Let the Bataan Do Her Duty

Two more good posts on the 'looting' issue, original post and follow up post.

Finally, something Newt and I agree on: ""If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican." (towards the end of this article in SFgate.com)

This makes me ill. I come from a military family and our next generation will probably have someone following suit. When there was flooding in Bangladesh (or was it Pakistan, not sure) just after the Gulf War I my brother who was in the Navy at the time, went there -- and his ship was steaming home with many of the crew serving well after their committments were up. Then they ended up in the Philippenes because of the volcanic disaster there. All in all I think they were 3 months delayed returning.

So I know how our servicemen and women respond to global disasters, even when they're ON THEIR WAY HOME FROM A WAR they stop and help people in need. Why aren't they being allowed to do the same on their own shores?? I won't second guess the commander of the ship, either. There's a chain of command and the people at the top of it are the ones responsible, not her. I point you to James Macdonald's great post at Making Light about the Incident Command System.