It’s a joke, right? No joke. This is what happened to 48
Army Captains this week in Afghanistan.
These are not your normal non-critical rank support troops.
Captains are normally company-level command officers. They have a full
compliment of men and women under their command – depending on them for
life-and-death decisions in a war zone. Now some genius in the pentagon decides
to just pluck them out of the war zone and send them down the road.
Was there any thought of what the troops under them will do
without their commander? At best it would destroy morale. At worst it will lead
to deadly confusion leading to unnecessary risks and possible combat
casualties. Remember, we are still at war in Afghanistan.
And what of those officers suddenly canned? They aren’t
going to get a lot of time to look for a new job. “I’m sorry. I can’t come for
an interview right now. I’m in the middle of a firefight.” Yeah, that’s going
to go over with a prospective employer.
It is blatantly obvious this draw down and military
cost-cutting is not just misguided but gotten completely out-of-hand and
insane. How many officers are on the chopping block at the pentagon? Most of
those serving there are merely paper shufflers and pencil-pushers. They spend
the entire day in boring and mundane meetings where nothing of consequence gets
done, and shuttling paper from one office to another.
At the General and Admiral level, there are far to many
still serving. We have never had so many top-level officers even during the
Second World War. Many of these Generals are merely shining the seat of their
pants, and are far beyond retirement age.
Another factor that makes no sense is a report by the World
Tribune. Officials said the ‘Defense Department has been keeping records and
tracking Muslims so they can encourage their presence and continued advancement
in the military.’
We need more Muslims, not combat experienced Captains in the
Army? The inmates are seriously in charge of the asylum! Sure, bring on another
bunch of Muslim officers like Major Nadal Hassan, the Fort Hood murderer.
I am a strong proponent of cost-cutting, but there is a
right way and a wrong way to do it. This administration is hell-bent on doing
it the wrong way – a dangerous way for our nation. The draw down in Afghanistan
is a prime example of incompetent administration at its worst.
Instead of storing perfectly serviceable weapon systems or
selling or even donating them to friendly armies that desperately need them, we
blow up equipment we have paid billions for. Some of our best weapons such as
the A-10, “Warthog”, are to be scrapped with no suitable replacements, even though both the Marines and Army
say they are critically needed. The F-22 production is terminated in favor of
the troubled F-35. On, and on, and on…
Now we have military commanders being fired while still
engaged in combat. I guess this is what happens when you have a “community
organizer” for Commander-in-Chief of the nation’s military. My solution to the
problem would be to fire the man at the top and every unqualified civilian
beneath him, then replace him with someone who knows which end of a gun the
bullet comes out of. Put a qualified professional military man in charge.
I have to wonder what other idiotic actions might be planned
for our servicemen and women of the front line. Will they suddenly take their
weapons and ammunition in the middle of a firefight? I never thought anything
that outrageous could happen, but I’m not so sure these days.
