When I get the morning report on security, I call those battalions in the regions where there are problems.
I proudly served in the United States Army during the Korean War as an artillery operations specialist in the all-black 503rd Field Artillery Battalion in the Second Infantry Division.
The only black battalion on Iwo Jima was a small munitions supply unit that came to the beach.
My father, a captain in the 5th Battalion of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, landed in Normandy the day after D-Day.
The Germans have done wonderful work. Not long ago, a German battle group battalion conducted a very impressive counterinsurgency operation in a portion of Baghlan province. I think these are the first counterinsurgency operations conducted by any German element after World War II. And they did a very impressive job.
The number of attacks on the American and allied forces is at the highest level since the insurgency began despite the increase of America combat operations and the introduction of some 40 new Iraq security forces and battalions.
In the World War nothing was more dreadful to witness than a chain of men starting with a battalion commander and ending with an army commander sitting in telephone boxes, improvised or actual, talking, talking, talking, in place of leading, leading, leading.
The day after the prison was transferred to the military intelligence command, they had an entire battalion - 1,200, 1,500 soldiers - arrive at Abu Ghraib just for force protection alone.
Look, it's no longer about capacity, how many ships, how many air wings, how many battalions. It's about capability. If we dominate cyber space and know and can read the other guy's mail, and with a very accurate laser-guided munitions put it in this window or that window, it's not how much, it's knowing exactly where to pinpoint a target.
I pointed out on the floor last year, after Hurricane Katrina, we were very proud that one of our National Guard engineering battalions was called to Louisiana. And they did a magnificent job.
