{"id":22940,"date":"2011-04-13T09:30:53","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T13:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=22940"},"modified":"2011-04-13T09:30:53","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T13:30:53","slug":"dicksmith-what-a-decade-of-war-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=22940","title":{"rendered":"Dicksmith; What a decade of war looks like"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dicksmith at VetVoice<\/a> in an apparent and successful attempt at putting his inexperience in the military on display writes this about a “staff ride” he participated in recently;<\/p>\n

Last year, I had the opportunity to join a class from the Army’s Command and General Staff College on a staff ride to the Civil War battlefield at Chickamauga. Frankly, I was appalled. Most of the 30 or so field grade officers in the class behaved with less military bearing than the worst Privates I had led during my active duty time. My judgement was that these officers, who spend all their time in their home units as straight-laced examples of “squared away”, were just blowing off steam. The military historian who arranged our trip, a former Army grunt and current Naval Reserve intel officer, had a different judgement. “This is what an Army looks like after a decade of war.”<\/p>\n

The more I think about it, the more I think he was right. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Funny, cuz, whenever I participated in an event that included a large number of officers and and relatively few NCOs, officers tended to act the fools. Even after a decade without war.<\/p>\n

But thanks for politicizing Every. Thing. You. Can. <\/p>\n

So how does this relate to discipline problems in the force? When this many mid-career Soldiers are popping smoke, you create a leadership vacuum. Sub-par or even poor Soldiers, who otherwise would not be trusted with much responsibility, become platoon sergeants or Sergeants Major, or are given command over some of the Army’s top units, like the 173rd Airborne Brigade. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, funny how the Army survived after Vietnam despite the lack of support from the hippies and a large number of Americans. Somehow, there was a cadre of professional soldiers who built the Volunteer Army into the most effective force the world has ever seen. Yeah, we don’t need quitters and pussies like Dicksmith to rebuild our forces or set the example for us or to snipe at the active force from the sidelines – good riddance, dick.<\/p>\n

I still think the decision to go to war in Afghanistan in 2001 was the correct one, but the prosecution of that war has lacked any clear direction or stated metrics for victory for nearly a decade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As opposed to the clarity that the Obama Administration has provided? So we’re not sure if we’re in it for victory, or if we’re in it to just withdraw under fire. Dicksmith, you’re a real fucking rocket surgeon.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Blackfive<\/a> who sent the above photo yesterday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dicksmith at VetVoice in an apparent and successful attempt at putting his inexperience in the military … Dicksmith; What a decade of war looks like<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}