1) Gabbard is not a "combat veteran" in terms of seeing combat - she was with a medical unit north of Baghdad in Camp Anaconda, where the worst they got was mortars with extremely bad aim. She is not a medic AFAIK (a claim made in many places), but simply served in a medical unit (presumably she has some medic training, but she was not a doctor or nurse or paramedic stateside) - Wikipedia probably accurately describes this as "serving in a field medical unit as a specialist in a combat zone with the 29th Support Battalion medical company". Why does this make a difference? actual combat risk.

Members of the 322nd Civil Affairs brigade headquarters convoy security detail, called Team Mauna Kea, conducted more than 275 combat patrols and were engaged by enemy forces six times. None of the team soldiers was wounded.

However, of about 750 soldiers in the brigade, four in subordinate battalions were killed and 22 were wounded in action.

She is not an "Army Officer" as this article mistakenly asserts but an officer in the National Guard/Army Reserve through an Accelerated 8 week program - again, a very different program, and the result of this was a stint as a Military Police Officer in Kuwait - good enough, but not a combat Army officer.

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Posted 11 mo ago

 

I'm currently in phase 2 of traditional, but I did do my phase 1 in Alabama where they do accelerated, so I was able to see what it would've been like. There are pros and cons to all 3 routes to take.

Federal - If I had the option and time to take off of work and away from family, I'd definitely do this route. It's a much more "laid back" (certainly not going to be easy, I don't mean that) course. From what I've heard, you get weekends off, and it's much slower paced and far less intense, physically and mentally, simply because you have more time, so it doesn't need to be so intense.

Accelerated - The pro is that you get it over with. Many states will only allow prior service or PT studs to go accelerated, and I can certainly see why. You won't learn a whole lot in accelerated. It's a way to get 2LT quickly. You can learn how to be an officer after you get commissioned. If you were going into it as an NCO, you'd likely have leadership experience and know a bit about what officers do, etc. Physically, it's a beast, quite possibly the hardest thing you will ever go through. It's extremely frustrating, because it's generally hard for no particularly good reason. It's not like you're getting smoked to teach a lesson, you're getting smoked because the officers before you had it hard, so they want to continue the "tradition" and make it hard for you, too. It's a rush to get commissioned, and that's about it.

Traditional - The major con for traditional is, of course, that it takes FORREEVVVER! The good part is that you really do get a feel for what it will be like to be a National Guard officer. You get to face the struggles of "I'm trying to pass word to my platoon, but I can't get a hold of Joe Snuffy", maybe someone changed their phone number and didn't give anyone their new one, planning between drills, etc. You get time between drills to prepare for the next objective, whether it's your APFT, 5 mile run, 12 mile ruck, the history exam, whatever it is, you'll have that month to prepare for each major event. For me, I'm not going to be going into a combat arms branch, so a lot of the stuff we're learning won't really be relevant to me, and it doesn't really matter if I retain it, but it is still nice that I do have a better chance at retaining it compared to at accelerated where you're taught a class in the morning, test on it that evening, then forget about it.

So if you're okay with just speeding through content, forgetting everything, getting commissioned, THEN learning how to be an officer, I'd suggest federal first, and accelerated if that's not an option. If you want to come out of OCS as a more prepared 2LT, I'd say traditional.

2) Tulsi's not antiwar
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/01/tulsi-gabbards-record-syria-...

Ammoland.com, April 24: Tulsi is Terrible but Redeemable on the Second Amendment