And now insult to injury…

Today BO signed an executive order allowing call up of the Reserves and National Guard to ‘support’  the African Ebola mission…

It’s on AP, so I won’t quote it, but the link is HERE.

The Reserves and Guard are ‘supposedly’ only used when active duty personnel aren’t available…

WTF???

I can’t help but wonder if this is yet another ploy by the administration to run people out of the Reserves and Guard units, or whether they even care about these folks at all… So far Marines, Seabees and Army are in play.  I’m betting the USAF will end up flying hardware/people into the area.

So will they also be quarantining airplanes?  What if???  The Air Force is hurting NOW for enough planes to accomplish their transport missions, if they have to take 3,4,5 out of service and quarantine those aircrews, then what happens? And where do they do it???

IMHO, this has the potential to get really ugly for our folks going (once again) in harms way…

Comments

And now insult to injury… — 20 Comments

  1. So VERY glad they offered anyone who wanted out the chance. If you had under a year left, you were welcome to leave. I sign my walking papers monday, if all goes well.

    This administration can kiss my ass.

    S/F

  2. Heath- I hate that you’re doing that, but I can’t say that I blame you at all!

    Rick- Yeah…

    • Would you go into the military as a young man in THIS ENVIRONMENT, knowing what you know. Old NFO?

  3. Retired LtC ANC here. The main reason is NG/Reserves are approx. 80%of the medical assets of the military and AD have been stretched thin for 15 yrs now. Heal fast old man.

    • X2, certainly true in the Navy/USMC. They’ll send the medical people and the Seabees to go and catch ebola.

      There is another approach. Containment and/or sterilization. I realize that we’d never do that, but that is an appropriate military mission.

  4. Alan- I know… But they aren’t sending THEM, they’re talking about sending CE/Seabee types…

  5. LL- NO! And regretfully I’m advising people AGAINST the military for the first time in my life… dammit.

    LL- Problem is they won’t be doing either… Just building/maintaining treatment facilities…

  6. In Mark Chapter 4, Jesus is in a “large boat” and “small ships” are nearby, following.
    The storm comes up, and Jesus sleeps.
    The disciples wake Him up and He stops the storm sinking their large boat.
    I believe it’s implied He slept through the sinking of the small ships.
    Moral: You can’t fix everything. Some stuff you just sleep through.

  7. Talking about this with the FodGuy this evening – per HIM, Øbama can’t legally do it – there’s that little bit of law that maintains the National Guard under their respective Governors, unless / until the President declares a national emergency, or Congress declares war ………………….. not that Øbama & Co., have allowed any minor issues like “legality” or “Constitutionality” impede them before ………………
    Semper Fi’
    DM

  8. If the troops aren’t in the US they can’t vote. Since they are called up on such short notice, no absentee ballots can be prepared in time.

    Hence, several thousand people who usually vote Republican aren’t able to cast their votes, to make up for the lack of Dem voters going to the polls.

    Just a thought.

  9. I don’t understand it either. Health professionals, trained on how to stay safe from Ebola, are catching it in our hospitals. Training individuals with a fast track course and throwing them in Ground Zero – you think that is going to help ? Playing ‘Frogger’ on the Santa Monica freeway would be safer.

    Even if these individuals are no where near the sick, the infected have to travel in the area. One cough, one hand infected with materials, its invisible and silent, how would you know where that material is ?

    This had better be hazard pay is all I’m saying.

  10. Ed- You do have a point…

    DM- Since when has he cared??? Sigh…

    Mark- Hadn’t thought of that… Now depending on ‘which’ ones get called up, you might have hit on something…

    j.r.- Good point also. But I’m betting there won’t be… Since they changed it to you had to actually be shot at to get combat pay in theater… sigh

  11. “Bear any burden; pay any sacrifice….” wait; wasn’t that guy a Dem too?

    I already got my Humanitarian Service Medal for Haiti. And Katrina. I’m good.

  12. I’m pretty much in tune with everyone in comments above me. “Ugly” doesn’t BEGIN to describe this situation.

  13. Wouldn’t it be nice if some governor had the balls to tell the nitwh to f**k off and die? He could say that he needed his NG units in the state to deal with obola, enterovirus, TB, and various other diseases that the feds have brought into his state(and the country).
    I suspect that it would only take one governor standing up to start a run(well, except for the blue states – and who cares what they do).

  14. CEs and SeaBees, plus Medical, presumably. If you absolutely had to deploy somebody to the area, I would’ve recommended a few CBRN Specialists, as well. Then again, having your humanitarian aid photo opp spoiled by your troops being in MOPP 4 would be a non-starter with THIS White House, wouldn’t it?… Jackass REMFs

    Personally, I’d be the most hated man in the media after I announced the travel ban, quarantine, and summed it up by saying, “Sorry, Nigeria, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, but when the compartment’s flooding, sometimes you just get caught on the wrong side of the hatch…”

  15. “Fundamentally Transform”

    Yup, going along just as planned.