Joe Galloway: How to Ruin a Great Army? See Donald Rumsfeld

[mediaman007]

Looks like the U.S. Military might begin to appreciate the Big Dog afterall!

"Armies are fragile institutions, and for all their might, easily broken.

"It took the better part of 20 years to rebuild the army from the wreckage of Vietnam. With the hard work of a generation of young officers, blooded in Vietnam and determined that the mistake would never be repeated, a new Army rose Phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, now perhaps the finest army in history.

"In just over three years, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his civilian aides have done just about everything they could to destroy the army."

http://www.military.com/NewContent?file=Galloway_092403

Well, well, well. The wheels on the bus are really coming off. I doubt that Rumsfeld can intimidate this website. This article really cuts deep.

DU's members wrote about this alot before the war.

[E_Zapata]

1. Galloway is no ordinary reporter either. A Texan to boot!

I guess it's true. the CIA does control the media.

Cause the media is becoming what I always thought it was: a bunch of bad news hungry yard dogs. Incredible.

Joseph L. Galloway is a special consultant to Knight Ridder Newspapers. One of America's preeminent war correspondents, with more than four decades as a reporter and writer, he recently concluded an assignment as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell at the State Department.

Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent 22 years as a foreign and war correspondent and bureau chief for United Press International, and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report magazine. His overseas postings include tours in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow in the former Soviet Union. During the course of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War and half a dozen other combat operations.

In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division (Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The finest combat correspondent of our generation -- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."

[E_Zapata]

2. This is a must read/must save article

--there's even a link at the end to "sound off" - I suggest we all sound off.

How do you break an army?

-----You can work it to death.

Under Rumsfeld, by next spring 30 of the Army's 33 combat brigades will either be in Iraq or on their way home from Iraq. Some of them will come home from Iraq and head almost immediately to Afghanistan or Bosnia or South Korea or the Sinai Desert.

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-------You can neglect its training and education.

With an operations tempo this high, there's little time for units to do much more than repair their equipment and send their soldiers home on leave with long-neglected families before it's time to deploy again.

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The Army began to break in Vietnam when the senior NCO's, .........In their place came 90-day wonders -- young draftees selected straight out of basic training, run through a short course and shipped to Vietnam to be buck sergeant squad leaders.


-----You can politicize the Army promotion system for three- and four-star generals.

Rumsfeld and his civilian aides, such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and his military handmaidens have intruded deeply and harmfully into the way the services promote their leaders.

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----You can decide that you've discovered a newer, cheaper way of fighting and winning America's wars.

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Another defense secretary who could not admit he'd erred was Robert Strange McNamara, who, like Rumsfeld, was recruited from corporate America. By the time he did, it was too late.

[teryang]

3. Brilliant and to the point!

You are right, some of us at DU have been writing about this since long before the war. The myth of lite forces which saves the big bucks for the defense contractors while working the troops literally to death.