I’ve met Donald Rumsfeld and admire him very much.
There is something a lot of people seem to forget. I enlisted active duty in the Fall of 1976. I got to my ship by mid February 77. I saw then the walk away military. If you wanted out of your enlistment {keep in mind this was volunteer military non draft} you went AWOL 31 days and turned yourself into another command. From that point you would be processed out with a less than Honorable type of Discharge.
Our daily command AWOL list which I saw usually daily ranged about 50 or so. These were not guys who were late for Muster these were guys gone for days & most had no intention of coming back. I ran into quite a few persons after I got out who did just that with persons I worked with since I got out. Didn't Rummy try too or bring up making that a policy again under his Bush tenure? I think I remember him wanting to start that destructive policy up again his second tenure. The military was a wreck in the mid 1970's up - about early 1980.
I do find this odd though. During my four years we made all our called upon light offs and getting underway orders, passed all readiness inspections, drills, operations, and evaluations. Sure we had major problems including parts shortages but the ships stayed mission ready.
My late uncle was a retired Commander who Captained a Navy Gator Freighter about a decade before I enlisted. At some point after 9/11 I was visiting him and we talked about the Kitty Hawk and Kennedy flunking Evals and not being able to get underway. He asked me "How can they Flunk those evaluations and inspections? The Navy won't allow you to flunk them." That is what Rummy never grasped. He never grasped the military can not be ran except by military rules with a military mission and policies.
The 9/11 attacks happened eight months into the Bush term. At that point it was the duty of Secretary of Defense and SECNAV to know the status of the United States Navy including the operation status and issues of each key ship. That information was sent too The Pentagon daily in SIT-REPS. If a Boiler was unable to operate The Pentagon knew it. If the ship was too hot in the electronic rooms due to air conditioning plants being inoperable The Pentagon knew it. I did a short stint in what was called The Log Room and saw those type of reports. The Kitty Hawk and Kennedy were asked to get underway and surprise, surprise, surprise?? I'm not buying that. Those ships had FLAG Officers meaning an Admiral assigned to them besides the Captain who was the Commanding Officer. Was it not just the Captains who paid for it though? Flag Stars should have came off and SECNAV's job lost as well. Things seem to be steady as she goes in the early Bush term one with more Clinton policies till the crapola hit the blades on the morning of 9/11.
Our military in the Post Reagan years has been treated like a government mule being worked hard and put up wet. Not one POTUS in either party has stood up for our troops. None of them have. Bush missed a perfect Reagan opportunity at 9/11. Men were beating down the door at recruiting centers to go kick some Islamic butt and what happened? NOTHING!!!Bush had a two house majority and did squat with it.
Reagan used economic opportunity to build up our military strength. Let's take the recession in Reagan's first term as an example. During Carter's entire term numbers were short on active duty. By the Fall of 1982 under Reagan all if not most critical billets in the Navy were filled. I know because I had been out for two years and considered going back in to support my family due to no jobs available. In 1980 the going rate to get a Snipe to re-up was $15K and next rank.
When 9/11 happened Bush did not use a golden opportunity to increase and rebuild our military strength but rather took us into war with 1996 End Troop Strengths and stayed there with no substantial increase in manpower. That is not rebuilding a military that is running an undermanned one ragged.
I'll tell you one better. Under which POTUS do you think the United States Navy hit the lowest number of ships since 1930? I've give you a clue his Dad really was born in the United States and was POTUS himself. Nope not even the numbers of Active Duty Ships are as low even now. The end of Clinton's term had us at 318 ships active duty. The 2007 number of GW Bush's term put us at 278. 153 were ships taken out of commission under Clinton and under six years of it happened with a two house GOP Majority. Under Poppy Bush we had 121 decommissioned and not replaced. These are not numbers I invented I got them from here. http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm