Sullygoarmy uses this quote from "The Centurions" after his posting. Although this is a tengent from the main thrust of this thread the quote he used got me to thinking:

I'd like to have two armies: one for display, with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, fanfares, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals and dear little regimental officers...

The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflaged battle dress, 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.

The Centurions
Well it seems to me that we have it the way Larteguy wanted it. We have the American combat soldier and combat marine who fights in Iraq and Afghanistan everyday in their "camouflaged battle dress" and then we have the Army back on display here in the United States. That display force is actually the metaphor of perfectness created of the American fighting soldier by the supporters of both wars; that is to say the notion that the American fighting soldier can do no wrong, that he is perfect in his actions because he supports and carries out a righteous ideological cause. The image at the President's state of the union address of the service members in full regalia sitting behind the president's family are examples of our actual fighting army that is on "display" to the American people. The sad irony during the President's speech is that as we looked at those brave service members on TV just hours before 5 American combat soldiers were killed in Mosul. Such is the two armies that the author of "The Centurions," Jean Larteguy called for.