We Need a Limited Military Draft

Careful! That kind of talk will get you called a Putin puppet on this forum quicker that you can swig a bowl of borscht! The establishment consensus is that America must defend Europe forever and ever because of reasons, and if the flyover Russian traitors who have traditionally had to fight the wars start getting uppity about it, they'll find themselves on the wrong end of an FBI investigation.

 

The problem isn't solved by forcing people to fight in wars congress never approved and the people don't support.

The problem is that we are getting involved in these wars in the first place. What's more is that government is driving us to the brink of Wwiii. I feel like the right thing to do and fight for our country is to give up our lives in jail by refusing to contribute to this insanity and hopefully ensure that our children do have a future. So the moral and patriotic thing to do is to not fight for the deep state but instead fight for Americans.

 

Fort Leonard Wood, MO. 1976-1979.

 

Just to pass the time, I figured out how much we spent on fresh milk for our troops and dependents when I arrived in Germany in 1979.... $3 MILLION... EVERY DAY!

 

Okay. Sometimes it’s a small world, and unexpected coincidences can happen.

 

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Re:

Would you please clarify who and what agencies, lobbies and organizations you feel make up America's "deep state"?

Thanks,

 

For about 8 - 9 weeks, I spent an eternity at "Ft. Lost-In-The-Wood" back in 1970.

Not my favorite place to be.

 

All of the unelected people in government in all the institutions. These people are the cells and deep state this organism, the body.
They work together like cells in a body to preserve the body and protect the body, which is government/deep state and often times that takes priority over the needs and wants of the American people. There doesn't necessarily need to be a few puppeteers conspiring in the background. There additionally other corrupt organisms infecting the government for their own interests but that is a separate from deep state.

 

You wouldn't recognize the place today. It is now "The Combat Support Center of Excellence". Home for the Engineer Corps, Military Police Corps, and Chemical Corps.

 

I'm glad that the place haas been cleaned up.

When I was there (January, February March) there were multiple murders in which the killers would cut their victims into pieces and stuffing the body parts into random trash cans.

The killers would attack guys pulling guard duty with unloaded M-14s at around 2AM to 5AM but I went out and bought my own magazines and ammunition because, as you know, it's better to be judged by 12 than be carried by 6.

I hope that your experience there was better.

 

I had a great time there. It was my first regular duty station after being Commissioned and attending the Field Artillery Off icer Basic Course. I started out as a Company XO and learned a lot from my Company Commander. As you well know, its an isolated place, so I was able to earn my MBA. There crises and successes, as in everything. I was selected to meet with BG S.L.A. Marshall, the Army Historian, an honor I'll never forget. We just sat and talked for an entire afternoon. I wish it had happened later in my career. I was too inexperienced at the time and really didn't know what to ask or learn from him. But it was still a great experience. Over the years I met some of the folks I helped get through Basic... from a guy who says I helped him get established in a great career and have a great family to another recruit that called me so may years later when he became a General. Drill Sergeants are the best of the best and they taught me a lot about leadership. I'm still in contact with those Drills almost 50 years later. I look back on my days at Leonbard Wood as some of the most enjoyable and rewarding in my life.

 

That's ridiculous.

That's ridiculous. NATO should have ceased to exist three decades ago. It accomplishes little of substance and nothing to benefit the United States.

Your numbers are not relevant.

Repeating something does not make the claim correct, just annoying.

Which is as it should be. It's not our problem.

No matter how many times you repeat that, it is still not correct.

 

Interesting subject. My general opinion is that NATO was still essential, but not so critical as the Soviet Union dissolved and eastern European nations, previously under the heel of Moscow, sought and gained independence. The fact that the US Army V Corps headquarters, located in Germany for so many decades is now located in Poland. (I've always thought one big indicator of the newly freed nations of Eastern Europe supporting the spirit of NATO was Poland's official request to have American forces stationed on Polish soil, accompanied by a $3 Billion grant to build facilities to house these forces.) But things are changing. Russia, once the greatest threat we faced, now seems unable to field a military FORCE generally lacking "force". In Ukraine they have appeared tactically inept, technically inferior, logistically weak and, generally, just... clumsy. I'm not ready to discount the threat posed by the Russian military yet, but things have definitely changed.

As we have bolstered NATO, we have pretty much abandoned any similar efforts in the Pacific region. SEATO, a NATO-like alliance which involved us in the Viet Nam War, has been dissolved. A hodgepodge of essentially impotent replacements like AUKUS and ANZUS has left us organizationally defenseless against the newer and much more capable threat of China. It would appear to me to be a much better idea to take some of the resources we are expending defending Ukraine and invest them in the Pacific region.

The bottom line is that Russia has essentially demonstrated that it "can't fight its way out of a paper bag" in Ukraine... while China is chomping at the bit to conquer Taiwan, the Philippines', South Korea, and realistically, even threatens Japan.

In any case, it would seem an adjustment in strategy, effort, and policy is suggested.

 

You could muster up every one of the purple haired "This is what a feminist looks like" t-shirt wearers with two moms and we'd still lose.

This isn't a case of not enough people.

This is a case of there being far more people in this country who couldn't survive a 2 hour power outage than there are capable people to protect everyone.

Those who are capable are choosing not to join a fighting force that skips into combat and spends 7 hours of the day discussing the patriarchy.

 

Democrats solution is to tithe the barbarians at the gate.

Look at what they're doing in leftist cities trying to pay criminals not to shoot the place up.

 

Illegal aliens are being sworn in as police officers in leftist cities.

Of course they're joining the military.

 

Remember, only 3 out of every ten citizens of service age are eligible to join the military due to lack of high school diploma, obesity, or having a criminal record. Only 3 out of ten are even eligible to serve... an issue to be dealt with long before you get to "who wants to serve and who doesn't".

 

What a depressing, yet true observation.

 

Know thy enemy.

 

Which one? The Chinese one? The Russian one? The Iranian one? Or the domestic, woke one?

 

Hard to stop a home invader when the house is on fire.

 

Good post. Very informative LOL

Why post to say nothing?

Good

 

Actually, that is not true at all. We reduced them a hell of a lot.

At the end of the Cold War, we had over 210,000 military personnel in Germany alone. Today, that number stands at around 33,000. We had around 25,000 military personnel in Panama, that number today is under 100. We had around 25,000 personnel in the Philippines, that number is also around 100 today. Around 15,000 in Italy, which today is also under 100.

I can go on and on, but I think I have made my point. We have disbanded entire Divisions (both infantry and armored) that were stationed in Europe during the Cold War, and were no longer needed so are now gone. About the only one that we are still active in but has not had a significant change is Japan. Which was at 47,000 at the end of the Cold War, and is at around the same number today.

 

I think you made my point. We reduced forces and capabilities, but we didn't reduce our actual commitment. We're as obligated to defend Germany whether we have 210,000 troops stationed there or 1.