There's a huge difference between stupidly following orders and being forced to follow a stupid order.

The 1 ID spokesman must be serving in the Candyland Army if he's never heard of Soldiers being given lawful, yet pointless orders like sweeping dirt floors, painting white rocks white, or even handing out flat soccer balls.

I understand the ideas being expressed in this article and my question is not meant to challenge the author or Reppenhagen.

But if "there are soccer fields everywhere" and "...all they do all day long is play soccer," wouldn't it make sense that there might be a few pumps and needles around somewhere?

Just askin'...

My first reaction was also, gee wouldn't there be a few pumps to be had? But after some brief thought realized that with the situation those Iraqi folks are dealing with right now, a soccer ball pump might be kind of hard to find amidst all the destruction.

We're not laughing at soldiers "dumbly following orders". We're sharing their frustrations at officers and commanders, all the way up the ladder to the Pentagon and the Oval Office, at halfwit superiors, as near as I can judge from the evidence on the ground and in this article, the higher the rank the dumber the commander, we're sharing their frustration at being ordered to complete their missions with inadequate equipment, from unarmored vehicles to inadequate medical and psychological care, to deflated soccer balls.

Your attempt to twist this story around, trying to turn this metaphorical story about the incompetence and indifference of commanders into an example of civilian contempt for the military, is nothing short of malicious demogoguery.

You should be ashamed.

The soldiers went to the mechanics in the outfit to try and figure out how to get the balls inflated. They didn't have the right needles. What else were they supposed to do?

This whole stupid thing was probably set up on a timeline, and had to be completed ASAP. When the balls arrived flat, without a pump to fill them, the whole operation became FUBAR.

If there was some flexibility available to the commanders on the ground, they might have been able to delay the operation until a pump or two was found (perhaps by getting assistance from some Iraqi citizens?) But chances are, the Captain had order to distribute the balls on schedule, so there wasn't any time to make things work.

This is typical when oerder are being issued way up the chain of command, far from the people on the ground who have to carry them out.

Typical, and tragic.

I'm not laughing. Those soccer balls cost me, the US taxpayer, $1600 each.

Assuming that some of the kids would have needles and pumps is assuming that they are playing soccer with modern, air-filled balls. We don't know that they are. The cheapest balls are usually stuffed with foam rubber. For all we know the kids might have homemade balls, unable to afford even the foam ones.

Besides, even if they could scrounge up some pumps and needles somewhere, the message they got was all wrong: Here, kid, here's a ball. We don't care enough to get it ready for you to play with, but hey, it's a ball. You should be thankful. The people further up the chain of command didn't think that far, but the soldiers ordered to do the job did. Unfortunately the bad feelings created by this bizarre "gift" will come down, as usual, on the soldiers in the field, not their superiors who made this boneheaded decision from a safe distance away.

If each ball is really $1600, then that would mean you, the individual American taxpayer, would be forking over about 8 ten-thousandths of a PENNY per ball, according to my rough estimate. (I figure 200 million American taxpayers, with the other hundred mil being children, stay-at-home parents, other dependants, etc..)

Inflated or not, how about some handing out some food or medicine of equivalent cost? This reminds me of those idiotic charities that give Playstations and Christmas toys to terminally ill kids when there are millions of non-terminally ill kids who die for lack of food and water. But hey, it's the donor's own business who they give to, right? The same idiotic spirit of American 'charity' that puts priority on the act of giving rather than the usefulness of the gift. The giving is a way to alleviate guilt and feel like they did something. And they're more concerned with giving gifts that reflect their own lifestyle and values (Bibles, soccer balls, luxuries) rather than boring stuff like basic survival needs. Ridiculous.

This story takes me back 37 years. I see nothing has changed in the U.S. Army, and undoubtedly in the Marines also.

Every good intention, no matter what, gets fucked up and turned inside out by the madding stupidity of some complete dickhead somewhere up the chain of command.

Instead of winning the hearts and minds of the kids, we just come off looking stupid. Instead of being a morale boost for the grunts, it serves as just another example of the futility of life in a war zone with death out in front of you and a bunch of complete morons running the show from the rear.

Hang in there guys, we're trying to get you home!

for his disrespect for the troops. It will be fun to see what happens when he shows up at his local Veterans' hall a few years from now.

What's truly sad about this story, however, is that it shows how deeply FUBAR this entire war has been. The U.S. can blow up entire civilian villages but not even one soccer ball. And even more disturbing, was there not a single Arabic-speaker on the base? Why couldn't they have arranged for local kids to get paid a couple days' much-needed wages to inflate these balls?

Of course no one blames our over-stressed and traumatized troops, but we would like to see asshats like Kubik get at least a reprimand for the part they played in losing yet another war for the U.S.