| Thursday,
March 20, 2008 Continuing
"Let George do it!"
Dr. Pournelle,
A few points both expanding and clarifying upon my
earlier letter, as direct and and concise as I can make:
I have angered some, perhaps more by intemperate words
than intent, but I will not succumb to the fallacy of intentions.
My appreciation for Capt. Rogers' service is not
disingenuous. He risked his life for me. Capt. Roger's is a brave man. He
deserves nothing but good from us.. I was wrong to write that he lacked
"moral courage" He has chosen to return to the life most of us would never
leave unless forced to. I don't know the right word for that, obviously, but
cowardice is not it.
I meant to honor those who choose, despite all those
difficulties so many of your correspondents listed, to still serve what I
referred to as "The Long Watch". Someone has to do it, or we won't be around
as a free nation for long. All due honor and respect to Capt. Rogers, and at
leat as much to those who choose the other path, and serve on.
War/Not War: We are at war. Our leader's have
convinced many of us that we are not at war..Most Americans act as if we are
not at war. Reality is not based on consensus. Perceptions are not reality,.
The Map Is Not The Territory. The enemy certainly acts as if they believe
they are in a war with us. Perhaps they are the deluded ones? The problem
is, they have no problem acting on their belief/delusion. In December of
1941 the Japanese leadership believed they were at war with us, and so
attacked Pearl Harbor. They felt our embargo and other actions meant the war
was underway, so why not get in the first "punch" while their opponent still
acted as if they were at peace? Of course it was "sneaky" and "underhanded"
and righteously upset us. After all, we were "at peace" and had no business
being prepared for such an attack, did we?
I'll trade ten citizens in line to enlist the day
AFTER a "Pearl Harbor" for one who decided "to take the King's shilling" the
day before. The latter are the ones willing do the thankless job when most
say "Let George do it!"
Petronius
PS It might help to remember that the hero of "The
Caine Mutiny" is Captain Queeg. At least Herman Wouk meant it that way.
==
Subject: Captain Rodgers and Dick Cheney
The comment by Petronius seems to have drawn several
sharp rebukes, so I won't address what he said directly. But when I read his
comment on Rodgers, I immediately thought of Dick Cheney, our current, very
hawkish, vice president. When asked (in a 1989 interview) about his lack of
military service, and the various draft deferments he had gotten, Cheney
supposed said: "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."
I assume those priorities were to take care of his
family, and make himself some money, just like Captain Rodgers....
CP, Connecticut
==
Retention
Dear Jerry:
Following on your comment; the All Volunteer military
did accomplish one thing; people are now decently paid for their service.
When I was in I made about $400 per month, with Separate Rations being ten
percent of that. My father, as a full Colonel and an Army doctor never made
more than $18,000 a year on active duty. The drug company doubled his salary
and threw in free stock and a car. Pay is essential to retention. So is
medical care. So are education benefits. All of these have lagged behind the
real costs during the recent war and the VA has been severely cut back.
Then there is the matter of family. Family matters,
witness all of those Army recruiting ads aimed at the parents. Military
housing has been substandard for decades and the reason my mother was so
lonely was that my father, despite his rank, could not get base housing. She
was isolated among civilians. Of course she was no good at being the
Colonel's wife either; too timid and not interested in career politics. She
was a genteel southern girl and like most of those, had a whim of iron. Once
she got to Charlotte there was no moving her. She determined to die in that
house and ultimately did. The policy of moving officers every two or three
years is deliberate, to prevent cabals from forming and to keep units fresh
and ready, but it is very hard on the families, even those where both
parents are "in".
I almost stayed in. Almost. I was working on a
transfer to Stars and Stripes, where the Managing Editor knew my work and
badly wanted me. Our respective Command Sergeant Majors killed the deal. I
was too radical, too unmilitary, too unafraid of authority and had defended
my team and its function a little too well. All Army newspapers back then
were under the control of a Sergeant Major; the only instance of enlisted
supervision at the Pentagon. After I left that guy reformed the entire way
they were published and written, transforming them from boring command
information vehicles to hometown newspapers. I wanted the job at Stars and
Stripes and was willing to re-up for that, but not for more of the same. So
I went home. I was already in the Writers Workshop and that's even harder to
get into than the ASA was. I was also looking forward to having a better
social life. That haircut was a date killer if there ever was one. (These
days it's "cool". sigh)
There used to be a saying in the service that "If the
Army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one" but that was
never a practical policy. Most people want a family and the Army has greatly
increased social services to ensure that families feel part of the team.
That gets retarded by the pay problems, the lack of community for lower
ranks (who are the very ones you want to retain) and the lack of status and
respect generally among civilians. It is hard to keep faith with an
institution that doesn't keep faith with you. I think this is the root of
the current problem. The GI Bill retention concern is based in ignorance.
The military will send you to school while you're on active duty if you pay
them back with more years of service. Almost any advanced degree can be had
this way. My father got a Masters In Biochemistry on the Army's dime while
doing his first residency at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital In Denver . People
don't need to get out to get an education and you can't get flag rank
without two or more advanced degrees. We have the most educated military in
the world.
The problem is op-tempo. We have that saying in the
science fiction community; "You knew the job was dangerous when you took
it!" Well, yeah, sure, but there are limits. Op-tempo is killing the Army in
particular. No time to rest, no time to train, and PTSD in abundance because
people are now on their fourth tour. All because we do not have enough
troops. We don't have a draft, but we have substitutes which have been
invoked. Stop-Loss programs for key jobs. Repeated call ups of National
Guard and Reserve troops to the point where the physical security of the
homeland is compromised. It is telling that we have as many private
contractors on the front lines as we do troops, and that most of them left
the service for the better paying contractors jobs.
We've eaten our seed corn with this nonsense. I
suspect that the classic Army wife of my mother's day is a thing of the
past. These days such women are likely to be in uniform themselves if they
love the Army, and if not, the pressure on their husbands would be intense.
We had one guy at that Headquarters who was a member of the New York bar; a
lawyer. His very pretty and very angry wife, against the war, promised to
divorce him if he took a JAG commission. He became the star clerk of our G-1
and made E-6 before he got out. And he's still married to her.
Family matters and keeping faith not just with the
soldiers, but their families is the key to building the Legions you want.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
==========
Republics, Empires and Legions
As usual, I have been watching the discussion on Iraq
and the Legions with great interest. I cannot recall anymore where I
originally got the link to you, but I owe them a great debt. Having said
that, I do find myself in disagreement with what I perceive to be your
premise.
If I understand you correctly, you feel that the U.S.
is on the verge of changing from a Republic to an Empire, albeit an
incompetent empire. You also do not believe that process can be stopped and
look for ways to at least become a competent Empire. Your advice and
suggestions make a great deal of sense in that context.
I would submit, however, that what we are watching is
not the transformation from Republic to Empire, but the collapse of a
once-competent empire due to Imperial overreach and internal decay.
Using your definition of Empire; "imperialism being a
fixed intention to govern peoples without the consent of the governed", the
U.S. has been in the Empire business since at least 1865. What was
Reconstruction but a post-war occupation? As a nation, we then went on to
annex Hawaii, fought a war with Spain and gained several new territories and
continued the pattern pretty much continuously up to today. We entered WWI
on behalf of the earlier British Empire and much of the friction that caused
us to enter WWII was due to competing Imperial needs in the Pacific.
Following the war, we occupied Germany, Japan and Korea outright, and kept
bases and troops in other countries--Britain, Spain, Turkey--that were /de
facto/ client states. All of those are signs of Empire.
Unfortunately, empires have a consistent life cycle.
Without fail, they all succumb to the same stressors--economic collapse and
incompetent, entrenched officials. It happened with Rome, it happened with
Spain, it happened with Britain, and it is happening to us now. In the early
days of the American Empire we were not bashful about extracting money from
the subject states. Just as Britain before us, we did it primarily on a
contract basis. Britain had the British East Indias company, we had United
Fruit and others. They operated on charter, hired, trained and deployed
local troops, and it worked--for a while. What would Iraq look like now if,
after the original invasion and military victory; we had told Halliburton
that we wanted oil, money and quiet from Iraq and left? I suspect that Iraq
would today be functioning at a much higher level than it is. Would the
process have been pretty, or even humane? Probably not. As you've stated,
unchecked capitalism has problems with limits. There's no denying that it's
effective, though. And it might still have been preferable to the events of
the last five years.
Recruiting auxiliaries and revamping the Legions at
this point is probably futile. The bureaucracies that constitute government
at all levels are firmly embedded in the Iron Law and are not to be changed
short of armed rebellion on the French model. That course of action is; at
least on occasion, attractive. I suspect it is also necessary. Few empires
survived their own downfall without casualties and damage. Even Britain, an
island nation before and after the Empire, has suffered tremendously. Part
of the reason for that is that Britain still maintains an Imperial
bureaucracy.
It would appear that we are presented with two
choices. We can continue to act like an Empire even though we are bankrupt
and suffer collapse and probable Balkanization, or we can retreat from
Empire and become something very similar to Britain today. Given the choice,
I prefer the open breakup to suffocating under the weight of a no longer
useful bureaucratic class. Others, I'm sure, will feel differently.
Jim Keech
Your reading of history is not mine. While it is
true that we have allowed the growth of bureaucracy to an alarming state,
empires can still be profitable; it took a long time for Rome to collapse,
and there was considerable prosperity before that happened.
It is not impossible for these United States to
return to a republic in which governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed. It isn't likely. We have entrenched bureaucracies
and the government service unions are enormously powerful, and have only one
object, the preservation of their rights and privileges including the right
to tax everyone else and pay themselves. Yet it would not take blood to cut
them back to size. Not yet, anyway.
The problem is that no one wants to do that. There
is no political party dedicated to the notion that government ought to be
smaller, and the power of the civil service to maintain itself as a first
cost to the budget should be ended. When Newt Gingrich left as Speaker all
that went away, and the Country Club Republicans of Bush and McCain took
over. The Republicans no less than the Democrats believe they have a right
to rule, and that the taxpayer is no more than a cash cow to be exploited.
In California the Democrats are saying as much, openly, and do not expect to
be contradicted. Salve, Sclave!
=========
Subject: About Global Warming
See <http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/opinion0308.pdf>
, published in the March issue of Physics Today.
-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information
Systems Security, University of Sunderland.
Indeed.
===========
From Lt. Cdr. Phillip
Pournelle on Military Service
FNC March 19, 2008 Reports Of 'Broken' Army
Disputed Special Report with Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM
BRIT HUME: The U.S. Army appears to have
reversed a trend that led some people, including one of Fox News
Channels' own military analysts, to suggest that it was stretched
dangerously thin. New evidence reveals that more junior officers are
re-upping and morale is good. National security correspondent Jennifer
Griffin reports.
JENNIFER GRIFFIN: A year ago as the
president decided to send more troops to Iraq, the conventional wisdom
among antiwar critics and Democrats in Washington was that the Army is
broken. Time Magazine, "America's Broken-Down Army."
LAWRENCE KORB [Center for American
Progress]: (From tape.) It's broken. This army was not designed for a
long war.
GRIFFIN: Retired Major General Bob Scales,
the former head of the Army War College and a Fox News Contributor,
wrote in the Washington Times last year, quote, "if you haven't heard
the news, I'm afraid your Army is broken, a victim of too many missions
for too few soldiers for too long... Today, anecdotal evidence of
collapse is all around." Disintegrating equipment, difficulty recruiting
and retaining soldiers, an exodus of junior officers who would have been
the generals of the future. Now a year later, General Scales has down an
about-face, the first military analyst to admit he was wrong.
MAJ GEN BOB SCALES [U.S. Army (Ret.)]:
(From tape.) I was wrong a year ago when I forecast the imminent
collapse of the Army.
GRIFFIN: In fact, a document prepared by
two military historians for General George Casey and obtained by Fox
News shows comparisons to the Vietnam hollow Army don't hold up. It
states junior officers are not departing in vast numbers. The number of
captains leaving has held at about 11 percent since 1990. By the end of
Vietnam, 25 percent of the captains left and weren't replaced.
SCALES: Reenlistments, for instance.
Particular reenlistments in Iraq and Afghanistan, remain very high.
GRIFFIN: In 2006, 67,000 soldiers eligible
to reenlist did so, exceeding the Army's goals by over 3,000 men and
women, a reenlistment rate higher than before 9/11. For the past 10
years, the enlisted retention rates of the Army have surpassed the
Army's goals. Larry Korb, on the other hand, who served under Reagan and
now advises Democrats, says the two reasons soldiers are reenlisting are
the high bonuses and stop loss - the involuntary extension tours. The
captains, he says, who are leaving, many are West Point graduates.
KORB: If you look at the class of 2002 who
completed their obligated service in 2007, less than half stayed in.
GRIFFIN: Scales says he and the other
analysts didn't take into account the band-of-brothers phenomenon. This
Army is sending soldiers to fight as a unit, not as individuals as they
did during the Vietnam-era draft army.
SCALES: They're bonded together. They know
each other. They don't have to fight as an army of strangers.
GRIFFIN: In other words, they are going
back because of their buddies. The one area where there is not such good
news is with regards to equipment. Forty percent of it needs to be
repaired or replaced, but in terms of the numbers, Brit, it just doesn't
add up in terms of this Army being broken right now. Brit?
HUME: All right, Jennifer, thank you very
much.
The above transcript demonstrates that perhaps it is a
bit early to declare our Army dead or destroyed but it certainly is
strained.
I read Captain Rogers' article on Sunday and my
thought was along the lines of "Welcome to our world."
The United States Navy (and USMC) has been dealing
with the challenges he describes since its inception. We've developed a
rotational deployment policy over the years to meet presence requirements.
We've also developed career rotation (sea-shore) plans accordingly.
The United States Army in the past was designed for
large scale mobilization in the Cold war and later for two large sale wars.
Half of the Army would go East and the other half West. Recently the
President signed a new policy called the Army Force Generation Model (ARFORGEN)
where active and reserve units will be binned into three corps. One corps
will be deployed, one resetting from deployment, and one ready for
surge/rotation.
The expansion of the Army and USMC is required to
complete this model. The USAF has a similar concept in its Air Expeditionary
Force (AEF). Composite air groups made of required aircraft squadrons are
deployed to meet presence requirements while others are nominated for
readiness for surge deployments.
I cannot fault Captain Rogers for having served and
decided this is not the life he wishes to live. Being home 1 out of every 2
days while assigned to a ship is not fun. Missed birthdays and life
milestones cannot be recovered. The anger and resentment of a spouse who
must live the life of a single parent can build up to make homecoming a
fearful experience. It takes a special & strong person to be a spouse of
someone in service. Many in the Army may not have expected to be in a
rotational force, particularly one with a rotation plan as brutal as is in
place now. Hopefully the new ARFORGEN plan will ease this to some degree.
Still I cannot fault any man or woman who has stood their watch honorably
and wishes to return home.
There are some details in Captain Roger's article I
would quibble with. I think he will find he has been given far more
responsibility and authority as a junior officer than he will find as a
junior partner in a civilian career. He may also find it more challenging to
adapt to less well defined organizational environments. Sergeants and Petty
Officers usually go out of their way to meet and anticipate your needs,
which is not so definite in the civilian world.
Captain Rogers should be saluted and thanked for his
service. He has endured hardships I have not faced (I've never actually been
shot at, nor watched a shipmate die). I hope many of his classmates will
stay in. We need others to stand the watch.
LCDR Phillip E. Pournelle USN
==
John Rodgers discussion
Dear Doctor Pournelle,
Any man who serves as an officer in "The Legions",
honorably and well, and then moves on, should receive nothing but the thanks
of a grateful nation and the respect of those of us who chose to "soldier
on".
I did two long Wespacs, two long shipyard overhauls,
two years of remote arduous isolated shore duty at La Maddalena, Sardinia,
where my wife and small children accompanied me and lived "on the economy"
(no housing built yet, sorry). I pulled 11 FBM patrols, 95 home, 105 gone,
in a row.. I saw no shore duty as a LCDR. 23 years, damn few easy days. Cold
war box score: my side 1, bad guys zip. Never got shot at.
My wife was the reason I could. Just incredibly lucky
in love. Still am, same girl, 38 years so far.
Not everybody is as lucky as me. It is a personal,
family decision to stay or go. We should be grateful the Captain gave us all
he had for as long as he could.
Thank you, my brother in arms. BZ. Fair winds and
following seas to you and yours.
Matt Hayball CDR, USN, Ret.
==
Life & service
Jerry This for me is going to be a fairly long note
and you might not want to post it because I am not going to be nice to
appeasers. Reading the notes from others on the officer who dropped out
after one tour in order to spend time with his family I feel both views
expressed are valid depending on ones worldview. And this to me is the
point, how one views the world and their own place in it.
Some and they seem to be a majority, want only comfort
and a good life without conflict or effort on their part. To live the good
life with beautiful wives children and other property. To me these people
are the core of the world’s problems because they will do anything to live
those comfortable stress free lives even if it means selling their souls to
those who would oppress others.
Others like myself will dare any danger and sacrifice
even life itself to be able to live in freedom and choose the church we
attend or not. To choose who leads and guides our lives is the most
important choice of all. The right and ability to choose is more important
than even life itself to those who believe strongly in personal individual
freedom. There was one famous quote about those who do not study and
understand the lessons of history having to live it over again. I feel that
because of those who refuse to learn the lesson the rest of us are forced to
relive that which we see coming over and over again all to clearly.
You have in your writings made these lessons all too
clear, but most seem to be blind to these painful lessons our ancestors set
down to guide us and save us from reliving their pain and suffering. I find
the below quote says much about the human condition and why we continue to
suffer:
** Political tags - such as royalist,
communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so
forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically
into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such
desire. Robert A. Heinlein ** **
Because so many in society only want conflict free
comfort without effort or pain they sell their souls and their children’s
souls to those who hunger to control the lives of others, and thus they are
no longer free people, but slaves to those who guarantee their comfort. To
be a truly free person requires exposing ones self to conflict and danger.
To risk ones own life, safety and comfort in order to secure the freedom of
those who will come after you. I learned these lessons from my family, not
from the schools.
My grandfather during conversations we had in his
later years informed me that our family had fought and died in many ways
over the centuries for the right and ability to choose how we lived and
worshipped and if we even worshipped at all. They fought and died in the
crusades for this freedom after the Muslims attacked us and tried to force
their barbaric religion on us. They fought and died in Europe against a
church that wanted to take away their freedom of choice during the forgotten
first crusade in France and the Inquisition that followed.
They were forced from their homes by priests and kings
who wanted to control them and were forced to flee Europe and come to
America in the mid 17th century to preserve their desire to live free and
choose how they wished to live. They fought and died in the conflict between
England and France in the French and Indian wars. They fought and died in
the Revolution for the right to choose freedom over slavery. They came from
all parts of Europe and the British Isles to be free and they were willing
to stand up man, woman and child to protect that right to live free as they
did against every tyrant they had faced from Cyrus to Caesar, from Henry to
Hitler they fought and died for the right to live free and choose how they
lived.
I never saw combat during my service years as I was in
between Korea and Vietnam, but I was there and ready to serve. I find those
who would rather be red than dead disgusting to say the least, those who
prefer personal comfort over freedom really do not deserve the rights of
freedom that has been bought and paid for by the blood and suffering of
others greater than themselves.
********************
Leaving
Independence Hall in Philadelphia after signing the United States
Constitution, a young citizen inquired: "Dr. Franklin, what kind of
government did you give us? A monarchy or a republic?" Franklin's keen
response was: "A republic, if you can keep it!" For Benjamin Franklin
understood that the responsibility of a successful republican government
belongs inherently to the people Liberty must at all hazards be
supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had
not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of
their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. John Adams,
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765 What signify a few
lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its
natural manure. Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, 1787
James W. Early Long Beach, Ca
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is
largely made up of prophecies. H.L.Mencken
==
Discussion of the Legions
Dear Jerry,
Please keep the updates on your health coming and of
course you are in our prayers.
Some thoughts on the Legions.
Bush: Retreat From Iraq Would Embolden Iran, Fund
Terrorists
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339108,00.html <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339108,00.html>
This is true in my opinion, quite a pickle we are in,
is it not?
"The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it
is just. And with your courage, the battle in Iraq will end in victory."
Interesting. This may be so, but, and here I have long
been in agreement with you, if empire we will be, we should be competent
about it.
U.S. Army Isn't Broken After All, Military Experts Say
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339296,00.html <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339296,00.html>
This falls right into our “Legions” discussion and
while things may not be peachy keen, they are nowhere near as bad as the
doom and gloom crowd would have you believe either. Not yet anyhow. If
things continue on the current path, I don’t doubt the effects will continue
to worsen with the long-term involvement of our legions. I don’t have the
statistics to back this up, but the article mentions losses of USMA trained
officers, but I have seen a trend of NCOs becoming officers. There is some
debate whether this is a good thing of course, but enlisted personnel often
respond positively, especially in time of war, to these officers and often
show a bit of disdain for the “ringknockers,” at least initially. I haven’t
seen a statistic that takes this particular loss of NCOs into account. Could
some folks be approaching this as many approach global warming? While there
are signs (environmental degradation) to be concerned about, should we all
jump on the global warming bandwagon?
And then we have……
President Bush Authorizes Military Aid to Kosovo
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339573,00.html>
This one has me very concerned, as I’m sure it does
you and a vast majority of your readers.
Respectfully
Curtis
God save the Legions
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