BAD TRAINING leads to soldier DEATH in Iraq

This is criminal, and I am fucking incensed. 435 members of the WI army national guard were sent to Iraq with poor training. The Army knew about their training, and let them be. As a direct result, 27 year old Steve Castner, of Cedarburg, WI, died a week after going to Iraq. He's gone. He's not coming back.

He died honorably in a war that he did actually believe in, but the cause of his death could very easily have been prevented. This is criminal negligence on the part of the Bush administration, the Army, Department of Defense, and commanders on the ground in Iraq. This is tantamount to MURDER.

This needs to be posted everywhere. It's a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, and includes the letters to prove the Army's knowledge of the poor training.

Letter questions Guard training - Sensenbrenner calls for inquiry after Cedarburg man's death
Posted: July 25, 2006
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=476874

Two months before a Cedarburg man was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, his father had privately raised concerns with U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner about the training his son and other Army National Guard members received before being sent into combat.
...
"I would hope that (Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) would not make a differentiation between Guard and Reserve troops that are activated and sent to Iraq on one hand and regular Army troops that are sent to Iraq on the other hand," Sensenbrenner said. "Training is training. And the way lives are saved is people being adequately trained."
...
The younger Castner, a 1997 graduate of Cedarburg High School, died Monday, less than a week after he arrived for his first mission in Iraq. He was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 121st Field Artillery in Milwaukee.
...
Castner's son, his only child, was the 58th Wisconsin service member to be killed in Iraq. A total of 435 members of the younger Castner's unit, joined by soldiers from several other units across the state, were mobilized in April and trained for several months at Camp Shelby before leaving for Kuwait on July 14.

There's who knows how many more (at least 435) of our boys and girls over there ready to be killed because of negligence... and that's a fucking shame. I'm thoroughly done with this war. When is the next march?



ON EDIT: Make sure you read the article to get the full explanation of the training problems.

As far as the "next march"....I`ll be there. Here in Vermont.

Read the link in the link to the Father's letter. This proud Republican lawyer, close friend to his Republican Congressman, emphasizes that the US MUST remain in Iraq and he endorses the stop loss policy. He evidently never "got it" and still doesn't get it that U.S. troops are seen by the administration as cannon fodder, and not worthy of $$$ for adequate training and equipment. He could have done what the vast majority of Republican lawyers have done and kept his kid out of the military and his $$$ invested in Haliburton.
Now, if every rich Republican lawyer had a child stationed in Iraq, or faced the prospect of a draft which would put THEIR kids at risk of being sent to Iraq - i.e., as it was in the last days of the Vietnam war, I think that most of them would be more realistic than the father of this dead soldier and I think the U.S. would leave Iraq as abruptly and ignominously as the U.S. left Vietnam.

are cutting corners to get soldiars trained (especially the guard units)

This is only the beginning.....I am sad to say....and it will get worse....we have to get our men and women out of this fucking mess....

into the mess from the start. GAAAHHHHH. I'm just so mad.

National Guard troops have far less training them the troops. Most just have basic training with no Ait. If your not trained in combat you can not be train with on the job training it gets you killed or wounded

DU?...in that case-my bad.

because it's true....

cocksucker shouldn't be used as an insult. Some people see it as homophobic and/or sexist. I didn't even realize that until I learned that here at DU.

This needs to be used against Senselessbrenner as well as Bush.