Michael's Dispatches

The days of 'looking out for the troops' have been superseded by 'cover your ass and look out for your career.'

I remember returning to active duty in 1996, after Clinton released USNR officers in 1994-95. While discussing my return with a neighbor, an active duty Navy O-6, he asked me why I returned "when all the good guys are gettign out". Little did I know how right he was after deployments in 2003 and 2008-09. The abysmall leadership for the sake of political correctness and "zero defects" mentality leadership, to include "equal opportunity promotions" at the expense of national defense and troop welfare made me glad to retire. I LOVE my country, but the elitist mentality amongst government officials are saddening.
Mike, keep telling the truth! God Bless.

I have told people every since I found your site that if they wanted to know what was going on in Iraq or Afghanistan to read your version of events. You're always about telling it like it is and that's what we really want to know anyway. You do such an excellent job Micael. Just watch your back. We don't want you to vanish one day because you've told the truth.

Michael, both sides of this argument have merit. Why is it that commander's who have helo assetts don't use them to provide MEDEVAC in those situations where proper MEDEVAC is unavailable or delayed. Seems to me that Brigade and Division commanders should lay their ranks on the line if they feel that strongly. Otherwise, they should have contingency A/C available in those cases where casualties are almost certain to occur. The more you push on this, the more they will push back. Time to work around the system.

My son, after 8 years in the Army is getting out. Too nanny state and PC for him. When the killings at Fort Hood, where he was at after returning from Iraq, are beginning to be called work place violence instead of killings by an Islamic radical/domestic terrorist, tells it all.

Michael, keep up the good work. I continue to ping my federal officials.

The military budget is been cut to the bone, so it is time to reduce the ratio of officers to enlisted. My son, as a sergeant did the work of an officer in Iraq since they were short handed. Time to cut the dang fat! Too many ticket punchers.

It's simple, Generals. Every second counts when treating wounded soldiers. I would think that especially those in command of our Army's Medical Corps would realize this.

As for those in the Combat Arms:

We know you're days of combat are over but let's pretend that you're "days of glory" are here again and you're on patrol as a platoon Leader and you or someone in your platoon detonates an IED and gets their leg blown off. How long would YOU want to be sitting out there?

It's your jobs to change the policy and get our wounded off the battlefield and onto the operating table ASAP.

This really goes beyond Congressmen and Senators. When is the Commander-in-Chief going to be held to account for allowing his Secretary and Generals to keep policies in effect that postpone the treatment of his/their soldiers? We can see that decimating our military is high on his list. Perhaps he can do the same to archaic policies. If a soldier on the front lines deviates from the always evolving ROE's they are held to account. Why shouldn't the Desk Jockey's?

It's time we start chronicling all this as to who said what and when for the future military history books.

With the logic of The Pentagon, Chazray and his fellow soldiers would have been riding horses because "that's the tradition". My son served in the Cav. His Platoon Leader was killed by friendly fire. In hindsight all involved say there were ways that tragedy didn't have to occur. But in war horrible things happen. We know this. Mistakes happen. But on this policy the Army is on notice. Each incident that a "marked" MEDIVAC helicopter is fired upon or delayed is squarely the result of poor leadership. Eventually (hopefully not long) someone, somewhere, will decide that this is simply gross negligence and something will be done. If this were the civilian world lawyers would be making a lot of money on the lawsuits.

These foreign countries with their problems becomes our problems. We seen this too many times. The people need to educated the Politicians and Military Brass on how we want this country to operate. We have lost too much taxpayer money and way too many American lives. Let's bring them home cut the Foreign aid. We need to worry about Drugs, Illegals,the Mexican and Central American countries. Our fight is on our borders not in Afganistan. I could give a crap less what goes on in the Muslim countries. Generation after generation we continue to lose our freedom. I want US troops on the Southern Border. The PATRIOT Missle System up and down the East And West Coast. We need an Administration that has a set of testicles. We lost them after Vietnam!!

I took my 12 year old stepson out to lunch this afternoon, and on the way, he described a game of dodgeball they had played in school. Mildly surprised that the game had survived, even in a Catholic school environment, I listened to the differences from the game we played. In our games, when you were hit, you were dead. Simple, and end of game for you. In his game, you are wounded, not killed, and each team has two 'medics' whose responsibility is to literally drag wounded combatants to the rear lines, where they are then considered healed. The 'medics' wear red vests, and if they are both hit, then you are considered dead if you are hit, as no one else is allowed to rescue you.

I asked him if the 'medics' were allowed to throw balls as well as rescue the wounded, and he replied "of course they are... this is war. Only an idiot wouldn't let everybody fight who could fight!"

Now, my stepson is pretty smart (he's already chosen his college and has written to numerous aerospace companies asking for advice on college courses!), so I decided to tell him about the MEDEVAC chopper situation.

I don't think he really believes me though... he can't comprehend the Army being that stupid!

As I have watched this issue progress I have said in my correspondence with Congressmen, The Joints Chief of Staff and with Michael that the Golden Hour really is the Golden Minutes and Seconds following a Critical Injury!

The timly response of US Army MedeVac to get our troops to a well equipped Trauma Center and their survival can be counted in minutes if not seconds.

The delay's being created by requiring that the decision be made at the BN level and higher to launch are costing precious time and the lives of our troops.

Enough of the political rhetoric and hyperbole General Dempsey! Change the policey NOW!

The situation in VN was exactly as it is today........no change. Medals of Honor were awarded lift helicopter pilots who volunteered and braved the bullets of "hot landing zones" and went in anyway to extract wounded and dead when the Midivac guys wouldn't or couldn"t. Medivac policey prohibited same. If the "Red Cross" was anything other then a marking for "center of mass" for the enemy, ground medics would still be wearing the armbands. This on going flap is totally irrelevant since only the good guys seem to give a damn about the Geneva Convention rules these days which in this case are archaic and ignorant.

Michael Yon has an agenda. It is to tell the truth and support the troop who is taking what get's dished out. I've followed Michael since 2006, and he's always been honest and insightful. He's a great photographer and he can write a great dispatch. Now he has done one of the best things for the soldiers in combat that has been accomplished. He has started the great debate about medevac that will end up saving lives because in the end his side will prevail. Right will prevail.

Long ago and far away (DMZ Vietnam 1969), a Marine H-46 pilot positioned his bird nearly touching his ramp to the side ridge line were my company was engaged. I remember looking down at the helicopter as my wounded were loaded. Blade clearance was very close. The top of the ridge line was in direct line of fire from the DMZ & directly in front of my position. I didn't need a burning chopper in the middle of my company, so that very courageous Marine pilot & crew backed in ramp down well below the military crest of the "safe" side of the ridge to avoid getting shot down. Both armed lift birds and unarmed MEDEVAC birds were used get wounded to treatment. Pilots and crews were consistently very courageous. Someone is reported to have said, "If you can standup on the LZ, its not hot!" In the case cited anything above knee level was an easy target for NVA machine gunners. A Huey could not land without getting killed but a C-46 could back in. That said, I do not why senior Army leadership continues to insist on maintaining Red Crosses on unarmed MEDEVACs. As noted above, the bad guys don't know or care about the Geneva Convention. To them, we a fools willing to sacrifice our soldiers for the sake of political correctness.

66 is not 59, could have been 12 had the Pedros been dispatched. This is all just pathetic, turf wars at the expense of lives.

Michael,
If you ever do get to talk to GEN Dempsey for real could you ask him about his stated intention while he was CSA to devote significant $$$$, thought and time to improving the Army squad: he saw the squad as the only Army unit that was in danger of being overmatched and he intended to fix that. Who identified this problem? Now that GEN Dempsey is no longer CSA who will pick that ball up and run with it? Anybody? Regatds, Terry

Michael,
If you ever do get to talk to The Great Man could you ask him if anyone picked up the ball and is running with it to prevent the Army squad from being overmatched in combat? That was one of the big 3-4 problems he had identified to work on as CSA and who in the Army will be working on it to fix it now that he is no longer there to provide the drive needed since there are so many other people who will be concerned only with protecting their own equitirs? Regards, Terry

The thing "they" (MSM, Army brass, etc) are missing is that an injuried Soldier shouldn't spend one second longer on the battlefield than they have to. It doesn't matter if they evac him/her in 59 minutes or 29 minutes if there was ANY delay it should be addressed. Can you imagine if civilian EMS stopped for coffee enroute to take grandma to the hospital in the midst of a heart attack and then said "well hey our department policy to to arrive at the ED within 30 minutes of getting the call"?

Before anyone says anything I realize waiting for an armed escort and stopping for coffee are way apart, but think about the media backlash on the EMS service for allowing something like that to happen.