Friday, October 22, 2004

Dover Insider Puts The Lie To Bush�s No Draft Promise!

Simply because this reporter happens to reside in the normally unnoticed three county state known as Delaware does not mean I am trying to position our fine little territory as the center of the universe. But for the second time in three days, the most important news I can convey to my readers is here in Delaware.

Since the early days of Vietnam, Dover Air Force Base has had the noble duty of receiving the bodies of dead Americans. From the military causalities of Vietnam and Iraq to the civilian remains from Jim Jones� Guyana death camp, Dover has served as the first portal to the soils of the homeland for thousands of dead American�s.

In our state of just under a million souls, its hard not to know someone connected in some way with DAFB (Dover Air Force Base). The military mortuary is actually a small part of the massive base operations. DAFB is home to the gargantuan Lockheed C-5 Galaxy Transport Fleet of MAC (Military Airlift Command). You could think of Dover as the hub of the United States military�s air freight operations. When it absolutely, positively has to get there to support our troops, the job falls to Dover.

Following the publication of my previous article on advance military orders from Halliburton, I heard from an old Dover friend. A friend who happens to be a die-hard lifelong Republican, but a friend who is truly worried about some subtle and secret happenings around the airbase in recent weeks, called me last night.

�Everyone is really edgy,� he confided.

�In the months before the war, we knew it was coming. The morgue usually keeps a few hundred body bags on hand and in a matter of weeks we had received nearly 5,000. Now obviously we still have a lot of those, but then last week another shipment of at least that many more arrived. I was talking with some buddies and we figure the morgue is now stocked with enough materials to handle another 9/11 and all the causalities so far in Iraq, times two!�

When I asked my friend what he and others around the base thought that meant his response had a hint of incredulity.

�Well obviously somebody thinks we�re going to see a sharp rise in the number of bodies coming back. But that�s not everything. The whole base is ramping up like we�re either getting ready for a second war or we�re going to be deploying a whole lot more troops to Iraq.�

When I inquired about the other indicators my friend gave me a rambling but enlightening education on the ABC�s of military logistical support. Basically, the base for the past 14 months has been in a steady rhythm of regular flights moving supplies to the troops in Iraq. But the last few weeks, base operations have shifted into a mode indicative of going on 24-24 turnaround status. This means the base is in a constant state of loading, launching then refuel, reload and launch again.

�Bottom line, the brass around Dover all had these funny smirks last week after Bush promised that he would not reinstate the draft. I saw regulars (Air Force Personnel) cleaning up some old barracks. Either we�re getting a shitload of new recruits or� Mark, the draft is coming back. You can bank that.�