My job from 1993-1997 was reallocating electronic equipment to the remaining or stateside bases and turning off communications circuits--I was never busier in my life.
I was Air Force. Lots of Navy and Marines in the Medd. There's no reason not to have different services be in charge of any US command, actually. A marine in charge of EUCOM is no big deal for most GI's.
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.
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!