A Bit of Falluja Ground Truth
I like talking to young Marine reservists back from Iraq. They need to talk to sympathetic people who are there to listen rather than rant about politics. Its far more informative than the news services. I shouldn’t provide too many details of my conversations. I’ll simply convey this bit of ground truth:
Marine reservists are being put at very high degrees of risk by commanding officers who treat them as though they are special forces personnel. In Fallujah there are posts where the death and casualty rates are very high and the reservists are suffering from abysmal morale. Normally in situations like this the reservists would be relieved due to their lack of effectiveness and the danger their low morale creates to themselves and the mission. However, the news of the low morale doesn’t make it up the chain of command—being stopped by officers that may themselves be special forces and not capable of commanding reservists.
Posted by john on Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:44 | #
Poor sods, let’s hope there’s a Celine amongst them. Talking of Celine there’s a first english translation of Bagatelles online at:
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/engl.html
I wonder if Blair will accept the invite to the Tehran conference?