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To: blueunicorn6
Bacevich is brilliant. I have met and talked with him. His thoughts should be taken seriously. His thoughts should also be taken in context. Besides being a tremendous warrior and a brilliant thinker, he is also a grieving Father who lost a beloved Son in a poorly run war. Maybe he can keep that from affecting his thoughts in this area. The man I met was human in the very best sense of that word. I was in awe of his mentoring of his Lieutenants. It was very much like a Father teaching his Sons. I have an intense admiration for Bacevich, and I agree with his take on our leaders in the military, but I disagree with him on how we determine the size of the Army.

If history should teach us anything, it's that we always tend to fund, train and organize our military around fighting the last war and/ or the aftermath of it instead of looking forward to growing threats. If Bacevich is brilliant, as you attest, he should acknowledge this. I suspect his grief and guilt projection onto an administration that was less than adroit in such matters, no matter how just and honorable the effort may have been, and signing on to Obama "smart power" as a sufficient way of military power projection is clouding his thought process.

42 posted on 03/03/2014 9:40:25 AM PST by TADSLOS (The Event Horizon has come and gone. Buckle up and hang on.)
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To: TADSLOS

Look again at what Bacevich wrote. His first paragraph argues for the same point you are making.
I can’t explain his support for Obama. I never talked politics with him. I also can’t explain my in-laws support for the Democrat party.
I don’t know the whole story about Camp Doha. I realized early in my career that when somebody died or was seriously injured in peacetime that the first line supervisor would be fired. The second line supervisor would be fired and the third line supervisor would be retired. The Navy is the same way. If your ship runs aground, you get fired. You could be the Captain of the ship and be sound asleep when the ship runs aground. It doesn’t matter. You get fired. It’s not always fair, but it sends a message about how important some things are. Bacevich is brilliant and was a great warrior. It appears that he was unlucky (coupled with some mistakes) and he took responsibility and the Army lost a great leader. You can rail against your luck all you want. It just is. Somewhere, there’s a former artillery Soldier whose actions with a heater had a tremendous effect on today’s Army.


49 posted on 03/03/2014 10:20:47 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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