Sometimes they need to learn by pain. There are only two ways we patriots can force our failed military leadership to learn its lesson until 2024, when we get a real president in office who is not bedazzled by medals and impressed by a bunch of guys who had two decades to exterminate a crew of fanatical banditos and failed. We can starve the brass of treasure, but expecting the Republicans to impose that penalty in the wake of the Afghanistan debacle is – to evoke another famous failure of planning and arrogance – a bridge too far. Or we can starve them of blood – our kids’ blood, which for too long has been put at unnecessary risk by unserious military senior leaders consumed by unserious elite fetishes like “white rage” and “climate change” at the same time the Chi Coms are seriously prepping a slaughter of our troops that you can barely conceive of.
Don’t enlist or recommend others enlist, not until there is a real change in the collective mind of the military leadership that indicates that they have learned their lesson. But words cannot be enough – we need to see the same kind of massive convulsion and reform that we saw after the last Democrat/Pentagon betrayal in Vietnam. My generation of officers learned from the guys who rebuilt a ruined military, torn by careerism, lethargy, internal dissension, and the incorporation of society’s low standards in an effort to entice recruits with bribes instead of offering the rigors of service. During the Gulf War, I watched those reformers move a half million Americans (including me and my heavily armed carwash platoon) halfway around the world to the middle of a desert and then sweep an entire national army off the battlefield in 100 hours. But that was 30 years ago. This year, I watched our military bumble our way out of a disaster of our own making, leaving behind our citizens and our credibility while bringing home 13 heroes in metal cases.
The brass, insulated and utterly unaccountable, won’t learn until they see the steady stream of patriots dry up and stop, not because the next generation of warriors is unpatriotic but precisely because they love their country and will sacrifice their dreams of serving her in order to force this desperately-needed change.
We need to go on strike. We need to go on strike against a failed establishment that concerns itself with trendy nonsense, fails in spectacular fashion by making mistakes (like giving up Bagram) that a E1 recruit or a precocious third-grader could anticipate, and that eschews any accountability.
Who has been fired for this fiasco? Well, there was that Marine lieutenant colonel fired for pointing out no one had been held accountable. No one else. Enough. If Milley and Austin are in, keep your kids out. They need to learn.
The alternative is for our Republican reps to force change by cutting the military budget, which is a disaster in and of itself. But that’s not going to happen anytime soon, despite being one of the rare times the party out of power has some leverage, here by working with progressives who want to cut the budget because they hate the military since it defends America. But, again, that is not going to happen anytime soon – it was hard enough for even a critical mass of our reps in the GOP to get past their forever war mindset. I know how hard it was to stop being a reflexive hawk – I was one of them, and even after two deployments it was still a major 180 to get my head around the idea that maybe we don’t need to be everywhere all the time.
We, the slice of America that supplies the critical mass of the men and women who make up our military, have got to do this ourselves. After all, the military is, largely, us. You don’t see recruiting stations in Beverly Hills – you see them in places the swells don’t go lest they be soiled by contact with those Jesus gun people who like flags and believe there are only two genders. The military is us, and if we go on strike, the brass has to take notice. There aren’t enough gender studies princesses and other cultural detritus to fill the ranks. We need a strike. We need it now, not to destroy the military but to save it.
Now, the strike is already underway from the inside. Those of us vets with a high profile have been inundated with communications from all levels of the military about how morale is at the rock bottom due to the total absence of real leadership at the top. Careerism is rampant. Wokeism has replaced warfighting. And the idiotic vaccine mandate – for a healthy population whose real risks come from suicide and terrorism enabled by inept planning – is going to lead to a flood of trained, experienced troops leaving and taking their training and experience with them. That talent and skill will take years to replace; the generals and admirals have squandered it.
In the next war with China, if this decline continues, the first day will see a bloodbath that will stagger your imagination. The Chinese are serious. They are not playing, and they have no time for frivolous nonsense about trans soldiers and the scary, scary weather. They will sweep the seas of our ships, wipe out our land installations, and plant their flag over the whole western Pacific.
I am sure, though, that the mainstream media will dutifully pass on the excuses du jour and that it will all be attributed to Trump, patriarchy, and anti-vaxxers.
Don’t play. Don’t sign up. Not until this nonsense stops.
I’m not alone. Vets across the country are recommending that young people put off or forgo service altogether and not be cannon fodder for bemedaled clowns. Brace for the backlash – the trash response will be that we’re unpatriotic, that we hate America. Whatever. We are utterly indifferent to what these incompetents think. They need to go.
This is not what we wanted. We loved the military we served in, and are proud of being a part of it. For decades I recommended enlistment, wholeheartedly and eagerly. I still hear from folks I swore in. So, calling for a strike breaks our hearts.
Now, there will be some that hear what I say and enlist anyway. To them, I say that I am bursting with pride. We patriots will always support our troops – always. But their current leadership? They need to be overseeing a snow cone operation at some radar station outside Nome, Alaska.
Only a strike has a chance to break this paradigm of failure prior to the inauguration of a new and competent commander in chief. If it does, it is worth it. And the military can come back. It seemed to become a joke overnight because, as a hierarchical organization, the troops do what the commander checks. Our commanders decided their priority was currying favor with their civilian masters and reading Ibram X. Kendi rather than building war-winning forces and reading Sun Tzu. Change the mindset, start checking warfighting capability, and the military will shape up. I just hope it can do it before the Chinese pounce on America.
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