Col David Hackworth on Shoestring Logistics — The New American Way:
Even though Iraq presently costs you and me over three billion bucks a month and Generals are living in palaces, the kids are complaining about the basic stuff so important to grunts: hot chow, decent water, mail and spare parts to keep vehicles, aircraft and weapons going. They’re ragging about eating lots of dust and their Hobo Junction living conditions. Some combat units haven’t gotten mail in over 40 days, while for months many have been chowing down MRE’s — which after a few weeks are like eating bark from a tree — with a side of hot drinking water laced with enough chlorine to make even a lifeguard squeamish. And for those in the combat arena, spare parts are harder to obtain than a cold drink.
Relatives are responding by sending whatever they can to help — Kool-Aid and WD-140 and decent rifle lubricating oil because the standard issue gun oil sucks.
The reason the troops need this kind of support from home is that the Pentagon went into Iraq too light, expecting it would be Slam Bam Goodbye Saddam followed by a victory parade down Fifth Avenue. Rumsfeld, Wolfawitz and their tech-loving crew believed their own simplistic propaganda and now our soldiers are paying the price on a complicated insurgency battlefield without the logistical depth to do the job.
This is more of the type of "Support" that the troops have been getting from this Administration. Warbloggers, neo-cons and assorted sell-outs, you got your war, now make your beloved Administration take care of the men and women who carried your load. Turn off FOX News and stop masturbating to Ann Coulter's dust jacket photo long enough to call your elected weasels in the House and Senate to demand that this intolerable state of affairs end.