The Gun Counter

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on this:

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/mili ... /18596571/

Haven't read the full article yet.

My thoughts? We get an article like this every 4 years or so, like clockwork. It is a canned story.

So, what are your thoughts on the subject matter?

It is true but the sentiment gets diluted and replaced on a 2 year cycle on average. The 9/11 recruits were different than the obama recruits. The military (at the ground level) is a high school/college with the equivalent attention span. Those that stay have seen the cycle too much to not recognize it.

I don't think winding down OEF/OIF is the big morale killer, really. Not by itself. I also think Yogi's basically right.

Anything else I could say would just be an unproductive rant about how, in general, Moody AFB couldn't find its ass with both hands.

"Morale is low and the troops are pissed."
Blahblahblah.
That was every day I was in, every one since I got out, and the 200+ years of the US military before either of them.

MT is yapping about the symptoms, and glossing over root causes:
The leadership (everyone > O-5)are too self-centered and pole-slobbing to give a rat's ass about the institutions, their actual or intended missions, or the troops;
the Pentagon's civilian leadership has no idea WTF they should be about, nor how to get there from wherever in hell they think we are;
the boss of both of them would just as soon cashier every last one of them (you) and give the money to illegal aliens, and/or spend it on coke and hookers, so WGAF?

This is what happens when you go 25 years and more between CinCs worthy of the title.
The rest is gravity, working.

Consequently, the first country or terrorist organization to pop simultaneous nukes on the WH and Pentagon at 9AM on a weekday probably deserves America's undying thanks.
But most of the people who know how true that is can't say it, and the ones who can say it mostly don't know how true it is.

I noted on another blog the convo a couple of summers back I had with a co-worker. Son of one of the excellent docs I work with, straight-A sports star, and about 6-2 of chiseled rock, who had expressed some notable interest in joining the military to become a throat slashing trigger puller (this despite, rather than because of, my "this is what you're seriously looking at" chats). The kid's a recruiter's wet dream, and would be any Company CO's favorite new join.
After long and serious thought, and watching the sort of PC BS the .Mil has been up to lately, he decided that the trend was so morally repugnant to him, and the current CinC such an unredeemed POS, he had decided to tell the USMC, and the military in general "fuck it, not interested."

He may re-consider after college, and I wasn't shy about telling him that doing his time as an officer was vastly preferable to doing it enlisted, but on the whole about all I could offer him was congratulations on his perception.

Purely anecdotal, but to my mind, when that kind of prospect is fearless despite hearing the firsthand realities of the worst of military life, but aghast by the cheerful happygas news reports of their ongoing policies, they're slitting their own throat for decades.

Anyone above base commander level is a political beast, and the ones that aren't rarely go anywhere.

I've thought for years that the best thing an enemy could to do increase our combat effectiveness and improve our morale would be to hit the Pentagon during a JCS conference with the theater CINCS (but hopefully after G-man has PCSed back to the real world ).

Yogimus wrote:Anyone above base commander level is a political beast, and the ones that aren't rarely go anywhere.

...but are generally the ones that should.

Watch what happens to combat generals. They are burned at the stake.

War horses have no business in front of a plow.