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The military is quite good at operations 'other than war'. I was a minor cog in one effort, in 1991: Joint Task Force Sea Angel. Details are searchable, but th
by bdunbar 12y ago
The military is quite good at operations 'other than war'. I was a minor cog in one effort, in 1991: Joint Task Force Sea Angel.
Details are searchable, but the upshot is that NGOs (I no longer recall if the term was used then) provided far more disaster relief assets and supplies, than the military did.
What the Marines brought to the party was command and control, and the ability to field, and support, a thousand guys in only days for delivering food, water, and medical aid.
And also, one shouldn't underestimate the ability of a brigade of disciplined troops to control masses of infected people. If they're told 'don't shoot' then they won't shoot.
- rgbrenner 12y agoThat is already happening. There are already 565 US military in the region, and Obama plans to deploy up to 4000. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/another-100-u-s-troops-arrive-liberia-fight-ebola-n225581 http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/anothe...
- danieltillett 12y agoWhich is way less than the number we need there right now let alone in a couple of months it will take these troops to all get there. If people want to know what it is like on the ground have a read of this blog post [1]. [1] http://pfmhcolumbia.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/les-roberts-the-prediction-landscape-is-looking-bad/ http://pfmhcolumbia.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/les-roberts-the...
- krschultz 12y agoHonestly I have been disappointed by how effective they have been. I would expect the Army to be able to build field hospitals faster than this. There have been a lot of setbacks, detailed in a recent NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/us-effort-in-liberia-barely-gets-on-the-ground.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/us-effort-in-liberia-ba...
- bdunbar 12y ago" the local contractor announced that the crusher’s engine, needed to smash rocks, had broken" and "Hauling parts and equipment from the United States and Europe takes time, and then there are negotiations with local contractors for heavy equipment." That's crazy. The Seebees and other military engineers have rock crushers, and construction equipment. They know how to break that stuff down and put it on airplanes. The Air Force is used to transporting that stuff. Now, I was only a stupid jarhead, and there may be issues not called out in the article, but I'd expect a week, tops, could get engineers on site, working, with their own equipment.
- techdragon 12y agoreplying to you since i can't reply to the child reply i wanted to address. If they deployed the SeaBees this wouldn't be happening. The key word is 'contractor', by using companies to avoid the political taint of 'getting involved where they aren't wanted' or being accused of 'wasting money' we send the proverbial 'lowest bidder' instead of the trained experts. Sad but true.
- bdunbar 12y agoThe linked article is now slow to load, for me. But I recall that the fellow who was having issues with the rock crusher was called out as a Seebee. Perhaps he's there as sort of general contractor, working with the locals to build stuff, and not part of a battalion. Which seems stupid, to me. Building a lot of stuff on short notice, as a team, is what the Seebee battalions are for.