During my last six years in the military, I was deployed more than I was home, by a significant amount.  And it wasn't all during the Bush administration.  President Clinton had a demanding deployment schedule for our military in "peacekeeping" operations in Eastern Europe and Africa.

That was the sole reason I left the military.  I loved my career and would have stayed in thirty years if possible.  But the sacrifices required of my family became too much.

I think many things are working away at our military. Some of them are those pretending to be concerned about them, like Rep. Murtha, who was quoted in the article.
Another major thing working away at the military is that it is now coed. I know that that's very politically incorrect. I remember reading a Reader's Digest article, written by a woman, about how the physical fitness standards were different for women in basic training. That also matched what a mission companion, who had been in the army, said about the standards that they hold female recruits to.
But it's not just physical fitness. When you introduce women to a unit, all of a sudden you have a social dynamic added. What if, for instance, two people in a unit have a relationship that goes bad? The strength of the army is in the way its units work together. If two ex-lovers are quarreling, then you have lost a lot of unit cohesiveness. What if one of the two ex-lovers then goes on to have a relationship with someone else in the unit? There is now a jealousy aspect to the whole problem.
The military just isn't the right place to be worrying about romantic relationships.

So Roper (or others), what do you believe would be a viable solution to the problems facing the military now? Is there a way to do it without withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan? And are there people suggesting such things?

--Ray

what do you believe would be a viable solution to the problems facing the military now?

During the first Gulf War, we went in with clearly defined strategic objectives.  We used overwhelming force to accomplish those objectives, then we came home.

During the Clinton and Bush Jr. administrations, our military has engaged in operations that have few if any clearly defined objectives, we don't use the force necessary to achieve victory, and our military becomes mired in what are essentially law enforcement operations.  That's not what our military is for.  Our military's purpose is to fight and win this nation's wars.

We went into Iraq and Afghanistan without an exit strategy.  As much as I disagree with Democrats on a number of issues, I'm pleased that their influence in congress is putting pressure on the Commander in Chief to begin thinking about an exit strategy.  We've been there too long.  We fought and won a World War in two major theaters in less time.  But back then, we had leaders like Patton.

I know when I was in High School in the early ninties, they used the ROTC scholarship as an incentive to join.  At that time we were not involved in any huge military operations as we are now, so it seemed a safe bet.  Do you think there are a lot of kids who got in so they could afford college later, or is that an insignificant percentage?

The military has even more educational incentives now.  Those incenitves are vitally important for recruiters. But recruiters also need to tell the truth.  In today's military (and tomorrow's) you will serve in a combat zone.  It doesn't matter what your career field is.  That's one of the reasons our military is breaking:  Recruiters (and leaders) keep setting false expectations for members and their families.

And we wonder why the media does what it does.



Worth watching

So Roper, is it your opinion that the Military could be made better if we came home from Iraq? I'm not sure you answered my question.

--Ray

Good points roper. And, I think that is what the point has been all along. Work with the Iraqi people to establish a working democratic government until such time as they can stand on their own.

I think we did know what winning was. It was pretty clear to everyone at one time. There are certainly strong elements that do not have the political will to win. And there have always been certain elements that only gave lip service (because it was politically expedient at the time for them) to In all the argument back and forth over the past couple years or so, I think those elements that are against the war have been fairly successful in throwing up a good smoke screen as to what the actual objectives are, fooling the population into thinking that there are none. And since we haven't had the brilliance of a Panama or Grenada (which in the public's eye only lasted several days) or even the "lengthy" (with respect to the previous two conflicts) Desert Storm where ground operations were only a couple of weeks at most, people think something is wrong.

If there was a mistake made, in my mind it was only in the announcement that major hostilities were ceasing. I think that was done simply to appease the naysayers, but came far too early. The coalition was not in control of Iraq yet, and it provided a vacuum for the guerilla action to consolidate and for the various power blocks to stake out turf.

The goal of the elements that are against the successful prosecution of the war is definitely something other than victory. Many of the elements and people who are naysayers are quite naive in their sophisticated learning to think that they know better (simply because they "represent their constituency" and they have said the popular things to further their political careers) than the Commander in Chief. Case in point, Madame Speaker Pelosi and her boondoggle to Syria here recently...

Not only did we win the World Wars faster... there was a draft.

I think that gave us incentive to get the job done.

I read somewhere that our national guard forces are not at full combat effectiveness. Their equipment has frequently not been repaired or replaced when needed. These extended engagements are wearing down our ability to defend ourselves.
We need to win the war. To do that, our troops need to stop pretending to be police. They need to be given better rules of engagement. We need to have a lot of troops for a short period of time, rather than some troops for a long period of time.

Maybe I'm optimistic, but I fully expect to see the gospel go to the muslim peoples in my lifetime.

Iraq is not entirely Islamic in it's makeup. They have had a small christian minority for centuries that has not been persecuted nearly to the same extent as in other arab or middle eastern nations by the predominate muslim populations... Remember, one of Saddam Hussein's deputies was a Chaldean (don't remember which one, but I think it was Tariq Aziz, or who ever was the red-haired guy).