Posted on 04/02/2015 9:32:50 AM PDT by servo1969
Hi everybody, I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall.
Let’s just assume for a moment that you’re a radical, left-wing zealot, who was raised by actual communists, and who, naturally enough views the United States military as the tool of capitalist exploitation and colonial racism. Now, further assume that through a perfect storm of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, fate, money, power and media bias somehow conspired to make you Commander in Chief of those same armed forces.
What would you do?
You couldn’t very well scuttle 11 carrier strike groups. You can’t just destroy entire air wings, or armored divisions, or any of the rest – no matter how much you may want to. That would break the spell.
If you hate this country, and you especially hate the military, you simply cannot go around destroying the weapons – that’s too obvious. But you can do something much more subtle, and in the long run, even more disastrous, if your stated goal is to fundamentally change the country and the military that protects and defends it.
You don’t have to destroy the weapons. You don’t even have to destroy the warriors. All you have to do is create a set of conditions that are so incompatible with the warrior code that the warriors will remove themselves, because these are people who risk death and dismemberment, and whether at the tip or the end of the spear, generally live in appalling conditions, under great emotional hardship, for disgraceful levels of pay.
These people joined the military out of an inner calling, a sense of duty and of honor, and it is in fact possible to create an environment so toxic to these values that they not only will not stay – they simply cannot. And there is a lot of evidence that this is in fact happening, and quickly.
I’ve heard of Air Force Generals beaming with pride, not over their command’s combat readiness or training levels, but rather for having the greenest installation, or for having achieved the most severe personnel reductions.
I’ve talked to a Chief Petty Officer with 23 years in the Navy who simply said that the ancient, fundamental solace given to sailors in exchange for spending most of their lives in a steel hole in the water – shore leave, much more properly referred to as “liberty” – is nothing like liberty anymore: no longer a trip down the gangplank to do whatever you damn well wanted to, so long as you were back on time, but now rather a supervised, audited series of joyless stays in pre-approved venues, with check-ins and regimentation and more structure than a week at a diet resort.
I’m hearing stories like this all the time – all the time! – but one of them really stood out. It frankly made my blood run cold.
I was at a fundraiser in Colorado, and I struck up a conversation with a Major who was in command of a group of about 500 Special Forces personnel.
He told me that he was no longer able to train his men in how to do their jobs and come home afterwards, because these days his time had to be spent making sure that none of his soldiers had tattoos that might be considered offensive to women, gays, lesbian or transgendered personnel; that he had to scour the barracks of these young warriors who were prepared to fight and die for their country in order to make sure there were no Maxim magazines or any other images of naked women that might make the home of these deadly, aggressive, disciplined men into a hostile work environment. He had to do all of this nonsense, more and more of it each year, and spend less and less time doing what he, and his soldiers, had signed up to do in the first place: namely, train to go out there and kill the enemies of freedom.
Then one day, his commanding officer came to him with a new policy. He told this young Major that he was required to poll all of the people in his command and ascertain whether they, or anyone else in their household, owned their own weapons and if so how many and of what kind. And he calmly told me that he turned to his superior officer and said, “Sir, I will not obey that order.”
I have never, ever feared a military or political coup in this country – never. I have never feared that the day may come when the American military would open fire on law-abiding American civilians, because of the presence of men like this young major and the traditions and the code of personal integrity and honor that men and women like that maintain. As long as we have people like that in the military, we have nothing to fear.
((BEAT))
Than man is no longer in the military.
Orders like the one he could not obey come down from the Commander-in-Chief, and his hand-picked generals who are promoted based on their ability to conform to these deplorable and dishonorable policies. That Commander-in-Chief does not need to be embarrassed by cashiering the real warriors – all he has to do is create policies and codes so disruptive, so ridiculous and dishonorable that they can simply no longer abide by them.
Money can buy weapons. But nothing but blood can buy experience. We have not only the most well-armed and well-trained forces in the world – they are, or were, battle-hardened in the furnace of actual combat, and that precious, irreplaceable, battlefield experience is being intentionally forced out of the military to be replaced with recruits who can’t do pull-ups and a gutless, compliant political class of admirals and generals whose careers mean more than the dignity, the morale, or even the safety of the men and women who have entrusted them with their lives.
We made the final decision yesterday. He was waiting for my blessing. I gave it. His mother and I know the risk so does he.
Thanks for the encouragement. I talked to a very good friend of mine that served and has two sons currently in the Marines. One of his sons is a top shelf maybe even the number one Cobra pilot. Both gave the same advice.
I agree with you, and I applaud your sons commitment to our nation. I am a Master Gunnery Sergeant with almost 28 years in service. I have been deeply troubled at our current course, demoralized even. I am of the mind that if men like me, and your son let circumstances chase us from service abdicating our duty to the reprobates of this land, the cause of freedom will be lost. If my young Marines don’t have men of courage, faith and conviction to guide and mentor them....who will fill the void? I would appeal to all patriots to do their duty, to vote and to serve. Let’s not cede the future to the debased and debauched. Semper Fi!
We need all the good men we can get and your son meets that high standard.
Please tell him a Vietnam combat vet thanks him and he is appreciated by more people than he realizes.
Thank you, Gunny.
He’s pure evil and repulsive. I can’t believe that more people haven’t caught on. It’s disgusting.
So what would your brilliant solution for winning the war have been?
Couldn’t flank them, as the trenches ran from the Alps to the sea. Attacks, prior to the development of tanks and infiltration storm tactics, were doomed, but sitting in trenches losing men regularly was not politically acceptable.
Any general who told his civilian masters that an effective offensive was impossible would have just been fired as defeatist. Would have been the right thing to do anyway, but the government would have just put in new generals who would attack.
So, I ask again, what would you have done differently? Even with the immense advantage of hindsight.
I will agree that the WWI French, much like the Japanese of WWII, though not to the same extreme, had an unwarranted faith in the ability of morale and elan to dominate against superior firepower.
These criticisms remind me of the criticisms of Grant during our Civil War. Logical explanations of a better approach, given his resources, are seldom provided.
Rather than the frontal attacks that killed so many, I would have advocated the trench-forward warfare that Grant employed against St Petersburg and Richmond.
Given the control of WW I by the politicians, though....all they wanted to hear about was attacks that would win right away.
Amen, Gunny.
Till the campaign ended at Petersburg, Grant spent months trying to maneuver around Lee’s flank. At Petersburg, he settled into a siege very much like the trench warfare of WWI. Though with no machine guns or poison gas, and with much slower and smaller artillery.
Yet Grant never broke the lines until attrition had worn Lee’s men too thin. And then it was to a considerable extent because he got onto Lee’s flank, an option that just wasn’t available to the WWI generals.
I’m unclear what specific tactics you are referencing. The Crater was obviously a great feat of arms turned into a debacle by appallingly poor execution. But with that exception I’m unaware of any really innovative tactics used during the Siege of Petersburg.
BTW, the real problem the frontal attacks had is that even if they broke through the front line, the attackers could not bring up reinforcements as rapidly as the defenders. So they inevitably got outnumbered and pushed back. Or cut off, if they got too far ahead.
Mr Whittle appears of an age to have been a healthy, relatively young man when the country was attacked on 9/11. What was his MOS?
Bookmarked
A lot of people were taken in by his seeming hopefulness when he first came on the scene. At the time, he was very good at hiding his rotten soul but then, Satan and his minions are very good at that, aren’t they?
It is not a conspiracy theory to think that the MSM did everything they could to give him cover. They did everything they could to demonize his opposition and were very successful at it.
That is why, even today, with all the evidence of his hatred of our beloved country, there are those who do not see him for what he is. Rather, they blame the opposition for his failure to lead this country.
Might want to wait and see who the next president is. If your son is a Christian, heterosexual things will be difficult. If he is also White he will probably be cleaning the gay showers his entire enlistment.
What was his MOS?
I don’t know if he was in the military. Why do you wonder?
Thanks we have considered this. He is a solid Christian young man. He can handle most anything that he is faced with. Whatever his lot it will be used for good. We believe Romans chapter 8.
Mr Whittle appears of an age to have been a healthy, relatively young man when the country was attacked on 9/11. What was his MOS?
I looked it up. He was 42 in 2001. He wanted to be an Air Force Pilot but his eyes didn’t allow it.
Well said. Evil is rampant and has hold of many people.
My brilliant solution would have been what they eventually started to use - more effective use of the “rolling barrage” tactic.
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