"Wokeness is responsible for the Military Recruitment Crisis"

 I have a lot of "drama" going on "Meatspace", I will explain later when I have time to 'splain.  Also I am very happy with the election and I will post in a day or two on that.

I saw this on "American Spectator", and I totally agree with it.  Until recently Military service was a family affair, but now a lot of veterans are telling their kids and others, "don't bother", for several reasons.  Back when I joined, we knew that we were giving uncle Sam a blank check that he can cash up to the full amount which is our life, and we trusted our leadership not to squander "us" in bullcrap.  I trusted my Presidents, Reagan and Bush to be judicious and they were, although I blame ""Foggy Bottom for "Beirut Bombing" and the restrictive rules of engagement, and that won't be the first time that happened, it happened again in Somalia in 93 and during Obungler's time in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If our nation’s top military and civilian leaders want to understand why military recruiting in the all-volunteer force is at an all-time low, they need only look in the mirror. Few young people want to be like them. The sight of former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley waddling out into the political arena this election season is unlikely to convince many teenagers to join up.

In an insightful piece in the Wall Street Journal, Owen West and Kevin Wallsten explain how incompetent top-level leadership and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts are chasing away potential recruits, as well as the military’s historically best recruiters — veterans who have encouraged their kids and grandkids to follow in their footsteps. The decline of this kind of encouragement from senior veterans almost exactly parallels the decline in recruitment rates. Historically, 80 percent of recruits had a relative who had served. Today, 80 percent of veterans say they would not recommend military service under the present circumstances. This is not a coincidence.

The Biden administration and its senior civilian and military leaders are in denial. They blame poor education, increasing juvenile drug abuse, and the sedentary lifestyle of the smartphone generation for reducing the pool of eligible recruits. The reality is that there are still plenty of high school athletes, young hunters, and farm kids out there who would otherwise join. Their parents and grandparents — I’m one of them — are either actively discouraging or just not encouraging them to enlist. Worse, the young people themselves see two decades of military failure culminating in the disgraceful rout in Kabul. They wonder if they want to be led by senior officers who spent 20 years fighting a war and not adapting their strategy to bring it to a successful conclusion. 

Joe Biden holds that diversity is essential to success on the battlefield. That is not supported by military history. The army of the Persian Empire under Darius and Xerxes was the most incredibly diverse in history, but was trounced on the battlefield by homogenous Greek armies in two decisive battles. The Persian army was made up of drafted contingents from every nation in the empire — many of whom hated each other more than they hated the Greeks. Over a century later, Alexander the Great conquered the empire with an equally homogenous professional army. Likewise, the very diverse Austro-Hungarian army was a drag on its allies throughout World War I.

In addition, DEI initiatives have made military promotions a joke. Who wants to join a military where you are likely to be passed over because a man wearing a dress, or someone less qualified but of a different ethnicity, will get promoted over you because they come from an underserved minority? In 2022, the Air Force mandated quotas based on race for officer promotions.

But the administration’s policies have also eroded military service culture. Even the Marine Corps, once considered one of the world’s elite assault forces, has adopted a passive defensive mentality that is technology dependent. The Marines are making their recruiting quotas, barely, because their recruitment goals have gotten a lot smaller under the leadership of the Biden administration and two incompetent commandants. Both have actively encouraged the downsizing. (READ MORE: The Marine Corps Has Gone Off the Rails)

The Biden administration has been laser focused on DEI at the expense of military readiness. If Kamala Harris becomes president, we can expect her administration to double down on DEI; she is, after all, the ultimate poster child for the movement. Unlike Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, she has never earned her national security chops. Potential recruits will likely not be unaware of the fact that the Biden administration has overseen an unbroken series of military and foreign policy disasters.

I desperately want to support the armed services, but I cannot, in good conscience, encourage any young man or woman to serve under the likes of Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. 

Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel who served as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and as a civilian advisor in Iran and Afghanistan

Light infantry operations with a Star Wars flair

I get emails from "the Angry Staff Officer".  My good friend "Mac" tuned me into this and I have enjoyed the articles.   The author used "Star Wars" because it is such an cultural Icon that every body gets the reference especially when he is teaching soldiers.  This is a quick Bio About the Author: Angry Staff Officer is an Army engineer officer who is adrift in a sea of doctrine and staff operations and uses writing as a means to retain his sanity. He also collaborates on a podcast with Adin Dobkin entitled War Stories, which examines key moments in the history of warfare. "   

 I cut and pasted a couple of stories, I enjoyed the star wars tie in to Modern Military life.


This is an excerpt from First Order Center for Lessons Learned Publication, Light Infantry Operations in Forested Terrain and Treatment of Indigenous Peoples.
Scene: Imperial stormtroopers are seated in rows of benches as a hologram of the Forest Moon of Endor looms over them. Their company commander steps forward to begin the briefing.

Troopers from A/1-503rd Legion (Light), Imperial Archives. (Lucasfilm, Ltd)

Captain: “Listen up, troopers, this is your cultural awareness and intel briefing for your upcoming deployment. Congratulations, we’re going to some place called the Forest Moon of Endor, also known as FME, an acronym I’m sure you’ll all pervert in some profane way. Now listen up: for many of you, this is your first deployment. My first recommendation is this: link up with someone else who’s already been out there and has a couple tours under their helmets. There’s a lot of experience in this room: raise your hand if you’ve been to Tatooine? How about if you froze your conscripted ass off on Hoth? Yeah, that one sucked. We’ve got desert fighters, cold weather experts, space breaching subject matter experts, all sitting right here. So as we ramp up for this deployment, make sure you’re getting with these dudes to pump their brains.
Now that being said, this tour isn’t going to be like the other ones. I don’t wanna hear anything like, ‘Well on my last tour we did it this way.’ That’s the kind of thing that’s going to have you on shield generator duty for weeks on end. It’s a whole new system out there. Let’s start off with some basics on terrain.
So, FME is a, well, forested moon, obviously. It’s characterized by incredibly thick foliage and a nearly impenetrable – stop laughing, trooper, get your mind out of the trash compactor – canopy above it. What does this mean?”
JR-9716: “Uh, sir, it means we don’t have any air cover.”
Captain: “That’s right, trooper. We won’t have any cover from the Navy’s guns. And not only that, the trees are too dense to get heavy armor in there. That’s why they’re sending the light-fighters in. All we’ll be able to fit in there are AT-STs for the heavy weapons platoon and speeders for the scout platoon, although I’ll bet Headquarters Troop takes the only operational speeders.
Okay, so, woods, big-ass trees, rocks, that pretty much does it for terrain. Now let’s move on to – what, LU-2463, you have a question?”
LU-2463: “Yes sir, uh, what’s our mission?”
Captain: “Dammit, didn’t your lieutenant brief you guys the Imperial Operations Order I gave them? LT, where you at? You and I are going to have some words after this briefing, and you bet this will be reflected in your quarterly counseling. I swear, I don’t know what the Imperial Academies are teaching you kids that go through there these days.
Right, take out your recorders and prepare to copy. Here’s our mission. On order, Troop A, 1st Squadron, 503rd Imperial Legion (Light) moves from SSD Executor to the Forest Moon of Endor (FME) in order to provide base security for the Death Star’s shield generator and project forward Imperial power to maintain stability in the region.
At this point I’m going to hand it over to our squadron S-2 intelligence officer.”

Scout trooper from Troop A manning an OP on FME, Imperial Archives. Note the lax security posture. (Retrieved from Reddit)

S-2: Good morning, troopers, sorry I’m late. Lord Vader just landed on board and of course everyone is losing their collective minds, so trying to navigate the hallways was nearly impossible.
Everyone fired up to get out there and make the Empire more secure? I’ve been tasked to give you guys an intel update as well as some additional info from the squadron XO. This is a good time to talk about the local populace. What we know of the moon is that it seems to be devoid of most large life forms. However, Troop C, which is occupying the moon right now, says they’ve seen what appear to be small, furry animals that have some humanoid features. However, they’re experts at cover and concealment and Troop C doesn’t patrol, so we really don’t know their capabilities. For the love of all that is Sith, please patrol; you’re light infantry, that’s your thing. Based on what intel we have, we believe that these things might be what are called ‘Ewoks.’ They seem to be tribal in nature and have little in the way of infrastructure. Their culture seems to be based around shamans and tribal chieftains, but we don’t know anything about their warfighting capabilities. We do know we haven’t received any readings that would indicate that they have blasters or any type of modern weapons platforms. So that’s a plus.
That being said, I’ve been ordered to tell you that we are to treat the local non-human population in accordance with Imperial Army Policy Memo 425, which reads as follows: ‘All non-human life forms are to be treated with the same respect and dignity that we accommodate to all humans on Imperial occupied systems. Observe respect for local customs and norms, remembering always that you are ambassadors for the Emperor and represent the order and security of the Empire.’
Per Imperial Doctrine Publication Conflict Ongoing with Imperial Natives,  or COIN, our goal is to move away from ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’ The Rebellion is pretty much crushed and we’re transitioning into stability operations. Therefore, we need to make friends out there so that we’re not on peacekeeping duty forever. If you’re like me, you’re tired of getting assignments on worthless systems without a decent bar. So let’s do our best to not piss off the locals.
Rules of engagement are as follows: don’t fire unless fired upon, but if you feel like you or one of your fellow troopers are in imminent danger, you may act to neutralize the threat using economy of force. So, if they throw, like, a spear at you, use non-lethal means to subdue them. This will not only preserve your limited combat power, but it will mean you can capture the creature and get it to us for interrogation.
During your time on FME, Imperial Order 1 is in effect: no consumption of controlled substances. If we get word of anyone with contraband, you’ll be on a transport to Tatooine faster than a Bantha turd. Inside the garrison perimeter, weapons status is at amber, per order of the squadron commander. You may go red when you leave the base. Reflective strobes will be worn inside the perimeter when conducting physical training. At no time are you permitted to downgrade your uniform posture – this is the Imperial Army after all, not those wimps in the Navy with their soft caps and weak discipline. I expect you troopers to uphold the honor of the Imperial cavalry corps. Scouts out!”
Troop A: “Scouts out!”
S-2 leaves. 
Captain: “Okay, so now that the squadron spies are gone, here’s what I have to say: I’ve been in this business going on twelve years now. I used to sit where you’re sitting, rose through the ranks and got a commission. I’ve done my time, is what I’m saying. And while squadron thinks they’ve got this war all wrapped up and won, it’s my belief that the only thing these locals ever respect is force. So here’s the deal: we’re going to get on-planet – or moon, whatever – and we’re going to get out there and patrol; hard. And the first contact you make, you make it clear that you’re there to be their worst nightmare. Hit ’em with everything you have. Once we’ve made a few examples of the locals, the rest will quiet down and we won’t have any trouble. Got it? We’re not going there to win hearts and minds, we’re there to kick ass and take names.
Alright, move your happy asses off to the central issuing facility to draw your new equipment issue of scout trooper armor. We’ve got formation for pre-combat checks and inspections in twenty-four. Then it’s go time for OPERATION JUST MOON. I know, I know, I didn’t name the damn thing. Now move out.”

Scout from Troop A preparing to move out on a patrol, Imperial Archives. (Lucasfilm, Ltd)

Aftermath: Due to Troop A’s overly aggressive actions, the population of the FME turned against the Empire, right into the arms of a Rebel SOF group that inserted onto the moon. In the ensuing engagement, Troop A was practically wiped out, with the remainder taken prisoner. Their hubris and reliance on their weapons platforms inhibited their ability to maneuver and assess threats seriously. Stormtrooper Corps has compiled these lessons learned from audio files recovered from the Imperial Security Agency’s internal monitoring section.
Lessons Learned: This vignette highlights the importance of not underestimating the threat, of the vital need to conduct presence patrols partnered with indigenous peoples, and the impact that small unit leaders have on Galactic operations. Had this commander adopted the squadron’s orders, the situation on FME may have ended in an Imperial victory. First Order troopers must be aware of the dangers present in operating in restricted terrain with an unknown host population.

A Day in the Life of an Imperial Staff Officer

Dear Dad,
You mentioned that you would like to know what my days are like now that I have graduated from the Raithal Imperial Academy, and since I’m on staff duty with not a lot to do, I figured I’d tell you. As you know, I did not get my first choice of assignment to the Stormtrooper Corps. I’m sure that makes both you and mom happy that I will be out of combat, but ever since I read the Tarkin Doctrine in school, I have wanted to be at the forefront of the Empire’s forces. Plus, the black uniforms the Stormtrooper Officers get to wear are so much cooler than these gray ones the rest of us wear in the Army.
However, due to my high test scores, I have been given a very “prestigious” assignment for a junior officer: I am assigned to the Plans Section, Operations Division, Orbital Battle Station, Death Star – North Sector. Aka, I’m a very junior staffer on a colossal base. This is the premier battle station in the Imperial Fleet, and we’re told that it is now the supreme power in the universe – although tell that to Lord Vader and he’ll force choke your brains out. Dad, the staff dynamics are way different than when you were in.
We start out the day at 0500 with officer PT. Naturally, it’s only junior officers there. Although one day Captain Piett did jog in while on a visit from the fleet, take a look at the total sausage fest that is our all-male staff, and jog out sadly. We tend to just run laps through the hallways. We once tried to do a full lap around the Death Star. Terrible idea. Most people fell out, Stormtroopers laughed at us, and we puked everywhere. Oh, and because of that, now we have to wear reflective hologram belts that make sure people can see us. It’s embarrassing.
After PT we have first formation, where we are liable to receive an inspection from the senior officers who seem to have little to nothing to do. Colonel Veers (you remember, the guy who gave me crap at school for pointing out that AT-AT’s are too unstable for jungle terrain?) stopped in to hump the Grand Moff’s leg a little, trying to pick up a star. Pretty sad to see those guys who get stuck as instructors trying to get back into the line. Our Chief of Staff, General Molock, occasionally comes by to do a little professional development, aka, pointing out why the Navy is wrong about everything all the time, or gigging us if our code cylinders are askew.

I’m outside the picture to the left, dad. Stupid photographer cut me out.

Following first formation, I report to my work station, where some major usually has a project for me to work on. Last week it was a white paper examining the metrics from the last time the 501st Legion went to the range. I don’t understand why these guys can’t shoot, dad, they’re Lord Vader’s elite Stormtroopers. I’m thinking there’s a problem with the blasters, but when I mentioned that to my Officer in Charge (OIC), he just told me that his PowerPoint holograms for the Battle Update Brief weren’t going to write themselves. I hate field grades, dad, I really do.
We have our staff huddle in the morning as well, where I sit in the back and try not not catch the lieutenant colonel’s eye. He usually dishes out his taskers to us then. Because it’s a joint staff, we answer to a Fleet captain, and he does not like us at all. Keeps talking about the irrelevance of land power in a post-Death Star world. Luckily, Captain Piett thinks he’s kind of a jerk and shuts him up during briefings when he comes around, usually with a pithy one-liner about tooth-to-tail ratios. Guess you had to be there.
I get lunch at the cantina, dodging Stormtrooper Corps officers, who are about as stuck up as you can get. We get it, you’re “shock troops.” You’re still stuck on this big-ass ship, not a lot you’re needed for here. The food’s decent, I guess.
In the afternoons I work on different plans for either Army personnel (not a lot of us on this thing, mainly Navy and Starfighter officers) or joint operations. Since it’s an all-volunteer force now, we tend to be shorthanded, which leaves me writing most of the stuff myself. I spend a lot of time trying to work with our admin and logistics staff. They are the WORST about getting me their annexes to Imperial orders on time. And then when I get them, they’re never formatted correctly. It’s like they’ve never even READ Imperial Publication 6-0. And who wants to read ten pages about the reactor core’s fuel, anyways? Or the protocol for hologram messages? Our intelligence guys go crazy over that stuff; guess there’s not that much for them to do on this thing.

These OPSEC posters are everywhere. They drive me nuts.

Every once in a while I get to sit in on the big briefings to Grand Moff Tarkin or Lord Vader. I feel like those guys are so out of touch with what’s happening on the ground these days. They keep talking about “becoming the supreme power in the universe” and I’m like, “Yeah, but what about regional security so that we can get some jobs back home?” And Vader gives me the creeps. You can never tell where he is looking, so you don’t dare fall asleep or even move around too much. Half the time, General Tagge is quibbling with Admiral Motti about the role of the Death Star in Joint doctrine. Apparently, Tarkin believes it needs to be the core of our doctrine, and Motti has bought that hook, line, and sinker. General Tagge is a good dude, and he’s not convinced.
I guess that’s really about it. It’s not glamorous at all, but I think I’m doing some good here. Being at the operational center of the Imperial Army is pretty cool, I’m picking up on a lot of stuff quickly. Hopefully I can finish this assignment quickly and get out to the line, though. I joined up to lead troops, not write opinion papers on whether non-humans can serve in the Stormtrooper Corps (incidentally, they totally can, but the higher ups don’t want to hear it).
I suppose I’ll wrap this up right now, I’m not supposed to be using my work console for personal matters. Plus I’ve got this threat assessment about the physical security of the Death Star to write up for General Bast. It’s pretty silly, but I’m grasping at straws here – I’ve got some comments about the thermal exhaust ports that might get me off this damn thing and into the line.
Okay, gotta go, Lieutenant Treidum radioed that TK421 isn’t at his post, so now I’ve got to write up a report. Damn Stormturds, all battle armor and no brain.
Staff duty blows.
Love,
Lieutenant [REDACTED]
Imperial Army

I took this shot the other day during a live-fire drill. The Fleet guys get all uppity when that happens. They think they don’t need ground-pounders anymore. I hate these guys.

"If you voted for Obama because......."

It has been a while since I have published a purely political piece making disparaging comments about the head of the Obama Junta.  The SECDEF wants to cut us to a pre WWII military force, I could almost accept it if I knew that the so called savings would be used against the debt, but Obama and crew would use the money to fund more entitlements to keep them in power.

  Ramirez is my favorite political cartoonist over at Townhall, he uses vibrant colors to help tell a story, he puts in more detail to make a better cartoon.

 Now into the main part of my post:

Modern Rules and Engagement.

I had gotten this email from my father that had this article in it from one of the local papers.  I really liked it so I figured I would use it on a post.  The pictures are compliments of "google search" since I am a simple person that likes pictures and cartoons to help tell a story.

     From the Fayette County GA newspaper, The Citizen on 12/10/13

by Terry Garlock

 

By my measure, America’s recent wars have been rife with immorality at the very top, where the well-paid and comfortable and protected make decisions that profoundly affect the lives, and sometimes deaths, of the Americans we send to fight.

I’m not referring to the top generals-turned-politician bucking for another star by their sudden yes-man enthusiasm for Obama’s trampling the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Frankly, my guess is George Washington never even suspected which of his troops was gay and that gay troops have been helping fight our wars all along. While keeping that part of their life under wraps was surely a personal burden for them, that secrecy helped avoid the inevitable turmoil of introducing the element of romance where it doesn’t belong, in places we require our troops to bet their lives on unit cohesiveness and effectiveness. The new and enlightened policy, wherein the Pentagon holds gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) celebrations, is bad enough, but I am thinking of other policy failures with mortal consequences.

I don’t mean the Obama Administration’s purge of too many generals who have insufficient sensitivity for sexual and gender issues, resist women in combat, have too much curiosity on Benghazi and not enough affection for liberal ideas. Beyond the issue of fairness to these men, we should worry about emasculation of the armed forces.

I’m not referring to the extraordinary burden heaped on our men and women in uniform by three, four or more combat tours while the rest of us sacrifice nothing, while the White House dreams up new ways to redistribute income with government giveaways to favored groups but nary a thought to special compensation to our troops whose families bear our country’s heaviest cost.

Obama’s public dithering over the 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan is closer to my mark of despicable leadership, especially his public announcement to our enemies that we would begin our withdrawal in 18 months. If you doubt that was playing for his own political benefit, that he was appealing the right with his eventual surge announcement and to the left with his simultaneous withdrawal announcement, just ask any seventh grader whether winning a war involves disclosing to your enemy when you will quit. But then, Obama has never to my knowledge even whispered the word “victory.”

 

I’m not focused on Obama’s spectacular failure in squandering the victory in Iraq, a blunder nicely and easily hidden from an apathetic public who were nearly as eager to end the war as the Vietnam generation. Iraq had no Air Force. Air superiority was purely American, but Obama walked away in complete withdrawal without a status of forces agreement, quite consistent with his priority of ending, not winning, the war. Nobody is better at blaming others, and Obama blamed the Iraqis when he offered to leave 3,000 troops after his generals said we needed 20,000 to do the job and protect themselves, and Iraq’s Maliki countered with refusal because Obama was not serious. Maliki was right, and air superiority in the region now belongs to Iran.

So, how are we betraying our troops as they fight our wars?

It began before Obama. By the time he took office it was already a slowly maturing process in which fighting for victory became passé, overshadowed by fighting for world opinion, using our military like an extension of the State Department. By committing to hostilities not directly linked to our true national security, and imposing rules that make combat success more difficult, we send home a higher number of wounded and flag-draped coffins for heart-breaking funerals.

Consider this. Mike King, Skip Ragan and I had dinner a few months ago with some younger combat helicopter pilots, and discovered two astonishing things. First, the Blackhawk helicopter now has a “hover button” that engages an auto-pilot to keep the aircraft stationary, for example at a high hover for a hoist Dustoff (medevac) mission over dense jungle. That is huge, since hovering a helicopter is tedious, like keeping a uni-cycle upright within a circle no larger than a dinner plate. As young men, we never dreamed automatic hover would be possible.

The second astonishing thing was a pair of Dustoff pilots, each with three Afghanistan tours, who had never taken a ground fire hit. They explained the risk assessment involved with each mission that prevented them from flying into an area that was still hot.

I can’t help but think about Wayne Franz, who was trained as a medic and will never forget his first mission in Vietnam. He said he was assigned to a helicopter with no break-in training, very jittery as they took off to pick up wounded. When they touched down in the landing zone, Wayne said grunts urgently loaded wounded on the aircraft with IVs already started and blood splashing all over the place, and just as he started hoping none of them would die before they reached the hospital pad, the aircraft took off while he held on. He sorted out which IV ran to which patient and wondered what he could do on the short flight that might keep each man alive, but they soon touched down, the hospital crew rushed the patients to triage, leaving Wayne in a blood-covered daze standing by the helicopter wondering what the hell just happened when the pilot stepped out and said to him, “Wow, that was a close one!” Wayne asked him what he meant, and the pilot pointed to a few bullet holes from the ground fire they took on the way in or out of the LZ.

Wayne thought, “Holy crap! How am I going to survive a year of this?” But he did, and I wonder how many are alive today because he was there for them.

I can tell you there are countless men alive today who long to identify and shake the hand of the Dustoff crew that flew them out of Vietnam’s hot LZs. I am one of them. Here in Peachtree City, Alan Walsh and Terry Hoffman are two of many Dustoff pilots who risked their neck hundreds of times to pick up wounded and saved countless lives. Combat deaths in Vietnam were roughly the same ratio as in WWII, but Vietnam resulted in three times as many severely wounded. The difference was Dustoff. Our grunts knew if they got hit in the filth of the jungle, in an hour they would be with doctors and operating rooms. Many badly wounded survived when they would have died in WWII without the benefit of Dustoff.

I am certain that today’s Dustoff pilots in Afghanistan are no less brave, and are surely better trained and equipped than we were over 40 years ago. But they are not permitted to fly into areas with risks while our wounded on the ground may turn into flag-draped coffins, and that is only part of the story.

A new report points the finger of blame at new Rules of Engagement (ROE) imposed by the Obama Administration in 2009, rules that were continually tightened as if they were “playground rules.” A soldier cannot fire on the enemy unless he sees a weapon. He cannot enter a dwelling even during combat, or return fire into a house or Mosque or school. Rules govern what can be searched, by whom, and at what times. The air support and artillery that are the lifeline of ground combat units are held in abeyance until cleared by multiple levels of review including lawyers. And so on. The enemy knows about ROE changes and uses that knowledge, sometimes even before the word spreads to our own troops.

Last year our enemy shot down a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, killing 30 Americans, including 17 members of SEAL Team 6. During that Tangi Valley operation, known enemy operatives were spotted but permission to shoot was denied. When the rocket-propelled grenade shot down the helicopter, An AH-64 Apache gunship pilot saw it happen but ROEs prevented him from firing into the building from which the RPG was fired. Just before that incident an AC-130 gunship spotted enemy operators with weapons and could have fired with no risk of collateral damage but permission to fire was denied.

 

Wayne Simmons, a retired US intelligence officer who worked in Afghanistan at a high level, says the ROE restraints have “. . . created a hesitation and confusion for our war fighters.,”  You don’t need combat experience to know that could get Americans killed.

Former Army Captain William Swenson, Medal of Honor recipient, said he was nearly killed by the Army’s reluctance to use air support. Ryan Zinke, former commander of a SEAL Team 6 assault team, said we either need to fight or go home.

From January 2009, when ROEs were changed, to August 2010, casualties more than doubled. In 2010 casualties were three times the level in 2008 and five times the 2007 number. That this is happening while the rest of us ignore it should be a matter of national shame.

If I had my choice, my strong bias would be to keep our troops at home, withhold military force until an enemy crossed a clear line of American national security, then eliminate the threat quickly and decisively. To regain what Obama has wasted, our allies’ trust and fear in our enemies’ hearts, we should conduct our military actions in a way that makes the bad guys whisper to each other with trembling dread, “Whatever you do, don’t provoke the Americans!”

When we do send our troops into combat while you and I enjoy the comfort and safety of home, there are some things we owe them out of decency. We owe them and their mission our unbridled support and gratitude. We owe them the battlefield tactics that value their life as the highest priority, even over possible civilian collateral damage, and if we can’t accept that then we should pound our war hardware into plowshares. We owe them the commitment to conquer the enemy quickly rather than rules to attempt a gentle war in hopes of world approval. And finally, to avoid the risk of battlefield rules created by liberal weenies who might wet their pants at the sight of a gun, we owe it to our combat troops to let the armed forces create their own ROEs, since they know what the hell they are doing, with White House oversight.

Is it immoral for political staff at home, with no personal stake or consequences, to create ROEs that raise the likelihood of American dead and wounded? It is to me, and even though you and I can ignore it and enjoy life, we have a duty to speak up

The Democrats are trying to stick it to Military voters..

They did the same crap in Florida in 2000.  People were so concerned about dangling chads that they forgot that the democrats tried to disqualify a bunch of military votes that came from overseas.  I remember that and thought of the hypocrisy of that.  They were so concerned about the voter intend in 4 heavily democratic districts in the Miami area and at the same time they tried to strike the Military vote.   This is how Obama and Axelrod roll, they try to disqualify as many of the votes that are for the opponents and also the opposing candidate.  This worked well for him when he ran for state house, then state senate, he got lawyers involved and they either dug up crap on their opponents or tried to find a technicality to get them off the ballot.  On the other hand, the democrats have the ability to raise the dead.....and they vote democrats.....Saints be praised..it is a modern miracle!!

"The administration showed its true appreciation for military service when, on July 17, the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in that swing state to strike down part of the state's law governing voting by members of the military that gives them extra time to cast their ballots. ... While Democratic groups say the military exemption is 'arbitrary' with 'no discernible rational basis,' military groups say federal and state law in fact recognizes the need to give military personnel extra time to vote. Considering that Ohio voters can cast early ballots up to 35 days before an election, the military extension imposes no undue hardship on other voters. The National Defense Committee, a veterans organization, notes that 'for each of the last three years, the Department of Defense's Federal Voting Assistance Program has reported to the President and the Congress that the number one reason for military voter disenfranchisement is inadequate time to successfully vote.' An administration that constantly talks about voter disenfranchisement appears unconcerned that a study by the nonpartisan Military Voters Protection Project found that in 2008 less than 20% of 2.5 million military voters successfully voted by absentee ballot. In 2010, participation shrank to a scandalous 5%. ... Supporters of the suit claim the Democrats aren't really trying to suppress the military vote, just give others the same access to polls that would be open anyway. ... The problem is the Obama administration has shown a disregard for military voters who, studies show, tend to vote Republican. ... Of course, this reluctance to promote and support military voting -- while dead voters are allowed to remain on the rolls and cast ballots, and while the right of felons to vote is championed -- has nothing to do with the fact that John McCain won 54% of the military vote in 2008 or that a May 2012 Gallup poll showed Mitt Romney pulling 58% to President Obama's paltry 34%." --