Desperate times: Marines told to 'save every round'

[Norm0931]

LOL, another epic strawman. No, what I'm saying is, murdering people without a damn good reason is bad. Giving GWB his place in the history books is not a good reason.

Violence can end conflicts. While true, it is also a meaningless statement, because it has no context whatsoever. Aggressors have no moral legitimacy, ergo, any violence they inflict with the goal of ending the aggression they initiated is still immoral and illegitimate.

By YOUR standard. Sorry, you aren't any sort of Deity, you don't run the Hague, you aren't a political leader, your opinion means jack and bubblegum. It's your right as an American to spit and judge those that act as a deterrent to protect your right but, you still don't suddenly become the moral authority over those of us that have served.

And it all comes back to blaming Bush! He's not the president anymore, GET OVER IT! Your original post was that the military had it so easy in comparison to civilians. Then you went off on a diatribe about how you disagreed with Iraq and now it all boils down to you hate George Bush.

 

[dmancornell]

By YOUR standard. Sorry, you aren't any sort of Deity, you don't run the Hague, you aren't a political leader, your opinion means jack and bubblegum. It's your right as an American to spit and judge those that act as a deterrent to protect your right but, you still don't suddenly become the moral authority over those of us that have served.

Instead of spewing militarist soundbites, feel free to lay out your logic and reasoning for how aggressors can have moral authority and explain how shooting up a bunch of brown people in Iraq and Afghanistan protected the 1st Amendment.

Also implying working for the government gave you any sort of moral authority.

 

[JackThompson]

I'm on the fence here.

I hate to agree with anything Dmancornell says, because I honestly believe he's only debating with people because he likes to get people pissed off, but the idea (And I think you agreed on this Norm) that our military needs to be the size it is, based on the idea that we need to be invading and at-war-with a minimum of 4-7 nations at any given time is a little overblown... and by a little I mean 100% overblown.

Being at war with Iraq, or Ashcanistan, or Syria, or Iran, or North Korea, or Egypt, or Libya, or god knows who else, does ZERO to protect Americans, it does EVERYTHING to promote hatred of Americans for generations to come (Falluja anyone?) and wastes our country's hard earned money and valuable sons and daughters, while serving to pretty much secure the financial (Thereby global) dominance of the banks and corporations and special interests that CAUSED the wars to begin with.

These aren't my words.. these are the words of some fairly famous Ex-High Ranking Military officials.

We need a large enough, and advanced enough military to keep our borders safe. I bet (As Norm said, I'm not military or a crime scene specialist, so this is a WAG) that we could get by with a fraction of what we have, especially if that surplus money was spent increasing the effectiveness of their weapon systems, gear, armor, communications and education.

If we found ourselves needing to jump into an actual global meltdown like WWII, we could mobilize pretty darn fast, especially if we kept our citizens armed like we should.

Of course, if we closed the Federal Reserve, and took our money back from the insurance/banking/oil/greedy bastards we could tripple our military in size and still have a yacht in every driveway...

 

[Norm0931]

Like I said Jack, I'm all for downsizing bases outside of the US. When you combine that with accountability of R&D and Defense expenditures on Equipment and Technology. You can easily continue to fund advanced equipment and keep our current force size and still lower DoD spending.

The F-35 for instance us a needed replacement for most of the services. The problems stem from politicians muddying up defense spending by trying to get Widget A built in their district for as much and as long as possible. The F-35 being as expensive and delayed as it is does the troops no good.

 

[JackThompson]

Dumb question Sir.

How big is our Military? (I'm sure I could search it up on Startpage, but I don't know if the numbers I'll see are accurate..)

 

[Norm0931]

I know the Marine Corps was at 225,000 when I was in. I believe they are downsizing to 190,000. They are offering retirement at 15 years with 35% pay.

I believe the current troop under is right around 1.5 million active and about a million for the reserves/guard. This is roughly HALF of the troop strength in the 1940s/50s mind you.

 

[JackThompson]

That's not a ton. (That Marine corps number sounds about the same as it was in 1988 when I tried to get in... curse my almost-deaf ears.)

I'd imagine we could get away with a solid 1 million. (Especially assuming the gap was filled with technology.)

If we stopped piddling away money on the federal reserve, we could make the other 500,000 service members astronauts or something.


Oh well, one can dream.

On a side note. I sort of like the idea that we engineer our fighting vehicles and aircraft to be viable for 20-30 years. (Rather than disposable.)

I'm somewhat proud that the F-14 was viable for as long as it was, and I'm damned near teary eyed proud when I saw the Missouri, New Jersey and Iowa in action dominating the seascape.

Made me sad when they were retired.

 

[dmancornell]

Hey Norm, since you only think veterans have the right to speak on military matters (even though we don't live in a militarist society), here's the book "War is a Racket", authored by USMC hero and two-time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler, for your reading pleasure. He details the workings of the military-industrial complex before Dwight D. Eisenhower (another military-hating hipster) coined the term.

War Is A Racket, by Major General Smedley Butler, 1935

Enjoy!

 

[samuelm16]

my dreadlocks hurt from this arguement

 

[mosinguy1]

What I always loved was being sent to one country to train its troops how to fight its neighbor on border x , then 18 mnths later being in country that is border x and training them to fight previous trained country!!!!! Oh and lets not forget the weapons sent to both!!!!!!!! Ya war is a racket that only a select few benifit from (large banks, and several elitest)

 

[oknow]

like some people's dear leader said "MAKE IT HURT" wonder who that was that said that

 

[husker]

I worked in supply and as an armorer for eight years in the army. I saw a lot of waste but if you have a good people in you supply unit they will find a way to get there troops what they need. I know this for a fact.

 

[trainsktg]

I worked in supply and as an armorer for eight years in the army. I saw a lot of waste but if you have a good people in you supply unit they will find a way to get there troops what they need. I know this for a fact.

No doubt, the boots on the ground folks are generally top notch guys (and gals). The 'caring' usually begins to breakdown when you reach the ticket puncher level, and it gets worse as you go up from there. Just like what was mentioned a few posts back...ole' Stretch Pelosi saying a Congressional paycut would 'be demeaning'.

Keith

 

[Bigfoot]

I guess the thing to do is ignore a thread for a day. If it goes four pages by the next day avoid it like the plague.

It's a shame to see posters here that I respect go around looking for someone to argue with. Maybe the TVs broke.

 

[Cuthbert Allgood]

i thought by desperate, you meant marines being told to jump on anything with a pair of breasts and a ******. even if it has more facial and/or chest hair than the marine himself.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Yea, we gotta have money for deceased people using obama phones.

» You?re Paying Every Month for the Obama Phone Boondoggle Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

 

[dobeman]

This is ignorant. Pre-WW1 we did not have the advances in travel that allowed the deployment of troops in a matter of hours. Why don't we just scale back the military to Revolutionary times? 2 Battalions of Marines, a few Regiments of the Army, and 20 to 30 wooden ships. Do you actually believe the crap that comes out of your mouth? 1945 was World War 2 Era just so you know, WW1 ended in 1918.

To answer your question though:

1812: The British and Canada invaded the US.
1812: Canada invaded the US.
1813: Canada invaded the US.
1836: Mexico invaded Texas (Arguable if it included the US legally)
1846: Mexico invaded the US.
1861-1865: Invasion of US by Confederate States
1942: Invasion of US territories and Alaska by Japan. (this was probably within your parents lifetimes)

Huh, after Japan and the establishment of the "evil military industrial complex" we haven't been invaded. When you have one of the largest and most advanced military on the planet people don't want to go to war with you. Funny how that works.

a correction, the US invaded the Confederate States, and Sherman's scorched earth war against civilians, was backed by the US. Just saying.

and there is an argument to made that people do want to go to war with us, in disguise. The Korean "police action" - turned into a war with China and Russia behind the scenes as they backed and armed North Korea. Vietnam - opportunity for China and US to probe each other's strategies and willingness to fight under the guise of the Vietnam 'police action'.

 

[coop44]

You forgot Pancho Villa's incursion into New Mexico in 1916