Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
As a historian, I would think you would know better than to compare a 21st century infantryman to a Roman Legionaiire. The number and complexity of skills a modern combat soldier is required to master far outstrips any relevant historical example. It isn't marching in formation and swordplay or even musketry - there's a ton of highly technical, highly perishible skills that must be maintained. You hire an infantryman today to be a highly trained infantryman, not a generalist slave. There's barely time to keep guys proficient in all the core skills required.
Actually I strongly disagree with this Cavguy. The human being has not substantially changed and whether we use Maslow or others the basic requirements for the care and feeding of the soldier have not changed. The accessories may have changed (ipods versus harmonicas) but the actual human interactions are pretty stable.

When you add technology that tool or weapon is a metaphor for some technology lower on the ladder of sophistication. A main gun on a tank is only a bigger musket, and a musket is only a better arrow, and an arrow is only a bigger stick.

Sure there is training required and we have changed the window of that training for the military to later and later in life in the Western world. That does not change the human needs. It is quite possible to push much of the training back down the pipe into the k-12 system where it belongs, but the cultural dynamics currently will not allow it. That doesn't make the points of fixing what appears to be a brittle logistics path any less important.

There is another issue too. The political pundits, the military, the social story of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are testaments of doing without. The story of combat is of primal urgency and predation followed by ascetic lifestyle of the soldier. With domestic economic woe, high fuel prices, a country deep in recession (regardless of the media drivel), and national disasters, the stories of lobster thermidor, and movie night in the combat zone will not play well in Peoria.

Associations in the story of combat played out as soldiers staying in the former palaces of Saddam eating luxurious meals and serviced by concierge services will back fire on the military. The conscripted media and tight control of the information from flag draped coffins to embedded reporters clearance for stories will feed a blazing conspiracy. Never mind the current festering debate over contractor malfeasance, profiteering, and the political football of no-bid contracts by politicians with vested interests in the companies.

Some will get their backs all up and get pissed to the gills saying "but it's not that way". To true. But, the information and political motivations in an unpopular war that is tightly controlled feed the furnace of this firestorm. Just wait. I thought Black Water would be the one to tip the balance but it is sounding more like KBR. The USAF/Boeing KC136 tanker deal looked like it might break this open, but it didn't. Every soldier talking about FOBBITS, every story about steak, every story about contractor profiteering, paints a picture that the soldiers are complicit with the contractors using war as an excuse to live high on the hog.

I know let the recriminations begin. I would just point out that a WaPo reporter was hanging out here looking for evidence of malfeasance about the use of funds by soldiers for rebuilding.

How is that for busting the echo chamber?