boot camp jaunt to Iraq?

[unhappycamper]

This was on a VFP blog today:


This was sent to me indirectly, but I think the source is a reliable
one. Does anyone know anything about it -- like if it's true? Or best
way to check it out?

I received a call from a gentleman Quaker in Maine who has befriended the
mother of a recent enlistee. She is, apparently, hopping mad because her
son will complete part of his basic training in Iraq. It would be four
weeks stateside, 2 weeks' training in Iraq and then return to the US
for 2 week's more training so that the recruits get a better sense of
what they will be facing. Our contact was completely astounded but
then talked to other people who assured him it was a well-known fact
that this hapens. I have never heard of it. Anybody know anything
about this? I don't know the branch or anything.



Has anyone heard of this or is it a scam?

[TomInTib]

1. At this point, I'll believe just about anything.

Except for the bs lame excuses about the ACMs on that B-52.

I can see recruiters offering those two weeks' combat pay as an enticement for kids who have never had a hundred dollars in their pocket.

But this does give FNG a whole new bent, doesn't it?

[BOSSHOG]

2. Never heard of such a thing

but it sure as hell does not sound cost effective. That's a helluva lot of flying for basic training. 35 years ago in Navy Boot in San Diego wherever we went we Marched, I then hefted my Seabag over my shoulder and walked to A-School, then got a $12.00 bus ticket to my first duty station. I was a bargain and they threw in a chow pass and $284.00 bucks for beer money. What a life. I always gets nostalgic this time of year, left for boot 18 Oct 72.

[MADem]

3. I think it is BS, for one reason.

Recruits in a training status are a different category from recruits on active duty. While in boot camp, one is in 'active duty for training' status, and one doesn't go on active duty until one completes all training and is forwarded to the first duty station.

I can't see how they'd take people out of ACDU for Training, put them in ACDU, and then back to ACDU for Training status inside of a two week window. Just the paperwork would be about ten or twenty bucks per recruit, and that's a waste of money. I won't even go INTO the transport costs, which would probably top a grand or two per recruit. And then, there's billeting...what happens to their cots and bunks back at boot camp? Where are they billeted in Iraq? Who minds them? Are they returned to a new billet at boot camp when they are sent back for their last, wasteful, two weeks? They'd have to be, because leaving cots/racks empty is a waste of taxpayer money. Ya gotta keep those barracks full and keep grinding out 'product.'

It's absurd. I don't believe it. Why someone came up with this, I have no idea. But even the BushCo military can't be that stupid.

[TahitiNut]

4. It was absolutely against Army regs to put ACDUTRA personnel in a combat zone.

I have to wonder whether someone is confusing "Iraq In-Country Training" (culturally-specific preparation for deployment to a combat zone) with deployment to Iraq.

[MADem]

5. Yep, that could well be it--the classroom cultural training where

folks learn to say Sa'alaam and not point the sole of their foot at folks, or use their left hand to hand something off to a LN!

And there's way more than enough material there for a forty five minute class X 10, which would be two weeks. Easily.

I think you've got it...

The USMC are doing this in a BIG way, FWIW: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6904842.stm

[Jolly Sapper]

6. .....hmm...

Any chance that some "grey" area in the regs would allow an enlistee to skip the AIT phase of basic training and go directly to an active unit after completing BCT?

[Jackeen]

7. Yes, or at least there used to be.

There is precedent, a small number of troops were taken straight from Basic in 1991, and sent to rear-echelon roles in Saudi. I've no idea what exactly the rationale was. I am unaware of any instances since.