MAJOR JOHN TAMMES, an Illinois National Guardsman recently returned from Afghanistan, responds to Rep. Murtha’s “broken army” comments, and he’s not happy:

Unmitigated crap. And I don’t say this out of defensiveness or service pride – I’ll tell you about how far we have had to come in a bit. First, though, a little material for you to mull over. . . .

As anyone who has read this blog knows, The Inner Prop and I served in Operation Enduring Freedom V (Afghanistan, March 2004-March 2005). We stood at the end of the longest sustained supply line in the history of human conflict. We were in war-torn Central Asia. Af-frickin’-ghanistan. We had decent food, e-mail, phone (OK, sometimes they weren’t always working, but almost all the time) excellent medical support, good pay, regular (if slow) mail. We had a PXs at most of the larger bases, and coffee places sprang up too. We had so damned much ammunition that we needed to build a bigger ammunition supply point at Bagram, AF. We had so many vehicles that we were constantly squabbling over where to put them all – and we had enough up-armored ones too. Our supply warehouses were stuffed with clothing, boots, body armor and the like. “Living hand to mouth” is the worst lie of the bunch.

The constant stream of re-enlistments was a revelation to me. When I was the Executive Officer of the garrison at Bagram Airfield (a job I gladly traded away after 5 months) I had to find room to more than double the size of the Retention Office. I personally administered the oath of re-enlistment to an E-5 and an E-7. The E-5 was a mother of two young children and the E-7 was eligible to retire when we got home!

Broken? Hardly. Is it difficult work? Yes.

Read the whole thing.

My own opinion is that Congress is “broken.” But not, alas, living hand-to-mouth.

UPDATE: While Rep. Murtha doesn’t have the time to get the facts right on the war, Congress does have the time to investigate the BCS system. Jeez. Did I say “broken?” Yes, I did.