Reservist aviators complain they were mistreated by the AD Army
A complaint as old as the nation (USAToday link);
Nearly 200 Reservists in Iraq have signed a complaint accusing the Army of mistreatment and discrimination during the months they were preparing for war.
The soldiers say their movements and freedoms were severely restricted during a four-month training before deployment, describing it as virtually a “lockdown” confinement to base. The Army says it was pushing to get Reservists trained and denies discriminatory treatment.
And to whom did they send the letter? Their Senator Mitch McConnell.
The complaint was written by Capt. Brad Docimo, an operations officer with the battalion, stationed at Camp Taji in Iraq. Home on leave, he declined to comment.
Good luck, guys. The militia complained about the way they were treated by regulars at Valley Forge, and you can see it did a fat lot of good. Maybe you should just suck it up and do what they trained you to do at Fort Hood.
Category: Military issues
This is an old complaint even if its new to this unit. When these guys mob they’re locked down. I pulled AC/RC duty early in the war and mod’d more then a few armor units. Its sucks worse for them. If big Army could lock us all down they would but they can use the mob/training excuse for the mobilizing units. This should be the call of the senior mobilizing unit leaders, based on training requirments.
They should be grateful they were locked down at the Hood. They could have been locked down at Camp Shelby, MS, like I was.
@# 2- Been to both (a lot) and I’d much rather be stuck on Hood than at Shelby, lmao!
What a bunch of little bitches. Shit like 200 people signing a complaint memo is the reason the reservists get shit on where ever they go.
Did they all ride in the same waaaahmbulance to wherever they signed the letter?
On the complaints – eh, that’s nothing.
John Curmudgeon, no – signing a letter isn’t why the Big Army treats reservists and Guardsmen like sh*t – it’s because Big Army allows its leaders to demonstrate contempt toward those who don’t wear the uniform 40 hours/week.
Where they got those guys on Hood, is North Fort which is not on main post. I don’t know the particulars of their situation but I have some friends who are trainers with First Army (the guys responsible for making sure they are ready to deploy)…I would imagine each unit shows up with a different level of readiness, so some might require the entire 4 months to get to where they should be…others maybe not.
I would say that it doesn’t reflect well on those guys to try and “fix” this situation the way they went about it. Additionally it only seres to reinforce the image of the RC whiner with some people (even if their complaints have some justification to them).
@#6 I like my reason better, but yours is more likely.
I remember well the NG’s and ER’s making fun of us in boot camp because they were going home and most of us were going to Vietnam after AIT. My heart bleeds for them. There was absolutely no love lost between US’s/RA’s and them. What really pissed us off was that they made them squad leaders and platoon guides because they had some prior trainging. We were the one’s that needed the experience. Screw em’.
Honor and Courage
Regulars stay in their normal barracks/housing while doing their MRXes in post training areas before going to the APOD. No change.
OK…I didn’t evaluate these guys, but after training four brigades as the battalion commander providing the training/mentors (O/Cs is too politically correct. First, the brigades are attempting to cram about 10 pounds of shit in a five pound bag. Every day of their Single Integrated Training Plan (SITP) has more requirements per day than soldiers. I have watched battalions conduct platoon lanes with no company or battalion supervision, and battalion FTXs conducted with no platoon level leadership because they were at a CERP money class. Even though the class was only six hours a day, the PLs/PSGs never came out. Crews, squads and platoons arrive at post mob training with no SOPs are even a passing knowledge of theater specific TTPs. Yet we see plenty of beer being brought into the PX and my guys ain’t drinking it. My SFCs (almost all with in theater PSG experience) don’t have POVs and live in the barracks. We’ve been gone 135 of the last 170 days. Hell, the only event on their training schedule that everyone participates in is their 4 day pass.
Instead of whining about this bullshit complaint, they should be using every second available to prep for deployment. Its hard to help someone who’s first concern is themselves. While some Brigades are better than others, I would be scared to deploy with them.
Instead of these whiny rotor heads, why isn’t anyone asking why the 45th BCT (OKARNG) was reslotted for Iraq from their Afghanistan mission immediately after their JRTC theater certification??
Wow, pretty easy to tell who the active duty types are on this post. But lets face it guys, you can talk all the smack you want, call us spares and part timers and weekend warriors, but face the facts, the active duty can’t fight a war without the reserves. So why not just treat us like part of the team? But then again that gets us back to what DaveO at #6 said (substituting HQMC for for Big Army of course).
Sorry, #12 was me.
It’s not easy to see soldiers deploying who are not ready. There is a limited amount of post mobilization training time available for these units. It pains me and my soldiers see units show up unprepared or failure to internalize standards such as battle drills, PCIs, and battle tracking. These are fundamental skill sets at the 10 and 20 level. We take units as they come since we don’t own them until post mobilization. But leaders must be present and engaged for units to learn and retain critical skills. We’re acutely aware of the number of of other requirements pulling them in different directions. But Army standards are standards whatever your component. THe Reserve components are part of the Army, and should be held accountable. If that’s talking smack, so be it. Own it.
When I see casualty reports of units we have trained, my first thought is if there was something we could have done to avoid it.
BTW, the deploying Brigade Commander signs off on their training plan before execution. Until the Army changes the ARFORGEN process for Title 32 Soldiers coming under Title 10 status, the State Guard owns them.
1AirCav, we had 3 pro athletes in our AIT company, two football players and a baseball player.
I don’t recall much animosity back and forth, just a lot of ribbing. They got to be squad leaders and platoon guides, and we got to serve chow, and eat last. Guess who made out better?
Wow. Just wow. I heard they were upset about the way they were treated at Fort Hood, but this is really not the way to deal with it.
The Battalion Commander is an old friend. I bet he’s just mortified by this.
#9
Honor and Courage
5th Cav?
No commander wants to find himself in that position. The fact they felt that their complaints could not be addressed by the chain of command doesn’t pass the sniff test. I’ve seen more than a few of these go from a connected soldier to the TAG or the congressman w/o the cdr even knowing. Utter disloyalty of that is the case.
It still doesn’t address the question of were they trained for their mission? The rest is just bitching.
I got only one word for them….*pussies*!
>But lets face it guys, you can talk all the smack you want, call us spares and part timers and weekend warriors
Actually I didn’t see a lot of this on the board. What I saw was sarcastic concern over who might or might not be trained for Iraq or Afghanistan. My husband just got back from Afghanistan in Feb. He is active Army Aviation (Blackhawk pilot). While he wasn’t locked down four months prior to deployment, he was pretty much GONE! They trained at NTC for the deployment i.e., dust landing etc. As active Aviation he flies everyday, and his training fell in line with what reservist were complaining they were “receiving.”
Aviation is a little different since you have to progress pilots, have so many with vision hours etc. I would venture to guess with the little time that the reservists get on their weekend a month and two weeks a year prior to deployment-that they didn’t progress how many they needed to be pcs etc imho.
>But lets face it guys, you can talk all the smack you want, call us spares and part timers and weekend warriors
Reservist and National Guard should quit whining whenever something like this happens then! My husband just got back from Afghanistan in Feb. He is active Army Aviation (Blackhawk pilot). While he wasn’t locked down four months prior to deployment, he was pretty much GONE! They trained at NTC for the deployment i.e., dust landing etc. As active Aviation he flies everyday, and his training fell in line with what reservist were complaining they were “receiving.”
Aviation is a little different since you have to progress pilots, have so many with vision hours etc. I would venture to guess with the little time that the reservists get on their weekend a month and two weeks a year prior to deployment-that they didn’t progress how many they needed to be pcs etc imho.
COB6
8TH CAV.
#12 It was a bit different back in my day. Very few reserves served in Vietnam as compared to today. Most joined the reserves to avoid going to Vietnam. I do see tons of reserves and I guess NG’s serving in combat today. Different times.
Honor and Courage
If joining the Reserves and the National Guard was intended to avoid Vietnam, that strategy didn’t work for the 5,977 reservists and 101 NG who were killed in that war.
DaveO; I wish I wore my uniform 40 hours a week. Unfortunately, 60-70 hours was more the norm. Our NG roundout brigade (48th Inf), for our division, was very good and very capable and we had nothing but respect for those guys. When we would take them with on our task force (they call them BCT these days) they would always perform at their best. Unfortunately, not all NG units were that way back then, but in today’s world, they perform at a much higher level than they used to.
They changed the rules to “lock down” mobing and demobing R/C while we were in theater in 2006-2007. They gave us a nice police escort parade through town along streets lined with flag-wavers, then unloaded us into a hangar and told us we couldn’t drink, wear civvies, or go off post until we got home.
It didn’t sit well, to say the least. We had been living and fighting with Navy and Air Force augmentees, plus a big chunk of NG from another state, for the better part of a year and would likely not see them again. Some of us had been planning our beer ops for six months or more.
Was it critical? No, of course not. But it did feel like a slap in the face, particularly when the A/C was free to head straight to the bars, subject to command discretion (a luxury not afforded our own command).
(I will say that our mobilization at Sill was three weeks of training packed into three months. I spent most of it TDY getting CMF-specific training that couldn’t be had at Sill, but that, too, was a major morale-killer. But we didn’t have any serious alcohol incidents to my knowledge.)
The whole deployment experience soured me on Big Army pretty thoroughly. I have spent over 7 of my 8 years in on active duty, but outside of TRADOC, it’s all been with my Guard unit.
AD likes to thumb their chests and to look down on NG/RC, but fact is that as a NG aviator I have the same flight minimums and APART requirements as AD. NG/RC aviators and support personnel spend significant amounts of time ADOS and AFTP in addition to drill weekends and AT training maintaining minimums in addition to our full time civilian employment. We don’t get 20 year retirement, full medical benefits, housing and food allowance, 1 month annual paid leave and non-charged passes for Federal holidays like AD (our civilian benefits are usually far inferior). I have no problem being subjected to the same Army standards and training requirements as AD, but we are all on the same side, fighting the same war and NG/RC should not be treated as second class. If AD pre-mob soldiers are entitled to personal time and off post privileges, why should a NG/RC unit that is fulfilling the same standards and training requirements be any different? Problem is that 1st Army doesn’t distinguish between NG/RC units that might need some extra training and those that do not. Instead, they just assume we are all dirt bag civilians and place us on complete lockdown during pre-mob.
The cav BDE that replaced us talked about their train up at Ft Bliss. Essentially on lock down for six months to train up for deployment. Why lock-down, well they were training EVERY day, because the AD trainers wanted to verify EVERY BLOCK.
Mind you this is OIF-II/III and before the manning requirements became critical in IV/V. III was 60% NG, with 42nd ID (the half rainbow) replacing 1st ID. In fact the major active component was 3rd ID. This is also when we saw a HUGE upswing in violence. Despite the battle of Najaaf, and several serious engagements 2004 was quiet compared to 2005-2006. So some AD leaders felt it was NG/RC’s fault that it got that bad. The overall plan at that point was bad, but NG/RC took the heat for it.
NG/RC had already taken a lot of flak at this point about decades of lax training and carrying people on the rolls that had long since given up going to drill. Some units, completely unprepared for call-ups had less than 60% strength though they reported much higher, which lead to the IRR call ups (many of which were AD troopers that had JUST gotten off deployment/stop loss).
Add these together, throw in a couple of 50 YO SPCs, and a few SFCs that last heard a shot fired in anger in VIETNAM, and its really not hard to see why AD didn’t think that NG/RC could find its ass from a hole in the ground. Is it fair? No, probably not. But that is the way it is.
>We don’t get 20 year retirement, full medical benefits, housing and food allowance, 1 month annual paid leave and non-charged passes for Federal holidays like AD (our civilian benefits are usually far inferior).
I think it is honorable that you serve, but I don’t understand the whining.. Good God if I whined everytime I thought the military wasn’t fair(they once lost everything I owned)..
My husband flew on a Thursday prior to leaving.. He was suppose to get a few days off to be with his family. He left on the Friday after he flew..He went to NTC prior to deployment.
When you come home.. your wife/family gets the benefit of you as a civilian.. My husband comes home as a soldier first and foremost. He came home in February… Leave wasn’t even given until May/June..We got a few four day weekends and then it was back to preparing for another deployment while you went back to your 9-5..See how it all evens out- that is why active gets the “wonderful” (don’t let the sarcasm hit you) benefits… Btw, that month leave is wonderful if a unit can ever find time for my husband to be able to take it.
You may be subject to the same “minimums” as my husband, but I highly doubt as an NG/RC, you fly anywhere near the amount that he does. I certainly wouldn’t want a “minimum” co-pilot with my husband.
You signed up for what you signed up for. The Military is what it is.
I challenge any of you who posted negative comments to actually contact someone in the unit and read the congressional inquiry prior to passing judgment. All the talk focuses on alcohol and off-post privileges, but there is far more to it. Alcohol is not even discussed until page 8 of the 12 page inquiry. This was also about Soldiers losing jobs, paying for family medical care out of pocket, losing accrued leave, being ordered to remain in uniform while on Christmas leave, and more—-in addition to being kept on lockdown.
To those who commented to say we should stop being so [soft], don’t mistake this as a complaint about training; tough training, we’ll take any day. The complaint was NOT about the month we spent in the field–but about our time in garrison. Drive us into the ground, work us 18-20 hour days, and push our limits until we meet or exceed the standard. However, after satisfying all requirements and the cadre go home, don’t restrict us like prisoners. First Army says being on lockdown better prepares us for combat, to which I pose the following question, “Why do the same restrictions also apply AFTER we come home from war?”
To those who claim incompetence and inability within the Reserves/Guard, I offer up the aforementioned 8-229 Flying Tigers as an example. While deploying, our unit completed the Active Duty Unit Fielding and Training Program (UFTP), conducted by the same people, in the same location, and according to the same standards as every Active Duty attack battalion. During UFTP, our unit broke every record for hours flown, missions supported, and gallons of fuel pumped for all units EVER attending the program—Active or Reserve. In Iraq, our unit continues to excel, flying more hours and supporting more missions than the Active Duty unit we replaced. There are good and bad Soldiers in every unit, as there are good and bad units in the Army, Active or Reserve. It is a mistake to make blanket accusations against everyone in an organization over the failings of a few.
So here it is 2012 and nothing has changed. Another aviation unit made up of great people treated like crap at an active duty Army post. The same issues are here today as they were 10 years ago. Requests for leave, pass and other morale boosters are routinely turned down by higher HQ. No reasons, just turned down. Nothing will change but the Guard can change. Start turning down requests from the Active duty. Make them pay for everything while training in your state. No more checkrides, no more fuel until they remove General Order number One and start treating us as peers. Statistics don’t lie. National Guard soldiers have higher educations, more experience and can handle more things at once than their active duty counterparts. After all, we hold down real jobs on the civilian side.
@31
Then go active.
@#30 This is true what you are saying because first army and 21st cav both said that we broke all those records along we saying we the 8/229th ARB were one of the best trained unit to mob threw Hood in quite a while. Even tho we was treated different from the active component it just made us prove that we didn’t have to say a word cause people may lie but numbers don’t. So just check the stats far as reservist /national guard or active it doesn’t matter. Just do your job and CM. I’ve been on both sides of the gate. I’ve done active and reserve but shit the same rather it’s 30 days or 3.