Troops deployed to U.S.-Mexico border lack hot food, electricity

[Deuce]

View attachment 67244081

So this is what you think of our troops?

 

[jnug]

Oh my God ...are you folks hearing this.

Trump never having visited troops in the field, not even the troops down on our own Southern Border "teleconferences" troops from the comfort of his office on Thanksgiving. Of course instead of just appreciating their service even if by phone he has to get his political cuts and digs in.

You just could not make this stuff up, not if you tried, not even if you were good at it!

 

[Mason66]

On the majority of wildfires firefighters eat MRE, sleep in tents or on the ground for days. No showers, no electricity, no a/c or heat, no toilets, etc.
Seems the troops don't have it all that bad.

If they are firefighters, I would think heat would not be a problem.

 

[Mason66]

They can't charge their phones???? How horrid!

OP, soldiers train to operate in crappy conditions, that's what they do (or at least used to do). If they stay in the area, they'll improve it. They are extremely mindful of heat injuries, how to prevent them, and capable in how to handle them when they do happen. Your bleeding heart is out of place there.

It didn't say they couldn't charge the phones, just that there were a few places.

Can you imagine how easy a life the person has that even included that as a complaint?

 

[mike2810]

$75 million for troops at the border and counting.

“This is an early estimated cost,” Mattis said. “I’m confident that number will change.”


High confidence indeed.

I am not challenging the cost number. What I would like to know is what does that number cover? Does it include salaries? Seems to me the only additional cost is transportation, housing/food and other expenses not normally incurred at the troops home base. Salaries are paid no matter where the troops are.

How would you handle the border issue of people entering the country illegally?

 

[Tangmo]

I am not challenging the cost number. What I would like to know is what does that number cover? Does it include salaries? Seems to me the only additional cost is transportation, housing/food and other expenses not normally incurred at the troops home base. Salaries are paid no matter where the troops are.

How would you handle the border issue of people entering the country illegally?

I'd get a Potus who's rational and sane.

 

[mike2810]

I'd get a Potus who's rational and sane.

Funny, Tangmo.

So what about the cost. Does it include the salaries that are paid no matter where the troops are?

Personally, the illegal immigration problem is out of hand. Congress needs to act now.

 

[Unitedwestand13]

Funny, Tangmo.

So what about the cost. Does it include the salaries that are paid no matter where the troops are?

Personally, the illegal immigration problem is out of hand. Congress needs to act now.

Why now? Is there something catastrophic heading our way?

 

[mike2810]

Why now? Is there something catastrophic heading our way?

Not my thread. Read the OP. I was replying to the OP Topic.

Do you agree or disagree the US has an illegal immigration problem?


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46256878

 

[Divine_Wind]

Funny, Tangmo.

So what about the cost. Does it include the salaries that are paid no matter where the troops are?

Personally, the illegal immigration problem is out of hand. Congress needs to act now.

There are additional expenses with troop deployment and not just financial. Being separated from their families over Thanksgiving and, probably, Christmas, doesn’t count as part of their regular deployment cycles overseas. They could spend 3 months down there then go home only to repack for a year long deployment to Afghanistan.....not that the far Left and far Right give a damn about the troops.

 

[Tangmo]

Funny, Tangmo.

So what about the cost. Does it include the salaries that are paid no matter where the troops are?

Personally, the illegal immigration problem is out of hand. Congress needs to act now.

The armed forces do indeed get paid no matter where they are or what the mission may be. Regular pay and special pay varies of course according to the deployment, time period and the personnel among other factors.

This deployment to the southern border is of active duty military forces on American soil. This is radical and with only few precedents. This is so because we have the posse comatatus laws limiting the very thing, restricting it, controlling it tightly to include authority distributed to both Potus and congress with recommendations by the Pentagon which is highly sensitive about it.

Spending a hundred million bucks or more on a domestic deployment of US active duty forces on American soil is a serious matter that needs to be considered and done soberly. What Potus does with US active duty troops of the homeland Northern Command and the cost of a deployment domestically is a major issue and expenditure that is to be executed only in emergencies. This deployment is not an emergency, not by any stretch of truth, the facts, realities, presently or foreseeably.

So SecDef Mattis earlier this week gave Potus a pen and an order SecDef wrote and told him to sign it which Potus did. We could call it the Potus Save Face Directive. The SecDef order sends the troops back to their bases. It retains a couple of MP battalions and some engineer units at the border to also include chopper units to facilitate rapid transportation and support of border police agents. MPs will assist border control police while the civilian border authorities remain in charge.

Highly trained and disciplined MPs will continue to have no authority of arrest, detainment, detention. MPs won't be shooting unarmed civilians or anyone unarmed who happens to be near a rock. No machine guns either. If need be the MPs will grab somebody to take 'em to the border police to be arrested or detained by the border police. The MP personnel remaining retain their standing orders of self-defense to include the necessary defense of anyone they are working with. We're talking about highly professional military police who are disciplined, trained, educated, and who are experienced skilled troops of excellent judgement.

Congress meanwhile has failed to act on comprehensive immigration reform for going on 20 years. All efforts have failed miserably due primarily to Republican party and rightwing resistance to it. The Right fears immigration reform might bring order to the border.

 

[Divine_Wind]

The armed forces do indeed get paid no matter where they are or what the mission may be. Regular pay and special pay varies of course according to the deployment, time period and the personnel among other factors.

This deployment to the southern border is of active duty military forces on American soil. This is radical and with only few precedents. This is so because we have the posse comatatus laws limiting the very thing, restricting it, controlling it tightly to include authority distributed to both Potus and congress with recommendations by the Pentagon which is highly sensitive about it.

Spending a hundred million bucks or more on a domestic deployment of US active duty forces on American soil is a serious matter that needs to be considered and done soberly. What Potus does with US active duty troops of the homeland Northern Command and the cost of a deployment domestically is a major issue and expenditure that is to be executed only in emergencies. This deployment is not an emergency, not by any stretch of truth, the facts, realities, presently or foreseeably.

So SecDef Mattis earlier this week gave Potus a pen and an order SecDef wrote and told him to sign it which Potus did. We could call it the Potus Save Face Directive. The SecDef order sends the troops back to their bases. It retains a couple of MP battalions and some engineer units at the border to also include chopper units to facilitate rapid transportation and support of border police agents. MPs will assist border control police while the civilian border authorities remain in charge.

Highly trained and disciplined MPs will continue to have no authority of arrest, detainment, detention. MPs won't be shooting unarmed civilians or anyone unarmed who happens to be near a rock. No machine guns either. If need be the MPs will grab somebody to take 'em to the border police to be arrested or detained by the border police. The MP personnel remaining retain their standing orders of self-defense to include the necessary defense of anyone they are working with. We're talking about highly professional military police who are disciplined, trained, educated, and who are experienced skilled troops of excellent judgement.

Congress meanwhile has failed to act on comprehensive immigration reform for going on 20 years. All efforts have failed miserably due primarily to Republican party and rightwing resistance to it. The Right fears immigration reform might bring order to the border.

Thanks for the update on the troop deployment. Glad they’ll be going home for the holidays, well, at least Christmas.

A disagreement about immigration reform; not that you’re totally wrong about the Republicans, but that you neglect both the faults of the Democrats and, more importantly IMO, business interests who have no interest in upsetting their lucrative status quo.

 

[Grokmaster]

Donald Trump is the worst President ever. He won't even go see them. Contrary to popular belief I actually haven't said that yet, about Trump.



Deployed Inside the United States: The Military Waits for the Migrant Caravan

It's the US Military, not the Antifa/BLM Girl Scouts.

 

[Tangmo]

Oops over there. Again.

Not everything gets lost in the torrent of news even on Thanksgiving Day weekend. Somebody leaked the Pentagon's unreleased report to Congress which was delivered Tuesday. Congress hasn't released it either...


Pentagon says troops at US border to cost about $210 million

U.S. Army engineers from the 887th Engineer Support Company apply concertina wire in the Brownsville, Texas, area Nov. 13, 2018. Pentagon says it has expended $5 million on concertina wire and barriers and that they are finished installing the wire component at the border. JESSE UNTALAN/U.S. ARMY

In its report to Congress on Tuesday, the Pentagon said it expects the deployment of 5,900 active-duty troops through Dec. 15 to cost $72 million, while adding that the mission, which is now three weeks old, is still being refined.

The cost includes $19 million for personnel, $20 million for transportation of personnel, equipment and supplies, $28 million in operating expenses and $5 million for concertina wire and other border barrier materials.

"The total cost of the operation has yet to be determined and will depend on the total size, duration and scope," the report said. It said that as of Nov. 14, about $14 million in actual payments for expenses such as travel, supplies and transportation had been reported by the units involved.

The National Guard's border mission, which is being conducted by troops for numerous states, has cost an estimated $138 million as of Tuesday, the Pentagon report said. That mission, involving about 2,100 troops, began in April.

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/pentagon-says-troops-at-us-border-to-cost-about-210-million-1.557476


Any operations officer on any unit's staff knows it's the operating expenses that will put you in the poorhouse and in no time at all. The commander knows this too of course so he's always on it, despite the reality managing it is futile. OpsExps at your base facility are predictable, however, opsexps for a deployment anywhere are not fully or specifically predictable. The rule of thumb for ops staff in preparing the operations order is that once you finish your calculations add a zero.

We haven't heard the last of this, for sure. There is hope however. Pentagon says it's organizing to have most troops redeployed to their bases by the actual estimated date, December 15. Yet there's always the proviso the mission could be extended beyond that date which is , fortunately, unlikely.

 

[Tangmo]

Trump continues to try to swim upstream on his border deployment of active duty armed forces on US soil. Pentagon and Trump have been in a continuing wrestling match on this from the get-go...


General in charge of border mission wants to start redeploying some troops

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan is commander of the U.S. 5th Army, U.S. Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. LTG Peterson commanded the Hurricane Maria military relief component in Puerto Rico under FEMA in 2017. Fifth Army Northern Command has defense of continental North America and its strategic environs to include Puerto Rico.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said in an interview with Politico on Monday that he would likely focus first on redeploying some soldiers focused on logistics. They comprise the majority of the border force, and have focused both on installing concertina and other barriers to slow down any rush of migrants, and building temporary camps in which U.S. soldiers can live nearby. U.S. military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, confirmed the comment is accurate.

"Now that things are set down here, we don't need as many troops to actually build base camps and things like that, because the base camps are built," said Buchanan, who has temporary headquarters in San Antonio. The shift would come as the military seeks to adjust to realities on the ground, where soldiers have spent days stringing miles of barbed concertina wire and some have said that they spent days waiting for assignments.

When The Washington Post visited a base camp near the border in the town of Donna on Nov. 10, more than 100 soldiers could be seen relaxing inside a large tent about the size of a hockey rink, with some playing video games, others tossing around a football, and others reading.

Among the questions that soldiers have asked during the deployment is whether they themselves will be directed to eventually take down the miles of concertina wire they installed. On Nov. 14, Mattis told a soldier who asked that question that the mission so far was to install the barriers, and "we'll let you know" what the ultimate plan is.

https://www.stripes.com/news/genera...nts-to-start-redeploying-some-troops-1.557367


Hurry up and wait.

 

[Tangmo]

Your turkey is in Washington.

And it's huge.

Mar-a-lago at the moment actually. Trump never got to experience the sinking feeling of having to return to post from being home on leave -- that last and final day. Then once you're back, you're back, so you resume your duty from where you left off....


For thousands of troops, holiday dinner is at US border

Thousands of American troops spent Thanksgiving deployed to the U.S. border with Mexico, joining fellow service members overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere who marked the holiday away from loved ones - a familiar fact of life for those who serve.

At Camp Donna, the military's temporary border base in southern Texas, video released by the Defense Department showed soldiers in chow hall tents carving turkeys and piling holiday meals onto plastic trays under overcast skies. Some troops along the border recorded video messages for their families back home - the kind of greetings typically sent from overseas.

The Pentagon shipped out more than 300,000 pounds of traditional Thanksgiving food, including 9,738 whole turkeys, to those stationed and deployed around the globe. A total of 799 pounds of turkey went to troops serving on the border in southern Texas.

Like many of the Pentagon's initiatives, the Thanksgiving rollout was an affair of giant scale: 51,234 pounds of roasted turkey, 16,284 pounds of sweet potatoes, 81,360 pies, 19,284 cakes and 7,836 gallons of eggnog. Forces around the world received the goods through the vast military supply chain that keeps those serving in combat equipped with medicine, food and more.

"Many of America's military men and women are away from home this Thanksgiving, making sacrifices to secure our freedom and to protect our southern border," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Simerly, the commander of troop support for the Defense Logistics Agency, said in a statement. He said the military was providing them "the very best Thanksgiving meal our country has to offer."

A spokeswoman for U.S. Army North, which oversees the Army's part of the deployment, said that Thursday would be a "light-duty day" for troops deployed along the border, meaning they would be asked to do little, if any, work. No troops had been sent home to their regular duty stations or moved among the border mission sites, she said.

Many bases host traditional Thanksgiving meals in their dining halls. Those deployed farther afield often find more-creative ways to celebrate, whether that means frying a turkey on a combat outpost in Afghanistan or eating Thanksgiving dinner on a submarine.

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/for-thousands-of-troops-holiday-dinner-is-at-us-border-1.557647


It's called soldiering on no matter which branch of service you're in.

Enjoy.

 

[Tangmo]

One might expect the razor wire to be at the southern border for a long time to come.


Mattis: Mission of troops rushed to the US-Mexico border is ‘to be determined

November 14, 2018

WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — When a young soldier in Texas asked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday whether his unit would soon be ordered to remove the razor wire and vehicle barriers they had installed at Mexico border crossings, Mattis couldn’t answer.

“Good question. We’ll let you know,” Mattis replied, according to video of the encounter. “Right now, the mission is put them in.” Asked by another soldier to explain the goals of the border deployment, Mattis said, “Short term, get the obstacles in. Longer term … it is somewhat to be determined.”

The exchanges, during a visit by Mattis and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen to a muddy military encampment near the Texas border town of Donna, captured the uncertainty — and tedium — that surrounds President Donald Trump’s pre-election decision to rush troops to the border in the largest such deployment in decades. Nearly 6,000 Marines and Army soldiers are assisting the Border Patrol in Texas, Arizona and California by strengthening defenses and building temporary encampments near dozens of border entry points. A total of about 7,000 troops may be deployed, officials said.

Critics have questioned the need for active-duty troops when there is no discernible threat. Numerous retired senior military officers have criticized Mattis for approving a deployment that appeared aimed more at stirring up Trump’s supporters before the midterm election than confronting a potential enemy.

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/mat...us-mexico-border-is-to-be-determined-1.556654

 

[Nickyjo]

Not my thread. Read the OP. I was replying to the OP Topic.

Do you agree or disagree the US has an illegal immigration problem?


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46256878

There is a problem with illegal immigration. There is a problem with migration of asylum seekers. Both problems can be handled the government and US non-profits and other agencies. Trump has chosen to handle them with hysteria, law-breaking and race baiting, all which make the problems worse.