Sam and I hope that Congress and President Obama will keep our military forces strong; not just because of the recent threats from that North Korean yahoo, but because our military must be prepared to protect our country from all threats at all times.
Granted, military spending needs to be reined in. An article in The Olympian newspaper by Adam Ashton, says that the Army program that keeps those eight-wheeled Stryker vehicles going (the Stryker brigades train here in Washington at Joint Base Lewis-McChord), “accumulated nearly $900 million worth of Stryker replacement parts” during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and much of that equipment became outdated “even as the military continued to order more equipment, according to a Defense Department Inspector General report released late last year.”
That reminds Sam and me of the military’s $600 toilet seat boondoggles or the $300 coffee pots boondoggle or $436 hammers or $17,000 pans attached beneath the roof of a helicopter to catch leaking transmission fluid before it could seep into the cabin, when a $2,500 pan would do the job just as well. And are those leak pans secured with some of those $17 bolts we’ve heard about? Where the heck are the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) people when we’re getting ripped off like that?
Still, in spite of the over-spending and rampant waste (lobbied for by big defense contractors and others), and despite the estimated $6 trillion cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, our military must remain strong. We must find ways to cut costs without allowing terrorists and others to destroy our country. We cannot become a third-world military power. One way, of course, would be to avoid getting ourselves embroiled in stupid and unnecessary wars like Vietnam and Iraq.
If you think our military will continue to be strong enough to withstand any attack if its budget is cut too strenuously, think again. Obviously, over-priced equipment alone can’t keep us safe. But Ashton reported in another newspaper article how soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord are having to make up for the lack of real artillery drills by using virtual computer programs instead. Some of my South Sound neighbors apparently like this because they aren’t complaining so much now about the boom, boom, boom of howitzers and canons keeping them awake at night. Humph! To Sam and me that’s the sound of freedom. We don’t mind occasional military helicopter training overhead either. A bunch of wet-panty sissies have even protested that we shouldn’t be using drone planes to kill the enemy. Geez, that’s one of the most effective weapons we’ve conjured up in a long time and they cost way less than real airplanes with pilots.
It should be plainly obvious to anyone with half a brain though, that the real way to keep our military strong is to keep it adequately manned with people, if not weapons. I hate to say this because I willingly avoided (not evaded) going to Vietnam, but we really need to bring the mandatory draft back and stop trying to get by with an all volunteer force. Look at Israel remaining strong if you need a good argument for the draft.
Mark our words, America will be over run someday, just as England was overrun by the French Normans, just as German tribes overran much of the rest of Europe, just as the Visigoths and Vandals overran the Roman Empire and just as Genghis Kahn overran Eurasia.
My hope is that our country remains strong for a long time and it doesn’t fall at least until I’m long gone. The really sad thing is that no matter how well we are equipped and manned against outside forces, we’ll most likely implode from within anyway.
Three bags of poop on that, but if you look at history accurately, you’ll see that countries where their leaders gridlocked on how to rule, were the most likely to implode. Play on Nero.
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