I know that the cut backs STARTED under G.H.W.Bush, but some of the cutbacks were FORCED by the Democrats in Congress. The SAME EXPLETIVE DELETED CONGRESS that Broke G.Bush's arm to force a tax raise (they refused to discuss the budget until he backed down on the "No New Taxes" promise, and they were holding the FY 1990 budget as hostage. We had started the Desert Shield build-up, and the same Congress that had a LARGE number of traitorous Democrats that voted against supporting the troops and authorizing Bush to use force to evict Saddam from Kuwait .. the same Congress was going to not have a budget in place, and this would have cut the legs out of the military buildup in the Gulf. So Bush had to renege (he shouldn't have, and should have taken his case to the American people ... but he didn't want to risk the troops already present in the Gulf...) The Same Congress pushed onto G.H.W.Bush the bigger cuts than what Bush wanted.
Go ahead and Blame Bush if you want. You will find very few military, active, reserve or retired - who will agree with you. Most of us know that Bush (41) made mistakes .. . but we know he loved and respected the military, and wouldn't deliberately do anything that would hurt readiness or morale.
You, on the other hand, remind me of a Chief who refused to vote for Bush (41) and voted for Clinton. "Bush lied to me" said the Chief. But in '96, the Chief still voted for Clinton ("What about all the lies Clinton told", I asked. "Lies, what lies" he replied???) This guy, while serving in the military honorably, did not understand the difference between honor and dishonor, did not understand the difference between mistakes that Bush made vs. those that Clinton did DELIBERATELY. Even Reagan made some goofs (Beirut, 1983) ... but you could tell that he bled inwardly for his mistakes, and he resolved to try to avoid them in the future, and he never had a callous disregard for the military ... unlike Clinton.
So my question is... Why are you so upset about Bush?? Do you think he deliberately set about cutbacks that he forced on Congress, or are you just unhappy that he didn't fight Congress more to keep cutbacks from happening.
I have been "active" in the Reserve these past years, plus work as a Civil Servant at a Naval Shipyard ... so I have "my finger on the pulse" and I can tell you - the military have lots of love and respect for Reagan, Bush(41) and Bush(43) - and nothing but contempt for Clinton.
Mike
I have been "active" in the Reserve these past years, plus work as a Civil Servant at a Naval Shipyard ... so I have "my finger on the pulse" and I can tell you - the military have lots of love and respect for Reagan, Bush(41) and Bush(43) - and nothing but contempt for Clinton.
Look I've posted this before and I'll say it again. I blame GHW Bush, Bill Clinton, both of their S.O.D.'s both houses during those terms and both parties sitting during those terms. Even when the GOP won the houses they sat there like a bunch of idiots letting Clinton put it deeper and deeper simply because they thought it would make him look bad and them look good and didn't give a care one way or another if any ship floated or gun fired.Bush should have fought harder. He was no Ronald Reagan mainly because he was against most of Reagans policies. The crapolla that candidates shouldn't speak evil against the party chosen is hilarious Bush Sr done it till the day Reagan made him running mate.
Go back and read that article I linked. We were down to 12 carriers at the end of Bush sr SOD Aspin wanted 10 Borda said 12. I think W wants 10 as well. Like I said if we are supposedly entering an extended conflict somebody better start acting like it then and do the necessary build up. But let's address the real issue here. It is the constitutional duty of government to provide for the nations defense. That alone above all else should be priority #1. If we ask a sailor to spend 6 months operating those 8 boilers then we should make sure those 8 boilers and related machinery and piping are safe enough so that sailor and half his shipmates are blown to bits and burned to death by a steam break because some politician wanted to save a buck for the national forest or faith based programs. Forget that we are supposed to be at war right? Our defense is suffering and all aviable money should be going there till the level of readiness is sufficent that we can handle problems without calling up reserves all the time and equipment maintenance get's done in a timely manner. The patch and go military we have been using for the past 13 years needs to be halted. The maintenance needs to be done properly that means down time.
Look I support all military including down to the local NG's. Why are we using them as deployed troops? That is not the same thing as a combat ready unit and you know it. NG's especially Army NG's are vets from the Navy and Air Force as well and probably make up 50% of the units. These guys never touched an M-16 except with blanks, never had combat training and yet we allow them to be deployed as ready troops? This garbage started under Pappy Bush because the military had already been down graded to that point. If you see nothing wrong with a carrier having on two of it's generators functional, fuel problems and no radar as a ship ready for a 6 month deployment then me and you have very opposing views on combat readiness. I'll explain to you why there was no radar in the article I posted. With two generators that meant no chillers were functional. Chillers are the ships airconditioning system. No air conditioning no electronics believe me on that one I spent 4 years in the AC&R shop.
The gyro would have possibly been functional as it's location had a back up A/C unit. Now when both parties of congress and the senate as well as POTUS start addressing this problem with the seriousness it deserves ahead of spending money on nonsense issues some even beyond legitimate function of government then I'll reconsider.