There was a piece about this topic this morning. The story itself has been mentioned several other places around the internets and congrats to Matt Daniels for pushing it forward.

It would appear to have at least some truth to it. Over at AMERICAblog, there are at least 80 comments on this thread. Most are uncomplimentary. Some are VERY uncomplimentary, if You get my drift, and I think you do. But there are a few comments that caught my eye.

Let me emphasize, less we forget, that these are all unverified.

This is happening to my husband's command. They are an electronic surveillance squadron. Their mission is (or has been, up until now) to watch and listen, from the air. Thirty of their personnel (O's and E's) have just been notified that they are going to Iraq for ONE YEAR. They are asking for more "volunteers", before they force thirty more to go as well. They have also been asked to keep this matter quiet.

Any wonder there's a burgeoning anti-Bush community in the military?

IT is true the Navy is being required to "pay its dues" in Iraq. My spouse is an O-5 NFO and has been hearing rumors (from the Pentagon no less) that the CNO has pledged up to 18 O-3 to O-5 officers to Iraq THIS YEAR. One guy we know still has 2 years of a current tour in Co Springs, but is being told by his detailer that he may be heading to Iraq THIS SPRING!! He has two young kids for God's sake! What in the world does a Naval aviator offer a team hunting for IED's? I am totally sick to my stomach if this is true.

My sister in law is a fairly high-ranking officer in the Navy, totally non-combat stuff mostly dealing with meteorological modeling. She is nearly 40, near her retirement, and has a young child at home. At Christmas she was already saying that redeployment to a ground position with the Army was a possibility. At that time they were framing it in terms of a command and training position in Kuwait. Even that sounded scary and like a big stretch. I really hope this isn't true.

here's the deal, IED's are killing troops at a shocking rate, and we are not able to strike back. Whole routes are shutting down now for 48-72 hours, until the clear them by force.

The hope is that a ground penetrating radar with
mapping/imaging capacity will allow standoff
analysis to determine where IED's are.

They want to put a Radar on a truck, and have
radar techs try and map the ground on a daily basis
so they are dragooning Airborne radar techs.

Hey, in the battle for berlin, the luftwaffe had
pilots in the trenches. The Bushies and the
Neo-cons have done the same. Expect to see
battleships being beached to serve as gun platforms.

One of my buddies in the reserves says this is true. They're being sent over there as part of their "disassociated tours" which would have otherwise been sea duty tours versus shore tours as the article in the link suggests.

He also says a lot of naval types are being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to do PAO and customs type jobs.

If I get more info from other sources, I'll pass it along.

, so far no stop-loss going on, at least in the P3 community. There is, however, a big recruiting push for service extensions, srb's are increasing, and E6's with certain job ratings are being allowed to stay in 22 years instead of being forced out at 20. Things are looking pretty desperate. It would not be surprising if the Navy followed in the Army's footsteps as far as retirees are concerned. Wish the news were better...

Hope your honey sees a lovely piping out soon!

It's no rumor. Last week's issue of Navy Times had a lengthy article quoting the CNO that Navy personnel, officer and enlisted, are being to deployed to Iraq in ground combat, security and combat-support roles. The rationale is to relieve Marine and Army units. It should be noted that the Navy medical department has been on the ground in Iraq since the beginning.

Commander, U. S. Navy
Retired

I can't verify it regarding the Navy, but I can regarding the Air Force.

I'm a civilian working for the Army on Elmendorf AFB and we have a lot of Air Force spouses who work there as well. My co-worker's husband, an F-15 mechanic, had a year left before he was getting out. He was told several months ago that he will be serving the rest of his time as a soldier in the Army...yes, with the ground forces in Iraq.

Bush is a bastard...

The common thread is they are all EW specialists. IED's are usually triggered with a radio signal. US ordinance disposal teams have been using devices to jam radio frequencies with some success. It sounds like somebody thinks the navy can supply EW techs to support the ordinance disposal teams. IMHO

Pilots and back-seaters as infantry, infantry as bullet shields, redlegs as convoy escorts, MPs as prison guards and torturers.

America's Armed Forces. The Death of a thousand cuts.