I wanted to apologize for not posting since last week but I had drill this weekend (we went to Irwin and shot crew serves all weekend) and I’ve been trying to get summer school knocked out.<\/p>\n
For a few months now I’ve heard the SMA Chandler, numerous brass, and other guys with a ton of stripes and rockers talk about getting the Army back to having discipline and standards. New hair standards, tattoo enforcement (fyi I’m in favor of no tattoos on hands or neck but if somebody wants to have sleeves so be it. It’s part of the culture), if you make one mistake your gone, bringing back old traditions etc.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0just want to point out that all this nonsense that has been said by “higher” is a bunch of\u00a0bullshit and it’s insulting.\u00a0The\u00a0Army has muscled through 11 years of constant\u00a0combat and deployments. This is just typical\u00a0of guys who have never served in combat or done some mickey mouse deployment coming up with stupid ideas because they have nothing better to do. Unfortunately the CSMs and Generals with a lot of stars on their chests are guys who served in the 80s and\u00a090s\u00a0military. Unfortunately\u00a0these stupid\u00a0ways of thinking\u00a0won’t change for probably another\u00a015-20 years when we start getting\u00a0officers who were PLs in Afghanistan in 01 or were on the invasion of iraq in 03 as Corps commanders. We also won’t see future E9s for another few years who were Team Leaders in Ramadi in 04 for example.
\nThe reason I find it insulting is I believe we have fielded the most professional and disciplined army this world has ever seen. Have mistakes been made? Of course but we fix it and drive on. I’ve seen young E5 convoy commaders, E3s running marine rifle squads at the battle of fallujah, young men deploying multiple times, whole brigades getting extended and still driving on, men living in shit outposts surrounded by taliban for 15 months etc. Not to mention our military dealing with the bullshit that has happened in these wars like a shitty ROE, the media, incoherent plans from theater commanders, retaking areas after we just pulled out and the list goes on and on. We’ve all executed the tasks given to us. Yet these POGs want to say the army isn’t disciplined and wants to go back to the “old way.” Well those old POGs can keep their old ways. Let the officers, NCOs, and enlisted soldiers who have been\u00a0stacking bodies for the past 11 years walk point for a while and carry the guidon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"