The headline says something important, although if you were paying attention you already knew it because Gen. Odierno said in 2013 that fighting sexual assault should be the "primary mission" of the Army. That would be most perfectly done by disbanding the Army, which would result in a 100% decrease in sexual assault within the service.
So it's interesting that the #2 priority is... shrinking the Army. This is described in terms of "balance" and "skillful transition," but explicitly it is about "declining budgets." (The other most effective thing we could do -- eliminating units in which people who are sexually attracted to each other serve together -- is a non-starter for this administration, which is running as hard as it can in the opposite direction for its last two years.)
It's curious that, with Middle East on fire, our Army's top two priorities are these two. But if we intend to pass the problem off to Iran by helping them expand their regional hegemony and erect their nuclear umbrella, I suppose we won't need an Army capable of going to the Middle East with any superior force. If we go at all, it'll be as partners with Iran. Indeed, in Iraq, that's already the role we are playing.
5 comments:
This retired Marine wife is trying very hard not to snark all over your comments section.
But it's not easy :p
It's a shame that we have not had a real president that has been a member of our armed services in a long time. And now very few of our members of congress have ever been in our armed forces.
These people have no idea what all of us who have served what we had to go through many times. None of them have ever lived in the mud. Or have suffered so much fear that we were afraid of the loss of sphincter control. Or some of us did have that happen during incredible fear for our lives. How sad, how sad, how sad so few of them have ever served the way that they should have.
Well, Bush 2 was an ANG fighter pilot, though he was never deployed, and his dad was a combat pilot in WWII.
It's true Bush 2 never deployed, but I believe he flew interceptor missions against intruders based out of Cuba. That's always potentially combat, and certainly quite dangerous, though it was usually just probing and feints.
Still, it's a good point. We've had in my lifetime several occasions to elect men of very honorable military service -- I will mention Bob Dole and John McCain -- and have passed them up (for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively).
Your position is that common sense should be exercised. As I recall from all of Clancy's novels, politics usually over-rode common sense, until Mr. Ryan became the C-in-C, of course.
Nothing has changed. It is unfortunate that both Messrs. McCain and Dole were very poor politicians. Think what they might have achieved were they, instead, Conservatives.
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