Coming from a background almost identical to these young officers (my academy was a few hundred miles to the south of West Point), it's easy to rebel at the situation in which Rumsfeld, GWB and the current crop of political generals have put these captains and within the zone for promotion to major. They've been tasked to command troops in a futile, no-win battle in which they are ordered to allow mission accomplishment to become secondary, or even tertiary, to casualty phobia and sparsity of force application driven by venile political concerns.
Read the comments of the recently retired and dissenting generals in the February or March issue of Vanity Fair and the entire rationale' and explanation of the facts extant in the post come clear.
Indeed, my oldest son (USMA '94), acknowledged these realities on his last visit home in Januaary after returning from his second visit to Iraq (and one to Afghanistan). Even he, with a male family tradition of career military service reaching back to the Civil War, was disheartened enough to confess his frustration and the transient thoughts going back for a graduate degree as a civilian. He is scheduled for yet another deployment in June and is now back at the National Training Center in the California desert; a battalion commander of infantry.
We have become victims of the most inept and corrupt administration in modern U.S. history. That is a sentence I never thought I'd utter about a president for whom I worked diligently in Florida, assisted as part of the 2000 legal team of volunteers, raised money and considering the immediate preceeding eight years of Bill Clinton.
It pains me to say these thing, not because I, as so many others have been fooled, but because they're true.
I sadly agree.
As long as votes can be bought by mega, multi-national corporations, it's only going to get worse - regardless of what "letter" our leaders wear.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the administration corrupt, but inept is right on the money.
My family and my husband’s family both have a long tradition of military service. The pattern is to serve for several years and then come home to the family business. However, I have quietly been encouraging my children to skip military service.
When we have less than total war, when warfighters on the battlefield have to call back to CENTCOM and play “mother may I” with a JAG before they can kill a terrorist, when we prosecute Marines for killing the enemy on the battlefield, I don’t want my kids involved in that. Our military is designed and structured to win wars, not nation-build. We are asking these young men and women to do something they are not trained to do, then complaining when it doesn’t go well.
The officers who survived the Clinton purges are now running the military, and many, if not most of them are simply not fit. With few exceptions, they are politicians, not warfighters, and they make decisions accordingly. They’re the type to tell the administration what they think it wants to hear, not want it NEEDS to hear.
Sadly, I must agree with you, middie. We have had to watch our beloved country go down the tube to outright Communism. All the warnings of all the signs I’ve made were met with rolling eyes, which broke my heart over and over. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. God bless us all, and God bless America!
I never thought that I would say it but I believe that i agree with you.
In 200 I voted for Bush in the hope that he would prosecute the Clinton crime cartel, including Hillary and Al Gore ,for their crimes. Didn’t happen
In 2002 I voted Republican “so Conservative Judges could be appointed”. Then came John Mc Cain and the other Democrats masquering as Republicans to stop it.
In 2004 I voted Republican mostly to do what I could to prevent John Kerry out of the WhiteHouse.
In 2006 I voted for what I consider to be another Democrat posing as a Republican, Charlie Crist, Mostly in order to keep the Democrat from being elected Governor.
As for how the war in Iraq and Afganistan is concerned, the kindest term to describe how it is now being conducted is , well I don’t know. Terms such as “incompetence”,and “inept” infer that those in charge of conducting it don’t know what they are doing. I believe that they know exactly what they are doing.
The troops doing the fighting have to contend with three enemies.
1. The enemy “fighters” whom I prefer to call International outlaws.
2. The American mainstream media and the Socialists in America.
3. The JAG lawyers who are foaming at the mouth in expections of getting to prosecute them for defending themselves.
Should they prevent one of the enemy from killing them by killing the enemy, the JAG, incited by the mainstream media is ready to pouce upon them with both feet.
To many, members of the main stream media, the Socialists in America to name a few, it is cause to celebrate when an American Serviceman/woman loses their life.
But to me,and this is only my personal opinion I do not claim to speak for anyone else, each one is someone’s son, daughter, father, mother, husband,wife and other relative an loved one. It is criminal that their lives are being sacrificed in a war that they are not and will not be allowed to win.