Fuck.

[Minimalist]

I don't know if I buy the 'rah-rah' stuff.  Soldiers seem to fight for each other.  That's why unit cohesion is so important.  We forgot that in Vietnam and it cost us dearly.  I doubt that any soldier in the trenches thought about "making the world safe for democracy."  Probably more concerned with getting the job done and getting the fuck out of there.

[The Grand Nudger]

The "rah-rah" stuff is part of the training.  All part of what encourages us to do what we do (and to be ashamed by the very thought of failure).  You're right, though....I never met a ground pounder that gave two shits about spreading democracy, leave that up to the fobbits who write ad copy for the dolts back home.  Point us at a target, we're gonna make the people inside wish they were already dead, and try to keep ourselves and our friends from getting killed in the process.  Hell, most of us would rather sit in front of a camera and recite the ad copy (seems more authentic coming from infantry than some rear echelon motherfucker) than do even that.  When we're at point break we help each other get hurt in creative ways for a little time with Mama Brown.  Brotherly love right thur. Speaking of vietnam, that breakdown in combat units and their open dereliction of duty was only possible because they stood together. One dissenter gets shot. A company of dissenters gets a vacation. That's referred to as a soldiers "right to miss". Not much that superiors can do about it in the end. They either treat their men right or their men suddenly become ineffective...one way or another. All of this is even more costly NCO training speaking, a'course.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Tell him he can have more troops but if his plan doesn't work he gets a firing squad.  

Why does the US spend so much time and money on training when the enemy only has to give their guys 5 minutes?  Maybe we ought to hire their trainers.

So that we can all stand in formation and yell:

"I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained soldier in the world.  In the race for victory I am swift, determined, and courageous.  Armed with a fierce will to win, never will I fail my countries trust, always I fight on, through the foe, to the objective, to victory overall.  If necessary I will fight to my death."

-and mean it.  

Whereas the other guys are chronically shitty with their own equipment no matter who they stole it from or how awesome it is...and run like roaches to save their skin leaving their gear behind them at the ao they lost.  Not that this hasn't been working of late...but that has to do with the ROE more than anything else.   Give a mech infantry company open license and watch how their training clears a city block of effective enemies in an hour, for generations.   OTOH, don't give them that and see how their training prevents wholesale slaughter of anything that sneezes in the wrong direction - even if it means they take a bullet or two for their trouble.  We project our power in a way, even when we fuck up, that's hard to match.  That's training, and it's expensive.

(my bolds for you Min....seems we have trouble instilling that in others, agreed)

When it's all said and done it's stupid for people to run off to war just because some dumb ass politician tells them to do it.  The most they get out of it is some medals worth a couple of pennies.

[The Grand Nudger]

They don't do it for the politicians, and most will never see medals.  The pennies, however, pretty choice...especially since our armed forces are mostly made of the lower crust..best paying job they've ever had or will have...shitty as that is.  More than just a few joined for three hots and a cot.  Even more to repay a debt. If that means they have to shoot at Charles, or weather a shell from Arthur... from time to time, they're game.

Know what infantry do for 90% of their careers?  Mow the lawn..wash the windows, haul bags of cement, drink themselves silly.  Pretty much the same thing they'd be doing back home, but for slightly better pay and benefits....and "some" of them are just as likely to get shot back home too.

Back to the will to fight. I've been wondering for some time why we fail so hard there when it comes to training foreign nationals. Are we bad at picking winners, good at picking losers...why doesn't it work? Works for us. I suspect theres a failure at the NCO or CO level that accounts for it...but it's unlikely that we'd ever get any honest data on that. We'd have to ask the NCO/COs.......

[Reforged]

"War, war never changes."... or "War has changed."
Its one of the two.

[Minimalist]

The most they get out of it is some medals worth a couple of pennies.

"You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led… Do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning? Never. That is only good for the scholar in his study. The soldier needs glory, distinctions, and rewards."


Napoleon Bonaparte

[The Grand Nudger]

Amen to that.  Asking a person to run into oncoming fire or kill another person is, at it's heart, probably an unreasonable request.  You have to get passed that to get them to do what you want.  There's the idea that an order, a lawful order, one which a soldier is bound to carry out is recognizable to even the least accomplished "reasoner" in the bunch as both reasonable and lawful.  That's taking a special definition, a military definition....that, by necessity, ignores any question of whether or not the entire -field- is unreasonable at it's heart.  

You can talk a soldier into something, sure.  You can explain it..step by step, with reason.  But when you need it done now...and you always need it done now, you're going to want to go another way with it.  Tug on his heart.  Push his pride.  Appeal to his shame.  Remind him of the coin, the girls back home, the weight of the medals you'll put on his chest or his casket. If all else fails, appeal to his hatreds and prejudices.


"Kill those spineless motherfuckers, put your name on the wall, earn your pay, go home, get the girl...and make your momma proud. Hooah!"

[Minimalist]

I was looking for something else but found this instead:



I liked it.


Back to work.

[Minimalist]

Found it.

If my soldiers began to think, not one would remain in the ranks.

Frederick the Great

[Minimalist]

Holy shit.  Frederick was quite enlightened by the Enlightenment!

Christianity… is an old metaphysical fiction, stuffed with fables, contradictions and absurdities: it was spawned in the fevered imagination of the Orientals, and then spread to our Europe, where some fanatics espoused it, where some intriguers pretended to be convinced by it and where some imbeciles actually believed it.

Frederick the Great