Posted on 07/23/2013 9:20:54 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned on Monday that U.S. troops are “close to the breaking point,” after many deployments — and Congress risks worsening the situation if it doesn’t help the Pentagon with its budget.
“Our people are strong and resilient after 12 years of war, but they are under stress — and so are the institutions that support them,” Hagel told the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the group’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky.
“Last week at Fort Bragg’s Soldier and Family Assistance Center, I met a first sergeant who told me that in Afghanistan, he froze up and became overwhelmed by anxiety. He couldn’t command. He had lost his ability to command,” Hagel said. “I asked him how many deployments he had. He told me he was on his fifth consecutive combat tour when this happened. When you push human beings this hard, they break. Some people have been pushed beyond the breaking point.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
He called from his aircraft over Afghanistan to "congratulate" homosexual activists on the SCOTUS decision, and immediately ordered benefits in the Billions to be paid to homosexual "spouses."
He is destroying the DoD civilian workforce, which is composed of 44% military veterans. The furlough is finanically ruining the lives of mechanics, teachers, nurses, cops, engineers, and every other profession that directly supports our military.
Hagel should be standing on the desk of Obama and screaming at the top of his lungs in the halls of Congress - demanding Sequestration stop harming our military - now.
Hagel should immediately suspend millions on gopher research, a $455 million upgrade to Gitmo (including a new audio visual entertainment room), and Billions to the Muslim brotherhood.
No on in American even cares remotely about our uniformed military either, and what they have been through.
Commercials like this one are soooooo 2006.
One wonders to what extent this unhappy situation is due to the knowledge that they’re working for a dickhead president....
Dittos to that.
Hagel is managing the DoD right into the ground.....
Hey... hagel has a little hole in the top of his head too!
“One wonders to what extent this unhappy situation is due to the knowledge that they’re working for a dickhead president....”
Darn—I tought it was going to be about the troops overthrowing him ala Morsi style. Our own little coup..
Sorry, this guy has to have a severe ‘angle’ to say something like this. What is he up to?
Thanks for your post. I wasn’t aware of how much the DoD civilian workforce was affected.
A few hundred million more for well-connected contractors to provide Racial Sensitivity Training to the troops.
yeah, THAT’LL fix it!! /sarc
Change our “goal” in each theater to deicmating the enemy, not Nation building.
Change our ROE to “smash everything flat if attacked”, regardless of local collateral.
In the next 3 months, plan on bringing everyone back as there will be nothing left to destroy.
What could go wrong for them?
“hagel has a little hole in the top of his head too!”
That’s beside the point!
The lowly paid GS-05 mechanic is furloughed. These people work for this nation - they are not like the Food Stamp and SSDI takers. Yet, they are the ones punished.
There is also a huge, massive "brain drain" that has already occurred in the defense industry. Very skilled researchers and engineers have either left or are leaving.
The overall effect on the economy will be profoundly negative, not to mention the immorality of all of this.
Sequestration exempts Entitlements, but steals from those who get up each day and work for a noble cause.
Cut their rations again. Maybe it’ll work this time.
Yeah well, being forced to surrender to terrorists and celebrate sodomy will depress you......
:-)
Exactly. My son said he refuses to join the reserves even for the bennies he could get simply because he cannot stand the president and his policies toward the military. He was a 3 tour combat Marine in Helmand province so he was no slacker either and has more insight on our military that anyone in the white hut or SecDef.
Our military has been ridden hard since Desert Storm. Then there was the Bosnia/Kosovo rotation, and then the focus on Iraq, and then the transition of focus to Afghan. So, we go all the way back to 1990. That is 23 years of a tough optempo.
What has made it so rough? I would argue for downsizing the military during the Clinton era to 10 divisions, and then in the Obama era to the brigade equivalent of about 8 divisions. And now they want to make it smaller.
There was a 2 simultaneous wars strategy primarily to fight 2 wars if necessary. Alternate reasons for that manpower level would be what we see now. An extended war, and especially one we’re not particularly concerned with winning quickly, would tap the strength of those who serve.
What’s the best answer?
Increase back to 13 divisions, rid ourselves of the brigade focus, and put a warrior in the White House. That plan is, of course, listed backwards.
Obama should resign due to incompetence.
It would also help quite a bit if we stopped being the world’s police force. There was a time when the military wasn’t spread all over the globe on one deployment after another. Leadership needs to learn how to set priorities. If it isn’t directly related to national defense, then maybe we shouldn’t go. Of course, this is way, way too much to expect from President Obama and his ilk. Like all leftists, they hate the DoD. I’m not saying we need to be isolationists, but we could certainly be a little less expeditionary.
“Sequestration exempts Entitlements, but steals from those who get up each day and work for a noble cause.”
And you will not hear one peep on MSM about this either. Just like how the glazed over Congress exempted themselves from NObamaCare too.
Bush’s Fault, no doubt.
so lets listen to asskisser dempsey tsalk about deploying troops to syria.
Desert Storm started it, and it’s been going on ever since. Our country’s leaders have forgotten the purpose behind having a big stick. Carry a big stick so you WON’T have to use it. Democrat administrations in particular seem to think the military is just another tool in the toolbox, so why not use it, eh? Well, they’re using it up, wearing it out, and NOT paying to maintain it.
If I had to guess, I'd say it's money. After that, more money. Finally, even more money still. But none of it is for more troops or better barracks & fighter planes, it'll be for Muslim outreach.
Just a guess, I have no special knowledge.
that would be TALK not STALK, though that might be appropriate too. too bad we can’t furlough welfare and food stamps.
LOL!
How happy would you be if you thought you might have to go into combat with a woman in front of you and a queer behind you.
And you can’t even ask Jesus to help you because that isn’t allowed any more.
That’s really depressing. I used to work for the Navy Exchange in the 80s, and my dad was a career civilian employee of the Dept. of the Navy (after his WW2 service). I can well imagine the people this is affecting.
but I thought Obama ended all the unnecessary wars. How can this be?
Every other day and almost every other hour, we hear about a new mis statement, crime, scandal, malfaesance, leak, corruption, mismanagement... so now I am convinced that there are a bunch of truly deficient (and that is putting it nicely) idiots in DC ... and Hagel is certainly one of them. Starting with and not limited TO Benghazi, which has not been addressed to anyone's satisfaction, and all the other spying and corruption reports... I hate them all! AND I hate the MSM which focuses on only the most superficial and temorary issues.
Maybe because many in Afghanistan no longer have hot breakfasts, midnight meals, decent lunches, decent latrines & showers, etc., while Zero takes $100 million vacations on the taxpayer dime?
Plus large taxpayer money helping Muslims inside the DOD, too.
Sorry, but it is NOT a 20% annual pay cut. It’s a 20% pay cut over the summer, which works out to maybe a 4% annual pay cut.
When this “war” on terror started I told my wife that we will never win it because we won’t do what it will take to win it.
Expecting a soldier to fight for years, especially under the ROE they must fight, will take it’s toll.
Do you really think that 5 consecutive combat deployments would be easier to take under Bush or any other president? Hagel is right. The troops have been stretched past the safety point. And morons like McCain are willing to toss them into the Syrian mess.
Imagine the howl of racism if a 20% to foodstamps were inacted.
what a farce
we have enough on out plate, militarily
and Obama has added troops and logistics operations, in Africa, in multiple locations, and not just “special operations”, and most recently in Jordan and Turkey in defense of the Sunni-Islamist putsch against Assad
I always hear screaming about little Korea, when a bigger question is when will prosperous western Europe take care of its own defenses, after sixty-plus years on the dole to us. Britain and France always have troops for foreign military adventures abroad that serve their own “national interest” yet when will the NATO countries in Europe do all the heavy lifting in Europe?
as for Afghanistan, that’s a whole nuther can of worms
maybe BECAUSE of sequestration, the Pentagon will be able to force and administration to start making policy based on priorities as opposed to priorities set merely to fulfill policy wish lists.
Well.... someone's got to protect the ASSETS and INVESTMENTS of the RULING OLIGARCHY.
It's so 'nice' of us 'capitalists' to protect the 'wealth' of the 'socialists'.
Don’t confuse the issue with facts. Congress is busy getting ready to spend millions to arm Al-Qaida in Syria.
I would be more angry/depressed about leaving my family and seeing friends die for ungrateful savages. Let the Islamic filth kill each other.
Those are safe mentions in my opinion.
My point exactly, even if the wording is slightly different.
Yes, THAT dickhead.
I refer you to several earlier responses to my point.
Its all about the coming Debt Ceiling fight. All owebama’s minions are posturing for the cameras.
Bring all the troops home now.
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