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

Category: Military issues

  • German Brigadier General Markus Laubenthal to be Chief of Staff at USAREUR

    Markus Laubenthal

    John sends us a link to the story in Stars & Stripes which reports that US Army Europe will have a German, Brigadier General Markus Laubenthal as it’s chief of staff – the first German in that position since the Army came to Germany in 1945.

    “This is a bold and major step forward in USAREUR’s commitment to operating in a multinational environment with our German allies,” Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell Jr., USAREUR commander, said of Laubenthal’s appointment. “U.S. and German senior military leaders have been serving together in NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan for years. Sustaining the shared capability from this experience will benefit both U.S. and German armies.”

    Laubenthal, 51, commanded the Bundeswehr’s 12th Armored Brigade in Amberg before this assignment. In August of last year, he took over as chief of staff for ISAF Regional Command North in Afghanistan, where he helped oversee the drawdown of German troops from Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif, according to information on the German army website. Among other assignments, he served as military assistant to the deputy commander of operations and assistant chief of staff for operations for NATO’s Kosovo force.

    This is probably a good sign that Germany is going to participate more in it’s own defense. I enjoyed working with German soldiers, especially on our joint patrols along the East German border – they were lunatics because they could do stuff that we couldn’t.

    It’s probably a peace offering since we’ve been caught spying on their chancellor, Angela Merkel and we were caught spying on their government and the CIA station chief was expelled.

  • DoD’s “duh moment”

    DoD’s “duh moment”

    The Washington Times reports that a panel which the Defense Department commissioned to evaluate the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) told them what we’ve been saying for years; they’re cutting too much too quickly to keep the nation safe from the number of threats that are popping up.

    It also said the shrinking U.S. armed forces, which are being downsized to fit that strategy and budget cuts, is a “serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States.” The forces’ numbers spelled out in Mr. Obama’s QDR are “inadequate given the future strategic and operational environment.”

    […]

    The panel’s report said the past several years of budget cuts and mandated reduction in personnel and weapons have stirred deep unease among allies who would count on the U.S. in a crisis.

    […]

    It calls the defense cuts “dangerous” as “global threats and challenges are rising.” The experts point to China’s and Russia’s new territorial claims, nuclear proliferation by Iran and North Korea and al Qaeda’s rapid rise in Iraq.

    The panel knocks Mr. Obama’s QDR for reducing the military’s global mission from being able to defeat two enemies nearly simultaneously to defeating one and denying the objectives of a second. The report calls on Mr. Obama to expand this overriding mission statement.

    I could have saved them the money for a panel and I’m sure that many of you could, too. The problem is that this administration will ignore this report. They’ve already decided what the future looks like and it’s all been factored in to their vision for our national security. Now if only the rest of the world will cooperate.

    The reason that we got what we wanted and the world was relatively peaceful was because we were feared as a military power, but everyone wants to be respected these days, unfortunately respect comes in second place to fear.

  • African child’s body found in landing gear of C-130

    A US military aircraft which landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany after a circuit of Senegal, Mali, Chad, Tunisia and Sicily was found to have a dead African child in the landing gear from one of those places, I’m guessing. From Reuters;

    “At this point, it is unknown where or when the deceased entered the landing gear wheel well,” Kirby said, describing the apparent stow-away as “an adolescent black male, possibly of African origin.”

    As concerns swell over an outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease in several African countries, the military also confirmed that the body was tested for communicable diseases. Those tests came up negative.

    “The cause of death, as well as the other circumstances surrounding this incident, remains under investigation,” Kirby said, adding the body had been taken to a German facility for an autopsy.

    Two Americans have been found to be infected with Ebola in Africa. A Liberian man died of Ebola while he was on a flight. So, you know, aside from the terrorist threat due to lax security in these African airports, but sending Ebola-infected victims on flights to Europe is right out of Tom Clancy novels.

    “The aircraft is a rugged aircraft designed to operate in austere locations. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody that security at some of these fields is not going to be at the same level,” Kirby said.

    Yeah, well, someone should have noticed a small boy running across the airfield and climbing into the landing gear.

  • The Ultimate Blue Falcon?

    A little mentioned news story in Stars and Stripes tells the tales of woe of a number of less than brilliant service members who were “duped” into buying things at they neither needed nor wanted at grossly inflated prices with the promise of “easy credit”:

    Army Spc. Angel Aguirre needed a washer and dryer.

    Money was tight, and neither Aguirre, 21, nor his wife had much credit history as they settled into life at Fort Carson in Colorado in 2010.

    That’s when he saw an ad for USA Discounters, guaranteeing loan approval for servicemembers. In military newspapers and magazines, on the radio, and on TV, the Virginia-based company’s ads shout, “NO CREDIT? NEED CREDIT? NO PROBLEM!” The store was only a few miles from Fort Carson.

    “We ended up getting a computer, a TV, a ring, and a washer and dryer,” Aguirre said. “The only thing I really wanted was a washer and dryer.”

    Aguirre later learned that USA Discounters’ easy lending has a flip side. Should customers fall behind, the company transforms into an efficient collection operation. And this part of its business takes place not where customers bought their appliances, but in two local courthouses just a short drive from the company’s Virginia Beach headquarters.

    From there, USA Discounters files lawsuits against servicemembers based anywhere in the world, no matter how much inconvenience or expense they would incur to attend a Virginia court date. Since 2006, the company has filed more than 13,470 suits and almost always wins, records show.

    The article goes on to state that they are by far the largest recipient of default judgments against servicemembers:

    As of January 2014, 230 servicemembers were involuntarily paying USA Discounters a portion of their pay, Department of Defense data shows. Altogether, those servicemembers have paid more than $1.4 million to the company.

    Next on the list of most active creditors were the two other local companies, Military Credit Services and Freedom, which together had seized the pay of 92 servicemembers for a total of $289,000 as of January, according to the data.

    The company did make a statement for the original story:

    Timothy Dorsey, vice president of USA Discounters, said the company provides credit to servicemembers who would not otherwise qualify and sues only after other attempts to resolve debts have failed.

    As for the company’s choice of court, he said it was “for the customer’s benefit.” In Virginia, the company isn’t required to use a lawyer to file suit. USA Discounters’ savings on legal fees are passed on to the customer, he said.

    Now if you’re wondering if that name rings a bell, you’re not alone. Jonn and Hondo reported on Mr. Dorsey here and here.

    Yeah. THAT Timothy Dorsey. And he also serves as general counsel, which is to say, the legal face of USA Discounters. Normally, I’m not all that sympathetic to young troops who do stupid things like buy things they can’t afford on credit terms that are less than favorable, particularly when they, you, I, and everyone else who has put on a uniform, has attended seemingly endless lectures on the pitfalls of “easy credit” and the eagerness with which businesses near any major military base exist solely to separate said dumbasses from their pay. Even 30 years after the fact, I can still picture the 22nd Street entrance of NTC Great Lakes, with all their shiny baubles and toys, well out of my reach but for a signature on an allotment form for a mere 30-40 percent interest.

    But something about this just burns my ass. Here’s a guy who once wore the uniform of our service, who, while having a less than stellar career as a pilot, was still nominated for flag rank until enough voices were raised to eventually shoot his star down like he did the manned Air Force F-4 so many years ago.

    And yet he makes a damn good living off ripping off people in uniform.

    Oh, make no mistake–he serves as the good face of a company “serving the military community.” From a Stripes LTTE:

    The ProPublica article referencing USA Discounters that posted to stripes.com on July 24 (“‘They’re basically ruthless’: The discount store that sues servicemembers worldwide”) and its accompanying piece, “For lenders, gaps in federal law make suing servicemembers easy,” inaccurately portray the practices and policies of our company and our dealings with military customers.

    It is against the law for USA Discounters to discuss the cases of individuals who purchased items from us on credit and defaulted on their payments. Prior to publication, the company asked the reporter to obtain permission from the customers referenced to allow us to release those details — which would have told a very different story than the one reported. The reporter was unable to obtain that permission.

    It is irresponsible to report on allegations of this nature, knowing that there is another side to the story and knowing that the subject of the allegations is legally barred from telling it.

    USA Discounters is proud of our long and important relationship with the military community. The company has always held that the men and women who serve and sacrifice for our country should be treated with the honor and respect they deserve. And we consistently work to meet that standard.

    Izzat so, Timmy? You were quoted for the story. You had an opportunity to give your side, or to explain that because of legal issues, you couldn’t comment specifically. How many of those other 230 members would you want quoted? How many of your other current and former customers would you REALLY want to give a review of your business?

    Your own employees state that they are NOT to sell a product, but a credit plan. To most people, your plans suck. But you don’t exist to cater to them. Your function is, as I stated earlier, is to separate as much money from as many gullible junior servicemembers as you can with overly inflated prices on crap products with useless warranties and credit plans that would make a loanshark blush in embarrassment.

    So really, Mr. Dorsey–are you providing a service, or just servicing?

  • Real Warriors and PTSD

    Post by PTSD Project.

    Chances are a child in the United States under the age of 17 does not remember our military never being at war. They do not know what it’s like to meet a loved one at the gate of an airport. Yellow ribbons are common place. Troops are always deploying or coming home. New members of our military only know terrorist as a real and valid threat. The World Trade Center are not two majestic towers but a rubble filled hole with an American flag flying from the ruins. They join knowing that they will be called upon to contribute to the war effort, they join know that the military is not the easy way, but they still join.

    The nation is full of monuments that go back to the revolution, the name are the same on them all, change the name of the conflict and they could serve as a monument to any point in our history. The names of the fallen, we use words like fallen so we don’t have to think about them as young men and women in the prime of life. The fallen of our nation are a faceless mass that we idolize and turn into heroes. We do our best to not think about them as young men with names and families.

    We talk about those that survive the horror of war. We talk about the help they earned but fail in many cases to receive. We hold up to public ridicule those that fake or embellish their service so that history will have a true reflection of our warrior’s stories. But we rarely hear the stories of the real warriors. Those young men and women who Joined in a time of war and gave it their all to make it home and succeeded.

    I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to fight for your life against an enemy who you have no personal grudge against, what it’s like to take the life of another human being. We spend our whole lives with the knowledge that to kill another is wrong, but we train young men and women to ignore that basic knowledge, to go against the grain of our very evolution. We get them back home and ignore the conflict of the soul they must feel. We expect the warrior to be the boy again.

    I am not antiwar. I believe long and lasting peace can come from it. I am not anti-military. Those young men and women are needed and earn the respect that they get. They also earned the support that is lacking. I don’t want to see another generation of young men turn into old men who can’t talk about what they saw, what they felt. We sent them to war, we need to deal with its aftermath. They are our Warriors. Their names are the same as yours and mine.

    What used to be called shell shock or battle fatigue has the name PTS or PTSD now. Returning service members see counselors and are encouraged to talk about how they feel. More often than not they bullshit their way past the counselors and try to deal with it on their own. They feel that to say anything shows a weakness. The truth is no man can deal with the constant threat of not only their own possible death or injury but that also to everyone around them without it having some effect.

    The media doesn’t help this situation with the never ending reports of this person or that person suffering from PTSD committing some horrible act. What we now have is a society where a diagnosis of PTSD is treated very much like being diagnosed with anything from an STD to mentally incompetent.

    A few days ago I wrote about a young man who did two tours in Afghanistan. I touched on his problems but did not really elaborate. I have permission to talk more about them and will do my best to tell those parts of his story. He had nightmares and bad dreams almost every night after his first tour. He did the mandatory counseling but realized he needed more so he sought private help as well. The effort to balance his philological needs with a desire to stay in the Army were very difficult. Some of his battle buddies did not fare so well upon returning home. A few turned to alcohol, many started having relationship problems and still more had disciplinary problems with the Army.

    He spoke about the death of a friend. He has guard duty and was bullshitting with a friend who was going on patrol outside the wire. As they walked out the Gate he made a flippant comment about you guys have fun. 20 minutes later his friend took the full brunt of an IED and was killed instantly. Several others were wounded and he heard it all on the radio.

    He spoke about his Staff Sergeant getting a leg blown up by an IED. He also spoke about having to take lives. To be fair and honest he only spoke in detail about the first time he killed a man, how after it was over he looked at him, seeing he had shot him in the face and thought about how his death would affect his family, he wondered if there was a wife or kids. We know there was more than one confirmed time. I have not asked a number.

    While deployed he did not have time to grieve or process all the thoughts and emotions. Only when he came home did those feeling start to come back. He avoids crowds now. Loud noises other than ones he makes are not a good thing. The dreams are less frequent but still happen. Those that care about him myself included are at a loss much of the time. We want to say or do something but have no idea how.

    PTSD not only affect the individual but the family and friends as well. There is a strange pride that goes along with knowing a real warrior. His family is proud of him, but he takes no pride in what he had to do. He will stay in the Army, he will use what he was learned in and out of battle to help his fellow soldiers come home. I can only think that the cost of being a real warrior is the loss of innocence. PTSD in many ways is the reminder of innocence lost.

    We as a nation send them to war, we need to makes sure that they are given the help and support that they earned. We have made great strides in helping wounded warriors recover as much physically as possible, an even greater effort is needed to help them mentally. We often demand accountability from the VA or the Military. We must demand that same level of accountability from ourselves to ensure that this generation of warriors does not suffer the same neglect as prior generations have. What it cost us now will be a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of doing nothing more than what is the current effort.

    A big thanks to the PTSD project for the video

  • How Earth avoided the Stone Age–Maybe

    Jonn mentioned to me the other day he’s had a number of folks contact him about a story from the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang which discussed how a massive Coronal Mass Ejection narrowly missed the planet in July of 2012:

    On July 23, 2012, the sun unleashed two massive clouds of plasma that barely missed a catastrophic encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere. These plasma clouds, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), comprised a solar storm thought to be the most powerful in at least 150 years.

    “If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” physicist Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado tells NASA.

    From further down in the article:

    A CME double whammy of this potency striking Earth would likely cripple satellite communications and could severely damage the power grid. NASA offers this sobering assessment:

    Analysts believe that a direct hit … could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn’t even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.

    According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair.

    How strong a storm are we talking? They compared it to the first observed CME/solar flare, the Carrington Event of 1859, named for the British astronomer who observed it:

    During the Carrington event, the northern lights were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii according to historical accounts. The solar eruption “caused global telegraph lines to spark, setting fire to some telegraph offices,” NASA notes.

    NASA says the July 2012 storm was particularly intense because a CME had traveled along the same path just days before the July 23 double whammy – clearing the way for maximum effect, like a snowplow.

    “This double-CME traveled through a region of space that had been cleared out by yet another CME four days earlier,” NASA says. ” As a result, the storm clouds were not decelerated as much as usual by their transit through the interplanetary medium.”

    NASA also has a little more technical writeup for those so inclined. But without getting into the nuts and bolts about the hows, whys, or deep Physics of what would happen should such a CME hit our planet again, let’s consider the implications.

    From a normal everyday Joe standpoint, a long-term blackout would be devastating, far beyond the $2T figure quoted in the article. While I didn’t have access to how they came up with that figure, I would have to assume that is only damage to grid transformers, equipment, and electronics. Since I have moved to the land of, “Live Free or Die,” I’ve experienced two “lengthy” power disruptions–once in 2008 after a severe ice storm, and one in 2010 after a winter wind storm. Both resulted in my power being lost for a week, with some customers not restored for double that.

    While I was inconvenienced without a stove (electric) or hot water (same) and no way to do laundry, I still had a generator with which to run my well pump, refrigerator, furnace, microwave, and a few lights. Imagine a large urban area or a large swath of the country going without power for MONTHS, perhaps YEARS. It would take at least that long to recover. A large power transformer is not something that is easily or quickly constructed. To replace one typically takes a 12-18 month lead time just to manufacture it. Also, many of those bulk power transformers are not American-made. For example, there’s Hyosung, Mitsubishi, and ABB, to name a few I’ve recently encountered. Transport to the substation or power plant sites is lengthy and difficult, and testing and commissioning takes skilled personnel a good deal of time.

    Now let’s focus on the national security/military aspect of such an event. GPS? Useless. SATCOM? Probably down, depending on how “hardened” those communications are. Remember, CME is in many ways like an EMP, which our equipment is designed to handle, but only to a certain point. Logistics would be back to the paper age–no computers. Again, depending on how hardened military electronics are will determine how affected our aircraft, ships, and even basic communications will work during an after a CME event on the scale of the Carrington Event.

    Where it comes down to, IMO, is that while our training and SOME of our weaponry will still be superior, in a place like, say, Afghanistan, we’d be knocked back to a technological level on par with that of the enemy. Any tech advantage would be gone, with the inevitable increase in risk to our troops and casualties. Imagine being back to an 1860 Army, with little in the way of 21st Century technology to help take the fight to the enemy and defeat them. And even with superior tactics and training, without a little bit of “whiz-bang”, their superior numbers could be very daunting, indeed.

    So, does this mean we should, to paraphrase Gremlins, invest heavily in canned food and shotguns? While it has been estimated that such an event has about a 12 percent chance of hitting us sometime in the next 10 years, at some point you have weighed the risks versus the panic issue. Most utilities are well aware of CME implications, and have procedures in place to down power or deenergize their bulk power transformers entirely in the event of a CME. This would minimize damage. For those who did sustain damage, load could be shed based on supply and demand. Having been stationed on Guam, rolling blackouts were pretty much a way of life for several months after a power plant was taken off line due to a brown tree snake–but that’s a story for another time. Don’t be surprised if it does happen, don’t be surprised if it results in major disruptions, but another, “Oh noes! We’s all gonna die!” event? Meh. Suck it up and recover.

  • A Nation at War? Hardly.

    Recently, Enigma4you contributed another fine article here at TAH. If you haven’t read it yet, you can read it here. It’s not terribly long – and it’s worth your time.

    But I have to disagree with him on one key point.

    In his article, he states, “We live in a nation that has been at war for 13 years.” Sorry, my friend – but from my perspective, that’s simply not true.

    IMO, the US military has indeed been at war for the past 13 years. The nation? No – not really. IMO, as a nation we’ve been at war for maybe one year out of that period: late 2001-late 2002. The rest of the time has been pretty much nothing more than “business as usual” for America.

    Maybe that sounds odd or wrong to you.  If so, hear me out – though I warn you that this article is a bit longish.

    . . .

    A nation is involved in a war when its military deploys. In contrast, a nation is at war when its population becomes intimately engaged in, and cares about, the conflict.

    Think back a few years. After 9/11, the US indeed was a nation at war – from 11 Sep 2001 through some hard to identify date in 2002. We were committed; we’d been attacked, and we wanted payback. The US population supported going to war. It was as united as I’ve ever seen America during my lifetime – even more than during the immediate aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.

    But that condition didn’t last. I’d put the break point during the summer-fall of 2002, after Anaconda and before the winter set in in earnest. Before then, the US public was involved. But some time that summer or fall (or maybe early winter), IMO the US public “tuned out”.

    We were no longer a nation at war. The US military stayed engaged. But the US public didn’t.

    . . .

    Historically, this isn’t unprecedented. We have not been a nation at war during many conflicts during my lifetime. The Dominican Repuplic? No. Grenada? No. Panama? No. In each of these, the relatively small size and short duration of the conflict, plus the fact that it really didn’t affect the US public all that much, kept the public from mentally and physically “mobilizing for war”.

    And for those conflicts that was apropos. In truth, they were smallish expeditionary operations.  They were not major wars and/or threats to national existence.

    But there have been three other, larger conflicts during my lifetime: Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the current post-9/11 Global War on Terror (GWOT). And this last is IMO very different from the other two regarding the American public’s engagement..

    For the other two, the US public seemed to care – and care a lot. For the GWOT, after 2002 I’m not sure in general they particularly did.  No, not everyone was apathetic.  But those who cared seemed to be mainly friends and family of those in the military. The US public as a whole? Um, IMO . . . not really.

    . . .

    The US was indeed a nation at war during Vietnam. Approximately 1.7% of the entire US population served in-theater during that conflict – approx 3.4 million out of an average population of around 202 millio, with nearly 2.6 million serving in-country in Vietnam proper. The vast majority of these individuals did so during a 6 -year period:  1965-1971. US demographics and the relatively short period of major US involvement meant that Vietnam veterans formed a big fraction of the US 18-25 year old population during that conflict. Though about 2/3 of those who served in Vietnam were volunteers, the draft did ensure some degree of diversity. The end result was that pretty much everyone knew someone who’d served in Vietnam.

    The Vietnam War also had an impact on the nation at home. Overall taxes increased substantially during the Vietnam War – as did inflation, interest rates, and prices. Due to the LBJ administration’s insistence on hiding the true cost (human and financial) of the war, it also touched off the inflation spiral that was to culminate in the “stagflation” of the Carter years. So the US public was not untouched by the war, even though the impact was not as severe as was seen during either Korea or World War II.

    The public felt the economic impact personally. And they almost certainly knew someone who’d served there.

    Vietnam was also a conflict about which the US population cared greatly – with some in favor and some violently opposed. Part of this was due to knowing people who were/had been there; ideology also played a role (on both sides). But regardless or why or point of view, the US public was engaged.

    In short, during Vietnam the US was indeed a nation at war.

    The Gulf War was in some respects similar – with some substantial differences. While a smaller portion of the population fought during the Gulf War, the widespread mobilization of Reserve Component units (not seen during Vietnam) meant that the US population was similarly exposed to the war’s human side.  The substantial pike in oil prices caused by Hussein’s pre-war invasion of Kuwait drove home to the US public the economic seriousness of the matter; to a limited extent, the US public shared a bit in the pain.

    Further, the conflict was too short (and too overwhelmingly victorious) for much opposition to arise. So during the Gulf War, the US was also a nation at war – perhaps a lesser degree than during Vietnam, but on balance still thus.

    The same was IMO true for roughly the first year of the current GWOT. Due to the 9/11 attacks, initially the US population was deeply engaged – more than at any time in my lifetime except perhaps during the height of the Vietnam war protests – and was also united. At that time, we were indeed a nation at war.

    For a little while, anyway.

    . . .

    And then . . . we “won” in Afghanistan (summer/fall 2002). We’d routed the Taliban, and Afghanistan was now reasonably peaceful.

    But unlike after the Gulf War, we didn’t come home immediately – because in reality, we hadn’t yet truly won a damn thing (though the public perceived we had). The Taliban and al Qaeda was hiding, not finished. But we didn’t apply the resources needed to finish the job.

    Why? IMO, because we allowed ourselves to become distracted from the business at hand. We should have concentrated on completely destroying al Qaeda and its allies – as an example to the world of what happens when you screw with Uncle Sam. Instead, we immediately jumped into another war that was IMO a few years premature. I’m certain we’d have fought Hussein in Iraq eventually, but IMO 2003 simply wasn’t the correct time. We had other business we needed to finish first.  And we didn’t.

    The Iraq conflict similarly didn’t seem to affect the US all that much, either. Oh, sure, everyone paid attention to the invasion, and cheered when Saddam’s statue fell. But that war too was over quickly – except it wasn’t really over yet, either, though the public believed it was.  We tried to do that one “one the cheap”, too.  It similarly blew up in our face.

    When the Taliban started getting restive in 2003, and the same occurred in Iraq in 2004, the public just wasn’t ready for another war – or for a continuation of two that we’d already “won”, either.  Neither conflict was affecting them all that much, either.  So the US public started tuning out.

    That “tune out” has IMO continued to this day. We haven’t been a nation at war since maybe late 2002. Rather, we’ve been a nation who’s military has been at war.

    There is a difference.

    . . .

    Why? Part of the difference may be societal changes. The US public has never exactly been known for having a long attention span; barring a truly existential threat, it’s simply difficult to keep the public’s attention. They love the next “bright shiny object”.  And that tendency has accelerated over time as available distractions increase.

    Don’t believe me? OK, then just watch the news channels for a few days and keep track of the top stories. No story stays “on top” for very long.  They come and go.

    Next, go look at newspapers today and compare them with those of 40 years ago.  You’ll see the same thing.  All sound bites and fluff; precious little substance.

    The American public gets bored quickly.  They want to be entertained; they don’t really seem to want to have to think.  And they’re willing to pay to be entertained.

    A second factor is the fact that even though the GWOT is now the longest in our history, the GWOT has involved far fewer Americans than you might think. Between FY2002 and FY2012, the total “boots on the ground” strength in Afghanistan and Iraq totaled less than 1,425,000 (see Table 1 in this document). Assuming the total to date is now about 1,550,000 and allowing for 1/4 to 1/3 of that total to be repeat tours (more common today than during Vietnam), that likely means somewhere between 1 and 1.2 million individuals have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s at best barely 1/3 of 1% of the US population – over a time frame over twice as long as the 6 year peak involvement in Vietnam.

    The fact that the US military is now largely all-volunteer – and smaller – also plays into this.  Not only are far fewer people serving, proportionally speaking; they tend to come from a somewhat narrower demographic today.  The result? Even after approaching 14 years of “war”, a much smaller fraction of the US population knows anyone who’s served in Afghanistan or Iraq – or in the military, for that matter.  Indeed, I’d guess much of the public doesn’t know anyone who’s been to Iraq or Afghanistan. And if they do know someone who’s served there, chances are it’s a passing acquaintance rather than someone they really care about.

    So as a result . . . the public just lost interest in Iraq and Afghanistan. They went back to watching “American Idol”.

    Sure, they knew there was fighting happening somewhere. Many even knew that we had troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it didn’t really concern them, they didn’t know anyone involved, and it didn’t seem to matter that much to their daily lives. So they tuned it out and ignored it.

    After a while, those serving in-theater realized this too. Even in Iraq you heard it from time to time: “America’s military is at war.  America is at the mall.”

    . . .

    None of this detracts from the quality or heroism of the troops who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan – any more than the fact that the Vietnam War was unpopular lessened the heroism of the troops there. Sol diers do not choose the wars in which they fight; their political leaders do that. And our troops didn’t fight in Iraq and Afghanistan merely because they were ordered to do so, either.

    Rather, they fought for their brothers-in-arms; they fought because it was their duty; they to protect their nation. And they did so magnificently – just as their older brothers/fathers did in Desert Storm, and as their fathers/uncles/grandfathers did in Vietnam.

    Still: for pretty much everyone in America except the military, since 2002 by and large it’s been life as usual vice wartime. “American Idol” and the latest tweets from the Kardashians have been far more important that what’s been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan – to all but military family and friends, of course. Most Americans neither knew nor really cared what was happening in either place; hell, I’d guess half couldn’t find them on a world map. And I’d hazard a guess that many Americans still don’t know anyone who’s served there.

    In a way, that’s preferable and as it should be – a “good thing”, even. It means our military has done its job, protecting our nation and way of life. I’d rather we fight on foreign soil rather than our own. It’s far, far better that war’s destruction and horrors be something on a TV screen vice being seen “up close and in person”.   9/11 showed us that all too clearly; I have no desire to see anything like that on US soil again.

    Still, it would be nice if the rest of the nation would wake the hell up and realize that the world isn’t a nice, safe place. There are violent, evil bastards elsewhere who would slit our throats in a second without remorse. And wishing things were different . . . does absolutely nothing to make it so.

    But it would also be nice if the US public realized sometimes that the world doesn’t revolve around McDonalds, American Idol, and the Kardashians.   And it would be nice if they occasionally realized that they can sleep peacefully at night – and have the leisure time, and the freedom, to be interested in American Idol and the Kardashians – only because of the efforts of those “rough men who stand ready to do violence on their behalf” about which Orwell spoke decades ago.

    McDonalds and the mall are only safe because those evil bastards who wish us ill are not here today. And it’s not diplomacy – or goodwill, or the strains of Kumbaya sung around a campfire – that keeps it that way.

     

  • Harkin; military should enlist the disabled

    That phony Vietnam veteran, Tom Harkin had a brainstorm the other day, according to the Army Times. This generation of legislators have made it possible for gays and transgendered people to serve in the military, women are going to have the same opportunity to give their lives for the country as men, but do you know who is being left out? The disabled.

    “The military now permits individuals to remain on active duty if they acquire a disability while serving their country,” Harkin said during an appropriations hearing July 17. “However, for a person with a similar disability who wants to enlist in the military and be a part of our defense establishment, they would not allow that, even if they needed the same reasonable accommodations.”

    The Defense Department already follows federal law mandating “reasonable accommodations” for disabled civilian employees, but no such exceptions are made for enlistees.

    Well, here’s the thing, Senator Harkin, the people who are allowed to remain on active duty after they’ve been disabled have already been trained. They’ve been through Basic Training as well as their advanced training. There’s a reason that basic training is called that – it’s the things that folks need to know to be in the military. Are disabled enlistees going to be able to complete that training?

    Granted, Harkin thinks that they should only be assigned to non-combat type jobs, but does he understand the impact that would have on the military healthcare system? They already complain about the costs of healthcare for aging veterans, so they want burden an overburdened system even more?

    By the way, I’m disabled for those of you readers who don’t know. Having been on active duty and now not being able walk without assistance, I think I have a clearer perspective than some fellow who lied about his military service for decades.