Kid brother update (slightly OT)

[kato13]

Ed the Coastie 04-21-2004, 10:33 PM Just thought I would mention that I heard from my kid brother, who was recently sent to Iraq with his Washington National Guard unit and is serving as a .50 gunner on a HMMWV, has been in his first firefight; he apparently acquitted himself well and has earned the Combat Infantry Badge. I'm understandably a bit worried for him, but rather proud as well.


Hearing from Tim brought to mind an incident several years ago when I went to NTC with several other Reserve and National Guard units in our Division. By sheer happenstance, one of my other brothers (Scott) was a Regular Army tank driver, another brother (Bill) was a National Guard MP, and our aunt was an Army Reserve chaplain. We all got together for lunch before we went our seperate ways.


Remembering that incident got me to thinking...I know that the military attempts to keep relatives out of the same unit, or at least out of each other's chain of command. But I wonder just what would happen in a situation like the Twilight War...would the military abandon that philosphy and simply fill unit vacancies based upon the "warm body" principle? That could very well have happened to Scott and I...if I remember correctly, both of our units would have been participating in the attack upon Kalisz.

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Andy-Shot 04-22-2004, 07:26 AM I would imagine as communication broke down between the fronts and command and control in the United States, there would be no real way to tell who was killed and who wasnt for them to pull troops. On top of that, the situation seemed pretty desperate, so I doubt that they would pull them out, and if they watned to, where would they go? How would they get home anyway?


All asses and elbows report to the front I think was the philosophy at this point.

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