Posted: 4/14/2003 3:17:25 AM EDT
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From the Washington Post article about the newly freed POWs (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20070-2003Apr13.html): "For members of the 507th, the three-week saga began when the maintenance convoy took a wrong turn into Nasiriyah and rolled into "an ambush waiting for us," in the words of Johnson. With bullets and explosions everywhere, Miller, his rifle jammed, began shoving in bullets one by one and firing single shots. "We were like Custer," recalled Sgt. James Riley, 31, Pennsauken, N.J. As the senior soldier present, it fell to him to surrender. "We were surrounded," he said. "We had no working weapons. We couldn't even make a bayonet charge - we would have been mowed down." ******************************************** Feeding single rounds into his M-16? The statement in the last paragraph "we had no working weapons") implies multiple failed weapons. What do you make of this? Is the Army giving "non-frontline" folks the worn out junk, hoping that they will never have to use it? A friend of mine in the USAF was deploying to Afghanistan. He said that the M-16s they were issued were junk. Beat up, bent, and some had 5-digit serial numbers. He had an armorer look at his and the opinion was that the rifle would not last long if her actually started using it. He started kicking up sand over this (As a MSgt he wasn't about to take his people into a high-threat environment without reliable weapons). His boss told him to sit down and shut up, but he went over that dork to a colonel who made sure that everybody got good weapons. Politically, he decided that stirring that muck was probably detrimental to career progression, but he had to do what was right. |
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Quoted: The fact that the weapons failed to function is a maintenance issue. The fact that the soldiers did not know correct immediate action to bring their weapons back to the fight is a training issue. The weapon system is sound. [b]BINGO![/B] Couldn't have said it better myself. |
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These folks spend most of their time getting in and out of vehicles. I assume, that they probably didn't even wear their "LBE". They also probably didn't have mag pouches attached to their body armor. When the convoy was hit, and they got out, they most likely didn't have much with them. Then again, maybe not, who knows? |