Have you been watching the news lately? I found something most interesting recently.
The other week, President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called 800 U.S. generals, admirals and their senior leaders stationed from around the world to convene in Quantico, Virginia, to discuss the future of the military.
Our defense budget at work I was thinking; I may have sent a memo to them and saved those dollars.
Hegseth has fired several military leaders to include some minorities and eliminated the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) program in the ranks.
The new Secretary wants no ‘fat, unfit or undertrained troops, or any leaders who were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and war fighting.’
He further announced that all ‘fitness tests’ will be gender-neutral and age-neutral and returned to the “highest male standard only,” no exceptions.
There will be no ‘diversity quotas’ considered for promotion simply because of race or gender.’
Hegseth called for a military culture shift from ‘woke’ to ‘warrior’.
As I recalled my own military basic training back in 1966, boot camp was not a picnic. It was a place of discipline, orders, training and preparation to become an American fighting soldier; a good experience for some 18-year-old Dargan kid at the time.
But today, I have grown older and a bit wiser in regard to war, and I certainly agree that the military soldier must be fully prepared to do combat in today’s world.
However that said, there is one disparaging element that needs also to be addressed, and that is simple; those who make wars should be more conscious and respectful of that American soldier who bleeds to achieve their political wishes.
I stood years ago in the spot where Gen. Custer was killed by the Native Americans. He chose a spot to represent his government, at the lower part of a hill where thousands of Native Americans slaughtered him and his troops; a poor political and military blunder.
Men and women alike helped win World War II and even Native Americans. I still remember the ladies building planes at Fairchild, Ira Hayes, and the Indian Code talkers.
I served in the Army during the Vietnam war, where the Secretary of Defense McNamara concluded it was an ‘unwinnable’ war yet continued to send young soldiers to their death.
The political ‘genius’ of Lydon Johnson and others to send over 58,000 young American to Southeast Asia to die was ‘ill-conceived and fatal.’ Many veterans still suffer from their wounds today.
We lost that war and should not have been there in the first place. Perhaps the new Secretary of War might help us to educate political leaders who make dumb decisions and not make one himself like McNamara or Custer.
Political leaders have been slow to learn their responsibilities and exhibited more than poor judgement in going to many military skirmishes.
You don’t believe me yet?
Take a look at years of military deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq.
And when you ponder that investment, ask yourself what did we get for our military commitment in that part of the world? Look too, at what political leaders are responsible for to include soldiers’ deaths, injuries and the large amount of deficit added to our country’s budget?
We need a strong military for sure.
But even more important is for someone to send a message to those aggressive political types who charge the world scene just like some Custer at the bottom of the hill without a good plan.
Can you begin to name all the skirmishes and wars this country has lost? If you can, you will begin to realize how ‘dumb and dumber’ some of our political leaders really are.
Those political leaders who make wars go home and rest in their warm beds, while ‘brave’ dead soldiers must ‘eternally’ sleep in the cold ground without a blanket.
Perhaps Will Rogers came up with that best advice for eliminating wars:
‘I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this ~ no nation is allowed to go to war till they have paid for the last one.’
And Carl Sandburg, in his ‘The People,’ Yes’ poem added his own wish;
“Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.”
May peace be with you, and I hope wisdom is embraced before any more ‘Warrior Soldiers’ die for no reason.
Amen.
