US Army forcing the oldest, enlisted serviceman to retire while deployed

[Lemon law]

Politicians lose wars by interfering with operations or not having a proper target for the military.

The military does the job asked of it with the tools provided.

It is not their fault that they are handicapped by lack of political will or confused political direction.

Both issues have existed over the past 60 years. Only when a cledr military objective exists does our military get in, do the Jon and leave with minimum loss of live.
Politicians, arm chair warriors and egotists that think they know how a conflict should be wage from a political viewpoint only serve to screw it up.

This SSgt has seen all the foulups and felt that he could make a difference

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is exactly where I think EK is wrong. What good does it do to fight and win a war if nothing is subsequently accomplished. In terms of winning the war in the classic sense, our military accomplished that goal in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.But without a semi permanent governmental change, war accomplished nothing while the costs to all sides are large. We lost 58,000 dead and screwed up our own economy in a 15 year effort to prevent the spread of communism in Vietnam. And failed in the effort. Afghanistan looks even more grim, and Iraq is exceedingly unstable.

Winning the war is worthless, winning the peace is everything.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Our military does not choose to go to war. Hold politicians responsible for such.

 

[palehorse]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well CWjerome, if I know nothing, why is not the USA winning instead of losing.

You can stick your head in the sand and pretend you are an Ostrich, sing la la la to your hearts content, but if you 100% fail to predict the results in the field, maybe you better rethink the fact you are nothing but a negative barometer.

You may not agree with my points, but until you can come up with an explanation that accounts for why our superior military still fails to win the peace in Afghanistan, after 10 years and counting, you prove you know absolutely nothing. You might think about that fact before your next post.

Because if you can't account for past results, you are simply full of shit and nothing but.

But if you think for a mad moment that I am disparaging the valor of our servicemen you are badly mistaken, but when we misuse their valor and sacrifice against the very people we need to win over, we waste them needlessly for lack of US wisdom and leadership.

We can go back to our last successful military occupations in Japan and Germany, and note we had far wiser military and civilian leaders, who knew and applied the ways to win the peace after they won the war.

Wtf does ANY of that have to do with your delusion that brawn and superior fitness are no longer relevant or necessary?! Better yet, wtf does any of that have to do with the amazing soldier described in the OP?

You are such a f'n shmuck...

/disgust

 

[EagleKeeper]

He is anti-military and those governments that use it.

Hold your enemies close and whisper in their ear how much you want to love them.

All good things will then happen

 

[mattpegher]

Well, who knows what he'd be if he'd joined (even in the reserve) when he finished medical school back in the 70s. Even now if he picks up a commission from AMEDD he'll probably be at least a major.

As the article said he got his degree after his tour in Veitnam. As for that degree, it is in Podiatry. I am not sure how many Podiatrist the army needs. There is just something odd there, as it is my understanding that he should have been offered officers training. I know I was told that right out of med school if I chose to go into the military, I would be sent to officers training.

 

[Nebor]

As the article said he got his degree after his tour in Veitnam. As for that degree, it is in Podiatry. I am not sure how many Podiatrist the army needs. There is just something odd there, as it is my understanding that he should have been offered officers training. I know I was told that right out of med school if I chose to go into the military, I would be sent to officers training.

The Army needs more podiatrists than it has. They get payed huge bonuses (~70k a year) to stay in the Army. He went into civilian medical practice after completing medical school, and only returned during the war on terror. I'm sure they offered to let him come in as an officer, but then he wouldn't be taking the place of a 19 year old as he wanted.

 

[Zebo]

As the article said he got his degree after his tour in Veitnam. As for that degree, it is in Podiatry. I am not sure how many Podiatrist the army needs. There is just something odd there, as it is my understanding that he should have been offered officers training. I know I was told that right out of med school if I chose to go into the military, I would be sent to officers training.

You don't have to take an officer job. It's not mandatory. You could join right now as enlisted infantry with your medical degree.

Like I said crazy.

 

[Nebor]

You don't have to take an officer job. It's not mandatory. You could join right now as enlisted infantry with your medical degree.

Like I said crazy.

I went to BOLC II with doctors and lawyers that were hoping to get commissions as infantry 2LTs rather than direct commissioning as CPTs. But we really should defer to LL's military expertise.

 

[palehorse]

I know many enlisted soldiers who choose to remain enlisted after finishing Bachelors, Masters, and even PhD degrees -- myself included (BS and MS).

LL is simply a moron...

 

[Zebo]

I know many enlisted soldiers who choose to remain enlisted after finishing Bachelors, Masters, and even PhD degrees -- myself included (BS and MS).

LL is simply a moron...

Just curious why would you do that? Isn't it half the pay and half the resume?

 

[Nebor]

Just curious why would you do that? Isn't it half the pay and half the resume?

They want to continue to work with soldiers and\or in their specialty field. Officers in the Army are rapidly separated from the soldiers and the work that they chose their branch for.

 

[Zebo]

They want to continue to work with soldiers and\or in their specialty field. Officers in the Army are rapidly separated from the soldiers and the work that they chose their branch for.

Cool thanks did not know that. The more you know.. LL would do better by asking pros at times.

 

[Lemon law]

Cool thanks did not know that. The more you know.. LL would do better by asking pros at times.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zebo seems to fail in the distinction between a professional and an incompetent.

Professional become professionals by delivering positive results.

But when all the money the USA spends on our military delivers the only the results of total incompetents, we have to wonder is Zebo knows anything.

Military professionals understand it does no good to fight a war without winning the peace. And yet, in our US armed forces recent 50 year history, they have failed to win the peace and fulfill their primary mission three out of three times. EK may be right to also blame our politicians, but the monicker professional does not go to incompetent failures who both fail to deliver results and fail to learn a single thing in 50 years.

Zebo, there was a story written about people like you. Its called the emperor wears no clothes.

 

[cwjerome]

Leave it to LL to lower the bar even more by claiming military members for the last 50 years:
are not professionals
are incompetents
are failures
have delivered no results, and
haven't learn one thing

People in the military, for the past 50 years. The cheese has officially slipped the cracker, LL has gone from espousing amazingly ignorant nonfacts to branding tens of millions of people over a span of decades with the broadest and most disturbing brush imaginable. You old senile son of a bitch, your armchair general ramblings have amused and shocked us for years with its basic stupidity, but recently your more disgusting anti-military diatribes have gotten especially hateful and desperate. It seems that your repeating the same lines nearly every day for the past 5 years has not had the desired effect and now you are imploding in a spasm of senseless frustration. It's a fairly unsettling spectacle.

 

[palehorse]

Just curious why would you do that? Isn't it half the pay and half the resume?

I have many reasons; the first being that I'm a Reservist, so I do not depend on my military pay/benefits to survive. Even when I deploy, my civilian employer still pays me with differential pay while I'm gone -- the diff between my civ and military salaries -- so my rank doesn't really matter, and my annual income doesn't really change all that much. (Most defense industry companies offer similar diff-pay benefits for Reservists). In fact, most of my long-term goals are on the civilian side of things (as a consultant, I essentially do the job of a GS14, or higher, every day).

Second, I'd have to give up most of what I love about my job in the Army. Ranking up as a commissioned officer would require too many bullshit staff positions and other nonsense along the way -- I know and work with many O4-O6's who are, regardless of training, no more than glorified/saluted administrative assistants. No thanks!

That said, I -may- choose to go Warrant Officer one of these days -- IOW, become a senior mentor/manager in my specialty. But, doing so would also mean giving up my slot in my current Reserve unit -- a slot that took years to obtain -- so that's not going to happen anytime soon either. I'm saving the Warrant option for when I get tired of field work, or if I become too broken to keep going out...

 

[Lemon law]

Cwjerome is right about only one thing, "It's a fairly unsettling spectacle."

But those are the results delivered by our ultra expensive US military.

After that cwjerome, you can blame me if it makes you feel any better. I am not here to win popularity contests, I am here to point out the simple truth and both explain and predict predict current events on the ground.

But if you don't like the results of ultra expensive protracted quagmires, better look at our military professionalism that seems unable to deliver anything but endless quagmires despite all of its dubious professionalism.

Or you could look at the fact, that in all the American officer set, we could only scrape up only two generals who understood anything about counter insurgency tactics. And only gave their ideas a limited chance after Iraq and Afghanistan had already become un winnable quagmires.

 

[EagleKeeper]

When 20 years goes by without a solid conflict to draw experience on - you want to blame the military.

The military were ordered to not finish it off in Korea.
In Vietnam, they were ordered to not interfere with NV commerce. Hanoi itself was off limits for much of the conflict.
Gulf War1 was won by having a clear political objective and turning the military loose on how to accomplish such.
GW2 was won by destroying the opposing military forces. Then the political objectives were changed.

Afghanistan was flawed from a political perspective. The original objective was to destroy the Taliban as a fighting force. Once that objective was advanced on, the politicians took their eyes off the target and changed the rules of the game to a nation building exercise. With the same results as in Iraq.

Our military is not trained for such and should not be. There was not a civilian government that could be stood up and a hostile population existed. Different than in WW2.

Once you destroy a cohesive fighting force; then you may have to have guerrilla actions and take the fight to the enemy on their terms. Our military can do it; but at what acceptable cost. The destruction of guerrilla forces takes time and is brutal/bloody. Makes bad press. That is not acceptable to politicians and the public