The Strongest Tribe
I just finished reading The Strongest Tribe by Bing West. It was an excellent book and I recommend it. It took me a long time to read because about every third paragraph had a profound thought or observation and I stopped to read it again or pondered on it awhile. The book also has about the best cover photo I've ever seen. (the only competition would be the drawing on a paperback edition of The Cruel Sea from the sixties.)
Two quotations from The Strongest Tribe:
"No nation can sustain its values by claiming to support the soldier while opposing his mission.
"Three quarters of high school graduates do not meet the military physical or mental entry standards, while Ivy League graduates no longer feel an obligation to serve a tour in the military before geting on with their careers."
You should read this book.
Two quotations from The Strongest Tribe:
"No nation can sustain its values by claiming to support the soldier while opposing his mission.
"Three quarters of high school graduates do not meet the military physical or mental entry standards, while Ivy League graduates no longer feel an obligation to serve a tour in the military before geting on with their careers."
You should read this book.
posted by Carl at 5:42 PM
15 Comments:
Did he give any support or justification for that first statement, or did he just throw it out there? I'm curious what the justifications are if he gave them.
Oh yes, he gave justification. The last 5 pages of the book are devoted to the subject.
The arguments include Americans losing their respect for martial virtues and accomplishments. Oprah would view them as sort of yucky. You could see her interviewing the poor guy I posted about who lost all his limbs, but I could never imagine her interviewing interviewing LTC Jurney about how his Marines and the jundis helped to systematically crushed Al Queda in Ramadi. Could you imagine the look on her face when he talked about snipers, surveillance, ambushes and Hellfire missiles?
Do we support the soldier by allowing a situation to develop whereby only a very small part of the population serves? Can we support the soldier by being embarrassed by his mission of killing the right people and breaking the right things?
This isn't what we were. During the Philippine insurrection, there were volunteer regiments enlisted solely for that fight. They did well too. How many could we raise today?
i add to the above comment, that I don't think the Americans have lost their respect for martial values and traditions; much of the American elite, leadership and chattering classes have. all us flyover people who couldn't get into a good grad school, we still got it. somehow though we keep electing Windy Flutterheart to a number of high offices.
So you're saying that people having a blanket adoration for martial values and traditions, who, by your estimation, also characterized by the inability to get into grad school, better represent the direction this country should be going as opposed to the smartest that the country has to offer? Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with respect for martial values and traditions, but I respectfully think your statement is far off-point.
I'm going to certainly read this book! Thank you Carl!
"the smartest that the country has to offer" that is an interesting statement. shall i genuflect to them? nope, don't think so. Matt McGrath didn't lower the flag to the king of England so i won't defer to the "smartest."
"blanket adoration" a bit pejorative don't you think. "respect" more accurately conveys my meaning.
the grad school comment was a sarcastic reference to the arrogant ones who think their grad school creds makes them wiser than a guy driving a bus. (it is so tiresome to explain what should be obvious. a flyover person would have got it.)
there, i've had my rant. sorry about that but if i think i hear something to the effect that we should defer to our betters, i go ape.
on a more reasoned note (i've calmed down now), how is my statement off point?
beads-n-books: there you are! i've not heard from you for awhile. how are you doing? read all of west's books. every one that i've read (all his non-fiction work) is great. The Village is my favorite all time non-fiction book and one of the books about counter-insurgency warfare ever.
I wrote some big long rambling response, but I'm tired of talking about this stuff. It seems futile. Suffice it to say that in a nutshell, I think it's actually good for our country for citizens to question our foreign policy, especially when American lives are at stake. Wanting to ensure that our military is only used when necessary, and to end unnecessary use as soon as possible, seems to be about as patriotic and supportive of our soldiers as you can get. I await your angered response.
Brief addendum: for example, say there was an enormous backlash against the Vietnam war in 1965 and we left the country- wouldn't that be a good thing and a good way of supporting the soldier and his mission? I think avoiding tens of thousands of deaths would qualify, and I don't consider a soldier's mission to stop communism. Nowadays, I'd extend that analogy to Iraq. I don't see how we were doing our military any favors by strongly supporting a 2003 invasion that hasn't yielded the results we were promised and that was based on false premises. That effort took our focus away from Afghanistan, where we now face a deteriorating situation. Now, we have to ask if we want to support a military mission and the continued deaths of GIs in exchange for a fraudulent regime that can't control the Taliban and that legitimizes marital rape? It's no wonder Americans question these military missions.
Also, I'm curious to hear what your examples of model politicians are. Do you think anyone currently in office particularly personifies your viewpoints in these regards?
anonymous: if you are tired of talking about it, leave. but you don't so i assume your ennui is an affectation meant to convey sophistication. i will concede you are a jaded sophisticate so we can get on with business.
other than that critique of tone, i agree with you first paragraph and have some comments.
two of the martial virtues are loyalty and determination to win; actual determination. that means keep trying even when it gets hard. on the loyalty front we owe it to millions who have thrown their lot in with us and will get killed if we bug out on them. i know that in the rarefied world of real-politic that doesn't count for much but it means a lot to me. pique at a particular gov is not justification to condemn a barber, woman student or teacher and various other innocents to really stinko lives or death. we did that to the Vietnamese and lots of others in my lifetime, i don't want to see it happen again.
on the determination to win front: things in the mountain country were allowed, through neglect and stupidheadness, to deteriorate to a point where we must exert some real effort to win. are we going to try, or are we going to use glaring faults in some of those sorta on our side to abandon the innocent millions...again?
Vietnam-1965. lets say we cut the trail by physically occupying south Laos, impose a full naval blockade against the north and occasionally wrecking the big bridges to China. that would have been a good thing, avoiding millions of deaths by the great good thing of stopping communism. but the original Windy Flutterheart, lbj, didn't have the determination to win.
you speak of the "results we were promised". this isn't some hot new application you bought at the computer store, or some miracle weed killer you saw on tv. you don't just take it back to the store cause you are dissatisfied. this is grown up stuff. for whatever reason we are in it now and we have a duty. anybody who promised precise results was a fool and anybody who believed the promise was double the fool. Churchill made some promises about war and those are the only ones you can absolutely count on. trying our best to get to a desired goal is about the best you can hope for.
i am not interested in talking about current politicos right now, so i won't.
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You two are both full of hot air:
Carl:
"We are here so we better win" is lame, uninspired and absolves the US electorate from being responsible for the sins of their elected leaders. "We need to save the world" is naive. There are plenty of honest people in our own country that are in need of help.
Anon:
While you make some good points the reality is that US Americans are fat, greedy, lazy and have full bellies. To Carl's point they don't care about the ills of the world and are perfectly willing to let others suffer so that they can be the gluttons of the 21st century.
Meanwhile, those who would like to usurp our current place in the world are using our appetite to defeat us.
The body counts in this "war(s)" pale in comparison to the economic cost. The US is outspending the enemy a gazillion to one and in the end will have nothing to show for it. Iraq will fall within 24 months of when we actually leave and Afghanistan/Pakistan will certainly follow.
In the interim, the contractors, politicians and authors will all get rich.
Did either of you ever read the book of Revelation?
"Certain"- good to see somebody else checking in from the student lounge. we now know what you are against. that's easy...and safe. what are you for?
you are entirely correct however, in asserting that i am full of hot air.
I believe that I must be prepared to let the resucee die when it becomes clear that my resuce attempt will kill us both.
"Certain": an elliptical answer, but fair enough to start. i remember reading about the landing at Tarawa. the Marine commander, Shoup I think, was slowly making his way along the big pier to the beach. there was a Marine on the pier with a severe head wound, obviously mortal. Shoup noticed another Marine preparing to get the wounded guy and he shouted at him not to try. he tried anyway and was killed.
that was a pretty clear situation. are the situations being discussed so clear as that? i am not certain of that. i think they are not certain at all, i think they are more along the lines of-you keep trying even when you are discouraged, or in this case, we ought to start trying. this will be a hard task, not an impossible one. (apologies to David Petreus for ripping off that line.) Hard is not an acceptable excuse for giving up.
you speak of those three countries "falling", falling to whom?
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