Operation Dessert Storm
The Green Buffets
Meal Team Six

  • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    22 hours ago

    I’m not pleased they’re being deployed, but these guys aren’t choosing to go to these places. They signed up for national defense (and not the kind that blows up schools in a desert on the other side of the world) and often helping with major disasters.

    The Texas National Guard absolutely did not sign up for policing cities in Illinois or Oregon, and I’d bet vast majority are not pleased to be there.

      • p3n@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        13 hours ago

        That seems like an easy thing until you consider:

        1. Federalized National guard troops are under Title 10 Authority.

        2. Under Title 10 USC 890 Article 90: Willfully disobeying a lawful order in wartime is punishable with the death penalty.

        3. With the executive branch claiming wartime powers and the DoJ willing to pursue any claim they want, they could certainly choose to pursue the maximum punishment to make an example out of someone.

        The ranks of the JAG and military judges hasn’t been purged yet, so I believe it is very inlikely that a court-marshal would reach this punishment, but these orders aren’t something a Soldier can just walk away from without serious legal and financial repurcussions.

        What they do in Chicago matters far more than their presence there. Every Soldier needs to recognize their ultimate purpose is to defend the freedom and liberty of their nation’s citizens. They must have a line in the sand that they will refuse to cross and are willing to die for, but simply deploying to a city to stand outside a federal building is not that line.

      • Baphomet_The_Blasphemer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        18 hours ago

        They can’t just quit. They’re under a signed contract, which can be penalized with jail time if breached. Refusing orders is also not as simple as it sounds. Each soldier has a duty to refuse an unlawful order. However, if you disobey a direct order, and it is later determined to have been a lawful one, you will now be punished for failing to obey orders, might be a slap on the wrist, might be a dishonorable discharge, or could even be a court martial with jail time.

        • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          14 hours ago

          For the orders part, I believe there is a JAG hotline to call and get a “ruling” or advice. That would in theory take the legal ramifications of the decision off the guardsman. But I don’t know how well that actually works in practice. It is unlikely to be a smooth as it sounds since the person on the phone doesn’t want to put their skin on the line either.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      12 hours ago

      These guys aren’t ICE. They didn’t volunteer for this bullshit. Guard members are mostly people wanting some extra cash to pay for college and shit that signed up to go to training a couple weeks a year and to help out following a flood or wildfire.

      They did not sign up to occupy other states. But now they potentially face the death penalty for refusing to go.

      Yeah, they can refuse illegal orders, but with so many Courts having been taken over by the fascists, they can’t depend on that to save them from the firing squad. So they suit up and go stand around for a few weeks. I’d honestly rather have them than ICE, since they aren’t guaranteed to be racist piles of shit.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    23 hours ago

    But Call of Duty told ME that the National Guards are forces to be reckoned with because they’re fit and can take Burgertown from the Russians! Are you saying they lied?!

    In all seriousness, however, a US general’s concern was correct that America is too ill-prepared for a war, precisely because most Americans are ill-fitting.

    • Triasha@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      17 hours ago

      It’s a problem but also a lot of war is fought with a controller now. It’s not as dire as it would have been 60 years ago.

  • Kirp123@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    23 hours ago

    Does the US National Guard not have fitness requirements? Because I doubt those guys can run or do a pull up.

    • Firoaren@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      21 hours ago

      Yes, but they sure don’t have qualified recruits anymore.

      You don’t pass your PT tests, no benefits, but you don’t get to go “oops I quit” either. So you wind up with situations like this - even unfit soldiers can’t be replaced these days

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 hours ago

        Yes, but they sure don’t have qualified recruits anymore.

        Perhaps because you would have to be pants-on-head stupid to sign up to shoot your fellow countrymen. In the span of a few months the Trump administration has completely ruined the reputation of what used to be a universally noble and respected job.

        • Firoaren@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          13 hours ago

          Ah yes blame the people not the system. Aside from what you said being incredibly foolish, near none of these people signed up in the last 6 months. The heart of the lower enlisted rn are people who signed up for college benefits during the Biden administration, or are sergents trying to quietly finish out their careers to get the retirement benefits that’re the only thing worth committing more than 6 years of your life to the service for. You quit before that 20 year mark, you get shit, and if you think a career in the national guard pays well, well I have a ASVAB test ready for ya, you’re just the type lmao