Biases
Sorry but I find it hard to believe that after six years of some of the most combined operations (SOF/conventional) in US history we are still at each others throats. Yes there are legitimate reasons for both sides views. As in everything, there are good units, there are bad units, good ODAs, bad ODAs, unfortunately as we are creatures of habits, if one did us wrong they all must be wrong. I spent many years on the conventional side, fighting for resources: land, ammo, gear, etc...., guess what still doing it in SF. Luckily during this time I had friends down the street in SF,guess what, I used those resources. My unit spent many days on the range shooting their ammo, in their team rooms getting classes and in return helping them as well. Now that I'm that guy down the street with old friends on the conventional side, I do they same for them, it's a rare case of a win win situation. Nothing gets me more irrate than personnel on either side having preconceived notions of the other. Vic hit it on the head, most of us come from the conventional side first, unfortunately many forget where they came from, happens all the time everywhere. By nature of the size of SF vs conventional the same money covers a lot more ground, I'll be the first to admit that it isn't always spent in the right ways, but that's an Army wide black hole.
Maybe I'm too simple minded to understand, who cares who the proponent is, we are all in the same fight in the same larger organization, the U.S. Army. Unfortunately too many in today's service have their own agendas, strickly basing what needs to be done in their mind for their next promotion, not what is best for the institution. The sooner we run these people out of our Army the sooner we can get down to business and might actually have a truely combined cohesive force. I'll finish with redundancy throughout the force is the right answer, no different than having contingencies, if we lose sight of this we will fail.
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