Taking the debate to a new level. OK, I’ll bite, lemme get my kids’ lunch pail and we’ll continue the discussion by the merry-go-round.

This article was written by retired Chief Petty Officer and award winning novelist, Jeff Edwards.

America’s military can win wars. We’ve done it in the past, and I have absolute confidence that we’ll continue to do it in the future. We’ve won fights in which we possessed overwhelming technological superiority (Desert Storm)

as well as conflicts in which we were the technical underdogs (the American Revolution)

We’ve crossed swords with numerically superior foes, and with militaries a fraction of the size of our own. We’ve battled on our own soil (Civil War)

and on the soil of foreign lands(Iwo Jima)

On the sea

Under the sea

And in the skies

We’ve even engaged in a bit of cyber-combat, way out there on the electronic frontier.

At one time or another, we’ve done battle under just about every circumstance imaginable, armed with everything from muskets

to cruise missiles.

And, somehow, we’ve managed to do it all with the wrong Army.

That’s right, America has the wrong Army. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. We have the wrong Army. It’s too small; it’s not deployed properly; it’s inadequately trained, and it doesn’t have the right sort of logistical support. It’s a shambles. I have no idea how those guys even manage to fight.

Now, before my brothers and sisters of the OD green persuasion get their fur up, I have another revelation for you We also have the wrong Navy.

And if you want to get down to brass tacks, we’ve got the wrong Air Force

The wrong Marine Corps

And the wrong Coast Guard

Don’t believe me? Pick up a newspaper or turn on your television.

In the past week, I’ve watched or read at least a dozen commentaries on the strength, size, and deployment of our military forces. All of our uniform services get called on the carpet for different reasons, but our critics unanimously agree that we’re doing pretty much everything wrong

Ramsey Clark–George Clooney–Richard Gere
I think it’s sort of a game. The critics won’t tell you what the game is called, so I’ve taken the liberty of naming it myself. I call it the ‘No Right Answer’ game. It’s easy to play, and it must be a lot of fun because politicos and journalists can’t stop playing it.
I’ll teach you the rules.

No matter how the U.S. military is organized, it’s the wrong force. Actually, that’s the only rule in this game. We don’t really need any other rules, because that one applies in all possible situations. Allow me to demonstrate…

Desert Storm Jet Fighter Pl
If the Air Force’s fighter jets are showing their age, critics will tell us that Air Force leaders are mismanaging their assets, and endangering the safety of their personnel.

If the Air Force attempts to procure new fighter jets, they are shopping for toys and that money could be spent better elsewhere.

Are you getting the hang of the game yet? It’s easy; keeping old planes is the wrong answer, but getting new planes is also the wrong answer. There is no right answer, not ever.
Isn’t that fun?It works everywhere.

When the Army is small, it’s TOO small. Then we start to hear phrases like ‘over-extended’ or ’spread too thin,’ and the integrity of our national defense is called into question.

When the Army is large, it’s TOO large, and it’s an unnecessary drain on our economy. Terms like ‘dead weight,’ and ‘dead wood’ get thrown around.

I know what you’re thinking. We could build a medium-sized Army, and everyone would be happy Think again!!! A medium-sized Army is too small to deal with large-scale conflicts, and too large to keep military spending properly muzzled. The nay sayers will attack any middle of the road solution anyway, on the grounds that it lacks a coherent strategy.
SO SMALL IS WRONG

LARGE IS WRONG

AND MEDIUM SIZE IS WRONG

Now you’re starting to understand the game. Is this fun, or what? No branch of the military is exempt

When the Navy builds aircraft carriers, we are told that we really need small, fast multipurpose ships.

When the Navy builds small, fast multi-mission ships (AKA the Arleigh Burke class), we’re told that blue water ships are poorly suited for littoral combat, and we really need brown water combat ships.

The Navy’s answer, the Littoral Combat, isn’t even off the drawing boards yet, and the critics are already calling it pork barrel politics and questioning the need.

The fun never stops when we play the ‘No Right Answer’ game. If we centralize our military infrastructure, the experts tell us that we are vulnerable to attack. We’re inviting another Pearl Harbor.

If we decentralize our infrastructure, we’re sloppy and overbuilt, and the BRAC experts break out the calculators and start dismantling what they call our excess physical capacity.

If we leave our infrastructure unchanged, we are accused of becoming stagnant in a dynamic world environment.

Even the lessons of history are not sacrosanct. When we learn from the mistakes we made in past wars, we are accused of failing to adapt to emerging realities. When we shift our eyes toward the future, the critics quickly tell us that we’ve forgotten our history and we are therefore doomed to repeat it.

If we somehow manage to assimilate both past lessons and emerging threats, we’re informed that we lack focus.

Where does it come from: This default assumption that we are doing the wrong thing, no matter what we happen to be doing? How did our military wind up in a zero-sum game?

We can prevail on the field of battle, but we can’t win a war of words where the overriding assumption is that we are always in the wrong.

I can’t think of a single point in history where our forces were of the correct size, the correct composition, correctly deployed, and appropriately trained all at the same time.

Pick a war, any war. (For that matter, pick any period of peace.) Then dig up as many official and unofficial historical documents, reports, reconstruction’s, and commentaries as you can. For every unbiased account you uncover, you’ll find three commentaries by revisionist historians who cannot wait to tell you how badly the U.S. military bungled things.

evisionist Histo
To hear them tell it we could take lessons in organization and leadership from the Keystone Kops.

We really only have one defense against this sort of mudslinging. Success. When we fight, we win, and that’s got to count for something. When asked to comment on Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. Army’s Lieutenant General Tom Kelly reportedly said, “Iraq went from the fourth-largest army in the world, to the second-largest army in Iraq in 100 hours.”

In my opinion, it’s hard to argue with that kind of success, but critics weren’t fazed by it. Because no matter how well we fought, we did it with the wrong Army.

I’d like to close with an invitation to those journalists, analysts, experts and politicians who sit up at night dreaming up new ways to criticize our armed forces.

The next time you see a man or woman in uniform, stop for ten seconds and reflect upon how much you owe that person, and his or her fellow Sailors, Marines, Soldiers, and Airmen.
Then say, “Thank you.”
I’m betting you won’t even have to explain the reason. Our Service members are not blind or stupid.

They know what they’re risking. They know what they’re sacrificing. They’ve weighed their wants, their needs, and their personal safety against the needs of their nation, and made the decision to serve. They know that they deserve our gratitude, even if they rarely receive it

Two words — that’s all I ask.

“Thank you.”

If that’s too hard, if you can’t bring yourself to acknowledge the dedication, sincerity and sacrifice of your defenders, then I have a backup plan for you:
Put on a uniform and show us how to do it right

Author Jeff Edwards

[1] They have valid points of view
[2] I disagree with them
[3] They are whiners

Did anyone else just hear a gong?

I happen to know the much greater majority do not agree with those whiners – they re-enlisted.

When less than 1% of the total force comes home and speaks out in opposition like your pet vets there, it is obvious they do not represent the larger whole.

We had about 5% disgruntled individuals and shit birds in every unit I served so to see these guys with their new found popularity is to be expected.

Ooh, lookie these guys are against the return to Iraq!!!! We are validated, we are validated!!!!

So what?

Learn some history, there has always been that 1% regardless of the war.

To commemorate the anniversary of the war in Iraq, the group Veterans for Peace is traveling from Arkansas to the Gulf Coast, stopping in military communities along the way. The group is in Columbus this weekend to share their message that the war should end.

The demonstrators want to make it clear–they’re not protesting against U.S. soldiers.

“I believe we have the best military in the world and we shouldn’t be running it into the ground,” said Columbus resident Susan Stephenson.

That’s the idea the group Veterans for Peace is trying to communicate to the people of Columbus. They say if anyone can get that point across, it’s other veterans of foreign wars, because no one understands what today’s soldiers are going through like they do.

“We know, because we were there ourselves, in our war,” said Elliott Adams, a Vietnam veteran, and president of Veterans for Peace. “Many of the servicemen are beginning to understand that it’s not right, not what it was sold to be, it’s not good for America.”

Vets who served in Vietnam, Korea, and even World War II grabbed signs and marched along the streets of Columbus to share their points of view.

“I’m ashamed of the present administration that supports torture in this world. Supports torture! They support taking prisoners and hiding them from the world ’til they’ve been tortured,” said Jim Steen, a World War II veteran, and survivor of Iwo Jima.

As the convoy heads south to the Gulf Coast, many of these protesters plan to follow it, to help raise awareness that people there still need the government’s help to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

“Every bomb dropped over Iraq explodes over New Orleans, in the sense that every dollar spent there is not being spent here,” Elliott Adams explained. “New Orleans could be rebuilt if we weren’t in Iraq. The National Guard would have been there to help them and save their lives if they hadn’t been in Iraq.”

What about their deeds? They disagree with you, have they no value?

– are they arm chair quarterbacking?

Personally I think it has a lot to say about a cultures mindset when that sort of thing is OK, but hey, that’s just one fellas opinion ain’t it?

balbulican, I would love to find out where and with whom the esteemed author of this post served. I played hockey on a Canadian military team at SHAPE in Belgium and would be very happy to find out that he served with old teammates of mine. Maybe then we can begin to compare apples to apples…

And SL isn’t the only one that has done the things in your pissy list, meat wrench.

Reading a post like this is like listening to callers on sports radio who know what is best for the team and what the team should do without ever having played a down, put on the skates, stood in the batter’s box, been fouled while driving the basket, or put their life on the line for something bigger than themselves. No deeds, no value.

Semper Fi.

Secondly, even if a general did lose a star over the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (where some did die under interrogation – check the archives, I’ve posted about it) how does that compare to up to four generals being named in the friendly fire death of an American football player?

Further still, I think that all friendly fire incidents should be investigated and if somebody was, for example, negligent and someone else died they most certainly should be held responsible – shrugging and saying “war is hell” is not helpful or productive.

Even further down the road, if your 2996 number is the WTC deaths then Afghanistan, which I supported by the way, answered them, if it is the number of US deaths in Iraq, the number is above 3200 and climbing and their deaths live on The Deciders shoulders.

I suppose you can define silly anyway you’d like, and if you call pointing out an obvious double standard silly then feel free to do so, personally, I think you’re dead wrong.

You mean George Bush and the neo-conservatives that decided it was wise to go galloping into a war in Iraq based on outright lies and cherry-picked intelligence?

Oh, you bet I’ll be doing that.

Lost her star? Ruined her career? Poor Baby! That really is rough. Gosh, I thought someone higher than an LT should have gone to prison for Abu Ghraib. It was torture and war crimes after all – the same thing that many in the former Baathist regime were imprisoned or killed for after the fall of Saddam.

But I guess a knee jerk hatred for all things Muslim can justify anything eh?

Can anybody connect this odd interpolation with Stageleft’s post, or is this poor soul channelling the spirit of Pat Buchanan again?