LTTE to my rep

[nadinbrzezinski]

Bear in mind folks this is about the Marine and seeing that Marine in the right way, (insofar as they are concerned), a canary in the coal mine. I aso CCed this to my previous Rep since he is in the Armed Services Committee...

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I must say I am writing to both of you since I am truly concerned about the force in the field. One of you is my Rep, and well Congressman, I remember my exchanges with you from Hawaii fondly.

I am sure by now you have seen the tape about the Marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi. First off, do not let the horror set in. We don't have all the facts, and the ICRC, as well as JAG are now doing their investigating. Until the facts are back ... and yes it is hard to take the legal view in these cases but we need to.

What you need to do though is to look at the bigger picture.

We have had many incidents from troops in the field. Let me list some of them.

Three Prisoners die in Afghanistan under US Custody.
Troops refuse to transport fuel (which may have been the right thing to do, the jury is still out here)
Abu Ghraib
and on, and on and on.

Now unlike most I am not going to let my emotions get on the way. What I am seeing is a breakdown in command and control in US Forces in theater. This is the big picture.

So what does this indicate?

Well, first off, as I told first Congressman Abercrombie, and then you gentlewoman, we adopted three troopers in country last year (They are no longer in country). One thing that struck us in the few letters they sent was the extremely low morale among these troops and I don't expect things to have gotten any better.

Before my husband retired from the Navy, he went on patrol and they had serious supply problems. I don't expect this to have been corrected. (Yes they got everything substituted for Lima Beans, yummy, eggs, milk, veggies, meat, you mention it)

We also seem to have Lieutenants and Captains loosing control of their NCOs and Majors and Colonels not having their JOs on a leash. (Will point to you to the tape from F 911 and a LT. not telling the troops to stop, and this is just a good example of things going on)

In other words what I am seeing is a breakdown in command and control of the force and if we do not regain it back we may face either of the two extremes, and we have seen them both already in a microsm.

1. Troops will loose all hope and shoot at anything that moves. When this happens well many people who should not die, will. Yes it is never a pretty picture to see a force really going out on a rampage. This marine may be a symptom, the canary in the mine, that is telling us we may be close to this. Troops NEED to be rotated out so they can blow off steam ... they are ready to go off the handle

2. Troops will disobey orders and refuse to do anything, in effect becoming sitting ducks. Many of our people will die unnecessarily as well.

Oh and we cannot ignore the fact that poor leadership from the highest rungs in the civilian government, such as our AG (future) saying that Geneva is quaint and this is a different type of war, well it sends the wrong signal to the troops.

What we must do ... we need to rotate them out, and we need fresh troops in. We also need somewhere for troops to go blow off steam during their tour. and we must make sure that conditions improve in country. The consequences of doing nothing are too horrible to contemplate.

Sincerely,