For Those Who Would NOT Serve

Read this if you have it in you to get a little sad, maybe a little ashamed and generally not feel the same about anything for the rest of the day- from Army Of Dude.

Thursday's Thoughts

• An odd thing I've noticed and The Don reminded me recently- rank and file civilians from different countries are taking pride in the skills of their military's snipers in Afghanistan. In civilian newspaper websites from Canada, UK and US all mention the work their guys do and get excited when they break a record. Typically, enemy snipers are hated beyond the level of any real damage they ever do and are often murdered out of hand when captured. American and Russian GIs were especially prone toward this hysterical behavior in WWII.
• Why have we lost Afghanistan? Two simple answers for you: Afghanistan has in memory never been defeated and no Afghan male wants to be known as being from the first generation to lose. We don't have the will for this kind of fight and really never have had much of a stomach for the sacrifice to win that kind of war.
• Doubt me? A kind of dark secret to a lot of people- we just nearly lost WWII (the best war we've ever had for moral high ground) and a lot of that had to do with how sick of the war people became.
• American troops could be as brave as any and fight as well as any, but were often too risk averse and leaders were way too casualty averse (both were especially true early on).
• Think about the invasion of Normandy. That invasion had to work- it simply had to continue at that time and and at that place- however, commanders at the highest levels were considering throwing in the towel and falling back to England all the way up to the point of breakout from the beaches.
• Another thing that always jumps out at me on these thoughts: our men in WWII rarely ever got to the point of thinking of themselves as professional soldiers- no matter how late in the war or how good they personally or their units were. There were many cases of US troops killing German troops after they were captured late in the war in retaliation for US troops lost in a battle since the Germans, "Had to know they were licked and kept fighting anyway."
• Conversely, the German soldiers could not comprehend this type of thinking- literally, it seemed irrational to them.