The wheels are coming off – Veterans Today

Recent headlines that two women were graduating from the Army Ranger Training Program at Fort Benning, Ga have liberals giddy with joy. 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, 25, and Capt. Kristen Griest, 26, were the two who completed the program out of 19 women who enrolled in the traditional all-man class 364.

Sixteen dropped out and one is still enrolled but is repeating a portion of the training. Congratulations should be extended by all, because of the 4057 soldiers who enrolled this past year, only 1609 earned the right to wear the Ranger Tab. God bless them all.

Those of us who have served know that the use of our military should only be used to deter aggression, insure the safety and liberty of our country, and render aid to our allies or those unable to defend themselves from unwarranted elements of oppression. Civil War general William Sherman I think put to rest the idea that war is glorious when he stated:

“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell”.

Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

Americans should awake every morning and thank God that there are a handful of individuals (aboutgeneral-william-tecumseh-sherman .05% of the population), both male and female, who choose to don the uniforms of the U.S. Military and take an oath to defend the country. In case some of us older Veterans have forgotten the words (forgetfulness comes with age), and to those who haven’t a clue about what I am writing about:

“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

In recent years we have had politicians in charge of the military and veteran affairs budgets as well as Commanders in Chief who seem to read between the lines of this sacred military oath of allegiance, and interpret it to bind our military to do the bidding of the United Nations and NATO, and that in itself should be troubling to we the people. Were it not for the dangerous world we live in today, and because the world grows more dangerous every hour the current Administration is at the helm, I hate to say, it might just be the last best chance our country has to defend itself.

There are many on the Left side of the aisle (liberal progressives – aka the Democrat Party) and several notable politicians on the right, like Sen. Rand Paul, that do not view America’s role in world affairs as being one of importance to global stability and not in our country’s self-interest, and advocate withdrawal, or at least cut way back on our presence in global matters.

Most democratic countries, particularly those who are our allies and friends, take an entirely different view of the subject, and fear what the future may hold. The current Administration’s actions, have put them on notice that America can no longer be trusted to intervene and do the right thing, or for that matter, is no longer feared by those countries who have designs on dominating weaker countries and territories.

For countries like Ukraine, Moldova, and others of Eastern Europe, the fear of Russian adventurism is as real as the fear the countries of the Middle East see as they witness the total collapse U.S. leadership in keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons; and as the small countries of Southeast Asia view the Chinese Communist Party presiding over the world’s largest military build-up. So, can one realistically believe that global issues are not our problems and that we should adopt a more isolationist policy?

With all the threats to the peace, and I haven’t really gotten into the threats of global terrorism, it’s more important than ever to be clear about America’s core national interests. According to James Mann, author-in-residence at Johns Hopkins’s School of Advanced International Studies,

“During his 1996 re-election campaign, striving to describe America’s role in the world, Clinton began to speak of this country as the ‘indispensable nation’. He went on the say, “In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention that year, Clinton proclaimed, ‘We remain the world’s indispensable nation to advance prosperity, peace, and freedom and to keep our own children safe from the dangers of terror and weapons of mass destruction.’”

Further reading of James Mann, discusses how Clinton later began to believe, “America’s view of its role in the world has become downright, well, unrealistic. As Bill Clinton admitted, but only to his friends, we need to find a more realistic sense of the world as it is working today. Call it a different form of realism”.

This thought has been digested, regurgitated, re-digested, reformulated, ISISand passed through the bowels of the politically elite in Washington, to become the Obama “lead from behind” theory that is leading to global chaos that will probably end-up in a major war; one that will eventually suck us in . . . happens every time America fails to lead.

I have written on many occasions that it is an insane policy that America must be an omnipresent fixture defending every square inch of the world’s surface as the global cop-on-the-beat, but by the same token we cannot become a turtle and simply shrink back into our shell when problems arise.

I believe with our mothball ship and airplane fleets either rusting away or rotting from neglect, would could easily arm our allies to better defend themselves relieving us of having to have a military presence according to Senator Ron Paul, in 130 countries and about 900 bases, forts, and stations, around the world. Perhaps with the 2016 elections we will get a non-politician, with a business mind and common sense, and we can have an open discussion on divvying up the world’s security issues.

In the meantime, there is a scary part for those great Americans who have signed on the defend and protect our country. Lack of will and leadership was bad enough during our years in Vietnam, but I wouldn’t want to be in military combat boots with those we currently have in office, because I don’t believe we have adult leadership inside the Beltway. We have a bunch of self-aggrandizing sycophants, who care more about how much wealth and security they can bleed out of their time in office until their constituents get wise and throw them out of office.

The climate in Washington these days I think, is ambivalence, reinforced by half the population of the country which doesn’t have a clue to what is going on around the world, and a large portion of those have a “could care less” attitude. And believe me, this doesn’t just pertain to the international stage. Half the people can’t even tell you what the big debate is about Planned Parenthood, and the other half can’t tell what state is due north of South Dakota! Ignorance is enabling Washington to destroy this country.

In closing the book on our military and the international situation to which we seem incapable to adapting, it looks as if the defense of our country in the battle against the terrorist who have designs on subjecting the global population to their brand of religious tyranny, will inevitably be turned over to a military, lead by a committee made up of countries which, heretofore, have been under the protectorate of Uncle Sam, and without U.S. leadership.

The situation, with such weak and inept governance coming out of Washington from both parties, means we either bow to terror subjugation, or cast our lot to those countries which will to carry the fight to the enemy, with barely a peep from Washington.

It is sad, though I think the word criminal is more appropriate, that the U.S. should just get the politicians and naysayers out of the way and let our great military go over and mop the floor with this group of rag-tag barbarians. It is indeed time for a revisit of the Crusades. If this is what they want, we should gladly accommodate them. While I firmly believe we should be leading the charge it looks as if others will have to take the lead. But even in this, I find it appalling that our political leaders have forgotten history and what happens when America stands around watching the world crumble.

On a recent FOX NEWS television show Sean Hannity made the observation, “The United States is basically saying, ‘We’re not going to lead this thing.’ So, France is actually proposing a political steering company(sic – should be ‘committee’) to run the war.” After some crosstalk, guest Karl Rove said, “Who is on that committee? American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation. Why should we start now?”

Are you kidding me? So little does he know of our military history. With President Obama completely void of concern about the threat of ISIS, his failure to recognize the threat of Islamic Jihadists, and with the danger now spreading to our own borders, we have political figures who don’t know which way is up, and this is pathetic.

“Since 1900, there have been at least seventeen military operations in which the United States has placed U.S. troops under a foreign commander.” says military historian, Lance Janda, at Cameron University. “U.S. troops have served under tactical foreign command in a wide array of NATO and UN operations over the last 65 years”.

James Jay Carafano, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation tells us, “‘Command’ includes authority for military punishment, responsibility for logistics and so on”. So for this reason, Nations hardly ever give command of their forces to other nations, and it is not something every politician, adviser, consultant, and anyone in government should not know. The ramifications to those troops who will be carrying the war to the enemy, have every right to know before being enlisted and before being sent off to fight by the political elite.

Personally, in looking at President Obama’s view of the world, which is based on his opinion that the United States is the villain of the world, and that America is the cause of everything that goes wrong around the globe, I can see that perhaps the only way our country will be safe from ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other Islamic Jihadist terror groups, is to join with the willing nations, to fight these barbarians where ever they are and no matter what rock they slither out from under.

Our allies will include nations like Jordan, Egypt, Israel, France, and a few others at this point, while Obama and his band of ne’er do wells advisors and political hacks, show the world how to lead from the eighteenth green of some swanky golf club, oblivious to the world situation their policies have created.

As to “the boots that will be on the ground”, and noting the mettle and spirit of American Exceptionalism that resides in every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine, I do not believe they would object to who was in command as long as they continued to serve under their unit’s immediate leadership and as a complete team with logistical support, when the chips were down, and freedom and liberty are on the line.

 

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on September 4, 2015,

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  1. What are your thoughts on why our military deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and why we remain still to this day, 14 years later in Afghanistan? Sherman was unkind to American civilians during the Civil War.




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