Calling BS on BO
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am . by el nuko
From last night’s debate in Austin:
BHO:
“I heard from a Army captain, who was the head of a rifle platoon, supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24, because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition; they didn’t have enough humvees.
They were actually capturing Taliban weapons because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief. Now that’s a consequence of bad judgment, and you know, the question is on the critical issues that we face right now who’s going to show the judgment to lead.”
This doesn’t pass the smell test with me on several levels.
First, if there were any truth to this, the media would not have hesitated to use it to bash George Bush. It would have been all over the news.
Second, some of my military readers might want to weigh in here, but, how common is it for an Army Captain to be a Platoon leader? Captains don’t lead platoons, they lead Companies.
Third, how does a under-equipped, under-supplied, half-strength platoon capture munitions, weapons and supplies from the enemy? You mean the Taliban is just handing them over?
BHO is not only revealing himself to be a plagiarist and a demagogue, but a liar as well.
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Captains can be platoon commanders. Normally, Lieutenants are platoon leaders and Captains are company leaders, but there are many specialized platoons that have different officer levels in charge of them.
You’re right.
He says rifle platoon, I don’t take that to mean special ops, or anything like that.
I read over at Jake Tapper’s that he was a Lt in ‘03, during his tour in A-stan
Usually platoons are led by butter bars (2nd Lieutenants). Usually only in Special Ops - Special Forces, in particular, would you have a captain leading that small force of men. I’ve never seen that anywhere else (at least not in the Army National Guard).
Also I don’t buy into spliting one company up - usually entire companies are assigned to a duty area. If they split companies up they are assigned/merged with different units.
His story does smell fishy to me.