OOORAHH!
No other branch EVER produced guys like this:
Posted on 04/27/2002 6:32:09 AM PDT by FairWitness
Edited on 05/11/2004 5:33:34 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
"Organizational issues tend not to have a great deal of interest broadly out in the public." Even so, Rumsfeld said, "They can make an enormous amount of difference internally."
Amen. One such "organizational issue" has sandbagged the Army.
The next SACEUR - the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe - will be Marine Gen. James Jones, a Kansas City native. He'll replace Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, who got the job in 1999.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
OOORAHH!
No other branch EVER produced guys like this:
How ya doing? ya ole jar head?
Thanks for the info.
While I certainly support a strong military, it's also necessary to go through reconfigurations when conditions change, such as they have in Europe. With the Euroweenies banding together and the Soviet bloc gone, I see no reason to maintain ANY bases on European soil. (Good Lord, we've been over there for over a quarter of our own nation's history.)
Without the land bases, I would suppose it might be wise to build a few more flattops for the Navy, just to make sure we can get to where we need to be when necessary. That'd be fine with me -- it'd also help assure that we retain such construction skills in our domestic shipyards. Makes more sense to me to spend the money domesticly rather than pumping up the Euroweenie economies.
Plush??????
Damned if I ever saw one. Course I was a short term enlisted peasant. WWII barracks, sand blew in year round, froze in winter and sweat in summer, food that most did not eat. Yessir, real plush.
Well, heck, in the company of those two I don't mind being third.
LOL!
I'm doing good, TC!
Has that old Gyrene of yours gotten used to being outside without his "cover"?
LOL!
Army gets feminized.Yea, I guess the women in many jobs have made the large Tank Divisions of the Cold War Army slower and less potent. But let's face it we don't need big tanks anymore. My son went to infantry training at Fort Benning and all 11Bs are trained there and it is all male and very disiplined -- I would put it on par with Marine training.
Most of the Army equipment is too big, too complicated and too hard to maintain. Dicipline is lax and the inclusion of females hurts the readiness and the deployability of any Army force. There are lots of lessons to be learned from the Marines who have old and simple equipment and are light and fast to deploy. What is the mission of the modern Army?(The answer to this question will lead us to how sensitive the Army really needs to be.)
So congrats to the Marines they deserve the job!!
Cobby, he's doing fine. Goes to work everyday now without looking for his cover, LOL,LOL.
I spent a total of 27 years, four in the USN with most of that as a USMC rifle platoon corpsman. I know from whence I speak.
Take a look at some facts...look at a USAF base and the "titles" and "trappings"..."Special Assistant to the Deputy Commander to the Adjudant for Special Programs Resource DeplOyment and Aquisition"...See all of the E-3s running around at all hours of the day in the commissary and BX...note that they have expensive laptops, pagers, two way radios? How important are these guys?
Did you realize that our Navy LEASES Cruise missles? Yep...we lease the damn things and only buy them if we fire them!
At one point in mY career, a Wing Commander decided to do the "real deal"...a "recall" at 13:30 on a weekday (instead of the usual, expected....if not clearly anounced...recall fo all personnel and immediate lauch of all fighter aircraft. In reality, this should be a no brainer reaction and should work! We got 31% of the aircraft in the air in a period of two and a half hours!
This military is full of fat, usless and multiple echelons of paper pushing pencilneck careerists. Physical fitmess is a joke (a stationary bike test???) Ammo is so short that the USAF rarely has any troops on hand who have fired an actual weapon in the past year, and then only with an "adapter" that allows and M-16 to fire .22 cal. rounds! Prego uniforms? "Profiles" to avoid deployment?
The USMC has a ocuple of sayings/logos that make sense and are pretty damn accurate:
"The Change is Forever"; and, "227 years of tradition and effectivess...unhinered by modern progress"!
Once a Marine/Always a Marine...When the balloon goes up, I want a Marine in charge...at least I know there is a warrior at the helm, in the fighting hole, and that the job will get done...without a myriad of "NCOIC of REMF assistants to the comand deputy assistant for the special expeditionary directorate of operations planning and training subdivision"....instead, I'll have a Marine...each one a Devil Dog rifleman who can shoot straight, run hard, and is prepared for war...that is the job of the military!
SEMPER FI!
I certainly believe in providing individual soldiers with all the best gear available to perform their mission. But it always amazes me to see them bogged down in all the crap they gotta carry. Half the time, they look like an overbloated version of the Michelin tire man. If a high-school linebacker knocked one onto his butt, he'd probably lie there flailing his arms and legs until they brought in a crane to set him back upright.
IMHO, an outfit that would provide a little more freedom of movement would seem desirable.
Her experience since 1979 has been in aircraft maintenance. She has never been out of the country, never saw combat.
Go ahead, flame me, I don't feel comfortable with warriors who wear bras.
Check her out at VTANG
Can't get the link to work. Search on Martha Rainville
How about like this?
The Army, with its weight, has a purpose. You want to take a huge chunk of land & hold it? Get the Army.
That said, I agree with the assessment that most Army Generals can't see beyond their desks.
(The modern Army)"they look like an overbloated version of the Michelin tire man."A friend in the Austrailan Army thought the US was a bunch of pansies because the Aussie basic pack and gear was 20 pounds heavier than the US's. I feel that we have the remnant of a great fighting force in the US Army and it can come back to be great again. Let's face it the country needs a strong Army and the Marines can't do it all alone.
I had a talk with a Marine about huey cobras and he said the Marines planned to use them for 20 more years.(The relibility and effectiveness trumps new fangled gizzmos in the USMC.) I remember the cobras being introduced in 1968!! The cobras will be in service for 50 years which is amazing. So the Marines learn to make due with what works and the Army could learn a lot from them.
Double-plus dittos.
That's exactly the kind of man that Rummy is trying to locate and promote.
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