Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
We also need to take a hard look at ourselves as a nation, and figure out what we want to represent (values wise), and then determine how we will represent them. I love the infantry, but now we need better educated troops who are self disciplined, with good character to avoid making strategic errors downrange. The only way to attract them I believe is creating a culture in the military where they fit (opportunities for intellectual creativity), or go the mercenary route and offer much more pay, but then you might curtail the character we're searching for. We'll never have a "perfect" Army, or a perfect soldier, I'm sure as hell not, so we have to design strategy that fits the means, which I think means (in the future) we need to minimize the time that we leave conventional boots on the ground.
I don't see how paying Infantry Soldiers what they are worth as being "mercenary." I truly believe that it is time to discard the WWII model of Infantry soldiers as "uni-taskers."

I think it's time to make the profession of Infantry Soldier into an "artisan's guild" where a guy who wants to "develop the art of individual warfare" can spend a career doing it. And be compensated accordingly. I've come to despise the "up or out" mindset, combined with central, authoritarian control that has come to define how we treat our Infantry Soldiers (i.e., like dirt). I'm not talking about Special Forces, either. I'm talking regular light infantry, who can be reliably expected to take on a wide variety of missions at the drop of the hat.

If the circa 1900 soldier could be expected to conduct COIN as an ordinary part of his job, surely the 2007 version could be expected, as well.