Posted on 08/18/2026 7:04:51 AM PDT by rlmorel
From the article:
Having spent over 55 years inside academe — earning Bachelor of Science (BS) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, then serving as a post-doctoral cancer researcher, faculty member, and research administrator, not retiring until almost 79 years of age — how the one-year title of Staff Sergeant (SSG) decades ago could mean more to me than my PhD might seem bizarre. Nonetheless, it’s true.
Why?
The 19-months in the U.S. Army, as a 24-year-old draftee, transformed my life. Essentially every significant civilian success thereafter can be attributed to that brief stint serving America, and two main factors were responsible.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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And especially now Women. They don’t have to be on the front lines.
How are you using that line “The nostalgia of being better ‘back in my day’ is just old farts blowing smoke.” there are some areas of the military people that vets are justifiably concerned about, like will the female filling military and the resulting reduced standards and toughness along with the less tough young men of today mean we lack the sustained toughness and stoicism required for a long term bloody war where entire units are being decimated and even wiped out, Divisions overrun, ships of flames and twisted steel needing more muscle and manpower to survive the damage than is available from the females.
While just as competent in their jobs as in the past (after all, in peacetime, a girl is just about as capable in a clean, dry, well-fed, 8 to 5 job as a male), can these modern formations deal with sustained deprivation of their supplies being broken, with food and ammo not arriving, winter gear not showing up, weeks and then months of cold, hunger, and killing and not knowing if they are winning or losing, or even being cut-off and abandoned, while safe rear units are under attack from enemy artillery and paratroopers, are they as wired for that as the males and the all male militaries of the past?
Thanks for the examples.
Perfect example of preparing to fight the past wars.
“A Ph.D. is an abbreviation for ‘Doctor of Philosophy’”
Yes. I know. Hubby’s PhD is in Physics.
In the article I didn’t see the author’s specific discipline. (Maybe it was there and I couldn’t find it.) Anyhow, since they give PhDs in Philosophy, I assumed it was in Philosophy.
You think that ugly sustained warfare among advance nations is dead?
I remember on the evaluation as I left the ship after 19 months, the Captain said he was confident in me when I had the bridge watch, because he could always be assured to a comprehensive and accurate evaluation of how to handle the ship traffic. The traffic could be intense going into and out of Honk Kong, Singapore, Tokyo.
I suppose I could list accomplishments since then, but they are insignificant in comparison.
I think this thread is about the U.S. military.
Well, you see an example of war in depth that I was describing, in Europe.
An American war against China, or Russian in a few years, could be different from the limited engagements you have seen in your lifetime, where our forces are relatively unscathed and our Navy untouched, and our Air force never under serious threat, and everyone gets their food delivered on time and the hospitals aren’t being shelled and the rear units aren’t fighting off paratroopers and commandos.
First tier enemies study our armed forces and work to develop ways to breakup what some have come to see as the normal way of Americans at war, and those first tier militaries have the forces and the technology and air forces and army divisions, armor, artillery, submarines and navy to do it.
My recollection from the 1950s is that President Eisenhower wished that every youth physically capable should be required to gain military experience, preferably while still a minor. In his approach to Uniform Military Training, he summarized his view toward it in his Executive Order of 1955 Renewing The Selective Service Act(click here):
"The first concerns the selective service act which expires next June 30th. For the foreseeable future, our standing forces must remain much larger than voluntary methods can sustain. We must, therefore, extend the statutory authority to induct men for two years of military service."From personal experience reflecting on my own past, entering the shock of university life directly out of high school without the military supervision of attaining personal accountability for one's behavior, I became quite soon fully persuaded of the need for the maturation into adulthood that two years of service could provide.
I believe it still would be a great benefit to both the individual and to the nation to reinstitute the draft, a boon which has since been scotched by the "do-gooders" of Congress.
The first thought that came into my mind is, “How the dickens did this unwilling draftee ever get the rank of Staff Sergeant after only 7 months since induction of which 3 months were spent in basic training?”
Yeah. And weight. I am painfully skinny at 265lbs (? Can’t remember) and dieted down (to point of an 8 pack abs) to get there.
I was a power forward in D1 basketball if that helps (think Shaq who was probably 330). Just a typical cowboy.
I think they put all us Neanderthals in artillery: We didn’t have a guy under 6’.
“One major difference between civilian and military knowledge is that while the power brokers want to keep people ignorant, they have to let some real knowledge through in order for the military to operate.“
I think you mean the power brokers in the military, right?
Just to make it clear, real knowledge flows from the military to the government agencies, not the other way around.
I think you mean the power brokers in the military, right?
No, I mean power brokers who run entire systems throughout the world. A military is the force component of political bodies, and those political bodies share knowledge as needed with a military in order for the military to operate.
Just to make it clear, real knowledge flows from the military to the government agencies, not the other way around.
Yes and no. Intel may flow from military to government but real knowledge is hidden from everyone outside a small circle.
Almost everything the military uses was determined and developed by civilians. All the political machinations behind military use are by civilians. "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."
Orders to strike targets may be justified with one set of reasons, some patently false, while ulterior motives remain hidden. Throughout history, rulers ensured the civilian populations were blind to knowledge that could be dangerous to rulers. The military was even more of a threat but rulers had to make concessions for some knowledge in order for the military to operate.
Reading your testimonies, this verse sprang to mind. Your men learned and lived the way God intended:
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. —2 Timothy 1:7 (ESV)
What you say is true and you make good points.
I spoke too soon. Instead of “knowledge,” I should have said wisdom, or bette yet righteousness. Both are somewhat lacking on the government end of things.
And of course, neither you nor I would consider civilian ingenuity a product of government.
Speaking as a woman who came of age during the Vietnam era and kissed one college sweetheart and one husband off to that war, I must agree with the above observations that combat-involved military service either made men of enlistees and recruits or led them to self-destruction. I had one of each.
As a civilian, I have never felt as safe anywhere in my life as I did on military bases, and that includes the several years of volunteer support both outside at FReeps and inside Walter Reed with FR's DC Chapter. Nor have I heard the most colorful language...
....went to Navy recruit center in Great Lakes fresh out
of high school as a 17-year-old snot-nosed, immature brat....got off active duty four years later as a 21-
year-old much more mature Radioman Second Class
petty officer....grew up fast..took the advice of
our ship’s crusty XO and went to college, got 3 degrees,
and made something of myself...my Navy service certainly
helped...!!
Try the YPJ, the women-only tactical combat units(click here) of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF); of whom it has been told:
". . . beginning in March 2014, with various Kurdish media agencies reporting that "YPJ troops have become vital in the battle".[20] In the Siege of Kobanî, prior to receiving the support of Western powers, the YPJ was forced to hold off ISIL attacks using only "vintage Russian Kalashnikovs bought on the black market, handmade grenades, and tanks they put together out of construction vehicles and pick-up trucks."That pertained for about ten years of resistance to Bashar Hafez al-Assad and his forces, and helped him to be deposed, freeing them from his stifling dictatorship.
It seems to me that when strong women are mixed with strong men, they are at a physical disadvantage and suffer from both within as well as without, thus weakening a combat unit (or any other).<[? Let them exist as all-women units to capitalize on their own dominant (and winning) features that, operationally speaking, might be of a different, though equally deadly, nature strategically than the all-male units.
A female I know, now a high-ranking executive of a large financial corporation, was once thought of on her determined, steady rise as the medieval Greeks did of their Amazons, of equal nature to the Spartans--"Come back with your shield, or on it." In fact, her subordinates referred to her (behind her back, of course) in corporate politics as "The Chainsaw."
Take a moment and think on these things. (BTW, I am not favorable at all of feminine commanders of any military combat or law enforcement units.)
Scanning Dr. Trewyn's list of publications, I looked up another of his military-related articles. It was written during and is critical of the Biden Administration's woke insertion of Critical Race Theory into the Pentagon, based on his experiences of race-blind brotherhood in combat:
The Gully of the Shadows of Death Disproved Critical Race Theory Over 50 Years Ago
LOL, you have to be kidding, but you probably aren’t.
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