Why haven't we seen any troop mutinies?

[hedgehog]

Some of these guys are getting off a plane in the States and being sent back two weeks later. What about the brigade that was prepping to go home and was instead sent to Baghdad for at least four months BECAUSE THE FIGHTING WAS WORSE THERE! (Sorry, I don't know how to do italics) Back in Gulf War I, several National Guard units from Louisiana refused to go over because they felt they hadn't been trained properly. Instead of going to the theater, they spent time in the Southwest learning tank warfare if I recall properly.

[Mountainman]

1. Because troops believe that there is an end to their misery at some point

and they don't want to mess up the time they have after it is over. That's how I felt in Vietnam. I wondered why at times I just didn't take my rifle and blow a whole bunch of officers away that made these fucked up decisions that I had to live with.

I wanted to come home and have a life after it was over.

[hedgehog]

3. These guys must feel like they're living out an episode of the

Twilight Zone. It was bad enough before when groups had to rotate back into the theater, but now people who thought they were done with the military are being called back and people getting ready to leave Iraq are being stopped when their foot is practically on the boarding ramp.

[Hissyspit]

2. That you know of, you mean?

There was that partial uprising of reservists (I believe) in South Carolina a while back.

[Disturbed]

6. Some troops refused to drive trucks

that were practically a suicide mission but the Corp Media buried the incident quickly.

[Purveyor]

4. Press coverage and continued benefits/pay are tightly controlled.

Few dare to create a scene as they, as many civies, are living 'paycheck to paycheck'.

Volunteer military, indeed!

[azurnoir]

5. Because these troops aren't conscripts

but if they keep being pushed by short supplies, being wounded and sent back on pain killers, extended tours of duty, who knows.

[hedgehog]

7. When the tour of duty gets extended way beyond what you were

promised when you enlisted, isn't that back-door conscription?

[PaganPreacher]

9. No, it isn't.

It's written into the enlistment contract that the US Government may extend the enlistment at its pleasure. No secret, and no surprise.

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[hedgehog]

11. My sister got out of the Reserves when Bush I was elected.

Later on , members of her unit including nursing mothers ended up in the Gulf. It may not be a secret that the government can extend the enlistment and/or send the Reserves and National Guard into war.I'd lay dollars to donuts though that a lot of people would never have signed up if they'd had any notion it would really happen.

[greyl]

8. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but I think 18,000 are AWOL edit:

since 2001, in direct relation to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm 90% sure I heard this, as recently as two weeks ago.


edit: Sorry, it's 40,000 since the year 2000.
I don't think they're happy. Maybe it's the slap dash evening makeup.

August 7, 2006
Ana Radelat / Gannett News Service & Meredith May / SF Chronicle

Since 2000, about 40,000 troops from all branches of the military have deserted, the Pentagon says. Those who help war resisters say desertion is more prevalent than the military has admitted. "They lied in Vietnam with the amount of opposition to the war and they're lying now," said Eric Seitz, an attorney who represents Army Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to the war in Iraq.

www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=4473

[lonestarnot]

10. There have been a few.

[Drum]

12. underline "seen".....n/t

[lonestarnot]

13. Now you're talking, I wish I knew how to underline.

[PerceptionManagement]

14. Try to keep your eye on the ball...or at least use google

U.S. Army officials have been quick to spin the puzzling, horrifying attack
on his own superiors allegedly perpetrated by "Muslim soldier" Sgt. Asam
Akbar, described as a disgruntled platoon leader with an "attitude." The
assault by fragmentation grenades and automatic rifle fire left 12 soldiers
wounded and one dead at Camp Pennsylvania, a 101st Airborne base camp at
Kuwait City, Kuwait on the Iraqi border.