National Guard: stretched to a breaking point, page 1

Originally posted by Nygdan

loam
Really? What are they doing? Eating dough-nuts??

Please explain the activation process for national guardsmen, for active duty of indeterminate length, both in their home state and in other states.

Again, we understood well in advance the potential scale of this event. To suggest some bureaucratic guard activation process is acceptable makes little sense. Moreover, I assert this is not really about the guard, but about a lack of federal leadership. 24 hrs after landfall, where was the US military? Yeah, yeah....unprecedented.....but so was this storm. Now they are being brought in by naval ship...Again, where are the military transport planes dropping personnel and supplies? Aren't they trained for circumstances far dire than these??

a terror attack on a similar scale will be met with the same languid response!

It definitly would.

I'm glad you agree, and I assume further that you find that utterly unacceptable.

Where are these
guys and how long is it going to take them to get there?

Short of havving massed barracks in every town and city, with soldiers on permanent activation, there will allways be delays on teh scales of days. New Orleans has to deal with the problem on its own for the time being.

Then the pentagon's hype concerning military readiness is pure fantasy.....HOGWASH! This is all about lack of leadership.

I can drive from DC to LA in less time

Great, when can the releif volunteers expect you to show up?

Oh, yes. Ignore the point. We have the media crawling all over the city, but not law enforcement, the guard, or the military for days. Moreover, THIS IS THEIR JOB. It is where a substantial amount of our tax dollars go. They are trained for this, and in part, exist for this purpose. Finally, I have nothing to be concerned about in terms of my personal response to this situation. I am fairly confident that my financial contribution to the red cross was not inconsequential. I have responsibilities to my family, business and employees. I am not merely quarterbacking from the couch, I am exercising my right to question the response and decision making of our political leadership and hold them accountable for the same. This event affects everyone's interest in this country.

Around noonish? Do you think that there might be something of a process that goes into their activation? Its not like a beeper goes off and they jump inot their car, putting a National Guardsman siren atop it and speed off.

If that is the best we can do in terms of military readiness, then we are pathetically vulnerable as a nation and "homeland security" is a much greater farce than even I am prepared to say.

We knew at least 24 hrs before landlfall that NO would be a direct hit

Yes, it was idiotic, massively idiotic at every level, from the citizens who stayed all the way up to the president himself. Very, very, very stupid of everyone invovled. Now the price of stupidity is being paid. Agreed.

On this, at least we agree....I think.

Are YOU satisfied with the answers you give?

Your suggestion is to do what? A different president would've activated the guardsmen sooner? Can't we just replace the citizens with better and smarter citizens, ones who would've left the city long before this slow moving monster storm hit?

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be born with intelligence, financial resources or opportunity. To ignore this reality plays dangerously close to the ideology of many historical genocidal tyrants who would heartily agree with your very words.