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Old 06-01-2013, 06:41 AM
  #3  
ForeverFO
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Joined APC: Jul 2012
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More of the usual "it's the poor who cannot hack it in real life who join" rubbish. All three of my kids elected to serve when they could have gone to just about any school and pursued a civilian career.

It further insinuates that it is the lower ranks who suffer, while the officers sit in air conditioned shacks, sipping lattes and communicating via SATCOM. Maybe the O-5's and up do, but the lieutenants and captains are in the thick of it, leading from the front in many cases.

What the author needed to emphasize was the pathetic lack of mission focus. Afghanistan should have been over in a year. Overwhelming force, destruction and ejection of the Taliban and Al Quaeda; then, get out. Let it be known to them - "See how easily we crushed your forces? Behave yourselves. Export violence again, and we will return to do it once more."

Instead, we build schools, clinics, conduct shuras with village elders and goat herders, and bleed a torrent of cash into a social construct that will not last.

Ultimately, the military enforces political decisions drafted by civilians in Washington. It does not do this on its own.
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