Obama's report from Afghanistan

Stephen Spruiell:

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The first is that Obama said, "You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon." Captains command companies; lieutenants lead platoons. However, it's possible that Obama's captain was talking about a time when he led a platoon as a lieutenant before being promoted, so this isn't that problematic.

The second, more problematic criticism concerns Obama's claim that "[He was] supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq." A number of Corner readers with military experience have pointed out that platoons aren't broken up this way. As one reader explained:

A platoon is the smallest unit deployed outside of [special forces] operations. Sending 24 men to one theater and 15 to another would destroy unit cohesion, leave one group without an officer and be a nightmare for the next higher unit's (the company) command, control and communication structure. You should take this story with a grain of salt — that grain being the size of the moon.

Another reader, an 11-year veteran currently working as a civilian for the DoD in Iraq, writes, "More likely they were just understrength due to the normal turnover of the military (people going to service schools, being promoted when there is no slot for them in that unit, being discharged, changing specialties, etc. ad infinitum)."

This reader also commented on the third aspect of Obama's anecdote that has attracted criticism: His claim that, "they didn't have enough ammunition... They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief." The reader writes:

I find it inconceivable that any line combat unit would not have plenty of ammunition resupply. Special Operations forces operating in remote areas may use captured ammunition because resupply operations can reveal their location to the enemy, but otherwise this claim is laughable.

Another veteran writes, "There's also the obvious question of, if they're so short of U.S. ammunition, how are they managing to capture Taliban ammunition."

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There is much more with emails from several service members who are calling BS on the story. I think that it is possible that a special forces unit may be led by a captain and may use enemy weapons and ammo to avoid detection. This sounds like an anecdote with a few missing pieces needed to make it make sense told by someone who does not know enough about the military and the use of force to know the difference.

Gateway Pundit also has more on the gaffe including a report from DOD denying the claim.

Michael Goldfarb has a long piece that also discussing the problem with Obama's version of military reality and eds it with this:

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Overall, I think Obama would be better sticking to his "message of hope"--hope that nobody will ever ask him to make any substantive statements on military affairs, ever again.

This is not the first time he has shown his ignorance of what is happening the war. Some bloggers have suggested that he was lying. I think neither he nor his staff were knowledgeable enough to know that what he was saying was wrong, which suggest that he was given the information by someone who was either making it up or was a phony soldier. Another alternative is that he did not comprehend what he was being told and got confused in the retelling. Even the latter suggest he is still very ignorant of military affairs.

Here is the YouTube of him demonstrating his ignorance.