"In 2004, Duckworth was deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard. On November 12, 2004, her helicopter was hit by an RPG and she lost her legs and partial use of her right arm."
Ironically, you and Jeff both have a point (though you definitely have the better of the argument). While the mission was not intended to involve combat (she was doing a supply run), it was in a combat zone and she was engaged by a combatant and injured by the warhead's detonation. Fortunately, her copilot was able to land the helicopter and, with help from personnel on her "wingman's" helicopter, evacuate then-Capt Duckworth on the other Blackhawk.
So, I won't split hairs. I was incorrect and corrected the post. She was on a supply mission. If the Red Ball Express in WW2 were attacked, they would receive all the military honors they were entitled to. If we want to talk about what is more dangerous, combat is significantly more dangerous than supply missions. But again, I don't want to split hairs.
Training accidents, friendly fire, illnesses suffered from deployments, and other casualties that don't come directly from enemy action are all still casualties in defense of the country. Getting shot by the enemy is only one of the risks we ask military people to take.
I would also state that I wouldn't take a Senators website as gospel. See Richard Blumenthal. Sen Kerry also vastly overstated his "combat" experience as well. How do I know about Kerry? Not from the Swift boat guys. A family relation was in Vietnam and ran the hook in the Mekong River between Cambodia and Vietnam. Exactly where Kerry said he was-and my family relation who knew every boat in and out said Kerry was never there. He also said that they saw combat on every mission. Most people when they got a scratch or something threw out the paperwork for the Purple Heart. Kerry didn't.
Carter, do you have any military experience? Any, sweeping floors in base. How do you find yourself qualified to say who is hero and who is not based on bla, bla. Stay with economics even that is not your strongest side to.
Does it matter if I have military experience? Kerry lied about his. So did Blumenthal. So do a lot of people. I have been pretty transparent about my military experience which is not much. I went to USAFA and dropped out.
I might also add, I know or knew a lot of actual heroes. None of them every called themself a hero and they also were very very sheepish about being called out as one. Most people I know that went into combat never ever want to chat about it.
The fact that our pseudo-President makes bad decisions and confabulates about his lost son's service is hardly surprising. Nor is it surprising that bad decisions are made by our surrender-first diplomatic corps. What's not forgivable is that military officers who knew better saluted and not only participated in this debacle but encouraged it.
I have my grandmother's small diary. She had a 4th grade education. While the Battle of Iwo Jima was on she was petrified every day that something bad would happen to her "Jimmy". What news they had way out in the rural areas was sparse and mostly old newspapers and a very little radio. She feared every day that a military representative would show up at her door with very bad news. My father was wounded twice but survived through the end of the war.
I remember a photo of my uncle (Paul Kermit Duncan, PFC USMC) in uniform and a framed telegram from the Navy informing the family that he had been Killed In Action on Saipan.
My grandfather was the rural mail carrier in their farming village, I've often wondered whether he delivered the bad news or if Western Union sent someone out from town.
If memory serves, it was Trump who telegraphed the date of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a country the U.S. should never have invaded in the first place. I think most American citizens/voters would agree, which is why Trump decided to announce the end of the attempt at regime change in Afghanistan in the run up to the last election.Telling the enemy when you're going to move your troops is always a sign of incompetence. Biden is no more incompetent than Trump in that respect. Both are opportunists. And for the record, it was Jimmy Carter, taking advice from Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, a Polish-American diplomat with a visceral hatred of the Soviets for occupying Poland, to get the Soviet's to invade that graveyard of empires and then to use the CIA to recruit political Islamists to go on a jihad to get them out. U.S. military apparatus got involved in that benighted country through an invasion ordered by G.W. Bush. Talk about incompetence, it's everywhere amongst our fearless leaders.
Good God, that's fundamentally dishonest. The issue isn't whether we get out; few people disagree our presence in Afghanistan should have ended years ago. It's HOW we ultimately left. This administration, and the military leadership, could not have screwed this up this badly if they intended to do so. And THAT is entirely on Biden's head.
From https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/about-tammy/biography :
"In 2004, Duckworth was deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard. On November 12, 2004, her helicopter was hit by an RPG and she lost her legs and partial use of her right arm."
Doesn't sound like a training accident to me.
Ironically, you and Jeff both have a point (though you definitely have the better of the argument). While the mission was not intended to involve combat (she was doing a supply run), it was in a combat zone and she was engaged by a combatant and injured by the warhead's detonation. Fortunately, her copilot was able to land the helicopter and, with help from personnel on her "wingman's" helicopter, evacuate then-Capt Duckworth on the other Blackhawk.
So, I won't split hairs. I was incorrect and corrected the post. She was on a supply mission. If the Red Ball Express in WW2 were attacked, they would receive all the military honors they were entitled to. If we want to talk about what is more dangerous, combat is significantly more dangerous than supply missions. But again, I don't want to split hairs.
If that is the record, that is the record. I read where it was a training accident.
Training accidents, friendly fire, illnesses suffered from deployments, and other casualties that don't come directly from enemy action are all still casualties in defense of the country. Getting shot by the enemy is only one of the risks we ask military people to take.
I disagree on training accidents versus being in battle with the enemy. It's sad, but it is different. I will correct the post on Duckworth's record.
I would also state that I wouldn't take a Senators website as gospel. See Richard Blumenthal. Sen Kerry also vastly overstated his "combat" experience as well. How do I know about Kerry? Not from the Swift boat guys. A family relation was in Vietnam and ran the hook in the Mekong River between Cambodia and Vietnam. Exactly where Kerry said he was-and my family relation who knew every boat in and out said Kerry was never there. He also said that they saw combat on every mission. Most people when they got a scratch or something threw out the paperwork for the Purple Heart. Kerry didn't.
Carter, do you have any military experience? Any, sweeping floors in base. How do you find yourself qualified to say who is hero and who is not based on bla, bla. Stay with economics even that is not your strongest side to.
Does it matter if I have military experience? Kerry lied about his. So did Blumenthal. So do a lot of people. I have been pretty transparent about my military experience which is not much. I went to USAFA and dropped out.
I might also add, I know or knew a lot of actual heroes. None of them every called themself a hero and they also were very very sheepish about being called out as one. Most people I know that went into combat never ever want to chat about it.
What hapend with Bush W.
The fact that our pseudo-President makes bad decisions and confabulates about his lost son's service is hardly surprising. Nor is it surprising that bad decisions are made by our surrender-first diplomatic corps. What's not forgivable is that military officers who knew better saluted and not only participated in this debacle but encouraged it.
Absolutely correct, sir.
I have my grandmother's small diary. She had a 4th grade education. While the Battle of Iwo Jima was on she was petrified every day that something bad would happen to her "Jimmy". What news they had way out in the rural areas was sparse and mostly old newspapers and a very little radio. She feared every day that a military representative would show up at her door with very bad news. My father was wounded twice but survived through the end of the war.
The times were, indeed, very different.
I remember a photo of my uncle (Paul Kermit Duncan, PFC USMC) in uniform and a framed telegram from the Navy informing the family that he had been Killed In Action on Saipan.
My grandfather was the rural mail carrier in their farming village, I've often wondered whether he delivered the bad news or if Western Union sent someone out from town.
If memory serves, it was Trump who telegraphed the date of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a country the U.S. should never have invaded in the first place. I think most American citizens/voters would agree, which is why Trump decided to announce the end of the attempt at regime change in Afghanistan in the run up to the last election.Telling the enemy when you're going to move your troops is always a sign of incompetence. Biden is no more incompetent than Trump in that respect. Both are opportunists. And for the record, it was Jimmy Carter, taking advice from Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, a Polish-American diplomat with a visceral hatred of the Soviets for occupying Poland, to get the Soviet's to invade that graveyard of empires and then to use the CIA to recruit political Islamists to go on a jihad to get them out. U.S. military apparatus got involved in that benighted country through an invasion ordered by G.W. Bush. Talk about incompetence, it's everywhere amongst our fearless leaders.
Good God, that's fundamentally dishonest. The issue isn't whether we get out; few people disagree our presence in Afghanistan should have ended years ago. It's HOW we ultimately left. This administration, and the military leadership, could not have screwed this up this badly if they intended to do so. And THAT is entirely on Biden's head.