[Night Stalker]

First off, failure to follow orders, dereliction of duty, and mutiny are not able to be processed by Article 15 hearings (Non-Judicial Punishment) they must be handled by Article 32 procedings (Courts Martial). For one thing, while soldiers are not required to follow unlawful orders, only an Article 32 hearing can determine if the order was lawful or not.

Secondly, just because a mission is dangerous does not make it suicide or unlawful. They are frikken soldiers for Christ's sake!!!

Felix, I gotta both agree and disagree with you. Sure, if the vehicles were NMC, why where the troops not disciplened for poor maintenence? Did they fail their mission, by not keeping mission capable? Or were they not properly supplied.

But, NG soldiers are not always "second hand" soldiers. Often they do more with outdated equipment, less funding, and less training than the AC. For two years, prior to getting mobilized, we did not go to the ranges because there was no funding for ammo. WTF?

I do agree with you though about the "AT" mentality. It is a difficult hurdle to get over.

Remember one thing though ..... one of the best BDEs in the Army for Armored Gunnery is the 86th BDE .... a NG unit from the 42nd ID!!! [img]tongue.gif[/img] They were recently given a Unit Citation for their service at NTC as OPFOR.