Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
'Short tours' is the biggest remaining problem for the Brits. It can be changed - easier now that the tempo of operations has slowed - and that must be stated no matter how much it irritates.
It doesn't irritate, longer tours are militarily sound but politically infeasible given current organization and training -- and family matters... -- that simple.
Yes there are sure to be a number smart 'six month wonders' who have figured it out (to some extent) but what's the point if they have finished their tour and are now sitting back at home?
It doesn't take all of 'em that long to scope it out but the tour length's a problem, no question -- it, however, is not going to change.
Is it not important to try to identify the problems wherever they may be? Home or abroad.
Been identified, long before anyone here heard from you or me. Also been fought and lost so you're in effect preaching to the old choir. You continue to surface it and continue to be told (not just by me...) that you're right -- but! Politics hold sway. One can view little of what happens on these kinds of deployments today through the lens of other wars just one generation ago. The changes in the last forty years have been huge and few have been beneficial. Today's focus is not military, it's political, pure and simple.
I have noticed that the primary response from serving soldiers these days is a shrug of the shoulders as a submissive acceptance that things can't be changed and they just have to muddle on. This is very sad.
Yes, it is sad.

It is also acceptance of unpleasant reality; military knowledge and awareness in the civilian population in the UK or US is microscopic. Misperceptions in the political and chattering classes are endemic. The forces today are too small to have any political clout at all. Far different world than it was 30 years ago...

May I suggest your view might be colored by serving in an existential war, where the rules are vastly different (and will be again for anyone involved in such). Having served in a couple of far from existential efforts, the focus is different for everyone involved. Perhaps it should not be but it is. You see deterioration in many areas from your war and day to these expeditions. So do I -- but I'm a bit more sanguine because I'm quite confident that an existential effort, should one come, will cure a lot of current ills real quickly.

Until it's over, then everyone will go back to business as usual...