Posted on 03/27/2005 2:00:34 PM PST by CHARLITE
America's military can win wars. We've done it in the past, and I have absolute confidence that we'll continue to do it in the future. We've won fights in which we possessed overwhelming technological superiority (Desert Storm), as well as conflicts in which we were the technical underdogs (the American Revolution). We've crossed swords with numerically superior foes, and with militaries a fraction of the size of our own. We've battled on our own soil, and on the soil of foreign lands -- on the sea, under the sea, and in the skies. We've even engaged in a bit of cyber-combat, way out there on the electronic frontier. At one time or another, we've done battle under just about every circumstance imaginable, armed with everything from muskets to cruise missiles. And, somehow, we've managed to do it all with the wrong Army.
That's right, America has the wrong Army. I don't know how it happened, but it did. We have the wrong Army. It's too small; it's not deployed properly; it's inadequately trained, and it doesn't have the right sort of logistical support. It's a shambles. I have no idea how those guys even manage to fight.
Now, before my brothers and sisters of the OD green persuasion get their fur up, I have another revelation for you. We also have the wrong Navy. And if you want to get down to brass tacks, we've got the wrong Air Force, the wrong Marine Corps, and the wrong Coast Guard.
Don't believe me? Pick up a newspaper or turn on your television. In the past week, I've watched or read at least a dozen commentaries on the strength, size, and deployment of our military forces. All of our uniform services get called on the carpet for different reasons, but our critics unanimously agree that we're doing pretty much everything wrong.
I think it's sort of a game. The critics won't tell you what the game is called, so I've taken the liberty of naming it myself. I call it the 'No Right Answer' game. It's easy to play, and it must be a lot of fun because politicos and journalists can't stop playing it.
I'll teach you the rules. Here's Rule #1: No matter how the U.S. military is organized, it's the wrong force.
Actually, that's the only rule in this game. We don't really need any other rules, because that one applies in all possible situations. Allow me to demonstrate...
If the Air Force's fighter jets are showing their age, critics will tell us that Air Force leaders are mismanaging their assets, and endangering the safety of their personnel. If the Air Force attempts to procure new fighter jets, they are shopping for toys and that money could be spent better elsewhere. Are you getting the hang of the game yet? It's easy; keeping old planes is the wrong answer, but getting new planes is also the wrong answer. There is no right answer, not ever. Isn't that fun?
It works everywhere. When the Army is small, it's TOO small. Then we start to hear phrases like 'over-extended' or 'spread too thin,' and the integrity of our national defense is called into question. When the Army is large, it's TOO large, and it's an unnecessary drain on our economy. Terms like 'dead weight,' and 'dead wood' get thrown around.
I know what you're thinking. We could build a medium-sized Army, and everyone would be happy. Think again. A medium-sized Army is too small to deal with large scale conflicts, and too large to keep military spending properly muzzled. The naysayers will attack any middle of the road solution anyway, on the grounds that it lacks a coherent strategy. So small is wrong, large is wrong, and medium-sized is also wrong. Now you're starting to understand the game. Is this fun, or what?
No branch of the military is exempt. When the Navy builds aircraft carriers, we are told that we really need small, fast multipurpose ships. When the Navy builds small, fast multi-mission ships (aka the Arleigh Burke class), we're told that blue water ships are poorly suited for littoral combat, and we really need brown water combat ships. The Navy's answer, the Littoral Combat Ship, isn't even off the drawing boards yet, and the critics are already calling it pork barrel politics and questioning the need for such technology. Now I've gone nose-to-nose with hostiles in the littoral waters of the Persian Gulf, and I can't recall that pork or politics ever entered into the conversation. In fact, I'd have to say that the people trying to kill me and my shipmates were positively disinterested in the internal wranglings of our military procurement process. But, had they been aware of our organizational folly, they could have hurled a few well-timed criticisms our way, to go along with the mines we were trying to dodge.
The fun never stops when we play the 'No Right Answer' game. If we centralize our military infrastructure, the experts tell us that we are vulnerable to attack. We're inviting another Pearl Harbor. If we decentralize our infrastructure, we're sloppy and overbuilt, and the BRAC experts break out the calculators and start dismantling what they call our 'excess physical capacity.' If we leave our infrastructure unchanged, we are accused of becoming stagnant in a dynamic world environment.
Even the lessons of history are not sacrosanct. When we learn from the mistakes we made in past wars, we are accused of failing to adapt to emerging realities. When we shift our eyes toward the future, the critics quickly tell us that we've forgotten our history and we are therefore doomed to repeat it. If we somehow manage to assimilate both past lessons and emerging threats, we're informed that we lack focus.
Where does it come from: this default assumption that we are doing the wrong thing, no matter what we happen to be doing? How did our military wind up in a zero-sum game? We can prevail on the field of battle, but we can't win a war of words where the overriding assumption is that we are always in the wrong.
I can't think of a single point in History where our forces were of the correct size, the correct composition, correctly deployed, and appropriately trained all at the same time. Pick a war, any war. (For that matter, pick any period of peace.) Then dig up as many official and unofficial historical documents, reports, reconstructions, and commentaries as you can. For every unbiased account you uncover, you'll find three commentaries by revisionist historians who cannot wait to tell you how badly the U.S. military bungled things. To hear the naysayers tell it, we could take lessons in organization and leadership from the Keystone Cops.
We really only have one defense against this sort of mudslinging. Success. When we fight, we win, and that's got to count for something. When asked to comment on Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. Army's Lieutenant General Tom Kelly reportedly said, "Iraq went from the fourth-largest army in the world, to the second-largest army in Iraq in 100 hours." In my opinion, it's hard to argue with that kind of success, but critics weren't phased by it. Because no matter how well we fought, we did it with the wrong Army.
I'd like to close with an invitation to those journalists, analysts, experts, and politicians who sit up at night dreaming up new ways to criticize our armed forces. The next time you see a man or woman in uniform, stop for ten seconds and reflect upon how much you owe that person, and his or her fellow Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, and Airmen. Then say, "Thank you." I'm betting you won't even have to explain the reason. Our Servicemembers are not blind or stupid. They know what they're risking. They know what they're sacrificing. They've weighed their wants, their needs, and their personal safety against the needs of their nation, and made the decision to serve. They know that they deserve our gratitude, even if they rarely receive it.
Two words -- that's all I ask. "Thank you." If that's too hard, if you can't bring yourself to acknowledge the dedication, sincerity and sacrifice of your defenders, then I have a backup plan for you. Put on a uniform and show us how to do it right.
The “No Right Answer” Game
(Inspired by “ The Wrong Army,” by Jeff Edwards, USN, Ret., warrior and novelist)
America’s forces have won all their wars,
From Revolution to war in Iraq;
And Lefties don’t point to the Vietnam War,
Where you stabbed winning troops in the back.
No, the truth is we win; we win time and again;
Done it time after time after time.
Doesn’t matter to you, ‘cause whatever we do,
We’ve always somehow dropped the dime.
To Lefties our generals just have to be wrong,
Wrong tactics, wrong weapons, wrong forces;
We’re the gang who somehow can never shoot straight,
To hear the mainstream media sources.
Just look at their headlines, view every day’s news,
With their blistering barrages of blame.
To warriors out here at the point of the spear,
It’s those losers’ “No Right Answer,” game.
In this lugubrious game loved by Liberal elites,
There’s just but one rule to enforce:
Whatever we do, in whatever war,
Must naturally be wrong of course.
There is no right answer, no matter what,
Even when our warriors are winning;
There’s always the sly implication we lie,
In the splenetic stories they’re spinning.
In peacetime they charge our forces too large
During wartime they squall they’re too small;
In peacetime they whine we’re spending too much;
But in war, “Where’s the armor for all?”
With consummate confidence they know what’s best,
Puerile pundits so smug and so smarmy,
Pontificate loud to their Liberal crowd,
That we once again have the wrong Army.
Pick a war, any war, or a period of peace;
Field marshals of the media are spinning;
If generals of journalism are so in the know,
Why are genuine generals winning?
So here at the front, harsh home of the grunt,
We ignore their attempts to defame.
The troops know the score, know what this war's for;
They can stuff their “No Right Answer,” game.
SSGT Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66
for Liberals, AMERICA can never get it right.
Great piece. Thanks for posting.
"And from those criticizing the forces you'd be hard pressed to come up with a years worth of time in any and all US military uniforms."
The best the RATS could muster up for time in service was sKerry and well...we all know how that went...
They play the same game with Prez Bush. No matter what he does, it's wrong.
I thank war veterans whenever I see or even meet them. Once I was on my way back to my car at a shopping center when I saw an old man struggling to get out of his car and I spotted the "WWII Vet" license plate. When I approached him an asked whether he was indeed a WWII vet, his first reaction appeared to be to brace himself for a liberal verbal onslaught.
But when I said, "Thank you for a job well done," he smiled and said, "You're welcome."
Great post ping
Great post, my son and nephew, both on active duty thank you for this post. There is much wrong with our military structure and procurement policies, but 99.5% of the people are excellent. About one half of one percent {or less} of those in the military are scum bags, much lower than in civilian life. Rummy and others are trying to fix the structure and policies but those congress critters are also a hugh part of the problem.
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Please tell your son and nephew that I said
Thank You for your service to our country.
sorry i missed the fr and du was it a hoot or what?
These guys are much better trained than we were. As an ex Viet Nam guy, when I talk to younger FReepers that were in the military I am amazed at how well they were prepared for their mission.
Welcome Home Brother
I wish that Zell would join us Republicans and run against Killery The Killster in 2008.........but, alas, I think that the clock has run out on Zell. If he were just 6 or 8 years younger, maybe it would be possible.
Excellent Jack.
Thank you for the wonderful prose.
Both items you posted are OUTSTANDING!
Very nice ... you should post that as it's own thread.
Democrats don't know dick about the Military!!!!
Nor do they want to know!
To Dems, the Services are a cash cow to be raped, pillaged and plunged into Government Set Asides as with Clinton.
A social experiment that demeans those in uniform to nothing more than waiters at fund raising soirees and "Armed Social Workers" in faraway lands. Stretched far too wide and thin in countries (Haiti, Bosnia) we have no business being involved with.
But let a Republican take the White House and start spending serious $$$ that could go to keep several dozen Dem Voting Blocs (Americorp, AARP) happy and the Dems start screaming like the Anvil Chorus.
The F-4 and F-105 were modified to death under LBJ. Both performed splendidly until they hit the end of their ropes.
Nixon okayed preliminary development of the F-14, 15 and 16. Which were unveiled under Carter, along with the A-10 (Which was slated to be a Forest Service Water Bomber before Desert Storm!)and were put into Active units at a snail's pace. Until Reagan took office and opened up the flood gates.
My Reserve Unit kept two C-141s as a "Hangar Queen" and "Cann Bird" to keep the other eight 141s flying under Clinton. If this was the norm for a Reserve Unit, I'd hate to think what life was like for Maintenance in an Active Fighter or Bomber Unit.
Jack.
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