Common Sense for Uncommon Times - Fair and Balanced |
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Random, occasionally rambling thoughts with links to interesting, scandalous, or partisan news of the day. Fair and Balanced 
We owe the liberty and freedom we take for granted to the enlisted men and women in the armed forces. They sacrifice family, ease, and even life laboring in service to all of us. The least we can do for them is honor their devotion with dignified pay scales, decent education for themselves and their children, and reasonable compensation for service away from their families and death on the battlefield. Flag waving politicians who praise the troops on one hand and cut their pay and benefits with the other should be deeply ashamed of themselves.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
An Embarassment of Caution Maj. Keith Waddell, commander of the 769th Engineer Battalion, said his unit was never asked to quell the violence at the convention center. "The idea of helping with the convention center never came up," he said. "We were just preparing ourselves for the next mission." Waddell said he believes that, if so ordered, the Louisiana Guard forces present would have been adequate to get the center under control. "I feel confident we could have controlled it, with the numbers we had," Waddell said. But senior commanders indicated they had ruled out that possibility. Col. Stephen C. Dabadie, chief of staff of the Louisiana National Guard, said the engineer units were "not designed to secure the convention center." Please excuse me for being a little irate with the command structure of the Louisiana National Guard. I can understand a surfeit of caution when confronting armed gangs, but those were American citizens in distress in the Convention Center. The guard's inaction was a despicable abandonment of their true duties to help their fellow Americans. My boy scout troop would have been more proactive. posted by Dave on 10:47 PM | 0 comments link -------------------- |