Koliedrus
04-07-2001, 12:27 PM
Problem:
Most people here (U.S) express their opinions by saying "If I was part of that crew", "If my kid was part of that crew", "If I were president", ad infinitum...
However, the people making those statements have very little faith in the government as a whole.
Men and women in our armed services signed on to follow the instructions of their ranking superiors. Far too many civilians would like for this issue to be solved quickly as if it were an episode of "Survivor".
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you but this situation requires either your patience in the abilities of our elected officials or your willingness to take up arms either in protest or support of the decisions being made.
I cannot personally retrieve the 24, I cannot pretend to understand the behind-the-scenes discussions and efforts currently being conducted.
I CAN, however, support a Constitution that has been repeatedly raped by each of us piece by piece.
Peace is my dream so I vote for patience for the time-being. If another extreme is unavoidable, I'll deal with it accordingly.
That's my rant. Read into it as much as you see fit.
(edit: subtle clarification)
[This message has been edited by Koliedrus (edited 04-07-2001).]
MuffyTheVampyreLayer
04-07-2001, 12:53 PM
<BLOCKQUOTE><HR>Originally posted by RogueWarrior:
Commies aren't human anyway, right?
[/end sarcasm]
[/quote]
"If you're not a communist by the time you are 20, then you have no heart. If you are still a communist by the time you are 40, then you have no brain"
But - when it comes to fighting and crap, 6 of one and half a dozen of the other...
Mr. Snrub
04-07-2001, 03:35 PM
The problem is the chinese are trying to deal with this in a chinese way, and the americans are dealing with it in a Western way. The chinese view this as simply a political bargaining process, with both sides slowly coming to a comprimise, which i imagine would probably involve america agreeing not to sell any Aegis class destroyers to Taiwan. That would be the chinese way. However, the Western way is to view this as an absolute violation, and to react accordingly, with absolute conviction and little compromise. Although I believe the US is absolutely correct in this matter, George W better understand that trying to force the Chinese to back down will not work. "Face" is very important to the chinese, and the loss of it will not be tolerated. At the same time, i don't think the US should bend over backwards to satisfy the Chinese, i.e. apologise when the collision was quite obviously not their fault. Then the Chinese would simply hold the Americans in total contempt and be emboldened to pull this kind of stunt again, just to embarrass the barbarian Gwailos and prove the innate superiority of the Middle Kingdom. Unfortunately, the Eastern way to deal with this, while probably producing a peaceful resolution without either side losing faith, will be maddingly slow, something i doubt the US population will stomach. In the end, however, China does not hold all the cards, for the simple reason that the US has about 300 times as many Nukes as China and would "win" any nuclear exchange, if such a thing is possible.
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<IMG SRC="http://fp.geocities.com/krazy_ivan92/scarface.htm" border=0>
I am the Kwisatz Haderach.
All the war talk is silly, I think. Neither country is prepared to fight a conventional war with the other. We cant put enough troops on the Asian mainland to properly fight and they cant put any on North America.
The Nuclear option is too fucking stupid to even contemplate. The Chinese dont have enough missiles to do enough damage to knock out the US. Last time I read up on Chinese launch capabilty against the US, the estimate was that they could hit us with 20-30 warheads. What do you think the US would respond with? Can you say glass parking lot?
The Chinese however can threaten Japan, South Korea and Taiwan with Nuclear obliteration. Think about it, would they? No. Not in their best interest. Because once again they would face the glass parking lot scenario.
The above was for the knee-jerks.
My thought in this situation is that the US should start thinking about MFN status for China again. I bet that would get the crew back home soon. Then we can return to the status-quo. Just a thought.
Deadpool
04-08-2001, 11:23 PM
Anyways heres a letter from an army aviator stationed at DC. It mentions the state of todays US.Army.
ORIGINAL MESSAGE
Aviation Regiment
CMR 477 Box 1551
APO AE 09165
27 March 2001
Center for Strategic and International Studies
1800 K Street N.W
Washington D.C., 20006
Dear CSIS,
Read with great interest your report entitled "American Military Culture in
the 21st Century." I thought you might be interested in my thoughts as I
read the report.
For your information, I am a single white male Army battalion operations
officer, thirty-nine years old, no dependents. I have seventeen years of
service in Korea, Europe, the Balkans and the US, to include time in the 2nd
Infantry, 101st Air Assault, and 1st Armored Divisions. I also served as an
observer/controller at the Joint Readiness Training Center, and have
instructed at West Point and the Aviation Officer Basic Course.
1. In my opinion, Army basic training is no longer a rite of passage. I
cannot write with any authority on what occurs there, but weekly I receive
the graduates. New soldiers are increasingly undisciplined, rebellious, and
more concerned with their rights than their responsibilities. They often
have little sense of teamwork or duty. My suspicion is that the "Army of
One" mentality (in place long before the phrase was coined) is teaching them
to ask not what they can do for their country, but what their country can do
for them. Army recruiting strategy with its offers of money and more money
is where this pathology begins. Since there is apparently little quality
control in basic training, active units receive, relatively unmodified, the
raw product of American Society. I would prefer to see (A) Recruiting based
on the Marine model, because one gets what one asks for. The USMC asks for
young men who wish to serve their nation and challenge themselves, while the
Army asks for people who want money. (B) Even if it means a smaller Army, I
would prefer to see some quality control in basic training. In short, if
recruits do not meet rigid standards of ethics, behavior, and performance,
they should not be allowed into the service, period. (C) Basic training that
is a tradition based and challenging rite of passage. Bottom line: Recruits
must join the Army, not the other way around.
2. I do not agree that soldiers identify with the Army as the report
contends. Junior officers and soldiers identify with their small units, and
senior officers and NCOs with their staffs (commanders and command sergeants
major excepted). I believe that the importance of service identity is
overstated, and that now is the time to transition to one service. The
pay-off in procurement and standardization would be immense, without
damaging unit cohesion. The other side of the coin, however, is that morale
is so poor and unit cohesion at the lower levels so weak due to years of
over commitment, under resourcing, micromanagement, and social engineering,
that morale needs some intensive shoring up. I believe there are some ways
to do this: (A) Give us back our officer and NCO clubs. They may not be
efficient, but they are effective in building esprit and strengthening the
ever-weakening line between the ranks. (B) Power down. Our company
commanders are no longer that, but instead "company managers."
Let's get brigade commanders and division commanding generals out of company
physical training programs, and instead focused on directing their staffs to
do more than crank out endless taskings which do not support battalion
essential combat tasks. (C) Allow units to develop and propagate unit
specific symbols and insignia at the battalion level. (D) Recruit
regionally and field units on the now defunct COHORT model. (E) Organize in
multi-functional regiments on the USMC model.
3. I do not believe as the report contends that we have demonstrated
military prowess in Desert Storm, Bosnia, or Kosovo. The report did not
mention Somalia in this vein, a conflict that demonstrates how bad things
can get when we face a resolute enemy. Therefore, the "lessons of success"
learned in the Balkans and Desert Storm need some perspective. What we have
demonstrated is that because we have a lot of money, we can overcome an
enemy that does not fight, or is more concerned with criminal activities
than military engagements. I believe that, should we face a resolute enemy
in open combat, the results would be catastrophic (Bunker Hill, Bull Run,
Kasserine Pass, Task Force Smith, Vietnam, Somalia). America, between its
major wars, has a long history of demanding efficiency rather than
effectiveness from its Armed Forces. Unfortunately, the Armed Forces are not
IBM or Microsoft, nor are they the Department of Interior or Bureau of
Weight and Measures. Efficiency rather than effectiveness in peacetime
translates to heavy casualties in the opening weeks of the next real
conflict.
4. I was interested in the comment of the report that "military culture by
definition must differ significantly from civil culture in a democratic
society." I could not agree more, which is why I am perplexed at the
Herculean efforts in the last ten years to civilianize the military.
5. Beware the fidelity of survey data. The atmosphere of fear in the Army is
impossible to overstate. Years of conditioning to zero-defects and fear of
offending have resulted in answers to survey questions that will be
generally lukewarm at worst. More importantly,
survey data is manipulated by the chain of command. While I was in Kosovo,
yet another of a seemingly endless line of "Blue Ribbon Panels" traveled
there to sound a group of captains reference retention. Prior to the arrival
of the panel, the senior officers dictated that no maintenance or
headquarters company commanders would participate, knowing that these are
the most thankless command positions. Additionally, the senior officers
further weeded by name the remaining line commanders. The best survey or
interview is the one in which the interviewee does not realize he is being
interviewed. If you want to know what the Army is thinking, just listen to
soldiers converse in bars. Pay particular attention to junior NCOs and
officers.
6. Because captain retention is so poor, Department of the Army has chosen
to make captains from lieutenants at three years of service. Additionally,
the selection rate for captain was this year 99%. This decision is typical
of the kind of short-sited decision making common at senior levels. The long
term result is incompetent captains, whose poor leadership creates
disgruntled soldiers and NCOs who resign or do not re-enlist. The captains
themselves, frustrated that they cannot perform as expected, will also
resign as soon as they can. Recommend fewer officers of higher quality. If
this means a smaller Army, so be it.
7. Casualty and risk aversion, euphemized in the Army as "force protection,"
have expanded beyond all logical proportion. In Kosovo, I actually heard a
brigade commander say "The worst thing we can do here is discharge a
weapon." I tend to take the more traditional view that the worst thing a
military force can do is fail in its mission.
8. Commanders and other leaders within the Army are daily faced with the
following conundrum: Follow the regulations, or accomplish the mission. Our
penchant for risk aversion and micromanagement has done away with judgment,
while regulations reproduce themselves at an alarming rate. The cynicism and
stress on integrity the above conundrum creates is a huge burden. One of the
reasons junior officers join the Army is for the opportunity to exercise
their judgment. If platoon leaders are not allowed to do this, why have
them? Put a pile of regulations in their chairs. Soldiers requiring
management can consult the regulations, judgment no longer required.
9. "Proper" race and gender relations, currently propagated in the Army by
the much despised and canned "Consideration of Others" program, has
guaranteed the poorest possible social climate. We have taught a generation
of soldiers to see themselves not primarily as soldiers, but as
African-Americans who happen to be soldiers, or females who happen to be
soldiers. Worse yet, we have taught them not to be polite and respectful,
but instead to carry chips on their shoulders, searching for someone to
offend them. The result in the loss of unit cohesion has been devastating as
soldiers are isolated in social fear. Additionally, the never-ending stream
of "African-American Months" and "Asian-Pacific American Months" has done
nothing more but accentuate differences. Recommend we have "American Soldier
Year" and be done with it. The self-fulfilling prophecies created by racial
and gender hypersensitivity are assisting in the destruction of morale.
10. Technology, as useful as it is, has helped to create slaves to
perfection and intense micromanagers. The man-hours wasted on just the right
color for power-point presentations number in the millions, while
subordinate commands await the "perfect" operations order. Junior officers
watch senior officers slave away on presentations for generals and ask
themselves "Do I want to be doing that in three years?" Perhaps if the
generals would refuse to accept this kind of waste, the colonels would
follow suit. Additionally, nobody wants a corps commander in their tank or
cockpit with them. Recommend we stop the search for real time terrestrial
omniscience at the higher levels, and start trusting our subordinates again.
Human nature dictates that what can be known will be known. The question is,
just who needs to know it? Does the theater commander really need a monthly
report on venereal disease cases in platoon X? I think not, but he gets one
by name and social security number.
11. We have entered an interesting and twisted period in military sociology
when abuse is not defined by the institution or the senior, but rather by
the subordinate. The ramifications of this environment are self-evident.
Schofield's venerated definition of discipline is often quoted to justify
this position: "The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country
reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment."
Nowhere in this statement does Schofield indicate that the private soldier
should define "harsh and tyrannical."
12. The Army has long been wedded to what I have come to think of as the
"Chase your tail" method of training. As we move from execution to
execution, the training of subordinates suffers. We do so much so rapidly
that little is done correctly. We "check the block" and move on to the next
task. I recently saw a corps G-3's annual training calendar, of which he
was exceedingly proud. Not a block of empty space on it. When then, do the
division, brigade, battalion, and company commanders, not to mention platoon
leaders and NCOs, have time to train as they wish? Either the corps G-3
knows every platoon's training needs better than platoon leaders, or there
is something very wrong. Here in USAREUR my battalion requires 397 days to
meet the annual training requirements placed on us by higher headquarters.
Simultaneously, my battalion services endless garrison support taskings and
those of higher headquarters to resource someone else's training.
Meanwhile, company commanders are chided by general officers for not giving
their soldiers predictability. One does not know whether to laugh or cry.
The solution for this problem is simple...slow down. We can do a few things
very well or we can do a great many things poorly. There is no middle
ground. Long ago the military developed the concept of main and supporting
efforts, as well as mission essential tasks. If we would employ these
concepts, everything would not be a priority, and unit focus would not shift
from day to day. Movement is not necessarily progress, nor is constant
re-organization.
13. The study made much of married soldiers and soldiers with dependents,
asserting that these are stabilizing influences. Apparently no one
interviewed any company commander known to me, some of whom spend upwards of
half their time dealing with family abuse, teens in trouble, dependent
related alcohol and drug problems, unwed pregnant soldiers, single soldiers
who have no plans to care for their children in the event they deploy, etc.,
etc. I remember several years ago a USMC general suggesting that junior
Marines should not be married. He was pilloried in the press, but I think he
was correct. Recommend that the services accept no first term married
soldiers, and that all unwed pregnancies be immediately
discharged.
14. Soldiers generally are not opposed to deployments. The problem lies in
the perceived value of the deployment. If I am to ask my soldiers to
separate from their dependants for six months once every two years, I must
give them a good reason to do so. Police work in Kosovo is not what I
consider worthy of that kind of sacrifice. We do more, but it is meaning
less. I cannot overstate the cynicism that this situation creates.
15. I similarly cannot stress enough the importance of swift, bold decisions
to solve these problems, or at least to acknowledge them. I am aware that
the Army is a large organization averse to change. I am similarly aware,
however, that many of these problems were apparent ten years ago. Executive
summary after executive summary, panel after panel, committee after
committee, task force after task force, with no tangible results other than
new headgear (make no mistake, even the lowliest private sees that pitiful
measures for what it is). Soldiers have lost patience. Having taught at West
Point, I maintain an active correspondence with dozens of junior officers I
met there. I do not know one who is planning on staying in the army past his
initial commitment. Company commanders are refusing second commands, and
captains are refusing first commands in favor of resignation. Lieutenant
colonels and colonels are also refusing commands. These actions were very
rare...almost unthinkable ten years ago, yet they are all around us today.
We have a problem that requires serious effort.
Our greatest threat is not criminals in Kosovo, weapons of mass destruction,
or Osama Bin Laden. Our enemy is domestic: rock bottom morale. We wonder
which of two unpalatable situations we face...either the senior leadership
does not recognize the low morale, or they do recognize it and do not care.
In my opinion, anything we do which distracts or keeps us from solving the
morale problem is tantamount to re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
16. The report repeatedly suggests that military service is not fun anymore.
There is no truer statement. Most everything we had that made the service
fun has been taken away from us. The net result of the loss of fun or job
satisfaction is a "workaday" attitude. I see in myself and in more and more
officers a view of my service as just a job, rather than a way of life. I
never thought I would see it that way, and was surprised and saddened when I
did. The Army I joined is not the Army I am in, and I believe I am betrayed.
Idealism has met reality, and those two concepts are too far removed from
one another.
I am aware that as I have written, my comments have become increasingly
emotional and urgent. I have allowed this to happen, and you receive this
letter without edit. Those of us who live in this environment day in and day
out are extremely frustrated, and I wanted you to read that frustration,
unvarnished.
Finally, one of the "things" that frustrates me most is the lack of survey
feedback. Armies of lab coated technicians and sociologist sally forth from
Washington annually to poke us, prod us, and test us. As they snap closed
their briefcases, they always promise us feedback. In seventeen years, I
have seen feedback twice, once when Prof. C. Moskos provided me some
directly at my request, and once when I saw your report a few days ago,
purely by accident. The average soldier does not demand immediate solutions.
He does, however, harbor the hope that his senior leadership recognizes
problems and takes positive, effective action to solve them.
Thank you for your time, patience, and study.
Very Sincerely,
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