![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Wilderness Guru and his military
Friday I just had the morning class so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wildernessguru hung out at the university's engineering library while I was in sanskritsanskritsanskrit.
I came into the library to find him surrounded by grad student engineers, reading the stuff they read -- and understanding it. The giant tome of Jane's Warships in front of WG was the size of a print edition of the O.E.D. Sadly, I can't buy him his own copy. Jane's is $725 per book.
I like how many women engineers I saw. This pleaseth me.
Technically,wildernessguru was a poli-sci major with a focus on international security. If he had any interest in continuing his degree he could go to the Jackson School of International Studies with me and then get job offers from the CIA in Langley. ;) The military hardware is what he's taught himself with thirty years of study. I often say he picked the right major because his interest and effort didn't stop after he finished school. I didn't realize how knowledgeable he was until he was in conversation with someone with the Philippine military on a military forum. In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge, and the level of detail he can quote, he was one of the top five, the one the mods are friends with because he "knows his shit." He's frequently asked if he's currently in the military because he stays up to date.
The military analysts
( Following the hardware statistics acts as a handy bullshit detector for me on both the conservatives and liberals. )
Now the military analysts are researching the failures of Iraq with "I told you so" glee. I didn't realize how muchwildernessguru has kept me informed until some recent conversations on my f-list.
I'll try to do better in passing this information along to my f-list. Sometimes I have a conversation with one f-lister and I'll forget that I haven't told everyone. So the first piece of information I offer, something that's common knowledge in this house:
The U.S. military is broken.
What, do you ask, does "broken" mean?
It means that we don't have enough new troops in training to replace the ones on the front lines. All we can do is extend the tours of duty of the men there, wearing them down until eventually they snap.
We've instituted Stop Loss. We've recalled people who've been out of the military for years, sometimes a decade or more. We've lowered the requirements for our soldiers, played every card in our decks to get more volunteers, and no longer require anything above an eighth grade education. We've issued waivers for felonies to boost enlistment. We're now persuing immediate naturalization and illegal aliens U.S. citizenship if they enter into military service (or get two years of college, not an option for many because of the expense). The DREAM Act was defeated as part of the immigration bill but has now resurfaced as part of the Senate Defense appropriations bill (this article mentions it's part of the approprations bill while ignoring why the DoD is interested). While currently 3,700 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, over 27,000 have been wounded.
( Mercenaries, our shrinking officer corps, training cuts, hardware breakdown, inappropriate use of airman, and going into debt to China and Saudi Arabia. )
The definition of broken
To summarize, the US military is broken.
"Broken" means we do not have the manpower to maintain troop levels in Iraq.
"Broken" means we've relied on desperate measures to get the troop levels we have now.
"Broken" means we're bleeding career officers and it will take 15 years to rebuild to pre-Iraq levels.
"Broken" means we're cutting short our vaunted military training programs.
"Broken" means we're using our maintenance and ground crews from other services (like the Air Force) for Army combat roles, and they're dying.
"Broken" means our equipment in Iraq is suffering from lack of repair.
"Broken" means that relying on mercenaries has been an expensive failure.
"Broken" means we've dug ourselves deeply in debt to Saudi Arabia and China in order to pay for our own military.
Military analysts oppose the Iraq war for these reasons.
Friday I just had the morning class so
wildernessguru hung out at the university's engineering library while I was in sanskritsanskritsanskrit. I came into the library to find him surrounded by grad student engineers, reading the stuff they read -- and understanding it. The giant tome of Jane's Warships in front of WG was the size of a print edition of the O.E.D. Sadly, I can't buy him his own copy. Jane's is $725 per book.
I like how many women engineers I saw. This pleaseth me.
Technically,
wildernessguru was a poli-sci major with a focus on international security. If he had any interest in continuing his degree he could go to the Jackson School of International Studies with me and then get job offers from the CIA in Langley. ;) The military hardware is what he's taught himself with thirty years of study. I often say he picked the right major because his interest and effort didn't stop after he finished school. I didn't realize how knowledgeable he was until he was in conversation with someone with the Philippine military on a military forum. In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge, and the level of detail he can quote, he was one of the top five, the one the mods are friends with because he "knows his shit." He's frequently asked if he's currently in the military because he stays up to date. The military analysts
( Following the hardware statistics acts as a handy bullshit detector for me on both the conservatives and liberals. )
Now the military analysts are researching the failures of Iraq with "I told you so" glee. I didn't realize how much
wildernessguru has kept me informed until some recent conversations on my f-list. I'll try to do better in passing this information along to my f-list. Sometimes I have a conversation with one f-lister and I'll forget that I haven't told everyone. So the first piece of information I offer, something that's common knowledge in this house:
The U.S. military is broken.
What, do you ask, does "broken" mean?
It means that we don't have enough new troops in training to replace the ones on the front lines. All we can do is extend the tours of duty of the men there, wearing them down until eventually they snap.
We've instituted Stop Loss. We've recalled people who've been out of the military for years, sometimes a decade or more. We've lowered the requirements for our soldiers, played every card in our decks to get more volunteers, and no longer require anything above an eighth grade education. We've issued waivers for felonies to boost enlistment. We're now persuing immediate naturalization and illegal aliens U.S. citizenship if they enter into military service (or get two years of college, not an option for many because of the expense). The DREAM Act was defeated as part of the immigration bill but has now resurfaced as part of the Senate Defense appropriations bill (this article mentions it's part of the approprations bill while ignoring why the DoD is interested). While currently 3,700 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, over 27,000 have been wounded.
( Mercenaries, our shrinking officer corps, training cuts, hardware breakdown, inappropriate use of airman, and going into debt to China and Saudi Arabia. )
The definition of broken
To summarize, the US military is broken.
"Broken" means we do not have the manpower to maintain troop levels in Iraq.
"Broken" means we've relied on desperate measures to get the troop levels we have now.
"Broken" means we're bleeding career officers and it will take 15 years to rebuild to pre-Iraq levels.
"Broken" means we're cutting short our vaunted military training programs.
"Broken" means we're using our maintenance and ground crews from other services (like the Air Force) for Army combat roles, and they're dying.
"Broken" means our equipment in Iraq is suffering from lack of repair.
"Broken" means that relying on mercenaries has been an expensive failure.
"Broken" means we've dug ourselves deeply in debt to Saudi Arabia and China in order to pay for our own military.
Military analysts oppose the Iraq war for these reasons.