The U.S. Military is near and dear to my heart, as close as the love of this Nation is. Both are interwoven and inseparable, one can not survive without the other. For most of my blog postings, I put various obvious, acute, unheard of, observations, my thoughts and rebuttals, some spackled with humor or drama in the form of video or photos. With this one, number 900 on BirdsEyeView at Townhall - dot – com, I wanted to do something a little different and a bit more self absorbed. Instead of an observation, complaint, whine, moan, bellyache about how Obama and the Democrats are putting this Nation straight into the crapper, I’m going to give a plausible, workable, suggestion. 

          Should this Nation survive intact after the DNC controlled Congress and Presidency have been voted out, this Nation needs to identify exactly what it wants out of it’s military.   After the Cold War ended…that thing President Reagan (R) was able to accomplish, one of the main concerns voiced by both parties and the Military establishment, was that the U.S. was not going to become the World’s Policeman. 

     Well, guess what….we are the World’s Policeman. The Gulf War proved that point, and the Balkan’s and Somalia cemented that ideal. The Afghanistan War and the Iraq War even pushed us further into the role of World’s policeman. No other Nation had the military might to go confront Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their home yard as did the United States. Plus keep the Korea’s from fighting, and keep a presence in the Balkan’s, the Sinai, and rotate troops, planes, ships all over the World. 

     That role of World’s policeman is coming to an end. It must be recognized and admitted. Not that we’re declining militarily…but more so..economically and politically. 

     With the People’s Republic of China rising, Russia reasserting itself, Iran, Venezuela, Brazil all building militaries far disproportional to their realistic defensive needs, the U.S. role in ‘keeping the peace’ is over. The U.S. has to get serious about it’s own military defensive and offensive capabilities. What is the huge thorn, the major bane to the protection of the United States and it’s citizens, are the politicians in Washington D.C.

     While they all take an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States, they’re just words to most of them. I honestly do not believe that they believe in those words of their oath, nor would they lay down their lives to protect our Constitution. There is very little honor and integrity in the politicians in Washington D.C. anymore for ‘The People’ to honestly see, hear, and believe in. 

     Having said that…..for our military to go forward and become a true ‘military’, then several things much change. One of the biggest obstacles, is the separation of ‘military’ from ‘World’s policeman’. 

     A policeman protects and serves his/her community. They do so by following and enforcing the laws. They do so with by using the least force necessary to accomplish their job. Police operate under a severe set of rules governing everything they do in the performance of their job in order to ‘protect and serve’. 

    A soldier, defends his/her Nation and it’s People. They do so by stopping anyone who plans and executes harm towards this Nation/People.  How it’s accomplished has become so blurred in gray, that our soldiers are nothing more than glorified policemen, following a huge set of bureaucratic rules and regulations that their own lives are often put in jeopardy unnecessarily. 

    One of the lesson’s out of the Iraq War, is that the United States does not have the manpower necessary to go to full out war. With regular Army and Marine units stripped bare to find infantrymen, with the Air Force and Navy personnel who lost their ‘jobs’ due to downsizing given a choice to join the Army and become infantry. With National Guard units called up repeatedly to fill massive voids. With the huge explosion of private security companies.   All of these are huge markers, huge indicators, that the U.S. Military is severely strained and that planners and politicians all, failed to project and see this coming. 

     B.E.V has done a few entries already on the ‘stretched too thin’ military, showing Air Force personnel manning APC’s duing the opening phases of the Iraq War, where it should have been Soldiers doing these jobs. 

      The Army has several units of ‘armored’ billeted personnel dismounted and doing infantry work. That is something a military does only during ‘defeat’, as Germany did with it’s Air Force and Navy in World War Two by making them ‘infantry’. 

     So what do we do?   First we must separate a soldier from a warrior.

Is there a difference between a warrior and a soldier? That’s a debatable concept that a good forum could tackle, one that better minds than mine might be able to give good argument to. 

 Going through about ten online definitions for both, these are the basic definitions I found for each:

Warrior:

noun (especially in former times) a brave or experienced soldier or fighter.

1. fighter: somebody who takes part in or is experienced in warfare

2. somebody in conflict: somebody who takes part in a struggle or conflict

1297, from O.N.Fr. werreieor (O.Fr. guerreor) "a warrior, one who wages war," from werreier "wage war," from werre

Soldier:

sol·dier [ s?lj?r ]

noun (plural sol·diers)

Definition:

1. somebody serving in army: somebody who serves in a military organization

2. army member below officer rank: a member of an army, of a rank below commissioned officer

3. skilled warrior: a skilled and experienced fighter or military strategist

a person who is in an army and wears its uniform, especially someone who fights when there is a war:

    a person who is in an army and wears its uniform, esp. someone who fights when there is a war

 Here are the B.E.V.’s attempt to define them:

Warrior: a person dedicated to and skilled in the arts of warfare, and whose lifestyle is existence upon warfare.

Soldier: a person skilled in military disciplines, whose tenure may be either voluntary or conscripted. Who wears a uniform or distinctive clothing identifying allegiance of servitude. 

     In building a true ‘military’, our Nation must accept that ‘warriors’ are a different breed of people. Many good personnel left the ‘service’ during these current wars and went to work for private security companies like Blackwater and DynCorp, not because they wanted just more pay, but because they were allowed to be ‘warriors’.   Today’s military is way too constrained in it’s approached to warfare because of our politicians and liberal left lawyers. Many good ‘soldiers’ desired to continue to serve, but were hampered and angered by the huge amount of restrictive rules used on a battlefield. 

    The only rule on a battlefield is the rule to survive. Everything else is mute. Bombs and bullets do not answer to nor care about the Geneva Convention, the UCMJ, or the mountains of lawsuits put forth by the ACLU. The enemies of the United States neither do they care about the above mentioned. Their goal is rule one, survive. 

    To build a better military, the system much change. No one wants an army of wanton killers on the field to represent the U.S. No true American is in their heart or mind, desiring to be that kind of person. We would build Terminator robots and unleashed them if that were the case (something DARPA may need to look at though). 

    What must change is the restrictive nature that governs our soldiers on the battlefields, not only must they be allowed to be soldiers in the service of their Nation, but they must be allowed to be warriors in every sense/meaning of the word.

     Conscription does not work in order to maintain a good military, unless it’s in time of a truly National emergency and situation such as World War Two. Forced servitude only begets marginal performers in times of peace, sometimes it also builds a monster in the form of ‘secret police’ and political ‘para-military’ forces. 

    Many good people want to, they desire to serve their Nation, but are often left out because of physical disabilities that are of no consequence in the civilian work force. Also, good people are left out because of their sexual preference. While the later is highly contentious still, some day, even that barrier will fall. 

     As long as I brought it up, let’s get this argument out of the way. Don’t ask, don’t tell works. Think about it, it does. In the military, the performance of what a military is supposed to do….sex does not matter, and it should not. Not to the Nation, not to the individual. What matters in the military is stopping the enemy from harming the United States and it’s People. If a person cares more about having sex, then the military is not for that person, that’s how serious the performance and execution of duties of the military has to be.  

     If a person is more concerned about having sex, then a military career is something that a person should seriously consider before joining. What a person does off duty, I personally, don’t care. Just that when a person is on a base, in uniform, it’s all about their duty, not about having sex. A warrior would understand this concept.

     Separating the soldier from the warrior.   That’s difficult since the two are so close in defining. But to build a true military, this Nation must move forward and do just that. As I said, many good people want to serve. Maybe they are unable to run three miles, do twenty push ups, and run three more. Maybe they can run/walk one mile and do three push ups. A person must be able to perform minimal physical task without assistance, for the simple reason, lives depend upon it. 

    The National Guard for many people has come to be a place to serve yet stay home. Unfortunately, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have changed the dynamics of what the ‘Guard’ used to be. In moving forward, this is one place where we must step back and build a solid National Guard that is more fit to serve the States in which they live. 

    The ‘military’ Reserves should be the ones plugging all the gaps that the Guard has had to do. If planners and politicians would have done their jobs properly, maybe this would already have been the case. 

    This Nation needs a strong and viable National Guard. They don’t need to ‘warriors’, they can be ‘soldiers’ and still serve their Nation and ‘The People’. Between hurricane Katrina and the fires, floods, and tornadoes that have wreaked havoc the past five years, the need for a viable National Guard is more than evident.

     Just as the two wars, ‘war on terror’, have indicated and proven that the United States needs a very strong and viable military. President Obama wants to build a large ‘job corps’, but that is going in the very wrong direction. Those ‘jobs’ are something city mayors need to do for their own people. Youth volunteer/civic groups are something that should remain locally controlled and over watched by a State’s Governor.

     Another aspect I want to throw into here about ‘service’, is ‘age’. As with physical and sexual preference limitations to serve, age is also a factor that saps our military of good people. The use of private security companies has cost the United States a lot of money and a lot of political headaches. This is where the ‘Gray Eagles’ Brigade would come in and fit nicely.

    The Gray Eagles are guys like me. We’re middle age, we’ve served our 30 years, but we’re in just as good physical condition as the average sailor, soldier, airman. If you ever run a 5K, 10K, and see some gray haired old guy buzz by you like you’re standing still, you might understand. The desire to serve this Nation does not end when the paper work shuffle tells us it’s over. This Nation has a huge pool of untapped resource in ‘Gray Eagles’, men and women, still viable and willing to serve, maybe just one tour, but we are out here. Professional military personnel, limited only by ‘age’ discrimination and a ‘30’ year rule. 

    Building a Gray Eagles Brigade would be ‘different’. It would almost be an unconventional force since the DoD could not bring back a bunch of retired E6 to O10’s and put them back at the same rank/pay. A new ‘set’ of ranking would have to be set up, except for a very few who could be brought back at their previous ‘rank’ if they were recently released from active service. The Army would be the place to build a GEB, and previous service, i.e. USN, USAF, would not matter.   This unit would be totally encapsulated unto itself, sending company sized units out as needed to augment Army and Marine units in operational and support areas to provide that pro-active security and patrolling, freeing up combat units to continue forward operations.

     With the growing unabated external threats, seen and unseen, our own military is what must be prioritized by our Nation’s politicians, and from The People themselves.