This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: NSOM

  • Citizen soldiers no more?

    Paul Huard, a high school teacher, military father and former journalist, published a piece in The Oregonian this past weekend talking about the increasing disconnect between Americans and their professional military.

    Sometime in February, I will quietly remove a small pennant that has been a fixture in my classroom for more than six years. It is a Blue Star service flag, the symbol of a son or daughter on active duty in the U.S. military and a tradition dating back to 1942 when the banner allowed mothers to show publicly a child was fighting as a soldier, Marine, sailor or airman. Each star represented one child, and many families had flags with multiple stars. Entire neighborhoods often had these flags in their windows during World War II, and people were proud to display them.

    —

    …experience and education have shown me that for better or for worse the American soldier and America’s wars are things that educated people need to understand for the sake of understanding and keeping American democracy.

    —

    …awareness is becoming harder and harder to find in a nation where few choose to serve. About 1 percent of the nation’s population is currently in uniform as either active duty or reserve such as the National Guard, and that number will dwindle as factors such as budget cuts and the inevitable drawdown because of the end of the Iraq War take effect. During World War II, about 12 percent of the population was in uniform.

    —

    Because of the hatred expressed by the counterculture during the’60s toward returning Vietnam vets or because society today lives like a nearly nine-year war had no impact on the lives of a majority of Americans, we owe the military a free lunch at every Applebee’s from coast to coast. Most of the young people I know in the military just wish the average American understood what the military does and why it does it. They are grateful for the meal, but they want their fellow citizens to understand what the military does, how it gets the job done, and what the military should (or should not) be asked to do.

    —

    When Matt enlisted, a few friends and acquaintances asked me how I felt about sacrificing my son. I replied by stating that I was not sacrificing my son, but that I was supporting his informed decision, a decision that he made as an adult. He had other options in life. He received excellent advice from two veterans: a grandfather who served in the U.S. Army during World War II and a grandfather who served in the U.S. Army during the Cold War. He knew exactly what he was doing.

    The crux of Huard’s argument is that military service has disappeared from the common American experience, that military culture is no longer American culture. I happen to believe this is true and, like Huard, I find it to be a disturbing development. A culture apart from its military is not only more likely to fail to give its military the tools it needs for successfully defending the national interest, it more likely to misuse and ignorantly abuse, or allow the abuse, of its military.

    The ancient, and very Western, tradition of the citizen solider is crucial to the heath of any Republic but the demands of both modern warfare and personal liberty require a force of professional volunteers. It’s a balancing act that we’re failing at. We’re returning to a system of military clans, separate in culture and social status from the general population. Most American families and their soft, spoiled and entitled children don’t even conceive of military service as an option much less an opportunity. Yet nearly everyone I’ve known in the military either has kids in or are themselves children of veterans.

  • Tired Of Walking

    Well, my brother got his preferred MOS out at Pendleton’s School of Infantry this week, 0352, TOW Gunner. Congratulations, Seth. The consensus among former Marine Corps types has been, “Aw, lucky him” while the general reaction from former Army types has been, “Are you kidding me, the Marine Corps still uses that piece of shit?” Seeing as how Marines racing around in Humvees shooting half century old missiles at tanks hasn’t been on the menu for some time my simple POG mind is left to wonder what it is TOW guys do in 2012. Opinion seems evenly split between heavy QRF, IED magnets and “nothing”.

    Any 0352s out there?

  • Those in the know are running for the exits in Afghanistan

    The Associated Press is reporting that Afghans are seeking to get off that sinking ship at the fastest rate since the war began despite proclamations from the Obama administration that all is well.

    More Afghans fled the country and sought asylum abroad in 2011 than in any other year since the start of the decade-long war, suggesting that many are looking for their own exit strategy as international troops prepare to withdraw.

    From January to November, more than 30,000 Afghans applied for political asylum worldwide, a 25 percent increase over the same period the previous year and more than triple the level of just four years ago, according to U.N. statistics obtained by The Associated Press ahead of their scheduled publication later this year.

    Many Afghans are turning to a thriving and increasingly sophisticated human smuggling industry to get themselves — or in most cases, their sons — out of the country. They pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to cross into Iran or Pakistan to more $25,000 for fake papers and flights to places like London or Stockholm.

    Thousands of refugees also return each year, but their numbers have been dwindling as the asylum applications rise. Both trends highlight worries among Afghans about what may happen after 2014, when American and other NATO troops turn security over to the Afghan army and police.

    I’ll avoid insulting both the intelligence of TAH readers and the plight of the Vietnamese by drawing too many comparisons to that country circa 1974-75 but the signals coming from those on the ground are clear: the Afghans have lost faith in both the willingness of the United States to finish the job started in 2001 and the Karzai regime’s ability to remain in power once the last vestige of hope departs on a UH-60. That country, and all out interests there, are circling the drain but the people holding the stopper seem too busy lining up donors and making speeches for the 2012 campaign to pull it back from the brink.

    1,886 dead Americans and counting.

  • PolitiFact busted, again

    Politifact, the nominally non-partisan “fact checker” which takes a statement by a politician, surveys a group of “experts” of their own choosing and then coughs up a “truth-o-meter” score, has landed in hot water, again. Previously it was when the liberal media establishment got all asshurt over Politifact calling the claim that Republicans were trying to end Medicare the “Lie of the Year”, much to the amusement of columnists like Mark Hemingway over at The Weekly Standard. Hemingway had previously worked to expose so called “fact checking” organizations as being fundamentally misrepresentative highlighting, among other things, the absurdity of using AP reports as the arbiter of proper military analysis after Politifact went after Romney on a Iran statement.

    This time around it again concerns our military.
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  • Target: You

    “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.” -Saul Alinsky

    The silent majority’s revulsion at the New Left’s demonization of Vietnam-era veterans created an environment in the popular consciousnesses that said, “Never again. Never again will returning troops be spit upon and libeled as criminals.” However, the media’s discovery of the 3/2 urination video has crystallized in my mind a reality of anti-war propaganda, that the nature and character of the troops themselves is the battleground, yet again.

    In the wake of the video’s discovery, a sad dichotomy has emerged in the media. On one side are the “reasonable” and “responsible” forces who call for the discipline of these Marines for their actions. They studiously call for deeper investigations and ask “the hard questions” about how and why this happened. Those who have served in uniform, our nation’s true journalists, conservatives and those on the left with the strategic and moral clarity of the late Christopher Hitchens are left to cry out for context and make emotional declarations of solidarity with the dehumanization of Taliban fighters. In other words the narrative established in the opening hours of the story forced the defenders of the American service member into the indefensible position of championing pissing on dead people. That’s a losing fight.

    In very recent history the discovery that Marines had urinated on the enemy’s dead would have triggered an internal disciplinary action, if for no other reason than such behavior undermines the professionalism and bearing upon which the Marine Corps stakes so much of its reputation. Today, though, it becomes a media firestorm, a chance for the often collusionary anti-war and anti-American forces to vilify the effort in Afghanistan as a lost cause perpetrated by the morally bankrupt. Stories such as these, in conjunction with the largely manufactured rash of recent PTSD horror stories, function to establish a narrative of immoral entropy, making the case that the war effort in Afghanistan is fundamentally corrosive to everyone touched by it. Instead of a difficult and noble endeavor to do right, to spread basic human rights and to doggedly pursue the most evil cabal of men in modern history it is a cancer on the nation to be cut out without mercy for the well being of the entire nation.

    This is a fight which will be waged at your expense; the active duty and reserve service members and the families which sacrifice so much to put them and keep them in the fight. There’s a target on your back. Keep your chin up and your nose clean.

  • Some liberal activists appear prone to committing terrorism

    Why? Because, in a demographic of millions, over the course of several decades, a few of them them committed acts of violent terrorism. Ergo, there’s nothing wrong with the straight faced statment, “some liberal activists are prone to terrorism.” At least that’s the logic behind Reuters Pentagon Corresponding Phil Stewart in his recent column speculating the recent video by the whizz kids in 3/2 “could be the new Abu Gharib.”

    …experts inside and outside the U.S. military are so far unconvinced the incident will cause as much damage as Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal did, even as it stirs anti-American sentiment and revives questions about why some American troops appear prone to committing abuses — and then proudly documenting them.

    Stay classy, Phil.

  • Shrinking the Corps for its own sake?

    Marine Corps Maj Peter J. Munson, a C-130 driver, Naval Postgraduate School alum and self-proclaimed Middle East expert, put forward a “right sizing” argument in the Marine Corps Gazette today calling for the Corps to shrink down even farther in order to stay relevant. The core of his understanding of the proper role of the Marine Corps is this:

    …the Corps must define the niche that it intends to fill in a competitive market. That niche is primarily defined by its amphibious nature, but it is also defined by highly mobile, lightweight infantry forces, task-organized (MAGTF) and scalable to conduct independent operations (to a defined upper limit), utilizing combined arms and robust command and control capabilities to “punch above its weight”, and capable of expeditionary operations in both littoral and inland areas (through use of strategic maneuver). The Marine Corps is prepared to operate independently to the extent that it is forward deployed and prepared to conduct crisis response (i.e. a MEU and nothing larger). This statement requires some work, but this should be what the Marine Corps does, period. Strip away everything that does not contribute to this niche and either trash it or hand it off to other services.

    With the budget driven cancelling of the EFV the Corps has been left without an amphibious platform viable in a 21st century combat enviroment. Now correct me if I’m wrong but, once you cut out the service specific lingo and the amphibious capability, isn’t he essentially describing SOCOM? What mission falls into that field that can’t be accomplished by a Ranger Batt with specifically tasked aviation assets?

    There’s over 2,500 SEALs running around who are going to be largely unemployed once the war in Afghanistan is over. You think the Navy is going to cough up their amphib raid and VBSS missions? I don’t. Marines are off ship as an operational component of the crew and they’re not coming back. The Navy has barely been able to get the Marines to maintain the Security Forces Regiment which guards, and acts as a QRF for, all the critical installations and assets, i.e. nukes.

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  • Like clockwork

    Remember all those optics that went missing from JBLM a couple days ago? Well it turns out it’s about $600k worth of stuff that was secured in a locked but not alarmed room. Whatever, like that doesn’t happen all the time. Somehow, though, the thieves managed to cut the locks and make off with it unbeknownst to the Company’s Supply section for as long as three weeks.

    Right on time, the North Korean apologist, Stalinist lunatics at International ANSWER have crawled across I-5 from Coffee Strong to use this opportunity to take up the locked-down comapany’s cause via their front group “March Forward”. You might remember some illustrious members such as Michael Prysner. According to the Seattle Times:

    The lockdown has angered some of the soldiers, who are part of the brigade’s 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment. They have received support from March Forward, a group of soldiers and veterans opposed to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, who have been circulating a petition calling for an end to the lockdown.

    “The Fort Lewis, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment is again being subjected to abusive treatment by its chain of command,” the petition reads.

    Ah, good to have some emo-Communist burnouts in your corner, isn’t it guys?

    Don’t get me wrong, if I was stuck on lock down in the BEQ because some criminal in cammies stole a bunch of crap from my unit I’d be pretty pissed too. All that being said I have to add that, in the big scheme of things, sitting around drinking beer and watching cable while the CID figures out who’s going to lockup isn’t exactly a humanitarian crisis.

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