Take a look at this ad:
A few seconds in, Sen Mastriano's wife Rebbie says this:
One of the biggest challenges, besides deployment, was serving in Alpha Company.
That's followed by a big burly guy named Lance Frazee who says:
There's a lot of pressure on these soldiers, you know. There were suicides there.
He then praises the added level of discipline that Doug Mastriano brought to the company. Discipline that brought down the number of suicides in Alpha Company.
To hear them say it Alpha Company was some super secret commando unit under tons of stress right? On some dangerous mission, right? Or at least training for one, right?
Um, you might want to start your own research with this:
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has released a new ad featuring a testimonial from Army Staff sergeant Lance Frazee.And:
Frazee, who served in the Alpha Company, 229th Military Intelligence Battalion in the late 1990s under Mastriano's leadership, is featured in the ad, describing Mastriano's style as a military leader.[Emphasis added.]
Ok, so it's Military Intelligence. But again to hear them talk about it, Alpha Company
must've been an MI unit deployed to some dangerous area of the world, right? On some
dangerous missions in the middle of some big bad dangerous danger, right?
Guess again.
Take a look at this (from the Wayback Machine, dated June 17, 2021):
229th Military Intellignece Battalion, ATTN: S1431 Rifle Range RoadBLDG 616, Taylor HallPresidio of Monterey, California 93944
The Army's language school in northern California. The entire school system, according to the thesis, encompassed more than 1,000 students and civilian instructors.
And finally from Doug Mastriano's thesis, we get a little more info:
In 1995, he moved to the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California and served as the Operations Officer (S3) of the 229th Military Intelligence Battalion and as the Commander of Alpha Company.
One of the duties of an S3 is training.
And according to this history of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, this is how the 229th was arranged in the late 90s:
The soldiers of the 229th MI Battalion were organized into six companies, A through F. Five of the companies were dedicated to initial-entry soldiers who, in addition to language training, had to complete their soldierization training while at the Presidio of Monterey. Alpha Company consisted of students studying Korean, Chinese, and the languages of South East Asia. Bravo Company was for students studying Arabic, Hebrew and Turkish. Charlie Company consisted primarily of soldiers studying western European languages. Delta Company was diverse, containing students studying thirteen different languages. Delta Company had platoons of soldiers from Middle East II, Middle East I, the European and Latin American School, and European II as well as a platoon for officers and NCOs. Echo Company contained students from Asian I, Asian II, and European I schools. Soldiers who were in casual status were assigned to 4th Platoon of Echo Company as well. Foxtrot Company contained Russian students.
They were initial-entry soldiers who had yet to complete their "soldierization" in the Army. So Doug was training newly post-basic training linguists who were putting in 7 hour days immersed in their language but had not yet completed their full initial training in the US Army.
Right. Got it.
According to the above history this is what Doug was actually doing:
DLIFLC students are, for the most part, members of the Armed Forces and may be called upon for a number of military duties. The majority of Army students in the late 1990s were also required to complete their basic entry training after they arrived in Monterey. Thus, in addition to language training, soldierization and professional development training were key missions of Troop Command and later the 229th Military Intelligence Battalion. On 10 February 1996, Alpha Company, under the command of Captain Douglas Mastriano, participated in Operation Dragon Thunder on the Presidio Annex at the former Fort Ord. The training, focused upon military operations in urban terrain, allowed soldiers to use both their newly acquired military and language skills in a realistic combat scenario.
Though after a second such training operation a few months later, Doug's superiors were not that happy with the program:
Although the students enjoyed Operation Dragon Thunder and were more than willing to give up a Saturday, Mastriano faced opposition to continuing the exercises. “The battalion was not supportive, saying that the company commander wasted resources such as smoke grenades, artillery simulators and blank rounds.” It would be another two years until there was a renewed emphasis in soldierization under Lieutenant Colonel Rundle.
But look who else was there. This is from The Globe, the magazine of the DLIFLC, dated March/April 1996 (pg 16-17):
Operation Dragon Thunder is the name applied to Alpha Company soldiers' final step at DLI toward fulfilling these soldierization skills. The Feb. 10 exercise evaluated their ability to combine basic military and language skills in a simulated-combat environment. More than 100 Alpha soldiers participated in the exercise, encompassing six separate language classes. "This operation is not only designed to meet the soldierization requirements, but to give our soldiers more of a real-world scenario," said Sgt. Lance Frazee, Alpha Company's training NCO. [Emphasis added.]
Hey, it's Lance the big burly guy from Doug's ad!
Small world, huh?
But tell me. The soldierization if these folks was already a pretty good if rather mundane story of good military training. Why feel the need to juice it up with references to how Doug's training reduced the numbers of suicides in Alpha Company?
And just how many suicides were there at that language school before Doug showed up? How many when he left? If he succeeded in reducing the number of suicides (plural) there, isn't the bigger story the failure of the previous S3 to address them?
Don't get me wrong, any suicide in the military is a tragedy (as it is among military veterans) and I am not looking to lessen that issue but isn't it cheapened it when it's injected it into an otherwise everyday example of good military leadership for simple political points?
Isn't it?
Oh, and one more point. St Sen (and now GOP cand. for PA Gov) Doug Mastriano wants to assure all Pennsylvanians that he has their back (that's why he told the "I stopped some suicides" story, y'know).
But of course that would not include:
- Pregnant rape victims forced to give birth to their rapist's child.
- LGBTQ Pennsylvanians who are married but just not in a Mastriano-sanctioned "traditional" marriage.
- Women suffering through ectopic pregnancies whose lives will be put in danger by denying them abortion coverage.
Yea, to those Pennsylvanians, Doug Mastriano does not have your (collective) backs.
He just lied to you.
