Yesterday said:
All I know is junior enlisted Marines are NJP'd if not court martialed for losing a single M-16. We lost billions in arms and not a single person was held responsible.
When I was at TBS I awoke one morning to find another platoon of 2nd Lieutenants slowly combing our bivouac site shoulder-to-shoulder because one numbskull lost a PVS-14 - that's a night-vision monocle for those of you unfamiliar - when they had occupied the area the day before. Weighs about a quarter-pound and runs on a single AA battery. They did find it, but only because their staff platoon commander made them search until they did. No questioning the importance of that little device, notwithstanding that there was no danger of it falling into enemy hands in the middle of a Marine Corps base. From then until graduation every piece of equipment with a serial number on it had to be dummy-corded to every lieutenant's body in Charlie company. Everything, that is, except for our weapons - until one guy DID lose his rifle during another FEX, and the rest of us had to dummy-cord our weapons to ourselves out in the field. As my fire team's SAW gunner, it made going to the bathroom a complicated endeavor.
All of us who served have our own stories about losing gear. It's never ok.
And yet. There aren't words to express the anger we feel about gifting all of our weapons and equipment to the enemy, but I'll try. In ancient Sparta, a hoplite would never be forgiven for losing his shield, because that shield protects the entire city. If so much as one gap opened up in the phalanx, the entire battle line would fail. That's how it was as a Marine (or soldier) - your rifle protects your country. The Afghanistan withdrawal proved that our national leadership had no respect or understanding of this truth. And, y'know, having been raised in Quantico by sergeant instructors and not in Washington by politicians, I have this funny idea in my brain housing group that leaders are held to
higher standards than everyone else.
Trump made the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, but Biden (ostensibly) carried it out. This was not an unavoidable accident. At
some point,
someone in the chain of command must have told
someone at the National Command Authority that we could not meet the withdrawal timeframe
and maintain accountability of all the weapons, vehicles, and equipment, and
someone with the authority to say so told them to leave it all behind.
Boils my blood. Doesn't rise to the level of treason, but whoever is responsible must never be trusted to run anything ever again. If there is a legal way to punish them for it, I'm in favor.
