Seventy five percent of young people unfit for military service.

[CityOfChicago]

Thank you for the compliment.

I wasn't at all disagreeing with you, as you know me by now. Just trying to emphasize your point about a wake up.

Let's not speak with anything but absolute clarity. What happened on September 11th, 2001 was exactly what I described. It was committed by a group of murderous fanatics who have bent a religion to justify their hatred and brutality. We don't need to empathize with them, we dont need to understand them, we dont need to talk to them. We need to kill them.

Funny thing is, I dont think I would find myself surprised by the courage and voracity of our youth. It is a function of our youth to couple idealism with resolve into a unique form of courage that is distictly American. I'm very proud of the things our young people can do.

But as we grow, that idealism is hammered by discouraging experiences until we become jaded and sarcastic. It's the attitude of the 'adults' that makes me tear my hair out. I thought we learned from the "War at Home" during Vietnam, and vowed never to let our brave young fighters suffer from our posturing and BS. Now here we are, doing it again in the name of some notion of 'global understanding'.

Like I have said: If you do not clear your home of rats, you will soon find your home overrun with them, your cupboards bear of food, your children sick and bitten, and your domicile rotting from within. No - you find the rats where they live, sleep, eat, and breed, and you make those the same places that they die. You protect your home, your life, your families lives by killing the rats.

[Cat_Doc]

Like I have said: If you do not clear your home of rats, you will soon find your home overrun with them, your cupboards bear of food, your children sick and bitten, and your domicile rotting from within. No - you find the rats where they live, sleep, eat, and breed, and you make those the same places that they die. You protect your home, your life, your families lives by killing the rats.

Hoorah. The brave will march through the Gates of Troy into the Face of Chaos. Who, with Warrior Spirit, will join us?

[CityOfChicago]

Let's roll...

[retdetsgt]

It's not the young people nor the adults I worry about, it's the self serving drones in government that will either lie or are just incompetent.

LBJ flat lied to the American people about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. There was no real attack on an American warship, they made it up.

The CIA was grossly incompetent in gathering intel about Saddam's weapons. Today, they don't know jack **** about what Al Qaeda is doing. How long has bin Laden been on the loose? They did apparently have info on that asswipe at Ft Hood, but didn't share it with the Army.

I just read a book, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner. Everything in that book is from either declassified files or statements by NAMED prior officials. And it will scare the **** out of you at the incompetence and internal bull**** that goes on. Again, no editorialization by the author, no unnamed sources and no political agenda. I gave it to a friend of mine, a retired CIA operative. He told me afterwards that as much as he wanted to hate the book, he had to agree with just about all its content.

An airliner is out of radio contact for 90 minutes, flies past it's destination and no one gets off their lazy asses to do anything about it? If that had been terrorist, they could have flown the damn thing no telling where and crashed it and nobody was awake enough to stop them.

When push comes to shove, Americans have always stepped up to the plate, but who can blame them for not trusting what the asswipes in Washington tells them? And who can we trust there to do the right thing when there's trouble?

[Cat_Doc]

When push comes to shove, Americans have always stepped up to the plate, but who can blame them for not trusting what the asswipes in Washington tells them?

Not one iota of disagreement with that, Jim.

And who can we trust there to do the right thing when there's trouble?

I don't know, Jim.

Unless I am totally off base; not since H. Truman? (And maybe not even him, but I am basing this on him standing up to Douglas MacArthur regarding nuking China.) Even Reagan disappointed me regarding Beirut (WTF with not allowing Marines there to have hot weapons?)

As stated, I could be totally off-base on my interpertation of history and would love to hear better intel.

[CityOfChicago]

people I kinew, who ate at our home, we killed in that attack in Beruit. That response was pretty freakn weak. Shelling an empty hillside? WTF.

[retdetsgt]

people I kinew, who ate at our home, we killed in that attack in Beruit. That response was pretty freakn weak. Shelling an empty hillside? WTF.

What about Khe Sahn? We had several hundred thousand marines and soldiers in country at that time and mobilization up the ***. That happened after I was gone, but I always wondered who all were protecting their turf and not sending in every available resource there to make fertilizer out of the the gooks surrounding them. (Yeah, I'm not PC, some things die hard) Back then as I watched the news, I couldn't believe they were letting that happen.

I was no general, but I believe in all my heart that if the generals and colonels had acted, we could have massacred those asswipes and we would have lost damn few Marines. But there will little Napoleons and empires up the *** over there. Every ******* career officer there was just trying to bide his time, make no obvious mistakes and accumulate as many unearned medals and citations as possible. Granted, they were hampered by politicians over here, but they had no problem sacrificing our people so they could salvage their own careers....

[Cat_Doc]

I was no general, but I believe in all my heart that if the generals and colonels had acted, we could have massacred those asswipes and we would have lost damn few Marines. But there will little Napoleons and empires up the *** over there. Every ******* career officer there was just trying to bide his time, make no obvious mistakes and accumulate as many unearned medals and citations as possible. Granted, they were hampered by politicians over here, but they had no problem sacrificing our people so they could salvage their own careers....

Sounds like a lot of command officers walking around in law enforcement agencies at this very moment.

[retdetsgt]

Sounds like a lot of command officers walking around in law enforcement agencies at this very moment.

It's the same mentality, John. Those in command at my dept couldn't have cared less what happened to the troops. Their careers and little empires were all that was important. Which is why somewhere in a dumpster in a roadside rest area of your great state went all my study materials for the Lt's test. I was studying on vacation when I realized I would never survive in that atmosphere.

I shouldn't say this out loud, but in my heart of hearts, I've always wondered if those asswipes let those Marines at Khe Sahn die in an attempt to bolster support for the war? I do think they believed it would piss off Americans and they would rally. As you recall, it just bolstered the anti war effort.

[JoetheGI]

America does not possess a warrior culture. Let us disabuse ourselves of the notion of the mythical American Warror. To do otherwise is intellectual folly and reflects more wishful thinking and illusion than reality. Any notion of some innate warrior culture or an inherent fighting ability of Americans is an idea born in a hothouse that will wilt once exposed to the brutality of real battle..

Right...

This guy apparently knows nothing about our Ranger Battalions, or our SEAL teams, or CAG, or what it takes to earn a slot on an SF team, or even his own marine corp scout sniper / force recon brethren.

We have THOUSANDS of fine warriors in our ranks. These men are HARD physically and mentally, AND they are provided with the most resources of ANY military on the planet to build skill with their arms. My organization could do things at night that NO foreign military could do, FIFTEEN YEARS ago. I know this because I have seen how our enemy AND our allies operate today.

We have GENERATIONS of men in our ranks that have followed in our fathers foot steps. There IS a PROUD warrior culture in our country.

I WILL agree that many in our nation, AND our limp wristed senior civilian and military leadership do NOT condone our warrior culture and REFUSE to accept its existance.

As it is in law enforcement, people are happy when the bad guy is removed from the equation, but pissed off and disgusted because somebody had to shoot him in the face to do it...

[retdetsgt]

My organization could do things at night that NO foreign military could do, FIFTEEN YEARS ago. I know this because I have seen how our enemy AND our allies operate today.

Young men, from about 16 to 25 have an genetic predisposition to fight. It's part of our primitive makeup and where you were born or live has squat to do with it, although our culture does what it can to control it. What you're talking about is training. But even then, I can take most 18 year olds and train them to disregard their own safety and kill. Doing that to a 35 year old with no prior training would be a lot tougher, if not impossible.

I know because I've not only read about it, I lived it too. When I look back at what I did when I was 21 and in combat, it makes me shudder. I'm not saying I wouldn't fight when I was 35, but I would have thought some things through more and probably taken fewer risks. At 35, I was no less brave, I'd just grown out of the warrior age.

Every culture has a warrior class, it's just the amount and type of training etc. that separates them and makes one better than the other. And granted, within each class there are people who are more willing than others. I was okay with infantry, I had no desire to jump from an airplane (although I would have if told to). Fortunately, there are always people who look forward to that.

I think it was General Ridgeway, commander of the 82nd Airborne during WWII that said, "I don't like jumping out of planes, but I like hanging out with guys that do".

[CityOfChicago]

Right...

This guy apparently knows nothing about our Ranger Battalions, or our SEAL teams, or CAG, or what it takes to earn a slot on an SF team, or even his own marine corp scout sniper / force recon brethren.

We have THOUSANDS of fine warriors in our ranks. These men are HARD physically and mentally, AND they are provided with the most resources of ANY military on the planet to build skill with their arms. My organization could do things at night that NO foreign military could do, FIFTEEN YEARS ago. I know this because I have seen how our enemy AND our allies operate today.

We have GENERATIONS of men in our ranks that have followed in our fathers foot steps. There IS a PROUD warrior culture in our country.

I WILL agree that many in our nation, AND our limp wristed senior civilian and military leadership do NOT condone our warrior culture and REFUSE to accept its existance.

As it is in law enforcement, people are happy when the bad guy is removed from the equation, but pissed off and disgusted because somebody had to shoot him in the face to do it...

I agree with the Colonel. He's not talking about those that are serving - he's talking about America in general, and he is correct. Any look at the news, or all this wweak-willed 'activist groups, or the people who turn out by the hundreds to proteast our actions overseas, or the people who are generally lazy, have their heads buried in the sand, and basically have "Victim" written accross their foreheads. Look at the civilian American public.

America does not possess a warrior culture. We do not grow up fighting, we do not teach our youth that brutality is real and they must be mentally and physically prepared to fight it and destroy it. We dont do that. American culture is one of conveinence and relative luxury. Americans are more concerned with car stereo's and 22" rims then preparing to fight. Places like Somalia have a warrior culture.

The Colonel's point is his book is that it is the commander's utmost responsibility to train and prepare his young "lion cubs" into warriors. His book describes how he has tried to do this, combining principles and practices from history combined with modern military equipment and dogma. Since America does not have a cultural prediliction towards developing warriors out of each person, the commander must ensure this is properly done so that when our young people do go fight people who have been fighting since they were children, they can be victorious.

I agree, we have military branches full of true and dedicated warriors, and I am thankful for it. But to say that America has as part of its overall cultural identity a warrior spirit is not true.

[retdetsgt]

I agree with the Colonel. He's not talking about those that are serving - he's talking about America in general, and he is correct. Any look at the news, or all this wweak-willed 'activist groups, or the people who turn out by the hundreds to proteast our actions overseas, or the people who are generally lazy, have their heads buried in the sand, and basically have "Victim" written accross their foreheads. Look at the civilian American public.

America does not possess a warrior culture. We do not grow up fighting, we do not teach our youth that brutality is real and they must be mentally and physically prepared to fight it and destroy it. We dont do that. American culture is one of conveinence and relative luxury. Americans are more concerned with car stereo's and 22" rims then preparing to fight. Places like Somalia have a warrior culture.

When did it have a warrior culture if you're going to compare it with Somalia? It didn't during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, etc., etc., etc. You're confusing thugs with warriors. We have their types in every big city, you have more than your share in yours. But those assh0les in Somalia aren't warriors, they're primitive Bloods, Crips, MS-13's, etc. I've served with and worked with warriors. People attacking unarmed merchant ships are gangsters, not warriors.

What Colonel are you referring to? Grossman? He's done some good research, but he talks big for someone who's never been in a gun fight, much less combat. I'm not nearly as impressed by him as some.

But he does contradict what you just said about young Americans and violence. Video games and movies have anesthetized people to violence. When we had our first drive by shooting where a kid was killed, the whole community was appalled. Ten years later, it was no big deal. We'd gotten used to them. Oh, young people here are familiar with blood and violence, much more than 50 years ago.

There are a tiny percentage of activist people as there were during Vietnam. You don't see mass demonstrations today. There's no comparison. There is very few activists against either Iraq or Afghanistan.

We have always depended on citizen soldiers who rose up when needed. They have in every major war we've engaged in and a lot of crap politicians have created. The problem is, our leaders have lost all credibility on when and who are threatening us.

We got through Korea, but history shows the people of this country was getting tired of it and didn't see the N. Koreans as a threat to us. The N. Vietnamese were never a threat to us or our way of life. Kennedy got us into it and LBJ fabricated a reason for us to escalate and lose 55,000 of my generation for nothing. Absolutely not a friggin' thing.

The anti war people over here didn't help, but I can tell you from being there that we couldn't win that war w/o killing damn near every Vietnamese in the country. The government we were propping up was corrupt and as oppressive as the communist in the North, actually maybe not as much. No, we fought that war over LBJ's pride. He once said he wouldn't be the only US President to lose a war, that's why he escalated.

But whenever this country has been really threatened, people step up. They always have and always will. People are people and human nature is human nature. Young people who are physically out of shape can be put there. And you can train most 17 year olds to kill regardless of their environment. Just as I posted, it's genetic.

I'm as sick of the victim, socialist mentality of society as you are and I'm fully aware of it as you. But the country rallied right after 9-11 and were ready to respond. It's just our leaders don't know their asses from holes in the ground and people get tired of it and start to question them. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney all were idiots when we attacked Iraq w/o good intelligence, proper equipment for the troops, etc. Patriotism doesn't make up for their dumbass mistakes.

[retdetsgt]

That article finally showed up in today's paper here.

I also wonder if they've raised the bar on height and weight?

I know they weren't that picky during the draft. A guy I befriended in basic was about 6-1 and at least 220 lbs of mostly lard when we arrived. He was old (about 23) and a draftee. He struggled like hell the first several weeks in PT, but he finally shed the lbs. and picked up some muscle. There were several like him. Only one guy, who must have been close to 300 lbs didn't make it. Even then I wondered how he got in. I don't know if he was a draftee or not, I never had a conversation with him. But they gave him about a month, but he was showing no progress and one day he was just gone.

Even the Marines took people back then that were chubby. My best friend in high school was 5-8 and about 180 lbs of pudge. In fact, I laughed out loud when he told me he was going in the Marines. He was a good guy and all, but I wondered if he could cut it physically. I came home from my first semester of college when he got his first leave. He was not the same person by any stretch. He retired from the Marines 20+ years later. Looking back on it and reading this article, I sort of doubt he would have been taken today.

[Switchback]

The weight standards are fairly strict. Even when I was in, back in the early '90s, it did nto take much to require getting taped for a body fat check.

I know, being 6' tall and 205lbs, I would require getting taped for body fat. With a thin waist and s thicker neck, I would be ok. They use some pretty archaic numbers for the intitial measurement, but the taping will bring most anyone in decent shape in under the wire.