Army forced to eat seed corn

[MSgt213]

Army's desert OPFOR on the way to Iraq

Deployment of elite training regiment could have bad long-term implications for the Army

The Los Angeles Times provides a long report in Sunday's paper on the deployment of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, dubbed "Blackhorse" for the stallion on its shoulder patch, to Iraq for a year of combat duty. The regiment has long served as as the opposing force, or "OPFOR", for units from other installations coming to train at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. Now, with the Army stretched to practically its breaking point over the Iraq and Afghanistan missions, the Army has turned to the Blackhorse regiment for help.

For years, The Box has been a stage for the Army's elite "opposition force" — soldiers expert at assuming the roles of enemy fighters, be they the Taliban or Iraqi insurgents. Their mission is to toughen new soldiers with elaborate simulations — staging sniper fire, riots, suicide car bombings and potentially dangerous culture clashes.

Staging such scenes has long been the work of the fabled 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, or Black Horse Regiment. But starting next month, the 3,500-member unit will begin shipping out to Iraq from the Ft. Irwin National Training Center, near Barstow. Deployments are nothing new in the Army, of course, but there is a special sense of urgency about dispatching the Black Horse to tackle situations that it has trained roughly 500,000 soldiers to handle since 1994. Now the bombs and bullets they encounter will be all too real.

"No one ever thought the Black Horse would be taken out of the National Training Center; they are just too valuable here," said Maj. John Clearwater. "But the Army is stretched too thin, and Iraq is a big mission."

http://www.intel-dump.com/archives/archive_2004_10_14.shtml#1098022068

[aden_nak]

1. Bush's Army is very corperate. Cut the Training programs.

One of the first things to go in any big business, when they are trying to cut costs and do less with more (in this case manpower) is to cut the training programs. Why? Because it's the least noticeable change in the SHORT TERM. And like an executive that knows he will be cashing in his stock options soon (be it in 2005 or 2009), Bush is really only concerned with short term performance. As for the long term, the good and the survival of the company (in our case, the nation)?

Fuck 'em, apparently.

[TahitiNut]

6. Corporations have become even more insane over the years.

Once upon a time, when unions were stronger, corporations were coerced in to acting in a healthy way. When they laid off workers, those with the least experience/seniority were the first to go. While the corporations failed to recognize that was in their best interest in the long run, unions imposed this. In preserving the jobs of the most experienced, corporations survived hard times far better - preserving the corporate identity and the huge amount of 'unwritten knowledge' about effective and efficient operations. Then, as they again expanded, these people were able to train new employees, both informally (OJT) and formally (internal industrial training).

No longer. Corporations now brainlessly exterminate the most experienced employees, and those employees most attuned to the the improvements the corporations require. Thus, they kill off their own most healthy parts and become even more parasitic on their political hosts.

Corporations are brainless, soulless creatures. Unless regulated with some external wisdom, they're self-destructive parasites on the body politic. A decent regulatory and legal framework, like parenting a child, coerces these brainless creatures into acting in their own long-term self-interest - if only in not killing their host, the body politic.

[aden_nak]

8. It is the GOALS that have changed.

Corperations are not thinking creatures (despite the fact that they have legal status as an individual for reasons that make my blood pressure spike). Corperations are the sum of the intellects, or lack there-of, of their management. Their management very often has only moderate interest in the long-term life of the company. So firing all of the high-paid workers (read: experienced) and replacing them with interns and first-time-jobbers at 1/4 of the salary is great for them, and bad for their company.

[aquart]

2. What next?

[Ganja Ninja]

3. Don't believe those draft rumors you hear on the internets.

It's all unfounded gosip. </sarcasm>

[MSgt213]

5. Its drafts not draft. U obiviously know grammer to well.

[madrchsod]

4. in the last days before the fall

the germans had to send boys and old men to save the homeland. just who do we have left? the eagle scouts?

[Divernan]

7. Well said. They'll be drafting our young men & women by mid-November

if Bush steals this election too.

[diamond14]

9. seed corn has TOXIC levels of fungicides and other chemicals on it

there have been noted cases of DEATHS in people forced to eat seeds and seed corn, dying from toxic levels of fungicides (many arsenic-based)...the fungicides keep fungi from growing in stored seed, and do NOT affect the plants grown from those seeds...

[charlie]

10. Uh-oh

Having an Emily Litella moment? :)

[jmowreader]

11. You read the headline a bit too literally

No, Halliburton isn't hauling seed corn to Iraq and feeding it to our troops. It's too expensive to do that with.

What they are doing is sending the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq. The 11th ACR is responsible for training our combat units.

[Sporadicus]

14. We're Talking Metaphorical Seed Corn - Not the Real Thing n/t

[TexasSissy]

12. Don't know what your article has to do w/the title.

Where's the bit about the seed corn?

But regardless of that....if the military thinks it is not being commanded correctly, they can always vote in a different leader. The latest polls indicate that they will not. So there you go.

[gratuitous]

13. When an agricultural society eats its seed for the next year

It usually augurs a desperate situation. In this case, the folks in question have been a group that trains new soldiers in the ways of the enemy that they'll be fighting. The adopt the strategies and tactics of, say, the Taliban, so that new soldiers can practice against those strategies and tactics before they get to their particular arena. By throwing this group into actual fighting, that means that the soldiers who follow will be deprived of their special abilities to simulate the fight they're about to get into.

Think of it as a football team heading into the season without training camp or exhibition games if that metaphor makes more sense.