At a rally earlier this month in New Hampshire, Bush said, “When American [sic] puts our troops in combat, I believe they deserve the best training, the best equipment, the full support of our government.” But when those same troops are asked for their opinions, many of them are voicing concerns and questioning whether they actually have the support Bush boasts of.
For example, an internal Pentagon survey found a whole lot of frustrated reservists.
A Pentagon survey shows substantial doubts among many Army Reservists about their units’ preparedness for wartime missions, amid intense debate in the presidential campaign about whether U.S. troops are spread too thin.
In the survey conducted in the spring, almost half of the Army Reserve soldiers who responded said their units weren’t “well prepared” for their wartime missions. Army Reservists who had served in Iraq graded their units’ readiness for war even lower; only 45% of those veterans said their unit was “well prepared for its wartime mission,” compared with 54% of Army Reserve members overall, the survey found.
Soldiers from the National Guard aren’t satisfied either.
Some Army National Guardsmen and reservists in Iraq have complained that they have to get by with older equipment, including rifles, than their active-duty counterparts, as well as trucks and Humvees that lack protective armor.
About 40% of the troops in Iraq come from the Reserves and the National Guard. Do they have the “full support of our government”? Doesn’t sound like it.