Everything but the Truth!

28 Sept 07

Everything but the truth! This sad commentary from a currently-deployed officer, in Country:

"Having spent three decades on active duty, here is my view:

Damage inflicted upon our military culture by MacNamara/Johnson, Carter, and Clinton has been irreversibly institutionalized, and the current Bush Administration has done precious little to turn it around:

Being promoted has taken precedence over mission accomplishment and devotion to Duty. Eg:

(1) Good men, needlessly killed and maimed during contact with the enemy, as a direct result of ill-preparedness and poor training, is not career-ending. Training injuries are!

(2) Good men, killed/maimed as a direct result of being inexplicably unarmed while occupying remote outposts in hostile territory, is not career-ending. NDs are!

(3) Failure to accomplish the mission is not career-ending. Failure to dot an "I" or cross a "T" in some insignificant/irrelevant, multi-ream document is!

(4) Deployed soldiers, morbidly fearful of (and blatantly unfamiliar with) their primary weapons, is not career-ending. A single loose round of ammunition, discovered in the pocket of some tired, hapless soldier eating lunch, is!

... ad nauseam

Those few of us who are still devoted to the defense of the Constitution and to our Duty, and who are still trying to actually make the System work have grown weary of mind-numbing sound-bites, whose purpose is to make lies sound truthful, sleazy misdeeds sound respectable, and lend a suggestion of substance to pure wind:

"Peace, with honor;" translation: "Ignominious defeat"

"Workable solutions;" translation: "Ignominious defeat"

"Satisfactory resolution;" translation: "Ignominious defeat"

"Redeployment;" translation: "Ignominious defeat, combined with cowardly flight"

"Surgical strike;" translation: "Futile pin-prick, which serves only to confirm our lack of resolve"

"Ongoing negotiations;" translation; "Excuse-makingin progress"

"Safety concerns;" translation "We don't trust you with guns"

... ad nauseam

We still have courageous people in uniform, but even we daily have to make potentially career-ending decisions regarding our personal safety."

Comment: History has incontrovertibly demonstrated this truth:

THERE IS ONLY ONE THING THAT WILL RELIABLY STOP EVIL MEN WITH GUNS, AND THAT IS GOOD MEN WITH GUNS. Our Soldiers and Marines need to be (in fact, not myth) professional gunmen. Seasoned Operators, always armed, and with irreproachable purpose and devotion to Duty. Conversely, unarmed sheep will accomplish nothing, syrupy sound-bites notwithstanding!

/John