I'm sorry if the post offended you. It was meant as a joke, and nothing else.
As for good order and discipline, I agree with you. And to me it sounds like you were the kind of officer who put the mission over frivolities, which does not always happen in my brigade, hence the source of my disappointment.
Nowhere in the blog to I advocate disobedience or disrespect, and I've taken care to point out the many positive things I've seen here in Iraq. example:
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First: vehicles and equipment. I won't go into specifics, but the situation is much better. I have a nice truck, with working commo, and the neato headsets so i can talk to my gunner without screaming. We have plenty of supplies, weapons, etc. The trucks are well maintained, and getting in for service when they need to. Kudos, Red Bulls. Don't get used to it ;-)
Second, living conditions: Improvements there as well. There was one outpost where guys were living in a crappy tent, they now have a trailer. Other areas have been upgraded as well, kitchens and what not. And the food getting shipped to us has had a decent amount of variety, and we recieve gatorades and whatnot regularly. Again... very nice.
Reorganization: Once again, no specifics, but I think so far the way everything's been restructured has been a good thing. There was a problem with certain groups making things difficult, and they've been broken up.
EDITED TO ADD: Geez guys, why does everyone assume I'm talking about them. There were cliques, and if you've emailed me so far, it wasn't you i was talking about.
Mission overall: what can i say... it's rough over here, and it's not a paradise.... but an american outpost i was at recently got turned over to iraqis. A sign that things are moving in the right direction.
My spirits have been high, and I havent had time to post about it because school is also going well. I hope to see this trend continue, it seems certain people finally are pulling their heads out of their asses.
Out
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Hardly detrimental to good order and discipline.
I apologize if I'm not the "everything the leadership of america and the army do is great" kinda guy... maybe that comes from being forced back into active duty two and a half years after my ETS into a brigade that has given us no support at all, whether on personnel actions, pay problems, or benefits such as education. Maybe it's the fact that there are people on this post whose only job is to come up with and enforce inane rules, all the while allowing their soldiers to get away with the really bad offenses. Or perhaps its the lack of mission focus, spending valuable time on retarded manditory briefings that we've had zillions of times instead of facilitating real, solid training.
Anyways, this thread has drifted far enough. If you'd like to continue this discussion, we can do it in PM or another thread
EDITED TO ADD: That post is from the military-only blog that i have on another site. The myspace blog is more of a personal type thing, and only has the occasional military post.
