2-3 Infantry out of JBLM will be attached to 1-23 Infantry Regiment, 1/2 Infantry Division when they head to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin here soon and will provide security for approximately 15,000 displaced Afghan refugees.
Here’s where the fun begins: they’re loading up their camping gear for an indeterminate amount of time because they’ll be living in tents while the Afghans live in barracks. Ok, ok, no big deal, right? There’s only so much room, and we have no idea how long they’ll be there. They’ll probably shift units in and out. Makes sense to keep them in hard structures where they can be contained and maintain some bit of stability.
But what about the food? The element from JBLM is bringing MREs because the DFAC (that’s a dining facility, or “mess hall” for you water folk) won’t have enough food.
Somehow, on a stateside military installation, we can’t get our folks some hot chow. This all sounds a little suspect to me. I simply can’t wrap my head around how the military got so bad at planning and logistics.
In the last year and a half we have shit the bed when it comes to logistics at almost every turn. Or maybe I should say the logistics of food. There have been units across every theater who have had to ration, scrimp and sometimes cut out eating all together while quarantined (looking at you in particular, EUCOM).
Just recently we bungled the Afghan withdrawal in such a grotesque manner that it makes Saigon look like a practice run for the real thing. The National Guard doesn’t have any money after blowing it all on D.C., and now we’re saying we can’t feed our troops anything other than meals in a bag that were designed to last for 20 years and either turn into a rock in your guts or turns you into a human fondue fountain.
To top it all off, leadership in these units is running around telling everyone that Taliban number in the thousands among the refugees, and they’ll have to secure the area even though they won’t be deploying with weapons or kit.
There’s no way to gauge who is and isn’t a threat within the camps. These leaders are likely fear mongering to keep joe on his feet while not getting too lackadaisical. However, there were certainly some bad eggs who made it into the group.
At this point I’ve learned to expect the worst from anyone involved with any sort of planning in the DOD, and this is no different. We’re walking (sprinting) into uncharted territory here, and that’s usually a que to slow down and make sounds decisions. Don’t ask questions though. They’ll relieve you and turn you into a media spectacle if you do….