I don't know about you guys but I didn't care much for some of the answers that Rumsfeld gave to the troops. I really feel bad for them, they put their lives on the line for this country and Rumsfeld acts like it's no big deal. Does Rumsfeld care at all for these soldiers?
No, he's being as frank with them as they were with him. I'm sure he expected that since he set up the format. His answer is correct, we go into any war with the assets available for deployment at the time. Yes, it does take time to fully gear up for providing all of the upgrades needed for equipment and yes, some units are not going to see the improvements right away. It's a fact of life in the military and if he had BS'd them with a bunch of promises that things would be fixed the next day or week then I really would be disappointed. On D-day a lot of the equipment was lost, leaving the troops who made it ashore minimally supplied. They were resupplied pretty quickly, but that is because all of the equipment had been stockpiled for 2 years prior. Not the case here and with the off-shoring of most of our heavy industrial capacity over the last 30 years we don't have the advantage of turning out a million tons of armor, or anything else per day anymore.