In looking at the article written in  "The American Spectator" I find it gratifying to find out that our Brown Water guys are not being thrown to the wolves (so to speak) by our goverment. It would seem that we have some intelligent professionals involved in trying to keep our guys alive and being a positive force on the lakes and rivers of Iraq and Afganistan . The article doesn't go into great detail but does lead one to believe that their training goes far beyond anything we of the Vietnam era Brown Water sailors ever got from our training schools. And thankfully so !!! When we hit in country Vietnam with our boats we were green as all get out. No one thought to give us scenarios of breakdowns and cause and effect drills. We all just made sure we did our job to best of our ability. And deservedly so ,We did just that . However, to make a more solid and complete fighting unit we all needed the Original "Test Under Fire" to make us into qualified Military Fighting Machines. Now with the help of some old salts and some excellent training officers who work them through the bad stuff first we are bulding a much more organized Fighting Unit of Brown Water Sailors to fight in the  War on Terror. By constantly pushing the envelope we are putting on the waters in Iraq a superb group of men with excellent Judgement and Leadership to patrol the rivers again in our fight to maintain Freedom in another country ,not our own.

    My hat is off to all the many experienced men who have devoted all the time and efffort to make our Riverine force what it is today.

http://theamericanprowler.com/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10178

Contributed by Steve Gardner on August 9, 2006 at 05:30 PM in Caring about our troops, Steve Gardner, US Navy | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Bill Faith

Excellent post, Steve, from the Dog very clearly most qualified to write it.

Posted by: Bill Faith | Aug 9, 2006 5:56:05 PM