"I can't understand these armchair officers,

[The Lone Liberal]

fellas trying to fight a war from behind a desk, waving papers at the enemy, worrying about whether a mouse is gonna run up their pants leg."

"I don't know, General. If I had the choice between mice and Mausers, I think I'd take the mice every time."

[izzie]

1. I think it is a thing that has gone on for a long time.

You read books about it, fighting the war all over, and men who even play at it and have you ever met a man that did not know what the general really should have done?

[The Lone Liberal]

2. "Colonel Dax, you're a disappointment to me.

You've spoiled the keenness of your mind by wallowing in sentimentality. You really did want to save those men, and you were not angling for Mireau's command. You are an idealist -- and I pity you as I would the village idiot. We're fighting a war, Dax, a war that we've got to win. Those men didn't fight, so they were shot. You bring charges against General Mireau, so I insist that he answer them. Wherein have I done wrong?"

"Because you don't know the answer to that question, I pity you"

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Of Mice and Mausers?

.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

4. Yeah, but now with computers they can mess up worse than

they ever could before.
Command and Control is for real now.
If this particular foul-up had happened, say, in VietNam... it probably be an enlisted man who would be on the line for it. Now officers miles away can get people killed dead.