Having also spent a great deal of time in Germany, I find the Germans to be an often-unpleasant mix of rabid, wild-eyed socialist/environmentalists (with the emphasis on "mental"), and unrepentant Nazi sympathisers of the "well at least the streets were clean and the trains ran on time" variety.
If we can't spend our money on people who share our values, let's at least spend it where it'll do some good.
I share some of your perspective on Germany, but our military, despite what the Slimes thinks, is not an organization to use for social causes (furthering the feminist and gay agendas) nor a way of paying tribute to socialists. Our military is to fight and win our nations wars, not to appease our so called "allies"
When the Soviet Union on the other side of the Iron Curtain was the threat, it was appropraite (in our interest) to have bases in West Germany. That is no longer the threat, and there is no reason to have heavy forces based there. End of discussion. I don't even see the need to rotate troops through for exercises, at least not in Germany, maybe further east. (BTW, Clinton's 12 months in Bosnia are long since over, we need to leave the Balkans as well.) America's military is for American security. That is not being advanced by having 20% of our Army divisions in Germany.
Hehe.. This move could be sweet revenge on France as well.
At least you had only good things to say about them.
Some of my comments from my nearly 6 years there aren't quite as nice.
But the closer to the border you got, the nicer they were to us GI's.
Inside every German is a Nazi dying to come out.