Stan,

I rather focus on the discussion points at hand, so I was hesitant to make the post you responded to, but the personal attacks on Fabius were disappointing and out of character with this otherwise outstanding website. Goesh has made several intelligent posts throughout, but for whatever reason he (and others) have elevated their disagreement with Fabius to personal attacks, instead of counter arguing his points. I guess this is human nature and I’m sure I have been guilty of it myself, so I’ll let it go. I’m sure they can work it out. In the old army we had a way of working this out behind the barracks (lol).

I want to keep my introduction short and general in nature until I’m long retired: I’m an active duty soldier with approximately 30 years in, most of them in special operations. I have a wide range of experiences and have worked in various capacities in each regional theater as either a combatant, an advisor, or some other capacity. Of course such a wide range of experiences results in a jack of all trades, and master of done, but none the less I may have experienced or observed something worth sharing and discussing.

I have been reading SWJ for a long time, and after returning from a recent OIF deployment I decided to join and hopefully contribute. A lot of folks consider my ideas unorthodox, so I may find myself in Fabius’s foxhole shortly helping him lay down final protective fire. I don’t know Fabius (apparently no one does), but I am receptive to good counter arguments and my views can be swayed by them. I think I am somewhat open minded, which unfortunately is not a common trait in my community, where as I stated in my first post agendas are confused with facts.

I'm not a psychologist, but I think this trait has something to do with the AAA personalties we assess into special operations, self included. My only advantage is a few years of doing this is starting to dull the aggression (and memory) and result in more reflection.