[SkyPilot]

The article is BS.

The social issues are not the Chiefs doing. You can "praise" the American people for that. They elect who they elect.

The Chiefs can either implement the policies or quit.

Gen Ron Fogelman (Air Force 4-star) quit in protest during the Clinton Administration over the way the whole Lt. Kelly Flynn affair had been politicized and also because the Khobar Towers investigation had been politicized.

The public yawned. It was an act of selflessness that was completely lost on the American people.

The military took notice.

Moreover, these cuts are not fictitious.

It is a 13% immediate cut to the Defense Dept - sequestration hits the DoD harder than any other government agency. It is 17% of the budget and must absorb 50% of the cuts.

Even furloughing all of the DoDs civilians (to include nurses, shipyard workers, electricians, aircraft maintenance technicians, lawyers, engineers, teachers, etc) will only save $4 Billion of the $46 Billion the Pentagon is expected by Congress and the White House to find laying around in some magic hat.

The Pentagon has already been cut by $487 Billion that began in 2011 - two years ago. Those cuts have the DoD in a very real decline - and sequestration is a death blow.

Military pay and most procurement dollars are "off limits" for sequestration, so the military must raid Operations and Maintenance for most of the deep cuts. That is going to be a GREATER than 13% cut - it is now projected to be 40% or more.

What reality do these reporters and GOP Congressmen live in?

Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times is acting as a tool for GOP Congressman who are looking for political cover for abandoning Defense and sacrificing it on the altar of politics.

The fact is GOP Congressmen like Hunter and Bishop were shamed during the House Armed Services Committee testimony by the Chiefs, and they didn't like it one bit. They looked like bumbling fools trying to justify the evisceration of the military.

The 2011 Budget Control Act was a Faustian bargain that betrayed the military and the men and women who serve this nation. Obama is a wicked, evil man - but Republicans who have embraced this betrayal are now no better.

Ashton Carter, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, is an honorable man who even has vowed to cut his pay 20% to show solidarity with the men and women (over 40% of the veterans themselves) who will be furloughed by this political treachery. He is a political appointee and exempt from the cut - but he is doing it anyway.

Where are the Republican Congressmen and their staffers who are doing the same thing?

I'll tell you - no where.

Just a couple of years ago, men like this General, who have personally committed acts of wartime heroism, were hailed by our so-called "Conservative" leaders.

Now, suddenly, when the GOP has been out maneuvered politically, they are all "hacks."

Sure.

The real issue is Entitlements are destroying this nation. But there are too many getting them to care what their greed is doing to institutions like our military.

God help us all.

[Travis McGee]

What general is that, and what act of military heroism? I can’t make out his nametag.

We are in a strange time, when most of our generals entered the service after the Vietnam war, and were already field-grades by Desert Storm. IOW, the only “combat” they have seen has been from a command post as a major or higher. I am not aware of any current generals who saw combat as a platoon or company commander.

For that matter, Colin Powell was such an officer, who spent a tour as an ARVN advisor before real combat in VN, then skated from war college to staff billet, and didn’t get back to VN until he was, I believe, a senior major or light colonel. The ARVN unit he advised never left base without beating drums and blowing bugles for days in advance, in battalion strength, to advise the VC to clear a path for everyone’s safety. (It’s in Powell’s own book.)

Then he managed to avoid ever leading an American platoon or company in combat, right through the bulk of the VN war, until he came back as a staff officer.

Yet somehow, he managed to become known as a “combat leader.” He never was. And that describes most of our current generals. There was no combat during their junior officer years, and they were too senior to lead troops in combat by the time of our current war years.

Plenty of REMF perfumed prince generals are pretending to be blooded combat vets.

[Uncle Sham]

What good is having a defense budget if those who are paid to defend us look the other way as a domestic enemy destroys the fabric of this nation? If they are leaving it up to we the people to do the job they are paid to do we don’t need them do we?

[Tammy8]

I personally think Obama planned it all in order to speed up his plan to destroy the military. He has been destroying the military from day one. Yes a downsize was needed as the Wars wind down, and yes money needs to be cut from the overall military budget- but it has been a hatchet job; the military is taking the brunt, the administration and media are lying by not truthfully reporting it and the cuts are not happening in other agencies as needed.

[Tammy8]

I personally think Obama planned it all in order to speed up his plan to destroy the military. He has been destroying the military from day one. Yes a downsize was needed as the Wars wind down, and yes money needs to be cut from the overall military budget- but it has been a hatchet job; the military is taking the brunt, the administration and media are lying by not truthfully reporting it and the cuts are not happening in other agencies as needed.