The American Pundit

I linked the story last night, but now we have milbloggers and others weighing in, too. Allah received an email from Matt Burden of Blackfive, who says:

Sounds out of touch and likely a guy from IVAW or VoteVets told him that. HOWEVER, SF will carry AK’s because it’s easier to scrounge ammo and it’s a better weapon. One of our authors, Deebow, was on the Paki border, fought the Taliban daily, and had to scrounge mortars from a nearby SF unit. So, it’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely.

And Army Captains don’t command platoons (some Marines do, but not Soldiers)…

Matt also concurs with this comment at Flopping Aces by ChrisG. Here’s some of it:

What a crock of outright lies and BS!!!! Platoons are not split up along theater level lines. A Platoon is the smallest tactical element commonly employed. Normal Squads, which make up Platoons, do not go out alone unless covered by something big (Tank/Infantry squad teams for example).

Units are not halved for combat!! Units in Afghanistan were not used in Iraq and the two events occurred almost a year apart!! 10th Mountain went into Afghanistan fully manned. 10th Mountain was not used in Iraq. Also, all units have organic vehicles. Divisions are not stripped of vehicles for another theater operation. We have APS fleets to cover this (pre-deployed assets in Kuwait)!!! Obama should know about this as funding for the APS fleets are in the appropriations bills.

So on this aspect: FLAT OUT LIE by Obama!!!!!!

And Stuart Koehl at the Weekly Standard piles on, too.

Well, captains command companies, not rifle platoons. A rifle platoon is normally commanded by a 2nd lieutenant, sometimes (if short handed) by a senior sergeant. So for starters, Obama betrays a woeful ignorance of military organization and the chain of command. Then he remarks that the platoon was under-strength because 15 of its men had been “sent to Iraq.” Sorry, the Army doesn’t work that way. Platoons are organic units, consisting of three rifle squads, a heavy weapons squad, and a headquarters section. You can’t break it up. It is the smallest building block in the infantry that can conduct fire-and-movement tactics…

The idea that our guys were scrounging weapons and ammo because they were short is ludicrous. How much ammo you carry is done on a “per man” basis in the infantry–each solder carries a “basic load,” which is backed up by reserve supplies at company, battalion, and above. It is possible to run out of ammunition, temporarily, in the midst of an intense firefight…

To the best of my knowledge, no U.S. forces in either Afghanistan or Iraq ever ran out of ammunition for more than a few hours at most. When you consider that we were operating in Afghanistan at the tenuous end of a 8,000 mile supply line, that’s pretty impressive.