"Ready for All; Yielding to None."

From the article, no need to read it, just quickly scan:

So after all the cute sound bites and fluff of a typical democrat political speach, where absolutely nothing of substance is offered we end up with this job, for a combat battalion.

 

Hey, whatever works!
This is very similar to recent experiences of battalion from the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan.

LINK

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A Counterinsurgency Grows in Khost
An unheralded U.S. success in Afghanistan.

05/19/2008


While news reports like to speak of a "resurgent Taliban" in Afghanistan, in the 14 provinces that make up Regional Command East in Afghanistan they are a defeated military force. Not only do the Taliban refuse to engage American forces directly, they have not won an engagement with the Afghan National Army in a year. Even the unimpressive Afghan National Police have lately been winning battles with the insurgents.

.... Here on the eastern border and in the north of the country, the insurgency is largely a matter of IEDs and VBIEDs, with the occasional suicide bomber....But U.S. forces have made great progress in these six provinces. While only 22 of the 86 districts supported the government in early 2007 when Schweitzer took command and 58 at the end of 2007, 72 support it today. In the six eastern provinces, there were 3,400 Afghan National Security Forces in the beginning of 2007; there are now 12,450. And all of this has been at the cost of only 11 civilian casualties.

In early 2007, Custer, 43, developed a plan to meet the insurgency at the most local level. He decided to disperse his 187 paratroopers throughout the province, stationing 20 to 30 men in Force Protection Facilities (FPFs) in each of Khost's district centers. Living next door to a subgovernor's offices, they could protect him and his officials. (Subgovernors are like county executives in the United States....


From the FPFs, Afghans have received a sense of security that has fostered commerce and civil society. A thriving bazaar/truck stop has sprung up around the Shamal FPF as long-distance truckers plying the Kabul-Khost highway quickly made it a practice to spend the night near the safety of the U.S. troops. There's a new gas station near the Tani FPF. The Mandozai FPF has a popular clinic attached. Hundreds of Afghans come each day to the district center to visit the offices of a subgovernor for help and to settle disputes: things that would once have been handled through tribal channels and bribes. All of this is helping to connect Afghans to their government--an important step in the fiercely independent, isolationist Pashtun belt.

The new roads also help. Just 15 miles of blacktop were laid here by U.S. troops between 2002 and 2007. In the last year, that number has reached 75 miles of road either completed or in the final stages of paving. For 2008, 85 miles of new asphalt are in the works--35 miles of local roads and 50 miles of a highway linking the province to Kabul. Discretionary funds in the hands of commanders like Custer have been committed to a 10-mile road that will link two towns, Zanbar and Yaqubi, in Khost's most volatile district, Sabari. Another 18-mile road connecting the remote district of Spera with Shamal has been approved. The goal is to connect every district in Khost (and indeed in all six of the provinces in Schweitzer's area) with the provincial capital, Khost City, by a main road.

 

So instead of training combat troops to kill people and break things, we teach them to pave....Is this part of the New World Order?

Reminds me of the Clinton sending Marines down to the Caribbean to pick up trash.

 

When you have a combat objective and need a serious bridge, road, or underground shelter you call the Navy SeaBees or the Marine Corps Engineers to do the Job. Trust me there is a time an place for them and they are always appreciated by the combat troops.

 

You have absolutely no clue whereof you speak.

How do you think the Marine got there? Where'd he get his bullets from? His food? His water? His sleeping arrangements when he's not in a hole? His uniform and boots? His night vision goggles, communications equipment, and weapons?

For every Marine that "kills people and breaks things" there are at least 8, if not 25, military personnel who pack parachutes, slop food on a tray, make sure there are cots (and sometimes even beds with real mattresses), order the ammunition and new weapons, and even manage contracts to ensure he's got a place to wash his underwear.

A LOT of those military personnel engage in career fields like communications and computers, specializing in setting up antennas and computer networks, under fire. And the contribution of the SeaBees and civil engineers of all branches of the military ensure that there are roads to travel on--unless you somehow thought the Marine simply walks wherever he goes.

Let us not forget the C-17s, that take a small army themselves to fix, repair, load, and fly. Not to mention the ships that carry those Marines to lands far away.

No, methinks you really don't know what you're talking about.

 

You're probably right....I may not have read it right....my apologies.