A single company

[Carl Spackler]

Take emotion out of this for a second, I have, since the moment I read that the operation is 100 men large.

Of course I want to see UConn play in person. I've been waiting since Jan. 1st, along with approx 40,000 other people. I understand that a natural disaster just happened, and my heart bleeds for the people that have lost everything, and I trully feel sorry, especially for the people that do not have insurance, and have no basic survival skills. If there were a military force capable of strking the U.S. in such a way as to disrupt the energy supply to the east coast, the country would be in deep . Luckily, there isn't, and the DOD knows it's weakness.

But take emotion out of it, and understand that size of this operation at Rentschler and what it may be doing seems to be completely out of proportion with the the use of te facility, and the financial losses that the state university can potentially incur due to the decision to cancel this game, with no plan to reschedule in place.

also ask yourself if a facility the size of the Rentschler field, is necessary for an operation this size. the location is ideal, but so are many others, that would be more efficient. Something with a row of loading docks for trucks for instance within easy access of the three major highways crisscrossing the state.

If this company of men is moving truckload after truckload of supplies, hour after hour, 24 hours a day - it makes sense, if they're not, and they've been moving a couple trucks a day out of a facility the size of Rentschler? There's a big problem.

and the problem, in that case, is not that some football fans are inconvenienced, or the university may lose millions, its that the people in need aren't being serviced properly in time of need, by the CT national guard.

 

[Kgun7]

Take emotion out of this for a second, I have, since the moment I read that the operation is 100 men large.

Of course I want to see UConn play in person. I've been waiting since Jan. 1st, along with approx 40,000 other people. I understand that a natural disaster just happened, and my heart bleeds for the people that have lost everything, and I trully feel sorry, especially for the people that do not have insurance, and have no basic survival skills. If there were a military force capable of strking the U.S. in such a way as to disrupt the energy supply to the east coast, the country would be in deep . Luckily, there isn't, and the DOD knows it's weakness.

But take emotion out of it, and understand that size of this operation at Rentschler and what it may be doing seems to be completely out of proportion with the the use of te facility, and the financial losses that the state university can potentially incur due to the decision to cancel this game, with no plan to reschedule in place.

also ask yourself if a facility the size of the Rentschler field, is necessary for an operation this size. the location is ideal, but so are many others, that would be more efficient. Something with a row of loading docks for trucks for instance within easy access of the three major highways crisscrossing the state.

If this company of men is moving truckload after truckload of supplies, hour after hour, 24 hours a day - it makes sense, if they're not, and they've been moving a couple trucks a day out of a facility the size of Rentschler? There's a big problem.

and the problem, in that case, is not that some football fans are inconvenienced, or the university may lose millions, its that the people in need aren't being serviced properly in time of need, by the CT national guard.

You talk about 100 men as if they are sitting around a campfire playing a harmonica and waiting for another truck to load with toilet paper. These National Guardsmen require food, sleep, toilets, cover, beds, electricity, communication, and machinery. With what was forecasted - and more importantly with what is still going on - the logistics to move them now is not easy.

I can understand the complaints about why that site was chosen in the first place ... but now is not the time to disrupt their mission.

 

[Jax Husky]

I love how everyone is making bold statements about the University "losing millions" if the game is played on Saturday. So, the difference between 35K on Thursday and 29K on Saturday equates to "losing millions"? The Rent is a PUBLIC facility, and is designated as a disaster relief center. They are doing disaster relief there (the scale of the operation is of no consequence). The facility does not belong to UConn.

 

[Carl Spackler]

have you ever seen the guard in action? I've known a lot of national guard guys over the years, there's a lot of time spent doing not much else aside from packing up your gear, driving around the state, and then unpacking it, and then doing it all over. the days they get to go out on real combat exercises and fire weapons are pretty exciting for them. I'm not disrespecting anyone who has put on a uniform, in any regard or branch of service. I'm grateful, eternally to everyone that does it. But we are not talking about combat soldiers in the line of fire here, or a supply division that is charged with keeping those guys out there on the lines geared up with what they need to stay alive. We're talking about a small unit of men, that are more than used to packing up all their gear and driving all over the state and loading and unloading trucks. It's what they do. I'd bet the guys out there geared up after this storm would love to be out on the roads, fixing bridges, removing trees, and all that stuff, rather than operating forklifts.

This whole mess is about a what I think was a very bad decision made by the commander of the CT national guard. If Rentschler was supposed to be a central staging location for the entire guard ops, and coordinated with federal resources, that's what it should be doing.

With the weather that was forecasted? These guys are sleeping in an open air concourse. If that stadium had gotten wiped out, they'd be sleeping on the parking lots and fields. I don't think shelter for the guys involved is a high priority in this mission.

As for complaints about the choice of location? I've never made one. The location is a perfect choice for staging large scale military operations within the state of CT.

The key words being "large scale". Based on what I can tell about the size of the operation, they could have continued all operations on site, while the game was going on.

The 100 guys would have had to pack up their bunks for the day.

It's what the buzz word would be called - proportional response. The decision making around this whole thing seems completely out of proportion, and as long as the game is rescheduled and there isn't too much of a financial hit to anyone (organization, business, institution) involved with this game happening, it's chalked up as a major learning experience and political bomb avoided.

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

have you ever seen the guard in action? I've known a lot of national guard guys over the years, there's a lot of time spent doing not much else aside from packing up your gear, driving around the state, and then unpacking it, and then doing it all over.

I'm not disrespecting anyone who has put on a uniform, in any regard or branch of service.

Really? Because it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing.

 

[Carl Spackler]

It's not a disrespect. Any guard people out there? Tell me I'm wrong. The weekends you've got duty, are usually spent packing up your gear whatever your speciality is, driving somewhere in the state, unpacking it, setting up for some kind of operation, then breaking it all down again and driving back to your post over a 48, maybe 72 hour period. packing up everything you've got, and traveling to a new location, and unpacking it to set up for a mission, is nothing new or difficult for these guys.

The guard is a perfect organization for what they need to do. These guys should be out sandbagging around flood areas. Cutting down and removing trees and any other obstructions on roads making them impassable. Helping stabilize damaged roads and bridges with the heavy equipment they've got available. Trucking supplies all over the state.

I hope that the majority of them are out there actually doing those things. I wonder if they are.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Just so I'm clear, in case anyone actually ever served in the line of fire reads this, I know that the guard gets deployed in harms way, and has regularly in the past and there are CT soldiers in the national guard overseas right now. Nothing I've written disrespects taht. These men train the same way, and face the same dangers as everybody else that puts on the uniform. They've got different missions when they're on home soil than regular Army or Air Force. That's all. In this situation, they're deployed for one of those types of missions.

These guys, I would hope, are well trained enough, and coordinated enough, that if the order came to pack up and start the supply chain going somewhere else, they'd be doing it quickly, get teh communicatiosn and logistics squared away, and get it done within a matter of hours, because those same 100 guys, might just end up having the exact same mission, on an airfield somehwere in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the ability to pack up and move at a moment's notice, might mean a hell of lot more than a football game getting played.

I hope an announcement comes soon.