AARP member embeds with Fobbits
MEW sent us this link and asked me to kindly rip this lady, Ann Jones, “a new one”. Well, to do that, i have to give some background on the woman. This embed wasn’t her first trip to Afghanistan…she had spent time with Afghan civilians and writes about Afghan women and the influence of the war on their lives. Ya know, that’s all well and good, but she really shouldn’t carry all of that social baggage with her when she goes to watch the Army’s Fobbits at work.
But the odd thing is that no one seems to question the relative cushiness of this life at war (nor the inequity of the hardscrabble civilian life left behind) — least of all those best able to observe firsthand the contrast between our garrisons and the humble equipment and living conditions of Afghans, both friend and foe. Rather, the contrast seems to inspire many soldiers with renewed appreciation of “our American way of life” and a determination to “do good things” for the Afghan people, just as many feel they did for the people of Iraq.
I emphasize all this because nothing I’d read about soldiering prepared me for the extent of these comforts — or the tedium that attends them. Plenty of soldiers don’t leave the base. They hold down desk jobs, issue supplies, manage logistics, repair vehicles or radios, refuel generators and trucks, plan “development” projects, handle public affairs, or update tactical maps inscribed (at certain locations I am obliged not to name) with admonitions like “Here Be Dragons” or “Here Do Bad Stuff.” They face the boredom of ordinary, unheroic, repetitive tasks.
So you can see the cranky [insert insulting term for a critical old woman here] really doesn’t know what she’s doing there, so she complains about the opulent conditions which she didn’t expect. She picked up on the Fobbits complaints and without talking to combat soldiers, painted with a broad brush across them all. She spent two weeks at the FOB, went on one patrol and now she understands everything – Americans are spoiled, stupid brats.
What a waste of an embed slot.
Category: Military issues
This woman is so allergic to testosterone, I’m surprised she didn’t have to take shots to be around the soldiers.
“Americans are spoiled, stupid brats.”If that is the truth, she be their queen.
The aspect that never occurs to these people is that for some reason or somehow our deployed service members are supposed to live in misery. Anything less then sleeping on the ground covered only by a blanky with none of the amenities of normal life are simply not permitted. It is this attitude that drives me absolutely nuts.
Sure the guys on the pointy end, of which I was one and I despised the REMF’s with every fiber of my being while I lived the life of Grizzly Adams, I never thought that they should be living like me to do their job. Oh I wanted them to, but I knew that was not necessary and so just remained envious and cursed my recruiter for selling me on the Infantry. Do these people think the owner of a construction company has an office on the job site with the workers? They don’t see the disconnect in their thinking.
(Well I only hated REMF’s until spent some time as one. Those damn grunts don’t know how hard we actually worked. Those damn generators don’t run by themselves ya know!)
“Plenty of soldiers don’t leave the base. They hold down desk jobs, issue supplies, manage logistics, repair vehicles or radios, refuel generators and trucks, plan “development” projects, handle public affairs, or update tactical maps inscribed (at certain locations I am obliged not to name) with admonitions like “Here Be Dragons” or “Here Do Bad Stuff.” They face the boredom of ordinary, unheroic, repetitive tasks.”
I appreciate any media coverage that attempts to illustrate that the military and deployments are more complex than the general public perception. It’s the first step toward recognizing that the Matthises of the world are not battle-hardened warriors just because they once set foot in Afghanistan.
And at least she didn’t attempt to disguise her opinions as facts.
That’s about all I can say about this article that’s positive.
Jonn, I saw(I could have sworn I read it though) this somewhere and had the exact same reaction you had. This crazy Bat hung around a bunch of remfs/fobbits(oh sorry she tagged along for a patrol-OOOH) for a while and used that to paint the entire army.
She’s not the only one to do this, I’ve read a few Marines doing the same thing, and then commenting on the entire army(thats the way “Big Army” rolls). The soldiers at the manuever battalion level and below, the Cop(company) and patrol(platoon) bases have a much more austere experience in country.
Wow–someone call her a “combat vet”. She spent DOUBLE the amount of time in the ‘Stan as Chiroux. She’s like, fuckin hard-core and shit. Get her an IVAW t-shirt, pronto!
Hey, sweetheart–do a 60-day SSN Spec Op, a 90-100 day ice run, or a 70-day SSBN patrol. Cush? Sure, maybe when they break out the good food for Halfway Night, but that’s about it. I’ll not begrudge the FOBbits or shore duty pukes their perks–hell, if I was there, I’d take what I could get as well. And when you get down to it, yeah, a lot of what even the grunts or guys underway do is mundane, boring, even “unheroic”. But I don’t see you stepping up.
#6 NH:
Yeah, she’s a combat vet, alright. She keeps combating the vet to keep from getting her rabies and distemper shots updated…
I seem to have some subconscious desire to see this woman jabbed with a needle…I keep talking about her getting shots. I wonder what THAT’S all about….
They don’t call it the pointy end of the spear ’cause there are a bunch of fat supply clerks on it…
She hopefully theorizes on how we could mistreat our Soldiers so that they would mutiny, so I don’t think her exposure to FOBs is the problem, here.
Given the lack of quotes and the general feeling of confusion that permeates the piece, I’m thinking she went ot Afghanistan and didn’t actually know how to talk to any of the personnel there. If this chucklehead showed up in my AO, I wouldn’t take her anywhere, either.
Read the article and this POS hack writer was biased from the beginning. This bleeding heart B***H would not have written any different if she was out at the smallest outpost in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan. Hell she could get grabbed by the Taliban and still blame our country.
Some of us fobbits in Iraq tried to do as much as we could for the warfighters. Especially since some of us had been in combat arms in other wars. Sadly, there were some fobbits, I wanted to give a swift kick for being HUA in a war zone.
Hey, don’t be dissin’ my FOBits beyotch!!!
Eh, at least she’s honest about her crap she’s giving ’em and us. “Hey, you kids, get offa my lawn!” and all.
She’s a 60 era re-tread. And the MSM wonders why we’ve stopped paying attention to their whining.