Posted on 12/08/2004 3:31:26 PM PST by Mr.Atos
"You go to war with the Army you have," not the one you might want, was the retort of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld as reported by CNN to questioning by troops after a morning conference at Camp Buehring, Kuwait . This particular inquiry (as reported by the AP ), presented by Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team concerned the logistics of combat:
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked. "We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north," Wilson went on.
CNN further reports that: 'A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.'
Rumsfeld replied that, "You go to war with the Army you have..."
The original AP story includes more of the Secretary's response,
Rumsfeld replied that troops should make the best of the conditions they face and said the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible...
...the defense chief added, armor is not always a savior in the kind of combat U.S. troops face in Iraq, where the insurgents' weapon of choice is the roadside bomb, or improvised explosive device that has killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops since the summer of 2003.
"You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up," Rumsfeld said.
The wisdom of the Secretary captured in this one notable response, underscores our great fortune to have men of substance, candor, and character in the Pentagon and the White House at a time when the nation is in dire need of great Men and Women, not infants and adolescents pandering to consensual emotions and soundbites.
The war we have, is one christened with the murder of some 3000 civilians. The war we have, was pre-staged by decades of diplomatic incompetence, and international malfeasance (see Wretchard’s post) . The war we have, is one being fought with a defense budget that is a fraction of the Federal Education Budget, despite a Constitution that expressly outlines the duty of the federal government to, "provide for the common defense," first, and "promote the general welfare," next.
I sincerely respect the concerns of troops in the field that know first-hand the hardships and challenges of the combat environment. I further applaud their ability to improvise and overcome adversity, as they have done in all wars. In the Spanish American War, more troops died of food poisoning than from being shot ( reference). As many recalled yesterday, the most armored ogres of war, were shattered like butterfly wings by the bombs and torpedoes of a surprise assault at Pearl Harbor. Those that survived, dug out of and through the wreckage and overcame assured defeat to prevail.
That being said, I would gladly give those men and women on the frontier anything I could muster to get them more of the items that will both protect them and improve their capability; even as the county in which I live extracts duplicating Income Tax to ostensibly amend the exhorbitant amounts wasted on a failing education system. Note that Oregon Congressmen are not pleading for budget shifts to their National Guard contingent to pay for armor. At the same time, do let's remember that this IS a new kind of War, begun with an attack on the homeland, by terrorists and their State sponsors that recognize no difference between an armored soldier and naked civilians. One they shoot. The other they behead. And they would just as soon bomb a Humvee with an IED as they would set off a backback loaded with C4, shrapnel, and rat poison in my Metro bus which is also not armored. Likewise, they might simply infect a few of their loyal sappers with Small Pox and send them into my midst. I have no armor from that. Or they may just set off a cannister of ricin or sarin in the museum I visit with my family. God only hopes we can reach the gasmasks we purchased off Ebay (and carry for that one possible and horrific contigency) in time to improve our personal protection from attack. We are all fighting this war you see. And we are all improvising and overcoming the horrors that we did not invite upon ourselves, but nevertheless have to deal with on a daily basis.
The war we want, is not a jigged video game where we have an unlimited Halo of power, armor, and weapons. The war We want, is no war at all.
If only the enemies of Man, shared that desire... or the champions of stupidity understood the stakes.
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