Support our Military

[Republican]

If the Democraps had their way we would do away or at least reduce the size of the military to next to nothing. During the Clinton adminstration the military were reduced in strength and their capabilities abused by then President Clinton. As we seek to rebuild our defense capability I offer the following for thought.


THE LAST WORD

"It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.

"It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.

"It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

"It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag."
--Charles M. Province

 

[Bruzilla]

I support our military, but it's not the Dems that worry me, it's the media. I'm getting pretty sick and tired of hearing all of these doom and gloom predictions of mass casualties in Iraq, and how we shouldn't expend the blood of our servicemen and women in combat. I hate to sound beligerent, but getting killed is a very real possibility when you join the military, and I think most people know that when they join up.

I look at our military people as a weapon, just like the guns they shoot, the planes they fly, or the ships they ride. In short, they are expendable for our nation's interests. I spend 10 years in the military, and I had to sacrifice a lot to do it. I also realized that I could get myself killed two or three times a day. Now that I'm out, I expect today's military members to be every bit as expendable as I was. We shouldn't let the issue of casualties effect our determination to use our military. Once we start doing that we'll end up a ceremonial service that will be stepped on by any tinpot Dictator.

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by Bruzilla
I support our military, but it's not the Dems that worry me, it's the media. I'm getting pretty sick and tired of hearing all of these doom and gloom predictions of mass casualties in Iraq, and how we shouldn't expend the blood of our servicemen and women in combat. I hate to sound beligerent, but getting killed is a very real possibility when you join the military, and I think most people know that when they join up.

I look at our military people as a weapon, just like the guns they shoot, the planes they fly, or the ships they ride. In short, they are expendable for our nation's interests. I spend 10 years in the military, and I had to sacrifice a lot to do it. I also realized that I could get myself killed two or three times a day. Now that I'm out, I expect today's military members to be every bit as expendable as I was. We shouldn't let the issue of casualties effect our determination to use our military. Once we start doing that we'll end up a ceremonial service that will be stepped on by any tinpot Dictator.

What worries me is that the politicians, not the media, will meddle into how the forces are used. If we go to war, make it a declared war. Let the Commander In Chief and the JCS do what they can do. Nothing less is justified if you plan on using the military. Warn Baghdad that if the war starts they should leave or they certainly will die.

I disagree with your assessment that the military member is an expendable item. Maybe back in the day of marching in straight ranks and primitive weaponry one could view it that way. Today it is different, I know it and I haven’t been on active duty since the mid 80s. Each and every member is a valued asset that if lost must be replaced and that replacement brought up to a combat ready skilled status. That doesn’t happen over night. This makes their worth immediately obvious in both time and money.

There is more to their worth, specifically, to the nation. A military member, as I see them, is a dedicated individual that must certainly understand that they have chosen an occupation that can be extremely hazardous. They operate and maintain complex systems that can wield a tremendous blow, plus they know how to use them. They stand between the citizenry and the enemies of our nation. They are very valuable, whether many realize it or not.

If our nation determines to use them, knowing that some of them will die, then they should be allowed to do what they are capable of. Which is that they can exact overwhelming results with minimal sustained casualties by using the weapons they have available to them. That is how we will use them, if they were expendable wouldn't we just take several 100,000s of them and march right into downtown Baghdad.

Maybe it is just that word "expendable" but I certainly don't see our troops that way.

 

[SmallTown]

Originally posted by Republican
If the Democraps had their way we would do away or at least reduce the size of the military to next to nothing. During the Clinton adminstration the military were reduced in strength and their capabilities abused by then President Clinton.

Not to lose focus from the main point of this topic, but I do recall Bush looking at the state of the military when he took office and saying he wouldn't change much from the clinton days.. So either Clinton did something good, or Bush is continuing the trashing of it..

 

[Bruzilla]

Ken, I've been seeing a real problem with the attitude of the public torwards the military ever since the Beirut Marines barracks bombing. The military is a tool of foreign policy, and each and every service member is expected to sacrifice their lives if required to achieve those goals. That's not meant to mean that any service member's life is not valued or that they should be expended meaninglessly, but the fact of the matter is that service people die in combat, and when people start worrying more about minimizing casualties than achieving objectives bad things happen. Somalia was the most recent case of this.

What really bothers me is this reliance on information technology on the battle field. More and more commanders are betting the lives of their people on computers and high-tech systems that are meant to minimize the number of people on the battlefield. Not a bad idea if you're fighting an enemy that's as "advanced" as we are, but a really bad idea when you consider most of our enemies prefer the "human swarm" approach to combat. Computers fail, soldiers and sailors get overloaded, and they're going to get killed without achieving their objectives. Why? Because we've gotten continually more and more timid about putting troops into harm's way. Many actually believe that technology can replace head counts, and we're going to pay a steep price for that someday.

If our past leaders had worried as much about casualty counts as our present ones did, we would never have won a battle yet alone a war. Eisenhower predicted that we would lose 50,000 GIs on D-Day alone. Can you imagine any US leader today being willing to admit to the potential for 50,000 casualties in an entire war today???

Smalltown, the problem with the military during the Clinton era was not that he didn't support the troops or let the weapons technologies falter. The problem was that all of his little peacekeeping missions to Haiti, Somalia, the Balkens, etc., were never really funded by Congress. So all of the expenses for these efforts came by stripping funds from every program in the DoD. Some of the first things that are lost when funds are cut are training, logistic support, maintenance, and spare parts. Things break and people aren't trained to operate or repair them correctly. That was the biggest problem with Clinton's military and this was fixed once the mission creep problem was corrected.

 

[Ken King]

Ken, I've been seeing a real problem with the attitude of the public torwards the military ever since the Beirut Marines barracks bombing. The military is a tool of foreign policy, and each and every service member is expected to sacrifice their lives if required to achieve those goals. That's not meant to mean that any service member's life is not valued or that they should be expended meaninglessly, but the fact of the matter is that service people die in combat, and when people start worrying more about minimizing casualties than achieving objectives bad things happen. Somalia was the most recent case of this.

Bru,

The problem you mention has been around for quite some time, basically since Vietnam. The majority of “public” have no idea what service members give up when they decide to serve. They also don’t understand that without these volunteers we would still have conscription and this same “public” might find themselves called up to serve. It is a thankless task that should be praised and respected.

I think that losses should be kept to a minimum and the best way to do that is to be certain that when we use our military we allow them to function as we know they are capable. By placing all sorts of conditions and restrictions on them sets them up for casualties. The police actions or humanitarian missions are those that leave the service members the least protected and it should be thought out completely prior to dedicating them to these type of roles.

What really bothers me is this reliance on information technology on the battle field. More and more commanders are betting the lives of their people on computers and high-tech systems that are meant to minimize the number of people on the battlefield. Not a bad idea if you're fighting an enemy that's as "advanced" as we are, but a really bad idea when you consider most of our enemies prefer the "human swarm" approach to combat. Computers fail, soldiers and sailors get overloaded, and they're going to get killed without achieving their objectives. Why? Because we've gotten continually more and more timid about putting troops into harm's way. Many actually believe that technology can replace head counts, and we're going to pay a steep price for that someday.

With advances in technology we have also been able to remove some members from harms way and should do so when a capability exists. The UAV/RPV programs are doing things it used to take a manned flight to do and they have been fairly successful, we should continue with advances in this arena. I will agree that relying upon these advances is okay some of the time but as you said once failures start the old back up mode must be ready to be implemented.

While we might have become more timid about using the military at times, it is imperative, in my mind, to only use them when nothing else will do. If the UN or some peacekeeping is needed I don’t think we should use our military forces as police officers. Let the EU, the UN, or the nation with the problem come up with a force for that and only use our military for military operations. Once it is decided to use our military let them go in fast and hard using all the gadgets that are available for their use to swiftly and surely destroy our enemies. Leave no doubt as to our ability and resolve to use it.

 

[pilot]

Here's some food for thought:
http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2002/0209chickenhawks.html

Please don't get on me, I don't claim to know the answers. But I do feel that there's cause for concern here.

The way I see it, either the Bush Administration doesn't know what it's doing or the military leadership doesn't know what it's doing. Either one is a frightening prospect.

 

[Ken King]

Pilot,

I read the linked article and immediately the objective is at hand. The article is by The Project Against the Present Danger – Standing in Defense of International Law, International Cooperation, and Multilateralism. It is obvious to me that their agenda is to discredit the USA and the Bush administration’s desire to make Iraq comply with International Law, International Cooperation as directed by the multinational body, namely the UN.

Of course our military is led by civilians. It is how the law of our nation says it will be done. It has been like this for years. The major objectives or goals are defined by the civil authority. The levels of force required are defined and then the military executes operations to achieve those goals. There has never been a requirement for these civilian authorities to actually serve. What we don’t want are other nations (or groups like this) dictating when and how we can use our forces. That is what this group is all about, controlling the USA.

 

[pilot]

Ken:

I agree completely with civilian control of the military. And like I said above, I really don't know the answers, not being a military expert myself. But what does concern me is that the military brass is questioning this. I know this both from what I've been reading in various newspapers as well as my own inside sources.

I find the whole thing scary, either way.

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by pilot
Ken:

I agree completely with civilian control of the military. And like I said above, I really don't know the answers, not being a military expert myself. But what does concern me is that the military brass is questioning this. I know this both from what I've been reading in various newspapers as well as my own inside sources.

I find the whole thing scary, either way.

It all needs to be kept in perspective. They start there article with "A high-ranking State Department official was speaking to a room full of senior military officers last month when he cracked, "there's more combat experience on the 7th floor of the State Department than in the entire Office of the Secretary of Defense.""

As they do not identify anyone in the room, specifically (speaker or listeners), one can wonder if in fact it is true or if it actually took pace at all. If it did take place it never says these were the JCS members. I wonder just how senior were these officers?

Also, there are always those that will question the wisdom of those appointed above them but bottom line is that the civilians call the shots and the military executes those decisions. I just don't give this group any credence.

 

[pilot]

Agreed, civilians have the final word. I'll certainly continue to do my part to support the war effort. But, personally, enough questions have been raised in my mind that I'm not going to be gung-ho about sending our troops to war. Any mistakes we make will have very serious consequences.

As I recently told a friend: "I'm a cautious hawk."