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}}}>Begin This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26609 Tuesday, February 26, 2002 Ghost soldiers + lies = body bags Posted: February 26, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern By David Hackworth © 2002 David H. Hackworth Saddam Hussein is burrowing deeper into his bunker. He's gotten the word that the Yanks are coming to terminate him – and his two even-crazier sons – before they attack Main Street USA. Air and Special Ops will again be big players, except this time around it won't be Afghan-easy – our conventional ground troops fighting in the sands of Iraq will take their lumps. But bet on it, that unless Dubya allows Europe's appeaseniks to do another Munich 1938 or Yugoslavia 1993, Baghdad will soon have new, saner management. The Marine and Regular Army units tasked to take down the Mustached Master of Miscalculation are definitely up for the job. My major worry is that certain Army National Guard units also presently designated as players aren't even close to good to go. I've talked with many NG soldiers, starting with those camouflaged heroes at our scary airports who still remain the only real on-site security improvement since Sept. 11. Most are bringing home half the pay they make from their civilian jobs, and their daily per diem will just about get them a Starbucks grande and a bagel. These dedicated, patriotic grunts and the Guard's junior leadership aren't any part of the problem – it's the top brass that should be charged with criminal negligence over the lack of overall unit readiness. Many outfits recently called to active duty – for example, units from the 40th NG Division, which I served with in war and in peacetime and where I have many deep-throat sources – could not cut it in serious combat. "The level of readiness across the board is poor," says a senior sergeant in the recently activated 1/ 185th Mechanized Battalion, a Northern California Bradley outfit. "The CO is trying to pencil-whip this unit into combat, and if we go, there won't be enough body bags." Another sergeant from the same outfit, when asked if his unit was fit to fight, said: "Let's start with basic physical fitness. Our entire battalion's PT (Physical Fitness Test) scores were forged to get us activated. Not one soldier took the test. They were all faked by the folks in the head shed." "Our equipment and weapons are old and, in most cases, in worse shape than our soldiers," another sergeant said. "We have some outstanding warriors here. Many have seen combat in Panama, Desert Storm and Somalia, but morale sucks. Important things like the right training and issue of the right gear ain't happening. We're short everything, and our Brads are worn out and run like broken cement mixers." Another 1/185th leader said: "This unit needs to have its top leadership removed, competent leaders installed and go through six to eight months of drilling to get even the basics down. We're dead men walking." The problems with the 1/185th – which could well find itself on a killing field in the months ahead – aren't atypical. They pervade most Army Guard units across the country. And instead of doing something about it, senior commanders uniformly lie about readiness levels and fake reports to keep that pork pouring in. The evidence is overwhelming and sickening. I'm besieged daily with factual and anecdotal reports like those from the three California sergeants. Things are so bad that a recent series in USA Today exposing the corruption in the Army Guard pointed out that as many as 20 percent of the soldiers who appear on the NG rosters are called ghost soldiers because they exist on paper alone! So where's Congress? The Army Guard employs about half-a-million folks – from ghost soldiers and under-trained grunts who might be crossing a line of departure in Iraq in the next few months, to fat- cat, totally unqualified generals appointed by our governors because they're good ol' boys or girls. We're talking a $13 billion-a-year cash cow that Congress milks vigorously and is not about to cut off with an Enron- like investigation. Nothing will happen until NG soldiers start coming home in body bags and bereaved parents start raising hell. Of course, by then, it'll be speech-and-monument cover-up time, both initiated by the publicly grieving generals and the sniveling pols. And far too late for the kids in the bags. Col. David H. Hackworth, author of "Price of Honor" and "About Face," has seen duty as a sailor, soldier and a military correspondent in nearly a dozen wars and conflicts, from the end of World War II to the recent meltdown in the ex-Yugoslavia. 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