Supporting Our Troops by Treating them as Children and Drunkards
The diversion of resources this proposed insanity represents from warfighting, acquisition, real military training or PME, medical care for our wounded or a thousand other authentic needs of the Navy or Marine Corps would be a scandal in an earlier era. But we do not live in an earlier era, and the defense budget is just another pile of seed corn to eat as far as the beltway boomer oligarchy are concerned.
Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, Great Britain’s greatest military hero, when asked about his soldiers, described them as “The scum of the Earth, enlisted for drink”. Winston Churchill, over a century later, said the culture of the Royal Navy was based upon “Rum, sodomy and the lash”. This encapsulates an aristocratic worldview of rulers toward their servants and comprises a long military tradition in whose footsteps Navy Secretary Mabus is following.
It just isn’t an American military tradition.
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Larry Dunbar:
March 16th, 2012 at 6:18 pm
If the Navy is like the private sector, it has always been full of “drunkards” and “children”, but they would probably be called officers in the navy.
J. Scott Shipman:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
This is one of the dumbest and most asinine things a navy secretary has ever done. I call it the Nannie Navy gone wild.
Ski:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:18 pm
And if one wonders why people are reluctant to serve their country, you can thank inane policies like this one. There’s more to follow as the Services withdraw back into their “peacetime” focus…thank God I have less than seven years left, because I am sick and tired of being treated like a child despite multiple deployments, multiple Master’s degrees and years worth of leading troops.
YNSN:
March 16th, 2012 at 10:21 pm
10 years fighting this Nation’s wars. 10 years following orders. 10 years running to the sounds of gunfire. 10 years of multiple deployments.
10 years is not long enough to earn the trust of our senior leadership. Our deeds are not worthy of seeing us as any different than vagrants. I want none of it, and may damn well vote with my feet. EAOS isn’t far away.
tdaxp:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
The recent massacre in Afghanistan was apparently sparked by alcohol consumption. If an organization is going to hire a workforce so low-quality that a night’s drinking can turn into a strategic disaster, breathalyzers may be appropriate.
Nathaniel T. Lauterbach:
March 17th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
tdaxp-perhaps rather than blame a single soldier, perhaps we instead should blame the coterie of politicians, wonks, and generals who built a pursued a strategy so fragile that it could be derailed by the most banal of events–a man drinking.
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Zen-a post I can raise a glass to!
tdaxp:
March 18th, 2012 at 2:59 am
Nathan, I don’t think we disagree — the organization may be too fragile HR wise for the job assigned to it. Whoever is morally to blame, the quality of the workforce may not match the quality of the problem.
zen:
March 18th, 2012 at 4:20 am
Well, I think we need to be cautious about attributing Sgt. Bales’ massacre to alcohol, brain injury, marital issues or the other tales that have been floated to reporters to see what narrative “sticks” in the MSM. Lots of soldiers have three tours these days and get drunk. Very few deliberately kill children. They saw worse combat (though not for as long) and had access to far more alcohol in their off-hours (with official indulgence) in WWII and Korea and troops did not go on killing sprees.
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A court found Sgt. Bales had “anger management” issues back here at home. He spent a long time in grade without promotion despite being (reportedly) a brave, reliable combat infantryman. That indicates to me his “fitreps” had mixed reviews, possibly related to interpersonal skills that caused promotion to be denied. He may have simply, been very, very angry about deaths of US personnel at Afghan hands or any number of personal grievances that cause middle-aged white guys to “go postal” and then when postal on Afghans near at hand. Or Bales may be insane. no one knows at this point.
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Interestingly enough, Bales killings have not sparked the same popular response as the burning Korans did and his actions may have been interpreted understood by Afghans as “revenge” for their fragging of Americans and something that may possibly recur even though this may not have been the motive at all.. Fear may explain the unusually subdued reaction. hard to say from here.
Cheryl Rofer:
March 18th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
If private employers can insist on urine tests, and if organizations like the CIA and national laboratories rely on urine and lie detector tests, hey, why not the military?
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The point is that nobody trusts anyone any more. The excuse is that those unreliable slaveys do drugs and get drunk and lie, but when you expect that kind of behavior, you’re more likely to find it.
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There’s a fine line involved in trusting people, and employers have given up finding it.
zen:
March 20th, 2012 at 4:48 am
Hi Cheryl,
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Many private employers drug test in case of a serious accident (i.e. there’s cause to check to see if someone was impaired) or as an initial or semi-annual condition of employment where it makes sense to do so. I know of no example where all employees are drug tested daily by private employers – they would balk at the costs if for no other reason because testing most employees all the time is pure waste – which is what the Navy and USMC would be doing.