Military discontent extends below general officer level

Good article from the NY Times concerning attitudes within the junior and mid-level officer corps.

A few excerpts:







Much more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/washington/23military.html?hp&ex=1145764800&en=d9c90a77b877dfd6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

(edited for typo)

Didn't mean to slight the enlisted and non-com ranks. But the article was about junior/mid-grade officers.

I think you can assume that all the conversations and debates going on in the O-clubs and CPs are being repeated in the messhalls and foxholes.

regardless of rank, I couldn't resist making a smart-assed remark. ;)

It's the grunts in the mud... uh, sand... and the truck-drivers, and radio operators, and all the other "simple soldiers" (and marines, and even airmen and sailors who have been retrained and reassigned) who suffer most for the debacle that Bush, Rumsfeld and all the other chickenhawks have wrought.

Sadly, with the complicity of far too many generals.

still in denial

I've been complaining about Zinni's refusal to hold Bush responsible since he came out with his book back during the run-up to 04 election. I feel just like that SF officer in the article... a general should know better.

But it's a big psychological jump for a career military man/woman to condemn the commander-in-chief. Ultimately, I think they will mostly come around.

retired as a Major after 30 years, and is now deceased . . . but back in the 60s, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I remember him remarking that if the government ever got into real trouble, he could see the military taking over by force . . . never really elaborated on it, but I could tell by the way he said it that he was completely serious . . . and believed that the military absolutely had the capacity to pull it off . . .

Oh, they're capable of it militarily, I suppose. But I just don't think it would happen.

I could be wrong, of course. Right or wrong, the military is a different animal than it was in the early 1960s, before Vietnam and the All Volunteer Force. That might make it more likely to intercede, not less. Still, the principle of civilian control is pretty deeply engrained.

Rumsfeld and his chickenhawk civilian appointees have split the Pentagon, really the whole military, in two already, and yet there have only been eight generals, only five who've served recently, willing to speak out. Hopefully there will be more, but I wouldn't count on many. I don't think it's because the rest are gutless, or because they're planning anything more. I think it's just too hard for most folks who have spent their adult lives in uniform to break away from the mind-set of never challenging the chain of command.

Otoh, I am heartened by how much resistance there is, even if most won't go public. I think if the current administration tried to go too far, and use the military against the American people, there would probably be enough who would refuse to participate to make any such effort ineffective.

much of the lead up to the end of Vietnam. When it starts filtering down the ranks, the leadership is not going to escape their wrath. At some point, even the grunt on the ground will start screaming, and the end will be near.

Thanks for posting this Jai. Important reading for those who were not around in the 60's. This is what the beginning of the end looks like. I hate to think of how many more will die before the end really comes.

TC