THE ABSURDITY OF IT ALL!!

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." —Thomas Paine · "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" —Samuel Adams

I only spent four years in the regular Navy, so my interaction with Admirals was limited to a brief visit to 50 Fell Street in San Francisco to submit my resignation to the Admiral Ryan, the chief of the division of the 7th Fleet that I was a part of, at his office in the heart of the San Francisco Civic Center.
Since I was a lowly lieutenant, I entered his office with great trepidation, but after I told him my "sad" personal story, he allowed me to resign with a stern lecture about what I was giving up and what the Navy had invested in me!
What has this got to do with anything that would interest some one who bothers to read this post, you say?

Well, even though it was not a pleasant experience for me. I noticed the zeal and dedication to the service that this Admiral had for the Naval service and the men whom he commanded that he felt I was letting down because of my resignation. WE did not have women in the Navy Fleet in those long gone days!

Fast forward to today, and I find a difference in attitude that Admiral Mullen, the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has than the Flag officers of the "old" Navy
Admiral Mullen serves as the principal military advisor to the president, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.A military bureaucrat! A product of the new military high command who seem to me to be more politically correct than Flag Rank officers were in the days of my service and both of my brothers who served in the Army and Marines.

Why, You ask do you feel this way. Well,not only the CJCS but the General in Charge of "winning"( that's a dirty word to our president) the war in Afghanistan seem to be preoccupied with winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. A people who hate us because we invaded their country! They hated and defated a Russian force of over 100,000 troops, and are dedicated to drive us out!Yet our Flag leaders appear to be more interested in their attitude towardus than winning the war!

To back up my charge that Admiral Mullen is politically correct. I include an excerpt from a speech he gave to the media today. A speech he gave regarding our mission in Afghanistan.
"No amount of public relations will establish credibility of the United States if American behaviour overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has said in a critique of the government’s efforts at ‘strategic communication with the Muslim world’.

‘To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,’ Admiral Mullen wrote in an essay published on Friday by the Joint Force Quarterly, a military journal.

According to the New York Times, the admiral’s views were significant as they coincided with the Obama administration’s fresh efforts to counter militant propaganda as part of its strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
How about winning the war and then worrying about rebuilding the Country. Or are were just there to destroy the military by attrition?

Fortunately we have not heard that our men lack clothing and "KIT" as some British mothers have told the London Times as recently as yesterday. One poor women said she had spent over a thousand pounds( their version of dollars) during the past year buying boots, socks,a thermal sleeping bag and t-shirts for her son who is serving in the British Army in Afghanistan. She had to buy these items from a military surplus store, because the Army only issued one pair of boots,a non-thermal sleeping bag and two t-shirts, and had no replacements!

Yet, as Oliver North reports in today's Patriot Post that "On Capitol Hill, members of Congress have threatened to cut the budgets of federal agencies that use security contractors instead of government employees to protect key personnel and sensitive installations.

At the Pentagon -- which uses more civilian contractors in the war effort than any other U.S. government entity -- the response to the criticism was capitulation.

In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to hire 30,000 additional DoD employees to cut the percentage of work being done by contractors. The fiscal year 2010 defense budget request replaces nearly 14,000 contractor personnel with government employees -- even though the "lifetime cost," counting government benefits and retirement, will more than double the expense to American taxpayers.

The numbers don't mesh, but when it comes to getting the press and politicians off the backs of Pentagon poo-bahs, cutting contractors loose is apparently a small price to pay".
Maybe this is how Obama plans to get more people off unemployment by enlarging the Federal government workforce!

Across the Atlantic,the British politicians are ignoring the fact that they are in a war more than our politicians and media are here at home. This story from London should remind us where we are leading our troops if our politicians don't start concentrating on the war we are involved in, and give less attention to socializing our health care industry!

In a column in The London Times newspaper, Lord Guthrie wrote: "And muddle is the word, as was manifest in a scathing report into defence procurement leaked this week.

General Lord Charles Guthrie,"Its author, the former Labour adviser Bernard Gray, an experienced observer of the defence scene, blamed incompetence and "political fudge" for £35 billion of defence project overspending.

"Moreover, The Times revealed that poor decisions about software have kept eight Chinook helicopters, costing a total of £259 million, in climate-controlled hangars during the Iraq and Afghan conflicts.

"Such an error would never happen in the private sector without dismissals and a plain identification of where the buck stopped. (Socialism raises it's ugly head)

"The revelation is all the more appalling because Chinooks are lifesavers. They are the safest way to evacuate injured soldiers from the battlefield - and a brilliant tactical device to get behind Taliban lines to confuse and mystify the enemy.

"Chinooks also help resupply and reinforcement where land movement is dangerous.

The Afghanistan dilemma is best explained by the size and structure of the Ministry of Defence. The department employs 87,000 civilian staff for 175,000 servicemen and women.

"At the head of this unwieldy edifice are six ministers, each enjoying a private office and their own staff - six private empires, with their own turf to be jealously guarded. Sadly, bigger does not mean more efficient; usually quite the opposite.

"Ministers change, but permanent staff ought to be there to provide continuity and experience. Unfortunately, too many senior civil servants in today's MoD lack a defence background.

"Instead, they are parachuted in to lead this complex department with little idea of how it works."

Meanwhile figures showed the Armed Forces are thousands of personnel short of requirements. (maybe it is because little old ladies have to buy "KIT" for their sons and grandsons who are fighting a war that no one wants to recognize), and to top it off their government officials made a deal apparently, to release the plotter of the Lockerbie airplane disaster so he can be back in Lybia with his fellow Britt and American haters!