Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

The historical record of human conflict shows that volunteers, in general, make better soldiers than do conscripts. Check out the Battle of Trenton as an example.

FYI: Obama has so weakened our armed forces that the US Army today has just two combat ready brigades. That's approx 10,000 personnel.

"Peace through superior firepower."

rhomin57 Loc: Far Northern CA.

Thanks! If I remember right the whole country froze for a moment. I recall the overseas soldiers making fun of it as well now.

Hungry Freaks

Navy corpsmen were great "Docs" serving side by side with marines. Saw 4 corpsmen go down in one day trying to get to wounded before the shooting stopped. Or maybe you served on the Snake in some sort of gunboat-I don't know, never got that far south. Sorry if I offended you. Just that marines have a skewed view of navy "squids" as we used to call them. In a bar, any bar, it always seemed that marines were fighting sailors.

An old joke-a sailor walks into a bar to find two marines, one sitting drinking and the other getting oral sex from a monkey. Just as the first marine and the monkey finish up, the sailor says: "what that all about?"

The second marine says "watch" goes over and hits the monkey on the side of the head upon which the monkey unbuttons the second marine's fatigues and begins giving him oral sex.

"You wanna try this?" the second marines asked.

"As long as you don't hit me in the head that hard." the sailor answers.

Again, take it in the spirit of the Corps. No offense. I was a draftee and young and impressionable.

Hungry Freaks

Well, catfish, did you owe them money? I'm not going to ask what for-that's you business. I can only imagine.

I know those girls outside the gates of Subic Bay were tough as all get out. It was like running a gauntlet getting out of there. I wouldn't want to owe them money or have them even think I owed them money. Anyone walking those streets could almost qualify for combat pay. Almost.

Hungry Freaks

There was little difference between the performance volunteers and draftees in Vietnam-that's pretty much the opinion of anybody from ssgt. to full bird. I don't know what the generals though-don't care either, especially that bozo westie-he h**ed the marines.

We only have 10,000 combat ready troops? I don't think so. Every marines is a combat riflemen, or trained to be so. And the USMC has a heck of a lot more than 10,000 members.

Peace through superior firepower is great if your in a fight not of your own making. But we don't wait for the fight to come to us. We go out looking for trouble. That's the big problem. We have this huge military so we have to use it.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Read the post, the U S ARMY has two combat ready brigades.

Hungry Freaks

This is why we don't listen to generals.

This "10,00 men ready for combat" comes from the Army Chief of Staff. He also said he doesn't count as "combat ready" those now on, or about to be sent, to Afghanistan, as military advisors to the Afghan military.

He also doesn't count the more than 100,000 members of the USMC currently on active duty. While the MOS of these 100,000+ marines may not be as combat infantrymen, all marines are, first and foremost, infantry riflemen. That includes the BAMs, who I would presume, are combat infantry women. (go to Parris Island sometime and watch the BAMs train. All the taunt young female flesh-it's a sight to behold. Former marines, teachers and media reporters can get an invite, or could last time I checked, in what was, at least up into the 1990s, the command visit program. I went for four days in 1996. Check with your local recruiter.)

The Founding Fathers put control of the military under a civilian leader for good reason. Generals fight wars-they generally don't govern a civilian population well. They also are always on the lookout to keep up the funding levels of their particular branch of the serve. That's why the Army chief of staff is 'warning" about low combat troop levels-he wants more money for the Army-not the Marines, not the Navy and not the Air Force-and he wants it now. That's why he excluded troop levels of the USMC and even his own troops trained to be military advisors to another nation's army.

While many of our presidents served in one branch of the military, few were actual saw combat. After John F. Kennedy was in office, only one president, George HW Bush (Bush I) , had actual combat experience. Lyndon Johnson listen to the generals and got the nation d**gged into a war it couldn't win. Time after time, Westie would ask for another 40,000 troops and he got them. It wasn't until Nixon, another non-combat experienced president, got into office that troop levels in Vietnam started to decline. Jimmy Carter was a Navy submariner and probably the closest to a combat vet we've had.

Presidents often find it necessary to rein in their generals. Even Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of allied troops in the Pacific during WWII, was fired to going against civilian leadership. Truman canned his butt when Big Mac openly contested Truman's orders in conducting the war in Korea. Had Big Mac not screwed up in Korea, he would most likely have been the GOPs candidate for president in 1952. Instead, he sent the army and the marines into an insane advance up to the Chinese border in November. Many many good men died as a result, the army retreated in total disarray and the marines only got out in an orderly fashion because they were, well, marines.

And don't worry about the 10,000 "combat ready" troops in the army. In 1939, at the onset of WWII, the military had just about 10,00 combat ready troops in the Army and Marines. Within 5 years troop levels in all three beaches (the Air Force was part of the Army) was 16 million, surely not all combat ready, but still 16 million.

One leader that came out of that war was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served as supreme commander of all allied troops in Europe. By 1952, he had been elected president of the United States. At the end of Ike's eight years as president, he gave as speech in which he warned about the undue influence of what he called the Military Industrial Complex-a complex of military leaders and industrialists who stood (and still stand) to make big money and gain great power by keeping us at war-ready troop levels in peacetime. Ike was not dove and he wasn't one who had a grudge with the military. He also was a civilian.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Seriously, I don't need an amateur history lesson. I have studied military history most of my life. I have an MA in the subject.

None of what you posted is relevant to the situation in our Armed Forces today. Obama is effectively turning our military into a grand social experiment rather than a powerful defense force.

Hungry Freaks

what do you mean "check out the Battle of Trenton" re: conscripts vs volunteers.

I guess the British may have had conscripts, but that wasn't why Washington won. It was the element of surprise and the desire of Washington's cold, hungry troops to get food and warmth.

The Union won the Civil War with a large amount of conscripts, some drafted as they got off the boat from Europe and sent to the front often with only a few weeks training. But conscripts or volunteer had little to do with the actual victory in the Civil War. It was shear numbers of troops and the lack of resources in the South, as well as President Lincoln's (another president who never served in the military) and Gen. Ulysses Grant's policy of total war against the South-warfare like Sherman's drive to the sea-that were mostly responsible for the South's defeat.

Going all the way back to the Revolutionary war to look for trends is rather suspect in my opinion. Draftees have done fine in the past 100 years of combat. I'm not bias, though. I am a former draftee myself.

Hungry Freaks

Blade: I could make unflattering comments about your MA or education in military history. But I won't.

I don't have a college degree although I read regularly, with about a third of my reading material is in the historical genre. I also was a draftee, into the USMC (yes, they drafted into the Marines during the Vietnam War, but I guess you know that) and I served as a rifleman in a combat battalion during 1968 and 1969. (1/9 Marines-The Walking Dead)

There's some things that can't be learned in books.

Again, what's your point of reference about conscripts vs volunteers in the Battle of Trenton? I never took a class in that.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

The Hessians lodged in Trenton were regiments of professional soldiers. Every man jack under Washington was a volunteer, and they were on the brink of defeat.

Thomas Paine joined Washington as a "common" soldier during the retreat to the Delaware. It was then that he penned his famous essay "An American Crisis". Washington was so impressed he had it read to his men. The American's battle cry (and password/response) was "Victory or Death", not "food and warmth."

The Battle of Trenton was the turning point of the Revolutionary War.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Why would you suggest making "unflattering comments" about an MA in history?

I salute you for your service.

bigbluecatfish

I AGREE WITH THE IDEA YOU GET A BETTER MIXTURE OF PEOPLE WITH THE DRAFT. if YOU HAVE A REAL WAR TO FIGHT DRAFTED PEOPLE WANT TO GET IT OVER WITH AND GET HOME AND BACK TO THIR LIFE. HOWEVER, FOR THESE LITTLE MEANLINGLESS WARS THAT WE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING IF I WERE KING I WOULD NOT WANT TO WASTE MY BETTER PEOPLE FIGHTING THEM. I WOULD WANT MY LOWER ELEMENT OF SOCIETY FIGHTIG THEM. GIVE THEM LOW PAY TOUGH DICIPLINE, CHEAP BEER, CHEAP WHORES AND GOOD FOOD. FEED THEM FULL OF PATROTIC BULLS**T, LOTS OF ES-PRIT DE CORPS. THIS HAS WORKED IN THE PAST. THEY ARE EXPENDABLE. IF SOME OF THEM GET K**LED YOU HAVE NOT LOST A DAMN THING. actually ALL THIS BULL S**T WHO IS BETTER PEOPLE IS MEANING LESS. IT IS THE MAN WHO IS LEADING THEM. I HAD AN EIGHTH GRADE EDUCATION WHEN I WAS IN THE MILITARY. I WAS IN CHARGE OF FORTY PEOPLE MY PRODUCTION OUT PUT FAR SURPASSED MEN WITH A MUCH BETTER EDUCATION. I NOW HAVE A COLLEGEDEGREE.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Apparently it didn't do you much good.

Hungry Freaks

Turning point in the Revolutionary War was French support. It allowed Washington to bar reinforcements of the British troops in Yorktown. Without French warships keeping fresh British troops from entering the Chesapeake, or had overland British troops arrive in time, the outcome would have been in different.

Without French warships keeping the British out of the Chesapeake and without French ground troops entering the war, without the general dismal planning of the British generals, without the infighting between British generals, without the delays in Howe (I think) sending fresh troops to Cornwallis in Virginia, without a while set of other factors, including American victory at Cowpens, perhaps the real turning point, the colonies might have remained as such. Remember, the British achieved a great victory at Charleston, well after Trenton.

Trenton was a much needed victory as were other battles in New Jersey (Morristown, perhaps-again, where Washington sobered hist troops my executing a few mutinous troops) .) And Washington advance through NJ not because of military victories, but because the British abandoned most of the state for New York City and abandoned much of the north for a souther strategy where they had a great deal of Tory sympathizers, and captured Charleston. Trenton was a morale booster-it showed that Washington could win where he had fared rather poorly in the past. But a turning point?

The Revolutionary War was something like the US loss in Vietnam-a vastly superior army and navy fighint thousdans of miles away from home defeated by a rat-tag band of revolutionary-minded people fighting for their own land. I've seen that spirit first-hand and know that such fervor is hard to overcome, even with the best weapons, the best trained soldiers, etc. (not to say that the NVA weren't well trained-they were.) I don't think it showed that volunteers do well-it showed, as did Vietnam, people fighting for their land, a greater cause, are a potent force against even the best-equiptted militaries will stumble.

And I expect not thanks for my service-remember, I was a draftee. I didn't want to go and almost fled to Canada where my oldest sister worked for a network of folks getting draft dodgers out of the country. I held a deep grudge against my government for years and tried, without success, in drinking my way out of the bad memories.

Age has mellowed me a bit so that I no longer hold much enmity against those that sent me there. It happened, I learned a great deal, about myself, my fellow man and my government and it's military. And, again, there's some things that just can't be learned in books.