September 4, 2005
This was sent by my daughter and Katie is my granddaughter. Katie's dad (my daughter's ex-husband) is a career army officer who has finished two tours in Iraq. He began in Special Forces (Green Berets, at that time) and became a helicopter pilot although his last two tours were as a translator; among several other languages he speaks Arabic. He was also a life-long Republican so something shook him loose from his beliefs. He's a Colonel so he's privy to a bit of information.
D.S.
Katie just talked to her Dad. He told her he has been watching this thing unfold and he is totally disgusted, because as part of his job he knows the capability of the government to help these people. He knows how many helicopters the military has, and where they are, and what they are capable of, and they could have easily dropped water, food, etc. practically right away. He used the example of a Black Hawk helicopter saying it can conveniently hold 5,000 lb. of supplies, a Chinook can hold 27,000 lb of supplies conveniently, etc. He says he doesn't think it's that the gov't doesn't care about black and poor people, they just don't care about people at all. (Not the citizens, because we are all totally outraged.) Apparently he bases his opinion on the fact that he saw first-hand, while he was in Iraq, the US government did not care about their own soldiers in Iraq. I remember he came back totally disgusted with the military. He said it's all about politics and the honchos all stand around congratulating one another. Makes me want to hurl.