NOT flyable; an order to falsify government documents is an illegal order and should be refused. I've also seen pilots refuse to fly an aircraft when someone else followed an order to down-grade a problem without correcting it.
I don't know what the investigation will reveal, but I do know that anyone with 24 years service (whether it's Reserve or Active) doesn't engage in or support this kind of action without a good reason.
I've served under a few "Tin-God" officers who were more worried about "readiness numbers" than they were about true "readiness." One of the times I refused to downgrade an aircraft status it was ordered simply because we needed one more aircrft we could report as flyable by midnight.
Despite the "Charge of the Light Brigade" image civilians (and some military) have of "The Mission Comes First," and "Ours is not to reason why," Safety is -- or should be -- the first concern. Safety is context and mission sensitive, but taking unsafe trucks through a known ambush zone to deliver useable fuel is NOT an order that should trump Safety concerns.
I suspect that this unit has a history of being ordered to cut corners on safety and/or a "tin-god" commander who is more concerned about reporting he doesn't have the vehicles in commision to fill a mission than he is about his troops safety.
Sometimes taking anything that can move and charging into overwhelming odds to do the best that you can is the right choice to make -- but those circumstances are very infrequent and seldom apply to scheduled supply runs.
I have no idea what the real reasons for this "mutiny" are, but I've been in units where something similar could easily have occured -- both during wartime and in peacetime.
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