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To: Iris7
"It is tedious to attempt your correction, but you have no idea what you are saying."

Does that come with an English translation?

RLK was saying that fighting with modern weaponry designed to minimize our casualties isn't real combat. Did you not understand my point? Warfare is warfare no matter the weaponry because you can be killed in either case. Just because you aren't sticking a bayonet in his ribs and looking into his eyes as he slowly dies doesn't mean it isn't combat.

And no, I am not in the military, nor have I ever been. Does that mean what I say is not the truth?

55 posted on 12/30/2002 10:51:45 PM PST by SW6906
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To: SW6906
RLK was saying that fighting with modern weaponry designed to minimize our casualties isn't real combat.

-----------------------------------

That isn't what I said, but it's close enough.

During the Gulf War nearly our entire list of casualties was the result of a misaimed missile hitting a barracks full of sleeping men many miles away from the front. The fact is, you were in more danger crossing a street in New York than you were on the front lines during that war. It was not what I call combat or even close to it.

During the crisis with Serbia I heard retired General Schwartzkopf asked what he thought of a ground war in Serbia. With characteristic understatement he said, "Well, the terrain is different there."

In that terrain tanks would have been useless. Helicopters would have been wiped out by crossfire between opposite high mountains. Air attack effectiveness would have been about 2% as effective as it was in the Gulf. The Serbs were dug in and nearly every one was a well-trained sniper with any kind of weapon. When they shoot, they don't miss, from hundred of yards. The Serbs had supplies stored to last months or years. There was heavy cover and concealment. Had we gone in there with ground forces we would have lost 20,000 men very easily. THAT is combat. Forget about pushbuttons. The U. S. military currently does not have significant numbers of people to fight that kind of engagement. We aren't even equipped with the correct type of rifles and other equipment for that kind of action.

If we get into engagements in certain areas of the world, we don't have the equipment, numbers, or training to survive it.

Yes, I can see that, as you stated elsewhere on this thread, you have no military experience. Unfortunately, neither have most of the members of our unisex armed forces. Most of our senior officers are too young to remember Viet Nam.

When I was in the army, which was probably before you were born, most of the NCOs and officers had experience in WW II and Korea. My platoon sergeant wound up wounded and hanging by his parachute of the end of a Japanese barracks with the nips running around 12 feet below him looking for people to shoot. There is almost no combat experience in today's military. We are likely to find that out the hard way.

57 posted on 12/31/2002 1:25:59 AM PST by RLK
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