In honor of the return of the garrison army, I offer you this:
“I’d like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their General’s bowel movements or their Colonel’s piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country. The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.”
-Jean Lartéguy
^ this!
I agree completely.
In a way that’s not too far from what we have. The Big Army is ceremonial, and SOCOM fights wars. The Big Army just doesn’t know it yet.
You have to be kidding, right? All the respect in the world for SOCOM, but big Army does the overwhelming majority of the fighting, and the dying. If North Korea went south this afternoon would SOCOM stop that invasion? SOCOM excels at what it does but it can’t do everything.
You havent been around many sof guys if you believe that bullshit
There was a time the conventional Army looked down upon SOF to its detriment. It’s sad to see the pendulum has completely swung in the other direction.
Ceremonial units don’t fill graveyards at Arlington though they often escort the bodies interned there. For every operation that takes a SOF soldier there are a dozen Wanat or Kamdesh battles (where a couple of Medals of Honor were awarded). Then there is the dirty slogging of year long or more deployments and the thankless and less glorified duties like convoy security that claim so many lives of conventional troops.
It brings no honor on SOF or their “boosters” when they dismiss the contribution of their “less special” brethren.
“A combat ready force will not pass inspection.”
That’s the saying right?
close enough
Inclined to agree from the back of my howitzer.
But then how will the poor field grade officers chase rank?
Somebody think of the Majors!
And thus was the Tanker ‘Stache born…
sign me up for the fighting army.
Can’t agree more, I never cared for spit shine, brasso, and starch.
I had this framed and on my office wall since I went from E-7 to WO and then 0-1 to Retirement. I believe it is mostly true, at what point will we see a US Legion?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_the_United_States already happened long ago
Not the same king of legion.
Or just get rid of the ceremonial army and save money for the force that actually fights…
have the pomp and circumstance, appearance over substance officers and enlisted go become security guards or motel bag boys, or a boss at a software company demanding TPS reports.
Never been a fan of pomp and circumstance on duty, or minute uniformity though I’ve had to endorse and enforce it in roles I’ve held.
I will submit that even the hardest hitting, raw meat eating, pipe carrying mofos I’ve ever worked with who were worth half a fuck all enjoyed a good formal once a year; unit comraderie and regimental honor as a form of celebration with ones peers brings a feeling of civility and justification to those who are called to carry out acts of extreme violence and barbarism in the name of and under the authority of our country.
After a whole career of being a field/ combat Soldier I can say I always disliked D&C in duty uniform, but never woke up the day after the few formals I attended feeling I’d wasted my time.
Jon, OPT
+1
I’d add memorials and funerals too.
The best fighting units never forget to teach and celebrate their heritage…and formally honor their fallen from time to time.
TLB
The most difficult and yet honored duty that I ever had was serving as a casualty assistance officer for a family that lived nearby. Their son was burned up in a tank fire at Fort Hood in 2002. To this very day we have a special link and they embrace me as an old friend. It was a life changing experience.
The Centurions, from where this quote is derived, is FINALLY coming back into an English edition print–release date of sometime in May. Read it.
Already on pre-order.
Same here!
For those who read French, there is a 2004 omnibus of Larteguy’s five war novels, Recits de guerre_. Alas, it goes for 60EUR in France and gets into triple digits in N. America…interlibrary loan is probably a better option.
ISBN-10: 2258064058
ISBN-13: 978-2258064058
Thanks for the heads-up! I Just pre-ordered it on Amazon. My old SF buddy (referred to in another post here on SSD) recommended it as essential team reading back in the day…glad I’ll finally get a chance!
Interestingly- I see less formality today then I did when I first started this parade (in 1991).
– not complaining.
Give it time.
Just like after the Desert Storm. It only took a year before the effects of peacetime took effect. Buckle up and get ready, until the next ride…
Ain’t that the truth, especially with the reductions in force starting…back to the zero defect army.
Great quote and interesting comments. My opinion and experiences tend to mirror Larteguy’s quote as follows:
I started out under Reagan facing down the “Evil Empire” in Germany as a 13B. We trained like crazy! Thirty days at Graf immediately followed by thirty days at the Hohenfels CMTC twice a year. The remainder was filled in with a week in the field at Baumholder here and there as well as Maneuver Rights Area (MRA) training where we basically conducted operations and set up our batteries pretty much wherever we wanted in the German Countryside (I know there were some limits) including in the middle of some farmers field for a hasty fire mission. I definitely spent 6 months of every year in the field. My section constantly strove to provide the quickest and most accurate fires humanly possible because we knew some Mech units at the FEBA needed our fires yesterday! I was in an outstanding section when it came to soldiering and gunnery but guess what…we didn’t have the prettiest uniforms or boots. That level of continual sustained training comes at a cost, but damn, we sure could put some steel rain down range! My main hope when we came out of the field was that none of my soldiers showed up on the blotter, other than that I gave less than a damn about all of the pomp and ceremony of garrison life (military balls excluded)…and then came the drawdown army under Clinton!
Many soldiers were separated for trivialities and lots of NCOs were separated for hitting their newly established Retention Control Points. E-6s demoted to E-5 for DUI then separated for not meeting the RCP as well. More emphasis was placed on appearances and helping the BTRY PL & CO achieve solid bullet points for their OERs. I hated the drawdown army. No more MRA training because they didn’t want to pay for the farmers damaged crops, etc. The last time we did one there were several HMMVs full of troops with bristle brooms to clean off the mud where the tracks left the field and pulled onto the road. We got back charged by Germany for the cleanup which they no longer wanted to pay, so they’d rather pull two sections worth of troops from training to sweep the German roads. No more crossing the Mosel River on a hastily erected pontoon bridge thrown up by the engineers. When we did train there were much fewer rounds to fire. The reduced local field time (Graf & Hohenfels always remained constant) was replaced with a lot of “Dog & Pony show” BS, of which starched BDUs, inserts for BDU caps to block them, and Chlorofram jump boots all became the norm. Uniform regs be damned, the officers were more concerned with us looking good so that they looked good. The prohibitions on starched uniforms, blocked caps, and chlorofram boots were ignored in order for us to look stract because in the new paradigm, if you looked good, it automatically made you a good soldier. We definitely spent more time on appearances than we did training under Clinton in the Mech and Armored units (that finally changed for me for the better when I got sent to the 10th Mtn as they were the Defense Readiness Force at that time). Promotions also died. As a 13B with 718 points on the 800 point system I could not get promoted to E-5 (in contrast when I finally got out in 2003 only 450 points were needed for promotion to E-5).
Anyway, sorry for the long rant but the garrison army definitely sucked after having a real world mission and as SSD said…”Give it time.”
I have this book…need to get back to reading it. Study up for that DLPT.