Did you guys ever pop for dark socks and a Lacoste knockoff? Skip the hourly haircuts? Was the farmer’s tan a giveaway?

Of all the stuff I could picture myself dealing with, the Hollow Army is the toughest. Being OCS, my preferred tactic when facing a brick wall was to employ my head. Not my brain. Flexibility was for ROTC guys.

You guys who hung in there deserve more praise than most people can conceive. I hope the result of your labors fills you with pride, and if it does, it’s still not enough.

That means it does not matter whether it’s Bush/Cheney or Clinton/Gore. As the song says, the fundamentals still apply.

I knew about Kennan’s “Containment Policy” and I had read Kissinger’s Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. Oddly enough, just about every senior NCO I knew had read them too. All of us had a more “global” view than the average soldier.

All of us came out of the experience as “never do it again, unless you are willing to win, and we’ll recognize winning when we get there.” That held true for my younger brother as well. He also served multiple tours in the Navy assigned to the Marines as a medic.

It became the mantra of every serving and reserve officer when the military collapsed in the 70’s. You want to talk about a “broken military”? In the 70’s it didn’t even look repairable.

Those are the people who dedicated their lives to building the military we have now. Compared to today’s military, I served in the Horse Cavalry as far as training, leadership and dedication to mission is concerned.

My service is similar to the IRA, “Once in; never out.”, so there are opportunites for those of us who have lost a couple of steps off their game. Our game was only physical when they needed strong bodies to haul smart brains around.

Michael Yon made the point in one of his dispatches that this is the first war where a relational database is a weapon. The “kids” know this and more. They are all dedicated to winning.

I’ll sign this one with the most common end to practically every conversation I have had. “Charlie, Tango, Mike”. Continue The Mission.

Sure.

And you do it by holding up yourself as an exemplar of patriotic virtue, because you served. Except that you didn’t have any choice in the matter. You were no volunteer, yet you criticize Bush and Cheney for failing to volunteer. I don’t think that is appropriate at all.

It is certainly appropriate to criticize the President’s leadership skills. For example, while I myself am a fanatical Bush supporter, I thought he did a piss-poor job on the morning of 9/11 itself. When the nation was desperately awaiting a speech from the President, Bush was flying around in Air Force One, first to Shreveport, then Omaha. He belonged in Washington, D.C., and he should have gone there instead.

That is an example of a fair criticism. It’s factual. It’s not overly sweeping. And the critic simply layes out the facts, he doesn’t hold himself up as morally superior to the subject of his critisim.

Now, the one fair criticism of Bush that you do make is that he is out of touch with the average dogface, necuase he hasn’t served. This criticism is not unreasonable. But I think it is simplistic and wrong.

You don’t have to be in the military to expereince suffering and death, you know. I myself have seen slow, horrible deaths from cancer and emphysema up close and personal. I’ve seen people killed in accidents. Others have committed suicide. I once spent a year working in a hospital for the severely physically disabled; there I ment plenty of 18 and 19 year-olds who were normal teenagers one day, and quadraplegics the next. I’ve held grieving mothers and widows, tried to think of comforting words, and witnessed and felt the loneliness and despair of the families left behind.

But you know what? I’m not unique. Almost everyone has experienced these things. Bush and Cheney certainly have. Yet you portray them as bloodthirsty technocrats, moving soldiers around on a chess board, having no idea of the human drama and tragedy that flows from their orders. Well, I think your view is childlike and foolish. Of course Bush and Cheney know what it means to send men into war. Everyone knows what it means. It doesn’t come easily to anyone.

The incident you describe is illegal and was/will be/ or should be punished as others have been.

You went from implying national policy to pointing to an illegal act. You didn’t think you’d get caught.

My father’s platoon had an SOP. The biggest, scariest, nuttiest looking guy would appear to lose it, charge the newly-captured German POW, firing a grenade blank from his Garand. The German would generally talk. My father’s soul, and the nation’s, survived.
I have a neighbor who fought in the Phillipines. He had no problem then, and doesn’t now, with how their Nisei interpreter dealt with recalcitrant Japanese. FYI, none of this stuff is policy now, and would be punished.

Change happens. I don’t know what we could have done to keep nine million people employed as farmers, considering the improvement in agricultural technology.
Change happens. Trying to hold it back is counterproductive.

I have never served, but I don’t repsect your service. You were obviously drafted back in the 50’s or 60’s, along with millions of others. You spent a couple of years camping out and painting rocks in West Germany. BFD.

(How can I tell, given the anonymous nature of this forum? The two-year term of service, the refernce to Maudlin (not many of today’s 19 year-olds, or even 30 year-olds know who the famous WWII cartoonist is), the New Deal rhetoric, and citation to Pat Buchannan as a great conservative thinker.

Why am I rasing the issue of your personal history? Because you slandered Bush and Cheney. You criticized them for failing to volunteer for Vietnam, while you, yourself, “were there.”

The problem is, you were not a volunteer either. Your service was totally involuntary, just like childhood vaccinations and schooling. Therefore, you don’t have the right to wrap yourself in the mantle of courage or claim moral superiority. The people serving today, unlike you, are VOLUNTEERS. That, my friend, is sacrifice. That’s patriotism.

The tactic you are employing is pretty common among liberal Democrats. Some guy who got drafted 40 years ago will always be reminding us that he is a “veteran,” once wore the uniform, etc., etc. See, e.g.. John Kerry. The more modern version of this is some guy who spent four years as a truck driver in the National Guard to earn money for college proclaiming himself a “veteran” and an “expert” on military tactics, strategy, etc.

Meanwhile, something like 80% of actual military voters are voting for Bush. They don’t hold his lack of “service” against him. Only you feel that way.

Not torture? Not us?
Whether it’s sport or assignment, the broken leg doesn’t know the difference.