The Perfect Socialist Society
I spent twenty-seven years in the Marine Corps, roughly split in-half between the active duty force and the reserve component. It took me a while to stumble into the realization that the U.S. military is a socialist’s wet dream, but the discovery helped me to understand why Socialism Always Fails. I’ll beg indulgence and an open mind from former Marines and other military folks, but the military is unquestionably a socialist society-within-a-society. Consider, for example, the organizational ethos of the military: every person’s life and individuality is subservient the “greater good” of the organization’s mission. Every person is accessed, tested, trained, (brainwashed), and catalogued to meet an existing (idealized) structure for which the entire endeavor was designed. For the civvies who may not be familiar, the entire Marine Corps exists on an org chart with every job and its essential tools listed on something known as the TO&E – Table of Organization and Equipment. The entire U.S. military is also likewise structured.
Pay is fixed at a specific amount by rank with almost no chance for ‘bonuses’ or other such remuneration (beyond some very limited specialty pays used to entice certain skills or provide a tax break or a few extra dollars for combat). About the best you’re likely to do in your career for doing something exceptional is a ribbon (especially if you’re in the Army… Ba-ZING!) and/or an extra day or two of liberty. Indeed, consider how the military defines that term if you want a real giveaway about the military’s socialist nature: in the normal (civilian) sense, the word liberty means freedom; in the military – like in every other context with socialists – liberty is a noun that refers to any time you are not on duty and is legally considered a privilege that can be granted or taken away by the CO at his or her (virtually) unfettered discretion. In other words, it means the exact opposite of what it normally means.
Now compare all of that with what the modern (or original) Progressive-Socialists scream that they want for our country. Control over what information the masses can see and hear? Absolutely. The modern socialist would love to be able to ‘classify’ information like the military does and control the flow of information. CNN and the other cathedral media sources, including Twitter, Facebook, etc. have become infinitely worse than the Armed Forces Network overseas, clamoring to control the Narrative, to demonize anyone who dares speak against it, to the point of banishing dissidents from public life. In the military, someone who is sufficiently non-conforming will eventually be thrown out of the organization, but because the military is a society-within-a-larger-society, the armed forces simply excommunicates its heretics to the wider American society. The Progressive-Socialists of America, however, don’t have anywhere to eject their dissidents, hence why they need people destroyed, their livelihoods taken, and their opinions and ideas silenced by calling it “disinformation.” Just like the military, the Progressive Socialist wants everyone on the same page, which is why re-education camps are always an element of communist-socialist regimes. Just like the military (with boot camp and OCS), the Progressive-Socialist needs everyone in ideological lockstep; lacking a place to eject its dissidents, Socialist countries require either re-education or disappearance, typically with a public shaming and “struggle session” in which the perpetrator must loudly and publicly denounce their prior Badthink in order to remain/be reaccepted into society AND reinforce to the masses the primacy of their vision.
And if this all seems to prove too much, let me throw in a dose of history from my own beloved Corps for some additional context.
While it may not be fashionable at the moment to point this out, the modern Marine Corps has deep roots in the People’s Republic of China. Prior to WW2, there was a Marine Regiment (about 4 battalions of Marines) garrisoned in China, principally in Shanghai. One of the leaders was then-LtCol Evans Carlson, who subsequently spent several years serving as an advisor to Mao Tse-Tung’s 8th Army in their fight against the Japanese, who by 1937 had already invaded China. (The ironies of history are indeed rich.) Carlson would march over most of northern China with the ChiComs during their insurgency against the Japanese, prompting Marine General David Shoup to reportedly say of him:
“He may be red, but he’s not yellow.”
The implication being that Carlson had communist sympathies, but that he was no coward. Carlson would go on to create and command the Marine Raiders against the Japanese in the Pacific, essentially establishing the first “Special Force” of any kind in the U.S. military. Carlson and his men once operated behind Japanese lines on Guadalcanal for months, killing 488 Japanese before returning from that patrol. Carlson brought the Chinese term “gung ho”* to the Raiders and it became their unit motto – it eventually stuck with the entire Corps. Most significantly, Carlson adopted many of the organizational techniques of Mao’s “People’s Army” that eventually came to be the standard for the post-WW2 Marine Corps. For example, Carlson learned from Mao that most people could only manage three other people. This led to a complete reorganization of Carlson’s squads in the Raiders, eschewing the Corps’ standard eight-man squad in favor of a 10-man squad composed of a squad leader and three, 3-man “fireteams.” That structure is now standard throughout the military. Another example of Carlson’s adoption of communist techniques went right to the very essence of the relationship between a military leader and his subordinates. Historically, the Corps – and, indeed, the entire U.S. and western military – had a sharp, caste-like divide between enlisted troops and their officers. That caste system can be traced back through the British, the Continental Armies, even all the way back to medieval knights and feudalism. Carlson’s experience as both an enlisted man and officer in both the Army and the Marine Corps convinced him that this did not produce better results in modern warfare.
Carlson saw the Communist approach as superior. Leaders were expected to serve the unit and the fighters they led, not to be served. Responsibility, not privilege, would be the keyword for battalion leadership when the Second Raiders formed up. Using an egalitarian and team-building approach, Carlson promulgated a new way for senior NCOs to mentor junior officers and work with the officers for the betterment of the unit. Even more controversial in concept, Carlson gave his men “ethical indoctrination,” designed to “give (his men) conviction through persuasion,” describing for each man what he was fighting for and why.[1]
I love that term: Brainwas- er, I mean, “Ethical Indoctrination.” For what it’s worth, it was still the modus operandi for the Corps during my training as a young officer in the late-80s and early-90s and throughout my entire career. More importantly, the entire philosophy of the servant-leader, the officer willing to not only endure the same hardships as his troops to accomplish the mission, but to be accountable to them and in some cases mentored by non-comms, is so embedded in the military leadership culture nowadays as to be considered a no-brainer. Yet that was not the nature of the U.S. military before Carlson. While there have always been individual historical examples of great leaders willing to make unfathomable sacrifices for and alongside their men, any dispassionate review of even our own American history will reveal that officers obtained their commissions very differently from the American Revolution through at least the end of the Civil War. It was Evans Carlson’s adoption of Mao’s techniques in the fight against the Japanese that turned the Marine Corps from a feudal-style of leadership and organization to an unquestionably socialist one, lifted right from Mao himself.
*Very likely a catachresis of gong hé (工合), the term for the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives of Carlson’s time.
…And Why It Always Fails
The inevitable failure of Socialism in all of its forms, from the Russian version to the Cuban to the Venezuelan – and yes, even to the Chinese and American ones – has probably been most succinctly expressed by a phrase attributed to the incomparable Margaret Thatcher:
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.
There are numerous instances of the Iron Lady dissing socialism and though this exact quote is hard to find, there are video and print variations of the same sentiment. For example, in response to a question from an interviewer on socialist elements within the British Labour Party, Thatcher once said this:
I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. (Emphasis added)
Brevity being the soul of wit (allegedly), the former is better than the latter, but either adequately captures the reason for the inevitable failure of socialism in all its pernicious forms. Given the complete lack of understanding most people have (this audience excluded) of economics, I feel compelled to slightly amend the statement to more accurately reflect the underlying mechanism:
The reason socialism always fails, no matter how fervently it is tried, is because it fails to deliver sufficient value to cover its costs.* I will not waste this audience’s time explicating the differences and relationships between currency (i.e. money) and value, but suffice it to say that just because the money machine goes brrrrrrrrrrfttt! does not solve the problem inherent to socialism. This is true no matter which example of “it wasn’t real socialism!” one cares to examine. I’m certain any Marxist fanbois reading this will quickly comment with the “butwhaddabout muh China!!” – and one can easily find the tongue-bathing profiles the cathedral media has given to China in the past, with standard Marxist proclamations about the inevitability of it all. See also the media fellatio of both Chavez and Castro while their people starved, the burying of the human rights abuses, and all of the other externalities that are features-not-bugs of socialist regimes. But my real rejoinder to the talking heads’ proclamations of the joys of Mr. ________’s regime (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Minh, Pot, Kim, Castro, Chavez, Maduro, Xi, Biden) is one of simple patience: Just Wait. Given the historical record at this point, claiming that the fact that a socialist regime is still extant as proof of the philosophy’s “success” over free-markets is (to me) like claiming that because you’ve thrown a ball into the air that proves that there’s no gravity for as long as the ball hasn’t yet hit the ground. The balls all come down eventually, Mr. Kruschev. Every one of them; every time.
To return to my “perfect socialist society” analogy of the Marine Corps – and the military more broadly – illustrates the same exact flaw of socialist endeavors. The military is only able to exist as a socialist society-within-a-society because its freight is being paid by the broader society’s producers, by the economic might and dynamism of free markets that was the United States’ greatest strategic asset for the first 140 years or so of our existence. We’ve been on a steady descent since the early part of the 20th century, with Roosevelt’s “New Deal” being one of the major waypoints on the wrong side of the parabola, but I don’t think it’s necessary or helpful to argue over the exact moment the ball started coming down. I do, however, think it’s valuable to look at how long it typically takes for the ball to hit the ground… but I’ll save that for another piece I’m working on.
*The AnCaps may claim that no government ever delivers value, but I disagree and offer the United States as the best counter-factual. When the Pilgrims and other settlers first arrived in the New World, I think it safe to say that the GDP of the colonies was near zero. Indeed, the colonists were subjects of a sovereign who extracted rents while taking none of the risks and was thousands of nautical miles away. And yet… from 1787 through 1913, in a mere 125 years – perhaps 4-5 generations – these united States went from being subjects to being one of the most powerful nations – not only of the entire planet – but in all of human history. Without any income tax on the people. I thus conclude that a government can provide sufficient value to its people in a way that socialist governments do not, IFF the government is confined to a very narrow range of activities that includes the protection of people and their property (i.e. individual rights), the equal enforcement of laws regarding same, and (IMO) respect for smaller sub-segments to rule themselves autonomously in response to the unique circumstances of geography and the cultures that arise from that (i.e. federalism). Or, in short, something pretty damn close to the original Constitution, minus the slavery problem.
Well stated and thought-provoking.
I spent twenty-seven years in the Marine Corps, – did you at least get one lousy tshirt
Oh yeah. All the tee-shirts, Pie.
Common Army expression…”Been there, done that, got the t-shirt”.
First time I heard that expression, it was in context of going to CAS3 (Combined Arms Services and Staff School), in the ’80s.
It involved 6 weeks of training crammed into a 9 week school, where they filled all the extra time with volleyball.
Lots and lots of ugly green t-shirts. I still have dust rags fashioned from old cut-up skivvy shirts.
I still have a bag of clothing from Noble Eagle mobilization. They issued us enough to bring us to regular army standards whether we wanted it or not. It is somewhere in the basement.
Excellent! You always work to a high standard, but this is peak quality work. Kudos.
Thanks, SK!
As is prison. Funny, that.
It also demonstrates that the only way for a socialist society to work is to have common inclusive goal(s) and strict roles and discipline.
This.
Families and sports teams are a good example.
Yes, I’m willing to sacrifice myself in a baseball game so that my team might win.
Yes, I’m willing to eat the butt ends of bread so my kids can have the “real” pieces. My kids don’t even have to work for their bread.
But outside of small units with laser focus on 1) goals, and 2) resources is key.
QFT
I don’t know that acronym, trashy!
“Quit Feckin’ Talking”?
Quoted for truth, hes right
Quncy fucks trannies.
Excellent work Ozy, preach it Brother!
Socialism Always Fails – hard to say it always fails when it has never truly been tried
re-education camps are always an element of communist-socialist regimes – free education is important
The inevitable failure of Socialism in all of its forms, from the Russian version to the Cuban to the Venezuelan – NOT REAL
just because the money machine goes brrrrrrrrrrfttt! does not solve the problem inherent to socialism. – MMT will totes solve that
See also the media fellatio of both Chavez and Castro – that was in the past. the high status socialists no longer consider Chavez a real socialism
f Mr. ________’s regime (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Minh, Pot, Kim, Castro, Chavez, Maduro, Xi, Biden) – You could have included ol’ Nick in there. Although in truth Hoxha was the true socialist.
Hoxha? OK, but what about Tito?
Tito – that neoliberal?
Just Wait. – if you think that convinces socialists of anything you are not paying attention 🙂
The balls all come down eventually – at the very moment it becomes Not True Socialism
It’s pretty funny how that works.
Didn’t Merritt Edson create the Raider Battalions, though?
I wouldn’t say he “created” them, as if it were the solo act of one guy. I didn’t want to get too down in the weeds on USMC history, because it’s tangential to my main point. Red Mike was certainly the first CO of the first designated Raider Battalion. Like Carlson, they were both Shanghai Marines (4th Marine Reg). Edson had been the Ops O there and (without looking) my guess would be that both he and Carlson served together. They had the first two Raider battalions (1/5 and 2/5, I believe) and both served with distinction in WW2.
But Carlson was the one who brought all of the stuff he learned from marching around with Mao to his unit – and that would become (and remains) the model for the post-WW2 USMC organization. The other interesting aspect of that is how well that organizational structure would fit with Bill Lind’s “Maneuver Warfare” doctrine (notably influenced by Col Boyd) of the late 80s under Al Gray.
I would deny that the Raiders were the first “Special Force”, since Army Rangers actually predate the United States and were built to do the same type of operations.
Still jus a blocking force for Spec Ops, no matter how many times they yell “We’re TIER ONE, TOO!!”
(ducks for cover and runs from Ranger buddies)
I’ve got a number of snake eater type acquaintances that hold to the ‘Rangers don’t Belong!” theory of operations, but the bottom line is the Army formed Ranger units to conduct ‘gorilla warfare’ for almost every conflict over the past 225 years.
JP below is correct about the standing Ranger Regiment, but a number of Ranger formations existed prior to WWII. They just got stood down after each conflict.
While there are those who like to refer back to Rogers, the US Army did not have a standing Ranger organization until WWII, which was then patterned off the Brits. Ranger school itself dates to 1950.
Gotcha. I was just going off of a memory from, of all things, an MCI I did once.
Bill Lind? Didn’t Lewrockwell used to run his columns?
I have no idea. I only know Lind through the lens of his contributions to the Marine Corps Gazette and Al Gray’s single-minded adoption of maneuver warfare doctrine into the officer corps. It was a huge influence. Lind (IIRC) was influenced by Col Boyd (of OODA loop fame) and brought that same notion to the operational tempo of ground units. That smaller units that could operate at a higher tempo, and sustain it for a longer time than their enemy, could wreak havoc against larger, more ponderous forces. Integrated aviation assets and the ability to put an integrated air-ground combat team anywhere in the world on short notice is no small capability and Gray’s adoption of Lind’s ideas became holy writ (FMFM-1) when I was a young officer.
To this article’s point, it also included the Commandant’s Reading List, another extension of Evans Carlson’s “ethical indoctrination” for his officers. When I look back on it now, I see all kinds of fingerprints from Evans Carlson, and indirectly Mao, I suppose, on the modern Marine Corps. Whacky.
I looked it up. William Lind archives at Lewrockwell.
A quick skim over his articles shows a lot of articles about the military and foreign affairs.
I guess this all depends on how you define failure. The stated goal of socialism is that everyone is equal and happy. In that regard, it fails. But if the goal is to make members of the party rich and give them more control over people, then it’s wildly successful. Likewise, if the goal of the military is to kill people and break things (H/T Rush Limbaugh) and not to make the enlisted people happy, does a socialist system work?
It has always failed (so far) because the leaders never have had the balls to exterminate all who aren’t the “new soviet man.” As long as wreckers and kulaks are allowed to remain, then socialism will fail.
In other words, the larger society is willing to tolerate the military in general (and in this instance, The Marine Corps) as a slack resource, generally and sometimes massively oversupplied compared to its typical requirements, as an antidote to the time-honoured tradition of raising mercenary armies during times of need (which mercenaries are never “ready” in the “ready, aye ready” sense we wish to ascribe to modern standing armies).
Societal organizations that are structured as continuously-existing slack resources can only be afforded by a relatively well-resourced society; mercenary organizations only exist in response to a poor society’s overwhelming immediate need, and are always horrifyingly expensive.
There’s an interesting discussion to be had on just how “slack” the resource (the Marine Corps) really is – and why.
Let me contextualize what I mean by that. When I was in, during the relative calm of the Pax Americana in the early to mid-90s after Gulf War I. I belonged to the unit with the highest Op Tempo in the Marine Corps (I know because a CongrInt came to interview us and they told us that’s why they were there). Notwithstanding the “peace”, we had Dets out everywhere: Haiti, Mogadishu, Embassy Evacs, USAF pilots getting shot down in Bosnia, etc. The Marines here can all explain that even in peacetime, the Navy and MC Team have a float in the Mediterranean Sea at all times, along with one in the Western Pacific, and probably some other training and contingency ops ongoing.
Now, none of that is to disagree with your broader points because I think you’re correct. But I do think it’s interesting to note that politicians and the President seem to find plenty of uses for the Corps on the reg. And that raises the chicken and egg question of whether forces being out there are truly just responsive to the shittiness of the world, or whether it’s just a part of the Everwar MIC of which Eisenhower warned. I’ll say this, the MC is something like 6% of the DoD spend and about 50% of the rapid response missions, so I think they’re a bargain in “bang for buck.” (IYKWIM…AIKYD)
The problem with having a slack resource around is that you’re always tempted to use it, even when a dispassionate examination of whether the use is required comes up negative. I’m convinced that is the source of a good amount of military adventurism by modern nations.
What the world
needscould use is “just in time” military power. Which could also be terrifying, and we might be closing in on with things like AI swarms.Gordon Dickson’s Dorsai, notably The Tactics of Mistake.
Most people probably think the Marines are accurately portrayed in “Gomer Pyle USMC,” hanging around a nice base their whole enlistment term and yukking it up.
When I was in, during the relative calm of the Pax Americana in the early to mid-90s after Gulf War I. I belonged to the unit with the highest Op Tempo in the Marine Corps
Force Recon?
Petroleum Oil and Lubricants service.
Nope. Cobra Squadron. Everyone wants their own, so you wind up detaching out, usually in sets of four, while trying to maintain some training and maintenance “at home” for when folks start rolling in and new joins come on. It’s an insane juggling act. In that way, it probably looks quite a bit like a SpeOps “Squadron” or Unit. There are aways continuing obligations to the MEUs, one Det’s in training, one Det’s embarked, then there are contingencies (UN, Relief Ops, etc.), AND THEN local training and support for grunt training. And maintain the aircraft. And train the mechs.
Good explanation OYZ, while the military is structured in socialism the culture also provides a frat boy all inclusive identification. We see a veneration of veterans and military as heroes, for having worn a uniform and survived.
The socialism has crept over to school teachers and LEOs, where they are afforded recognition just for their existence.
The political grifters have long ago seen the benefits of rewarding selected groups, regardless of their production and as you said, the ball is still falling.” the larger society is willing to tolerate the military in general”.
I think the curtain is being pulled back as the debt continues to rise and the results never seem to improve.
“(and in this instance, The Marine Corps) … sometimes massively oversupplied”
Cannot confirm. I know what you’re saying, but the Corps is probably the worst example of this. As Oz says, we are utilized frequently and don’t have extravagant tastes nor a budget for that. However, this may be a strategy – to quote from Generation Kill:
“To Keep us angry. If Marines could get what they needed when they needed it we would be happy and wouldn’t be ready to kill people all of the time. The Marine Corps is like America’s Pitbull. They beat us, mistreat us and every once in awhile, they let us out to attack someone.”
Meant as a direct reply to BEAM.
I suspect that every branch is massively oversupplied with something, probably a lot of somethings, that may or may not be very useful to them.
I remember the first time I drove past the Boneyard here in Tucson – thousands of mothballed planes, including hundreds (quite possible thousands) of planes that are a type still in use. Its mind-boggling.
I have only seen it on google maps, and it is bizarre.
You can only see so much from the road that runs through it, but even that is incredible. The first time I came on it, I had no idea it was there; it was a complete surprise.
I suspect we have more planes mothballed in the desert than any other air force has in its entirety, with maybe one or two exceptions.
Bolivia? At least before the Incident.
The Marine Corp is massively oversupplied with personel, seeing as the job could be done by the Army.
/RUNS.
A co-worker and I refer to PM CONEX as the place to be (since all the stupid shit the bureaucracy sends out ends up in one).
For the most part, everything the Marines use is old/secondhand/salvaged/etc. When I was in (2001-06), our precision approach radar was the AN/TPN-22, which dated back to Vietnam. The ASR-8, permanent gear used at Marine air stations, was derived from a radar first used during the Berlin Airlift.
When I flew the “new” AH-1W SuperCobra, our engines were typically bore-scoped former Army Blackhawk engines – the T700GE401. (Fantastic engine, btw, but had its share of problems. Nearly killed a number of us – probably did kill some others but not attributed to it.)
Huh. That’s probably why U.S. Marines and Canadian Armed Forces personnel seem to get along so well when they actually meet overseas — your phrase everything the Marines use is old/secondhand/salvaged/etc. describes pretty much the whole of Canada’s armed services, much to the chagrin of active personnel.
I was in a Communications unit that had been organized in country (VN), circa 1967. We were short of everything. We had 53 rifles for about 170 men, about a half dozen 1911s. Fortunately we didn’t have to procure our own food but we did have to haul water and the food up to a mountaintop about 12-14 miles away. Uniforms? Troops wore whatever covered their bodies.
I got assigned as Supply Officer, an unauthorized but necessary slot. We were along ways from the supply points, everything had to be flown in. I had a company commander that gave me freedom and lots of demands. Using ingenuity, creativity and occasionally mis-requisitioning we were able to cover all bases. I had 16-17 deuce and halfs destroyed in the motor pool, motor sergeant kept the last 2-3 patched together through cannibalization.
I went 29 days without a shower, then 14 more. When the rains came we had a lot of water but no roads. We were short of everything except misery.
The life of the infantryman, of the grunt on the ground where policy is enforced at the end of a rifle, is unlike anything reflected on any spreadsheet anywhere in the Pentagon. Very little of what is on paper winds up in the hands of those who need it most. See, e.g., cold weather gear during Korea. And yet it is ultimately some hard motherfuckers – with all odds against them in spite of all manner of bureaucratic fuckery against them – who ultimately decide the matter.
– Robert Allen Zimmerman
The military is only able to exist as a socialist society-within-a-society because its freight is being paid by the broader society’s producers – although as the broader government it is underfunded although there is nothing left to cut
Excellent. Thank you.
I was not aware of Carlson at all, just the usual suspects like Chesty Puller.
And you managed to wrap a history lesson inside something palatable, like coating my dog’s pill with peanut butter.
Well done, buddy!
When I think of how close I came to being in the Army, I shudder. Marines are beyond my comprehension.
I love that info about Evans Carlson. There are a number of great (eccentric) characters in Marine Corps history – three of my favorites were all involved in the Far East: Evans Carlson, Red Mike Edson, and Major “Pete” Ellis – a complete drunken lunatic who spent the 20’s and 30’s traveling the far east and (1) predicted and documented the Japanese buildup, and (2) wrote the doctrine that would become the “island hopping” campaign in the 30s if we had to take on the Japanese. Brilliant, visionary, and complete drunken lunatic. He once got shitfaced at a dinner party, pulled his pistol, and shot the plates off the table (as I recall).
He once got shitfaced at a dinner party, pulled his pistol, and shot the plates off the table
You did that last time you were over. SP still marvels.
I don’t have anything personal against flatware per se…
It’s just that… well, a few drinks in and I don’t like how it’s staring at me.
If they were trident forks, then they were asking for it.
Tell me more about your dog and peanut butter.
Damn. That’s quite an entrance, PM.
/doffs cap
We saw you do it, don’t deny it.
The TOE is the model on which actual units are based, and as with all models, it does not reflect reality all that well. Which leads to (at least in the Army) the Modified Table of Organization and Equipment (MTOE) which still won’t reflect ground truth in any given unit built upon that either, but closer than the Platonic shadow of the TOE. I have learned in the last decade or so more about this than I ever would have cared to learn.
I’ll quibble about the U.S. being a world power in 1913 or even in 1941. WWII transformed the U.S. – the more I study it the more I marvel at it (and the people who were instrumental to that). After the war of course we were the only untouched industrial economy on the planet; literally every one we would eventually compete with had to be rebuilt (primarily by us – that too is quite a feat).
Tougher ‘n you. We’da kicked your ass in 1917.
Just kidding. I think we qualify as a world power in those years, though not as THE single world power. But we certainly had weight to throw around. We didn’t have a large standing Army like many continental powers did, but the late 1800s build up of US Naval Power brought us (by the early 1900s) quite close to the British Navy in its heyday. We became a true Naval Power and never let that go.
Teddy’s Great White Fleet eh? And our riverboat diplomacy in China?
We were enough of a ground presence to tip the balance in WWI, after the gawdawful attrition on both sides there, so that really isn’t an accomplishment we should claim a great deal of glory from. Plus the idiots brought all of that misery upon themselves (including the Germans and their too-clever-by-half injection of Lenin into Russia).
But really, we weren’t a patch on the British presence (and let us be thankful for that). A considerable part of eclipsing the Brits came from bleeding them of their assets before we entered the war in ’41.
The Marines at the Ardennes haz a sad, JI. ?
Again, not THE world power, but not Lichtenstein, either. We could actually load up tens of thousands of Americans and get them across the Atlantic and into a theater, and THEN help tilt a battle among Continental powers.
I think you have an absurd sense of “entitlement” – from having grown up with the US as a world superpower – and ignore the incalculable amount of resources and wherewithal it takes to operate a military force on the other side of the world. We could fuck around in the Phillipines in 1898 – and no one could really stop us.
JI – that may sound harsher than I intended, but I think you’re essentially projecting modern standards of “world power” backwards onto a time when we certainly weren’t where we are now, but our steel industry and industrial capability by the early 1900s had made us into a world power, even if it wasn’t manifest until world events provided a stage. But the underlying ability to produce materiel on the scale we could? Yeah, we had that. I would argue that by the early 1900s, we had already surpassed Europe, but it wouldn’t become clear until a decade or two just how far ahead we had moved.
No question we were not the power then that we are now (and I say that with full recognition that our era as the uni-power is over), but I think that true transformation came from WWII. I agree, the underlying pieces were there – industrial development, the demographics that would support millions of men in uniform – without which we could not have reached the potential we did. Prior to that transformation, we weren’t a truly global power; regional? absolutely, as we had proclaimed ourselves long before we could have really enforced it.
And I did not mean to detract from the sacrifice or honor of those who served in WWI (even though that conflict made less sense than Viet Nam from our perspective). I was speaking to a larger view as the nation, not strictly the military. My hatred of Wilson far exceeds the hate others have for Lincoln.
I might make a distinction between being a world economic power and a world military power. The former makes the latter possible, but I don’t know that our minuscule army before WWI quite made the grade. The navy, yeah. WWI showed we could project power outside of our borders/hemisphere, and at that point we had to be taken into account. Before WWI, not so sure. WWI was preceded by frantic diplomacy to build the alliances; I don’t know if we were really courted by anyone to join their alliance.
Argentina and the U.S. were roughly comparable economically from the turn of the 20th century up to the 20s.
That sounds like less of a difference than they might think.
We were enough of a ground presence to tip the balance in WWI, after the gawdawful attrition on both sides there, so that really isn’t an accomplishment we should claim a great deal of glory from.
The US military leadership also wouldn’t apply any of the lessons the Brits and French learned about warfare. Those leaders got a lot of people killed.
We had a Russian immigrant in my tech school class. He once declared in the middle of class the military was communist, in part to troll the retired Reagan-era cold warrior-turned civilian instructor. This being the time before trolling was a thing, the instructor didn’t take it well.
I would say this is related
https://twitter.com/noname/status/1368679322354126851
Wow, Ozy!
This might be your best one yet. I really enjoyed the history lesson on the Commie Corps. Can’t wait to throw that in Jimbo’s face!
Regarding this, however:
The AnCaps may claim that no government ever delivers value, but I disagree and offer the United States as the best counter-factual.
I would suggest that most AnCaps claim that it is sustained value. You can get lots of things to function for awhile, but eventually the weaknesses in any centralized effort are exploited to benefit the few.
Because people are shit. Best to limit the damage they can do to each other.
On another topic, what did you fly in the Corps? A new guy skating with us was a Cobra pilot and was telling some funny stories the other night.
Oh shit! When did he fly snakes? I flew AH-1Ws from 93-96. I was in HML/A-269. That new guy and I may know each other. (Shoot me an email with a name and I’ll confirm).
I didn’t get his name. I’ll find out Friday and report back. SIR!
Roughly how old is he? If he’s in his late 40s to mid 50s, we have almost assuredly crossed paths.
Yeah, he’s one of us. He also has an epic ZZ Top beard which looks absolutely ridiculous with a mask.
Hockey mask, not a face diaper.
We were undoubtedly peers and my guess is that we know each other. It was a super-small community. When I was flying there were only 300-350 Cobra pilots of all ranks. Which means that the number of guys at the company grade down at the gun squadrons is very, very tiny – and almost all known to one another by reputation or one degree of separation.
Until you got to “pay”, I could have thought you were describing a typical business corporation.
I like the line from Cryponomicon, when Shaftoe is asked what a Marine Raider is:
“Its like a marine, only more so.”
I think this bit of history is fascinating. I believe the old 8 man squad was British (although I want to say their squads were 10 men), and I’ve always thought a 8 or 10 person span of control was a good rule. Its kinda the unspoken rule here in the hospital, although nursing units can be bigger. I’d have to check, but I believe our disaster plan org chart (which is based on the fed’s guidance) explicitly calls for span of control limited to 10 people.
Current ICS recommendation is no more than five.
British army organization during the Zulu War
The Section was the smallest firing unit at about twenty men and was commanded by a sergeant. Four Sections made a company, and the company was the smallest unit to be given tasks on the battlefield.
Looks like they call them “sections” of 7 – 12 men now.
Ah. I was looking for historic data.
Excellent write-up. Normally, I can’t read the noontime posts until after Beer-thirty when the threads are dead. (Some of us have to work you know.) I’m glad I did.
When I was in the service, I had an asshole civilian shift manager (Former AFOSI), that said the military should be the new slavery for new enlistees. In other words, newbies should be treated like shit until reenlisting. Thereafter you can have some perks. We got along okay because I wasn’t too much of a slacker, didn’t get into trouble, and was willing to learn anything. We discussed the service being a socialist operation (at his discretion) more than a few times.
My “patriotic” takeaway FWIW was that the military needed to be socialist so everyone else could have freedom, justice, and peace.
Similar arguments are made for the existence of a robust police power. Still not sure how I feel about that.
I know how I feel about it. It’s bullshit, Law and order? Sure, let’s have some of that. Equal justice? That would be great too. Robust police power is the police acting like THEY are the military, If we need a robust police response, then shits already gone south. Call the real military.
the entire Marine Corps exists on an org chart with every job and its essential tools listed on something known as the TO&E – Table of Organization and Equipment. The entire U.S. military is also likewise structured.
/pedant hat on
The Army has TOE organizations and TDA (table of distributions and allowances) organizations. The latter are “temporary” and usually for support organizations. More here
https://history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/tda-ip.html
Among several experiences with the British Army, a couple stand out
1) non-officers are Other Ranks.
2) ORs and NCOs needing to enter the officer barracks where our officers were billeted, must use the tradesmen’s entrance. Woe unto those who would use the front entrance.
3) Yorkie Bar (“not for civvies”) > Hooah Bar
TDA’s are for units, at least in my world were units where the soldiers were assigned to mission duties that existed outside the chain of command (e.g. Soldiers that are assigned to intelligence agencies belong to the whatever agency for their mission and their service chain of command owned them administratively. I always felt bad for my Top Kicks at these units, they had their company but they had to share them with some GS-13 in ‘the building.’
I did a tour as an active duty reservist attached to a regular army unit that worked at a federal agency. I was first assigned to the company that worked in my office. I was on ADSW orders which caused enough confusion that they moved me to headquarters. They left me alone to work in the building. When I switched to TCS, I was moved me back but still left alone. The agency staff complained to me every time the Army pulled the rest of the soldiers out for mandatory whatever. The Air Force didn’t get yanked out as often.
We had a First Sergeant in Hawaii that started getting flack from the GSs in ‘the tunnel’ and he decided to march the Company in signing cadence and the whole nine and have them “File from the right, column right, march!” from the hallway into their offices. It was a pretty cool power-move. They stopped making as much noise about it after that.
Bravo, Top. That is how you protest.
I served in both TOE and TDA units. They were generally split along tactical v strategic lines.
Yep, just so. I have been in both. They both have their challenges.
#$%&! only time I was in a TDA unit, I ended up getting sent to SFOR. Guess we were parts n’ pieces to be plugged in.
Part of my reserve unit was sent to SFOR. I missed because the flight surgeon wouldn’t clear my profile. Later I voluntarily activated to deploy to a regular army unit as backfill for the troops that were sent to SFOR. That unit then tried to send me to SFOR before I told them I was deployed to them. The linguists that went through Turbo-Serbo and deployed rarely used their language skills.
Speaking of parts n’ pieces. The Army learned a lesson about support units. To get the language support for Desert Storm they had to call up large units. I don’t recall the name of the identifier, but I recall you couldn’t involuntarily mobilize anything that didn’t have one. The Army reorganized and created linguist units that could mobilize a single squad.
From what I have seen the lines between the enlisted/officer caste in the Royal Army are far more severe. I heard of a U.S. Army Lieutenant on some sort of exchange to the RA that decided to go out and do PT with the enlisted folks, this is something that is tolerated in America’s more egalitarian Army (so long as they stay out of the NCOs in charge of PT way), that unfortunate Louie had a very loud one-way conversation with the Regimental Sergeant Major.
There are differences in the US military. When I was in the reserves, we would go to installations across the country for training and operations.. The Army put the entire unit in old barracks. The Air Force put us up in the equivalent of a motel. The Navy separated us by rank.
Also junior enlisted marines treat even junior NCOs as gods.
From what I saw in Iraq, the Brits has chilled a bit from 0-1 to 0-3. But, oh man…once you hit field grade, then you were nose in the air, who are you again?
I had a Scottish E-3 tell me (then a Major) that I was different than British officers…I worked.
Great write up Ozy.
I think the argument is that no government creates value, but that they redistribute it. There are finer points. Any sensible anarchist would have to agree that the government provides services that would still be needed sans government.
Thanks, Ozy. Your writing is engaging, as usual.
That wasn’t real socialism, it’s going to work this time! All we needed was a geriatric clown and a not real black woman, utopia is nigh!
Great article. A lot of really good food for thought.
I have generally believed that if we could have a government/society much closer to the Constitution as written, we would be vastly better off in every way. Its not perfect, but after we got back to something like the original vision, that would be the time to fuss over improving it.
But that ship has sailed, run aground, burned to the waterline, and had the hulk devoured by termites. Constitution delenda est.
“we would be vastly better off in every way”
Well, you and I would be. Power hungry politicians would NOT be.
Yeah, the original Constitution would have to omit very specifically the 3/5ths compromise. Talk about baking in the problem!
I don’t know that I can really blame them. That was the political reality of the day, one tries to make the best of the circumstances they find themselves. If they wanted the very wealthy southern planters on board, they had to do something.
Oh I agree – just that to talk of the Constitution in absence of slavery, when that is part of it. Umm, hard to ignore?
The FYTW clause would have to be removed. Politicians hardest hit.
Of course, the funniest part is that the slavers wanted to count them as full people and the abolitionists didnt want them counted at all.
It is always presented as the slave-owners not wanting to count them as full people. It is really worse than that, the slavers realized they were people and didnt give a damn.
The slave-owners did NOT want tax apportionment on them as full people, so no they were not fully supportive of treating them as full people – only for enumeration for representation (which was absurd since slaves had NO representation in Congress).
Awesome read, Oz. Btw, I’m in the middle of your book and it. is. awesome.
Glad to hear that, Plisade! Thank you. Kind of you.
Nice Ozy.
Puts together what always bothered me about the Chair Force. The culture of entitlement. Not just among the service members, but their families.
The military provided everything that parents do – a place to live (base housing), food (commisary), material wants (BX), even medical care. Oh, and don’t forget early (by civilian terms) retirement. The surest way to get an animated discussion going was to mention any real or imagined shortcoming of the “Benefits”.
I get the collectivist thing when you’re going to order others or be ordered into harms way, but I found it poison off duty.
It leads to real evil, like mandatory fun day
Gov signed the bill yesterday. Dems waste no time going to the courts.
https://www.kcrg.com/2021/03/09/civil-rights-advocacy-group-files-lawsuit-over-new-election-reform-bill/
An Iowa civil rights advocacy group on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging a new election reform bill.
On Monday, Gov. Reynolds signed Senate File 413, according to a statement released by her office, which made changes to the absentee voting process, voter list maintenance activities, and limited the length of election day voting, among other changes.
Some of the changes the bill brings include cutting down the early voting period by 9 days, requiring most mail-in ballots to be received by the time polls close on election day, as well as requiring polls in all elections to be closed by 8:00 p.m. instead of 9:00 p.m.
LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, of Iowa calls the bill a voter suppression law. Washington-based voting rights lawyer Marc Elias wrote in a tweet on behalf of LULAC that the law “creates an undue burden on the fundamental right to vote.”
The lawsuit says the bill is intended to combat voter fraud, but claims it has been “virtually nonexistent in Iowa.”
Fuck’em
* adds to list of indicators that it might be time to go expat*
Of course, if the Dems go all in on their election control bill and pass it, this lawsuit (and the state law it challenges) will be moot.
No see, the courts will take these cases, and will say that the legislature was wrong. Its only when judges usurp legislative authority that the higher courts refuse to act.
That’s all I need to hear!
/Roberts
I must have missed it where the constitution made early voting or mail in voting a fundamental right, let alone outlined the schedule or number of days that must be allowed.
It’s in that clause that says Democrats define democracy.
How does anybody already have standing?
It should be obvious that this law violates the voting rights of a mythical back person who won’t vote again until 2022.
So, clearly a 3rd part has standing to sue on behalf of this mythical back person.
The reason socialism always fails, no matter how fervently it is tried, is because it fails to deliver sufficient value to cover its costs.
And there you are.
Why Marine Corps socialism is generally more successful than civilian government versions:
1. Goals – as a few mentioned above, an external goal focus really helps. The goal of winning battles and wars really keeps was the focus when I was in in the late 80’s and early 90’s. A few times the Army and Marine Corps believed in their own bullshit too much and lost battles – the Philippines, Kasserine Pass, Korea winter 1950-51. That always helped refocus the organization. Given the woke craziness going on in the military, they are do for a nasty loss. The Left tries to use bogey-men to get people aligned. That’s the purpose of the wild reports of January 6th “insurrectionists” and white supremacist terrorists.
2. It’s Voluntary – Nobody has to join, and if you find yourself not in alignment with the organizational goals or culture, you can leave at the end of your contract. Unfortunately non-socialist Cubans, North Koreans, and Americans can’t opt out of the government version.
Given the woke craziness going on in the military, they are do for a nasty loss.
Historically, even without the woke, that pattern is very predictable – Desert Storm being the most notable exception. With the woke, I wonder [worry] that it will be worse – that ‘leadership’ will simply refuse to learn from reality. There are certainly other human examples of that to point to even if it has been rare in this country.
due…
At the end of the Cold War, our military was huge, well-trained, and very focused. Saddam was an idiot.
Plus no monthly profit/loss statement to explain at the end of the month.
We are due a bloody nose, for sure. We have been doing COIN, fighting irregulars etc. for so long that fighting a ‘near peer’ would be one hell of a wake up call.
And whom have our “near peers” been fighting? Rounding up Tibetans and Uighurs? Fighting at checkpoints in the midst of nowhere with Indians?
Ukrainians? Chechens? Georgians?
Maternity flight suits.
LOL
What an idiot.
How far will the media go to cover for this fool?
I saw this speech – watching that doddering old coot try and speak is a challenge…..there were parts I could not interpret/understand and I had to find the actual text and read it.
“You know, some of — some of it is relatively straightforward work where we’re making good progress designing body armor that fits women properly; tailoring combat uniforms for women; creating maternity flight suits; updating — updating requirements for their hairstyles. “
Something tells me that pulling a 9g flight maneuver while pregnant might to be a good idea
Exposing them early could have benefits. We need to breed a new generation that can handle ever higher G maneuvers if we are going to maintain our advantage.
This is how you get Guild Navigators you know.
Well…that a tank full of spice gas.
More sniffable hairstyles?
OFFS ?
What even in the fuck?
I like your analogy to the military, but I do think that there is a better example of functioning socialism; the nuclear family. Note how both are based upon the dreaded authoritarianism.
And to further expand on this, there is a continuum, from full socialism to full capitalism, and somewhere along the line exists democracy based upon free enterprise. one stops working and the other takes over as the most equitable means of a large population to self-govern.
I’m not sure the Family example really counts as socialism. The parents (who make all the decisions) are the owners of everything, and so they still exercise property rights to share what they have to raise their children.
The Family unit up until hunter gatherer tribes of around 25 individuals, mostly kin folk, is the full scope of where socialism continues to work. After that, it starts to break. At a county of hundreds of millions of individuals level, it fails in spectacular fashion and there will be mass murder and starvation. Do we really need to do this again?
Even in that model, the family unit does not sustain indefinitely even if it does repeat. The children grow up and don’t remain dependents, they become adults that form another family unit. The conceit that we never grow up as citizens is one that brings out the berserker in me.
That’s why the unit would never grow past around 25 units. Newly formed couples would have kids and split off to form their own units.
This is why (not to trample on Ozy’s point about nitpicking when the decline began) the decline was inevitable once the frontier closed.
Yeah, it sure does seem that way. Nowhere else to go now to escape from the tyrants and idiots. I can see why Elon wants to go to Mars and reject earthbound government models.
The family unit self replicates; grandparents, parents children. And in a functioning family unit, the grandparents take care of the children, allowing both parents to work. And the cycle repeats; grandparents die off, parents become grandparents, children become parents, etc. There might be some inter-familial aspect of ownership, but it is really communal, and dictated by who needs to use it at any point. The property belongs to the family as a whole, thus the property rights of inheritance allow for the further reformation of the family unit.
But, nice use of the “it’s not real socialism!” canard.
My go to example has always been monasteries. Also requires authoritarianism.
I also maintain that socialism can work on a small basis like the family as you state. It just doesn’t scale up.
But, global socialism is the ultimate utopia! We just have to finish this Great Reset!
It certainly is for the Davos set.
Monasteries are a good example. Yet another place where you can decide that it’s not for you anymore and walk out the door today.
The repugnant part is the compulsion. Compulsion takes away the ability to dissociate from a group you don’t support. Everything cascades from that.
Looks like we were in the same wavelength, trashy. Yours is better said, of course!
Choice has a lot to do with it.
Even staying with the family unit is ultimately a choice, though one that our broader culture does attempt to encourage for the individual. But either parent can leave, or shirk his/her duties, the kid can run away early (at 15 instead of majority) etc.
Whether the individual leaving his natural family is a good or bad thing can’t be known without far more information.
But it is a choice.
If you live in a socialist country and decide you aren’t getting out of it what you’re putting in, too bad. There is no other society for you to join.
But either parent can leave, or shirk his/her duties, the kid can run away early (at 15 instead of majority) etc.
Yup, and they don’t even need to go that far to exercise their choice to disassociate. Workaholism, kids who shut themselves up in their rooms all day, parents who drop their kids off at extracurricular after extracurricular to soak up the waking hours, they’re all attempts (whether conscious or not) to control the level of association they have with their family.
Boom. Mic drop.
Interesting read, Ozy.
Glad you liked it, Sean!
Thanks for a perspective that not all of us have.
Now I’m pondering the draft and how it fits in. It’s compulsory so it’s a whole different ballgame.
I still run across the occasional coot (or cootess), especially in the 70 yes+ category of local GOP type places, who are convinced that what this country needs is compulsory service.
They’re convinced that because the military was good for them (or for Steve or whatever), then everyone will benefit and become a more complete human.
pet causes won’t shut up easily.
I’ve known a few people like that too.
That contingent you described is all over the WSJ. I don’t consider proponents of conscriptions any different than KKK members opining that we need a return to chattel slavery. Slavery is slavery regardless of if it’s dressed up in patriotic garb.
For what’s it worth, I think the door to the draft is closed. Today’s generation is soft in many ways, but resistance to authority is many times over that of the World War, Vietnam, and Korea generations. Dan Carlin talked about this when describing how WW1 officers told conscripts to run through meat grinders and they obeyed without question.
I can’t see that happening today. It’s not even a question in my mind that I’d take an honor guard down to hell with me before I’d willingly let my children be drafted.
WW1 officers told conscripts to run through meat grinders and they obeyed without question.
I still marvel (and struggle) with the obedience/dedication of Civil War soldiers.
They marched in columns, dress and cover maintained, gentleman like, to a knowingly hail of bullets.
See, e.g., Gallipoli. See, also, “Light Brigade, Charge Of”
“Into the Valley of Death Rode the Six Hundred.”
Slavery is slavery regardless of if it’s dressed up in patriotic garb.
Agreed.
I disagree on resistance to authority. Look at how willingly people went along with the Lil Rona Panic measures. Get people scared, and they’ll go along with any government plan.
I think most people in this country have been intentionally blinded to the history behind the Selective Service Act – especially how controversial it was at the time. Many Americans resented the draft, resisted it, and that whole era gave us things like The Income Tax, the Selective Service Act, Schenck’s nonsense (the Great “fire in a crowded theater” hoax), Minimum Wage, and Prohibition. In my opinion, that era probably represents the top of the parabola, even while I acknowledge it was by no means ‘perfect’ in light of the number of people who were still viewed as unacceptable by “polite society” and broader society, too. (Obviously women’s voting rights, treatment of blacks and other undesirables, including Italians, Irish, and many others.) But socialism got its nose under the tent before we ever got to see what could be done as a free market Nation at “full employment” and with the full engine of capitalism driving us. Given our penchant for ingenuity and invention, it really is a shame no one ever got to see that.
It’s too bad we can’t capture and replay what any of them would have had to say either during or immediately after their glorious service. I imagine that it would sound a lot different to what they are saying now.
Great article Ozy. I never served and never thought about the military in this manner. I assumed it was a bureaucratic nightmare base on movies, the nature of the government in general, and personal accounts. I did not connect it to socialism.
I do agree with the idea of common sacrifice and skin in the game breaking down the officer/enlisted lines, but this is good leadership not only a socialist ideal. Having a way out if the system you live in doesn’t suit you is something we need more of in the US, but states or parts of states are still beholden to the Federal government.
Nice article Oz.
The military is only able to exist as a socialist society-within-a-society because its freight is being paid by the broader society’s producers
I’ve thought for a while now that a mercenary model is the best way to fund a military. All of these countries we have troops in should be paying for their expenses plus profit margin. Sell captured equipment and distribute shares back to the troops. It also creates a natural cap on the size of the military.
I was thinking the otherday: waht if we had a “External Revenue Service” That just went around extorting foreigners for funds.
(Yes i know that we do that already, but it would be funny if it was called such”
“The United States External Revenue Service: Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard! See your local USERS recruitment center TODAY for all the exciting and lucrative opportunities that await!
USERS — we raise more revenue before breakfast than the IRS raises all day! There’s no life like it!”
Needz moar Space Force.
Seriously lacking in revenue opportunities, at least until we hook up with the Ferengi.
I used to know a guy who went through his time in the Navy as an out and open Socialist.
A relative of mine turned into a Progressive during his time in the Army.
I was never in the military. I didn’t want to fight Bill Clinton’s wars. From what I see on the outside looking in from all the people I’ve known in the military, I agree with your thesis about the military being Socialist.
Late to the party and it was worth it. Great write up Ozy. I do not miss my meager 5 years 8 months in the Air Force except for my brothers and one sister (who by the way, is the reason I ended up in the commander’s office more than once defending her for her merits).
At times I miss being on the flightline. Getting the bombers loaded and into the air was enjoyable. (Luckily we launched them with training bombs after downloading the armed cruise missiles.) I don’t miss all the other crap not directly related to the mission.
Historically, even without the woke, that pattern is very predictable – Desert Storm being the most notable exception. With the woke, I wonder [worry] that it will be worse – that ‘leadership’ will simply refuse to learn from reality.
Or, as I suggested in the dead thread, the war-fighters who might turn things around simply won’t be there. With earlier versions of the cycle, the guys you need when things hit the fan were still around. They might have gotten passed over for promotions or not given leadership assignments, but they were there to turn to when needed. But, my impression (maybe someone can correct me) is that the military brass has gotten very political, with the same sorts of woke purges we’ve seen in the civilian sector. If that’s the case, who do we rely on to make the miraculous recovery once our enlightened, post-modern, trans-friendly military has proved not up to the job? What makes anyone think that anyone with any self-respect would take command from a civilian leadership that was insisting they be purged as unfit troglodytes?
The problem with tearing the Colonel Jessups down from the wall and throwing them in the gutter is that you had better be damned sure you never need them to man that wall again.
OOooohhhh, RED MEAT!!!! ? ?
wd – I think you’ve hit on something I’ve noticed that happened over my career. I watched “A Few Good Men” as a junior officer and I can tell you that the feeling of disconnect from the society we were protecting was fairly significant. Thomas Ricks wrote a pretty good book about that exact subject called “Making the Corps.” My peers and I would cheer during that Jessup speech, yet one might be fair to ask why? What had we personally endured that could justify disdain toward the civilian society from whence we’d come? My answer is that it was a kind of post-Vietnam cultural stew that we grew up in that had never been addressed. The US military had failures in Vietnam, but it wasn’t lack of battlefield success, or even ability to kick the NVA/VC’s ass, that lost us the Vietnam War. And yet the country grew up with the Boomers (like Kerry) who had built their political careers on the lie that their brothers in arms were war criminals – or worse. The Boomers, of course, for their part, did an even worse job; then Obama, and here we are.
I don’t know that we’ll have enough hard men should the need ever arise. I wouldn’t give my life for this government now. No way. I’m still writing out/working out my bitterness about my dead buddies and what they died for. It sure as fuck wasn’t Obamacare.
One of my neighbors down the street served in the Marines and when this pandemic shut down started, he retorted that he didn’t go over to that “desert shithole” watching his buddies die so Americans could easily be so cowed by their government and complacent towards businesses being destroyed and our movement’s restricted.
As the kids say today, I felt that shit.
(Hollers “AMEN!!!” from the back of the congregation.)
Great article! I would love to see you comment on the relative prevalence of libertarians within the armed forces.
Weed, Mexicans, and Ass sex were off limits when I was in.
Any sex outside marriage was off limits.
Or off base.
The motels near base did a lot of business helping soldiers avoid health and welfare hunts.
I remember a TI saying, “We got anyone in here that likes to pack their wife’s fudge? That’s against the the UCMJ!”
I’m not sure, in no small part because of the problem of defining “true libertarianism” – but my answer would be that many, many guys and gals I served with fall on the conservative, civil rights, pro-Constitution side of things. Take of that what you will. They were all big 2A fans, that’s for sure. And most I knew hated the same things I did and do.
I can’t give a good assessment. I can say there was a lot of look-the-other-way for homosexuality even before don’t ask, don’t tell. If it didn’t impact mission, I’m not getting involved.
Fascinating stuff, I’m still trying to catch up on all your work.
I’m intrigued by this phrasing: “Leaders were expected to serve the unit and the fighters they led, not to be served.”
It sounds familiar: “But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
/Matt. 20:25-28 (KJV)
At company grade, combat arms officers are leaders in a tactical environment. Combat support officers are supply bunnies.
Word.