Floggings will continue until the moral improves.
Please to not discount the “paper pushing Majors in the Pentagon” as useless. Virtually everyone of them have served as a lieutenant, captain or major in Iraq and Afghanistan. I know this because I work with them. Is Major Smith in my office, who lost his left leg to an IED on patrol when he was a captain in Afghanistan now just a “useless paper pusher” or is he on a tour that enables him to be with his family and to get continuing care at Walter Reed National Medical Center that will enable the “pentagon” to have benefit of his experience?
What about the now full colonel who did 4 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan? He is working on a history of the war in Iraq.
Yep, if they are being shot at right now, I guess they are useless under your criteria.
And this reduction of force has happened in the past: Revolutionary War, War of 1812; Civil War; Spanish-American War; WWI; WWII; Korea; Vietnam; and the Cold War — When I got my RIF notice because there were NOT going to be any more wars.
Thus the focus, IMO, ought to be at a “president” who despises the military and wants to gut it.
Those Majors at the Pentagon will soon be out in the field and the field Majors will be at the Pentagon. This isn’t a game of musical chairs. You don’t eliminate officers by the billet they currently fill.