Here is a message from a friend of mine who is in the Army.

Having fought in Iraq I understand quite well the capabilities and capacities of our military. The fact that people went without food or water at the Super Dome for days in this country is preposterous.

I am on an Army installation just a short helicopter ride to the north of New Orleans. It would be what civilians refer to as a "no-brainer" to get palettes of MRE's and water to the Super Dome in a matter of hours. All someone has to do is ask, the right person, and whoever that person is, didn't or it would have been there. 40,000 National Guard troops however, takes some time, but for the necessities of food and water, there is no good reason why support was not requested of the military (and delivered) earlier on.

This is possible because of something called a PREPO-YARD. It stands for Preposition Yard, and they are all over the Army, at every installation. These preposition yards, are large stocks of food and other items essential to a rapidly deploying or under-supplied unit. They are there for situations like this too. Every deployable unit in the Army is, generally speaking, supposed to be deployable in 72 hours or less. That means: on the bird, ready to go. Some Airborne units maintain at least a battalion size element (approx. 400-500 soldiers) on a "ready force" status, ready to be "wheels up" in 18 hours or less. Now that's "ready to go to war half way across the world". To put some necessities on a helicopter is just a few hours of preparation.

The fact of the matter is, we can sling load MRE's and water on a Chinook and deliver them to a 10 digit (read: very precise) grid coordinate on a moments notice, half way around the world. Somebody in the local, state, or federal leadership dropped the ball, big-time, and someone should go to jail for it. I am ashamed today to live in the same country that would allow this calamity to go on. To think that it could be my family there makes me so angry my blood boils.