Asymmetric Military

I wish I had a blog while I was deployed to Iraq in 2005. It would have been a fun distraction from my duties (I also would have caught the front end of the blog craze instead of coming in slightly behind in October of 2006).

The brass wasn't aware of blogging at the time, at least I wasn't aware of their state of awareness (of blogging). I didn't know about blogging either. Some of the younger soldiers were into Myspace (there was at least one fight because of Myspace postings). Youtube wasn't around. So, it wasn't an issue.

Commanders are aware now. There are policies in place to make sure soldiers' online activities don't compromise operational security (OPSEC) or morale (people's egos). I haven't had any problems with Asymmetric except for the time an LT at a unit I was thinking of transferring to told me that some of the things on my site may be inappropriate for a military officer, referring obviously, to some of my political posts. I'm not a hate-blogger or devote time to gossip so I didn't worry too much.

However, I'm ambivalent to the whole blogger-freedom issue. The first professional responsibility of any soldier is to his unit's mission. If blogging interferes with that, then the commander has to stop it, simple as that. That would be the policy in my command, anyways.

Is C.J. Grisham of A soldiers Perspective guilty of doing anything wrong? Unless the Taliban plans to infiltrate his home town's school to put a pro-Taliban article in the school paper, I don't think so:

In early October, C.J. started using A Soldier's Perspective as a vehicle to protest the decision to switch to uniforms mid-year at his children's school. On this blog he posted an unflattering video of school officials at a PTA meeting, an open letter to the superintendent and, of course, documented the ensuing trials and tribulations with unflagging passion. As a result, C.J. says members of the school board contacted his army commanders to complain about his candid blog, asking him to remove all relating posts.

Those very requests drove C.J. to shut down A Soldier's Perspective in early November. "Blogging is no longer worth the trouble," he wrote in a final post. "Everything is fine as long as the stories are happy and positive." This abrupt closure, which garnered much attention within the milblogging community, also grabbed the attention of Cat5 Commerce, an online retailer. In December, C.J. partnered with Cat5 in order to keep his blog afloat.

So, if Mr. Grisham hasn't degraded his primary job, then I wish him well.

I saw this story on CNN. I went through that. I'm glad I did: It's always interesting to be placed in a new situation, and basic training was definitely that for me. I feel that the Army taught me a lot. Not just about rifles and tactical movement, but about people. Stressful situations expose character, positive and negative, and the Army does cause that stress.

At the same time, the quicker ones figure out that the Army isn't like the first year of law school: They'll do everything possible to keep you there.

I look back at some of the things and laugh, or wince. The awe we felt at the sight of officers and drill sergeants; How much we cared about shining our boots and keeping quiet. Anyways, I'll write a little more about it later.

Besides the loss of life and casualties and the horror experienced by family and friends of the deceased; I hate these mass-murder events for the meaning that people project onto the incident.

Because the left in 2009 doesn't perceive of Muslims as an ideological enemy, liberals have been mostly mute on the issue, except for the occasional gun control utterance. Now, if Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had had Glenn Beck's station on one of his car stereo pre-sets, progressives would have gone nuts.

Some liberals might still brush off some of their hatred onto Christians by blaming religious fanaticism in general, Hitchens-style. Desires to lump similar but significantly different phenomenons together are either an attempt to unjustly deflect or assign blame or a sign of ignorance.

By the way, materialism also causes people to die. The Orlando shooter killed because he was bankrupt. Or, he lacked money.

I recoil from conservative commentary on this issue as well. We have pro-gun people who suggest that guns would have saved some lives. Perhaps. But, just like we should accept the wisdom of Army leadership when it comes to Afghanistan and Don't Ask Don't Tell, we should trust their judgment when it comes to guns on base.

Yes, Maj. Hasan is a Muslim and he probably was religiously motivated. Unless you plan on doing something about it, however, people shouldn't make a big deal about it. For example: If Muslims in general are so violent, should we ban them from serving in the military? If you're not prepared to follow the logical course of your argument, then don't bring it up.

"I'm just trying to point out liberal hypocrisy"

Well, OK. It's fair to mention that once in a while.

The only learning thing to take away from this tragedy is that the Army should take anti-Army soldier statements from soldiers more seriously.

Obama is putting his sincere sympathy for American homosexuals above what's best for the military.

"Don't ask don't tell" is actually an inspired compromise, a formalization of the de facto American military approach since George Washington called the first formation in 1775. It allows homosexual soldiers who wish to serve their country to do so while eliminating the negative effects to morale that would come about from a completely open policy.

Detractors of DADA often give two analogies to make their case (usually followed by some ad-hominem attack):

One is that excluding open gays is similar to the forties-era segregation of black soldiers. Segregation is different from an outright ban, but the analogy doesn't apply anyways because there are no essential differences between people of different races.

The second analogy is that permitting open gays in the military wouldn't be any different from having women in the military, and women have greatly contributed to the military. People who make this argument are correct that women do an excellent job and have made tremendous contributions to our war efforts.

That being said, having women integrated into the military brings its share of problems. During my time in Iraq, scandalous fraternization policy breeches occupied a lot of commanders' time (they told one captain that he couldn't be alone with female soldiers. What would they tell a gay soldier with that problem?). When couples inevitably formed or females became pregnant, the results were inconvenient personnel shuffles (husbands and wives; and boyfriends and girlfriends couldn't be in the same section). Although I never witnessed it, this article discusses the problem with sexual assaults amongst soldiers of the opposite sex. And, this occurred in a situation where women and men slept in separate quarters and had different showering and bathroom facilities, where there were clear boundaries.

Now, imagine the above problems- except pregnancy, of course- amongst soldiers of the same sex (we know that most homosexual soldiers wouldn't assault other soldiers sexually, but neither do most straight soldiers assault women. Yet...): No separate facilities; soldiers cowed by a speech code (for whatever reason, most male-soldier humor is sexual in nature and guys tease each other about their sexuality all of the time) and resentful for it; soldiers go off-post to a gay bar; two soldiers get drunk together and one takes advantage of the other (this happened in my college fraternity); guys carrying on, flirting; cliques, formal or informal, spring up, causing dissension.

The above things will happen if Obama changes DADA and soldiers won't like it. When the percentage of openly gay soldiers reaches a certain number, recruitment will suffer.

People will dismiss the above scenarios as bigotry and ignorance (of what?) and it's true that almost no one policy change would render the military useless, but open homosexuality in the military will cause more trouble than it's worth. Shouldn't making the best military, and not conforming it to PC agendas, be our primary concern? It is for the generals who are aware of the issues I've described and are the reason Obama hasn't succeeded so far.

I just posted about my time at FOB Speicher yesterday and today they found Scott Speicher's remains. RIP. Thank you.

I was testing my computer GPU temperatures with Google Earth (it really taxes your video processor) and decided to fly over to my old haunt, FOB Speicher next to Tikrit, in Iraq. Google has some fantastic new features where you can see comments and youtube videos relating to the site. When I zoomed into the soccer stadium, where I played soccer (very poorly), I clicked on the link and saw the following comments:

Yes, it is bombed out. One of the first things that the US did during the invasion of Iraq was to destroy the Iraqi Olympic program which included all pools and soccer stadiums.

and

Actually, one of the reasons this place is ruined is because it sits on the Iraqi Air Force Academy Grounds. It was built before the '91 gulf war and stood vacant during the years we maintained a "No Fly Zone" over Iraq. 15+ years of neglect and looting are miserable on that style of construction. It does however look like a bomb went off nearby as the interior is filled with rubble (I know cause I have walked around inside during my tour here). The rumor mill among soldiers on COB speicher says that the entire Iraqi Olympic Soccer Team was executed here for losing the olympics once by Saddam's brother or son.

Google Earth users

Speicher soccer stadium

Now, why would American's want to destroy the Olympic facilities? Really. Some people are willing to believe anything that fits in with their worldview or confirms their hatreds, in this case, the United States, it's military, or, at least, George Bush.

Somebody opposed to Saddam would be inclined to think that Saddam's brother killed a soccer team. That Saddam would do stuff like that makes it much more likely.

I interrupt my blogging vacation (I'll be back tomorrow or Friday) for this important announcement. One of my first blogging buddies, Flag Gazer, wants us to help Susan Porcello win the AMW All Star contest. I don't know anything about Ms. Porcello except what's on the web page, but if Gazing says she's OK, that's good enough for me. I generally think that we should honor this kind of sacrifice than, say, not working for a corporation to organize a community (to shake down the corporation that you didn't work for). You can vote for her here.