Hagel: “nonstop war” is forcing good troops to leave services
Proving why he was appointed by this White House to be the Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel tells NPR that folks are leaving the service because of constant deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hagel says that when, in a recent meeting, he spoke with a group of six promising young U.S. military officers, “five out of the six said they were uncertain over whether they were going to stay in the service and most likely would get out.
“And why? Because of family issues, because of stress and strain,” he tells Inskeep.
While that might be true in some cases, Hagel might want to look a little deeper into the subject before he talks about it in public. For example, why would the troops want to make those continuous deployments when they understand that the country for which they are fighting has no interest in actually fighting the war to a successful conclusion? Why would they want to remain in the service when they are encouraged to not engage the enemy with all of the ordnance at their disposal? Why would they want to stay in a service that is more interested in social engineering than in fighting wars? Why would they want to stay in the service when everything they do can get them tossed?
Why would they want to make continuous deployments, make the sacrifices they make to family and health for a Defense Department that places more emphasis on recognizing a first sergeant who trolls social media than the door kickers and life takers in Afghanistan?
They’re leaving because the people who are supposed to be fighting for their pay and benefits are doing their best to ruin the pay system. So, yeah, Hagel, you should go, but don’t lie about what the troops are facing on this side of the wars. They’d deploy nonstop if they thought that someone was watching their backs at home, but that has not been the case over the past few years.
Category: Big Pentagon
You said it all in a nutshell Jonn, good post!
Damn right. I can’t tell you how many of buddies I have are leaving/left because they see the writing on the wall. They see the “peace time Army” bullshit coming(See E-8 Moerk). They have no confidence in the senior “leadership” who’s only priorities is themselves. It has nothing to do with deployments. Congratulations Chuck Obvious and Ray “I’ll shit another regulation on tattoos” Chandler. You’ve driven out a shitload of good combat hardened NCO’s. Fuck you both and eat a bag of dicks, you turds.
Agreed.
Hagel was put in place by obama to oversee the downsizing of the DoD. Hagel should have been on Capitol Hill defending the military but instead he just followed his orders from the Oval Office. Mission Accomplished, Chuck.
Jonn, you said it. There is no incentive. The American heart will fight and die to defend its freedom. But it cannot take being used, over and over, with no notion of winning from the leadership. To the grunt, in the best of war campaigns, they feel as just one of many used to keep a nation free. Protect and defend their little piece of real estate and hold it. In these present day campaigns, they have to feel like cannon fodder. Makes me sad for the present day career soldier or combat troop or any service member in a field that keeps them overseas year after year with no end in sight and worse, no care from their CINC.
Morale was much better when combat in Iraq was at its peak. Amazing the difference it makes when troops feel they have a purpose and leaders who are committed to winning.
Cliff Clavin…(Thanks for the nod to “Cheers” by the way!) Though I am an old veteran and Iraq and Afghanistan were far after my time I think what you said is more than true. I think the original Iraq campaign, with its leadership then, emboldened the troops to push forward to a well understood, well stated and established, end game and defined goal post. Since the change in leadership who in my mind, truly dislike our nation as it is and what it has stood for, for over 200 years, things are far different for our nation and the individual troop fighting to hold his piece of ground. (As an aside, it deeply saddens and upsets me to hold such a belief about our POTUS and all his administration. I never thought I would experience the likes of Obama in my lifetime. I never imagined our nation would stand by and tolerate the likes of him.) Obama’s open disdain and cavalier attitude for the military in particular has taken the heart out of the American fighting troops. Thankfully our troops ruck up and push forward despite them being well aware of their lack of value to the POTUS. God bless our troops in their determination. Other nations have fallen because of this kind of treatment of their military. Even the Pentagon, who use to fight to hold onto every dime they could, for every project they could, especially the care and welfare of the fighting forces has succumbed to a political agenda to please the administration first and the last thing on their list of cares is their concern for our troops, their lives and their futures. It is a sad, upside down and backwards situation to me. Especially in the face of recent news of Dianne Feinstein and John McCain calling for yet more boots on the ground in yet another third world shit hole, taken over by Muslim radicals (Is there any other kind I ask?) But I digress because I an on a rant and tear. it is fast coming to a pint due to troop cutbacks… Read more »
“in yet another third world shit hole, taken over by Muslim radicals” – there are a lot of third world shit holes not governed by Muslim radicals; however, every place governed by Muslim radicals is or soon will be a third world shithole.
I reckon a few Vietnam Vets are out there thinking “been there, done that.”
Don’t have to go back that far, nbcguy54. Lots of folks from the Clintoon Administration’s “Peace Dividend” downsizing also empathize.
True words. Got to see that and the end of the Cold War “dividend” up close and personal. The junior officers that survived those days are now the senior officers buying off on this crap. Seem to have a little bit of memory loss if you ask me.
Yea, fire for fire only after receiving the Commander’s initials over the radio.
What a crock of shit.
Indeed, retention should be a major problem for the military at this point. With the silly shit that accompanies each RIF after a winding down of operations and the constant post service tinkering with the benefits why would a smart, focused young man or woman want to sign for a program that will renege on promised made in lieu of compensation?
A civilian populace that thinks everyone in the military is a half-crazed time bomb waiting to commit unspeakable crimes at the slightest provocation. A government and leadership core that thinks lowered compensation makes for better service members (the only instance in the history of government where less money for salaries was ever advocated) or that reducing GI Bill benefits isn’t breach of contract.
Right sign me up for more of that shit please, I can’t wait to get hosed out of promised benefits.
But yet, he says we understand the need to forego pay increases . . .
So, you’ve been invited to a monthly lunch with the Boss. He says something with which you disagree. You say what? Whatever the hell he wants to hear, that’s what! Me, I don’t think the discussion Hagel described ever occurred. It’s something that he distilled from multiple sources for the express purpose of sidestepping the more likely retention causes that Jonn so well detailed above.
And, the perceived randomness of the drawdown.
The smart folks are the first ones to vote with their feet.
Corporations always assume they can lose the mediocre performers and retain the best and the brightest. However, whenever a drawdown occurs, the best and the brightest are the first ones out the door leaving the mediocrities behind to run the show.
That’s really damn interesting, considering my unit never had enough space to take all the volunteers willing to go on deployment, I guess we were all just being voluntold and didn’t know it.
RC helicopter on WH lawn and SS agents walking the grid search again. Please—can we have a thread on this!
1) Our BAH is being cut despite the current BAH not being adequate. Troops have to decide to either live close to many bases or have a large enough, nice enough house. They can’t have both.
2) Cuts to PCS budgets, so the movers are putting their worst guys on the jobs. My last few PCSes have been horrible — which makes my family quite unhappy with the military life.
3) Cuts (or threatened cuts) to commissary and other benefits.
4) A silly retirement system that takes a year to retire. After serving 20+ honorable years, why can’t we have our retirement approved but still wait until we find a job. Now you have to retire before you’ve found a job. “Thanks for your service.”
TTC…Funny you mention movers. I am sorry to hear that this too, has gone to hell in a hand cart like most government contractors. I remember when I got out of service in 1977. The PCS movers showed up. I smoked at the time and so did they. I put an ash tray in the room where a mover was packing and invited him to light up if he wanted, which he did. Also I had a stack of firewood in the shed and told them to leave it, the next tenant said he wanted it. Much to my surprise when unpacking back home, I find the ash tray, including used butts wrapped in packing paper in a box from that room. I then find three boxes marked, “Shed” which were unusually heavy and when I opened them, they had wrapped EVERY piece of firewood in five full size sheets of packing paper each, then loaded and taped them up in these boxes. (Poundage counts you know.) I have no doubt the entire crew and a few guys at the warehouse sat on the back of the truck when it was weighed too. I will say they did an excellent job with no breakage. They were just all about getting every dollar they could from the military cash cow. They were Mayflower too, a reputable mover.
I had the movers pack up trash from the back of my truck.
In case none of you have tallied things up, we sent Special Ops to 70% of the world’s countries during the last fiscal year – 133 countries:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/22/in-the-last-fiscal-year-washington-sent
Add in all of the public deployments of regular troops and you have to wonder how this is sustainable, especially with less than 1% of the American population. Even in the non-military world, you have to have plans, goals, and stated desired outcomes or your project fails. Management is supposed to be there to remove obstacles to ensure your success, not place obstacles in your path. American Sniper clearly demonstrates all of that on a personal level.
We are not the world’s police. We should NEVER send our troops into harm’s way without a clear objective and ROE that are in THEIR favor, not that of the enemy. We should only fight to win, using all the resources available, then leave. A little here, a little there, with no clear objective or conclusion is a sure path to failure.
Dear Mr President:
Where were men like you back when I was running things in Germany? We would have won the war then. Instead, we had to deal with men of iron led by other men of iron who were motivated to win, with no screwing around.
I mean, you’d never have let Eisenhower do that Normandy thing, right? That was our downfall.
Sincerely,
Adolf HITLER
Leader and Imperial Chancellor
Greater German Reich
The Scum-in-chief undermines the troops efforts at every opportunity.
Anything to deflect Hussein’s obvious and direct impact on anything negative that occurs under his lordship.
Get bent, Hagel. Go dig a hole and fall in it.
Same thing happened with Carter, same thing with Clinton.
Hell, the same thing happened with WWI vets who were promised cash incentives called War Bonds, and when the Depression destroyed the economy, they were treated like criminals for asking money that was promised to them by Wilson.
None of this is new. It has always happened and it will happen again. The troops aren’t leaving because of nonstop war. They’re leaving because they’re getting screwed three ways to Sunday, and they know it.
While I was out processing I was in line behind an SF LTC. He told the guy that he was retiring because “the Army is no longer a growth industry.” Add to that the current REFRADs and the next set of pending budget cuts that will most likely disproportionately effect the DoD, plus the slowdown of conventional troop deployments, and I’d rank uncertainty and forced retirement far above war weariness.
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