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Whether active duty, or retired, these guys are amazing...

Depends on who you ask. As the article notes, alot of the top brass doesn't care for them to much and it was General Shwartzkoph (I know its miss-spelled) who mocking kept referring to the special ops as "snake eaters". He didn't mean it as a compliment.

yes, excellent article. (not to rain on the positive note in the above article, but...) I hope Rummy doesn't draw down the heavy divisional strength - currently we only have 10 army divisions, 4 of which are in Iraq, and major elements of 3 others disposed against NKor, in the Balkans, etc.

We shouldn't draw down "the regulars"; in fact, we probably need 4 more heavy divisions - because we have potential scenarios where the effectiveness of the SOF could be largely nuetralized (against huge armies like North Korea & China, or in difficult mountainous/jungle terrain such as North Korea, China, South America - or both!).

We also shouldn't draw down because it's alot easier to deconstruct a heavy fighting force than it is to build it back up again. Am not just referring to getting the men ready, we already know that we've plenty of ready Americans for that - specifically, I infer the political obstruction that would have to be overcome locally in order to fund/budget the billions necessary to ensure that any future heavy divisions/corps are properly trained and equipped with the best equipment.

As the Soviets used to say, "at some point in the force-mix equation, Quantity becomes Quality..."; they knew one of our F-15's was better than any one of their MiG's... but the playing field was more even when 30 of our fighters would face 70-80 of theirs.

CGVet58

"Depends on who you ask."

Yes, it does. It is my opinion...

"...alot of the top brass doesn't care for them to much and it was General Shwartzkoph (I know its miss-spelled) who mocking kept referring to the special ops as "snake eaters". He didn't mean it as a compliment."

While I respect Gen. Schwartzkoph, he was as wrong as any of the "arm-chair" Generals during the Iraq war. To his credit, and IIRC, he is the only one of these former military commentators to admit he was wrong.

I'm in the middle of reading The Hunt for bin Laden. While the author, Robin Moore, certainly has his biases in favor of SOF, as does Gen. Schwartzkoph against SOF, it is a fascinating account of their role in the overthrow of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.