I've been listening to the MSNBC coverage of the last Stryker Brigade to leave Iraq. Interestingly, Stryker Fighting Vehicles are named after two enlisted Medal of Honor Winners, one in WWII and one in Vietnam, and Stryker Avenue on Fort Lewis is one of the main drags through the area where the Brigade -- 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division -- calls home this days. Keith Obermann and others on MSNBC kept talking about how big these things are. They're not all that big--22 feet long, about 8 feet wide, and weighing in at about 16 tons. If you want size, find an Abrams Tank. Or a tank recovery vehicle...
Other friends of mine have speculated that there may be a lot of fun brewing in Iraq. The Brigade goes, and there's only 50,000 or so US types. Well, as Col Jack Jacobs, a Vietnam era Medal of Honor Winner pointed out while I was listening, when he was an adviser with the Vietnamese Army after US Combat Operations were officially over, he was in combat every day. In fact, his biography, "If Not Now, When?"Duty and Sacrifice in America's Time of Need he tells of calling for artillery support one night when they could see a huge North Vietnamese Army convoy coming south, and the only thing available was...the Battleship Missouri. I don't really know of anyone else in Vietnam or anyplace else since possibly Korea who was able to call for and adjust naval gunfire on target of opportunity. Normally, when you say "Fire For Effect" as Jack points out, the supporting fires are multiple volleys of multiple guns. In this case, the ship's FDC fired one turret and four rounds. Nothing left. The book is a good read, by the way. Jack was a little guy, a ROTC guy and deserves a lot. He fought to get out of a dream assignment -- Command of a Student Officer Candidate School Company at Fort Benning -- to go back to combat. We are reluctant to have our heroes expose themselves multiple times.
So, all those Army guys who are left come with guns. All the advisers come with guns. All those trainers come with guns. All those logisticians come with guns. The Chaplains and the Doctors probably don't come with guns, but they have lots of guys and gals around with guns. The State Department has hired an additional 7000 "Security Contractors" to help out. While definitely not XE(Blackwater), this is also a bunch of guys with guns. I suspect things in Iraq will be quiet until about January 2, 2012 -- by quiet, I mean about the same level of fratricidal madness that's going on now. If the government there can't get it's act together by then, the place will light up like Mogadishu on a Saturday night after the dope harvest has come in...
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