Posted on 05/04/2018 9:37:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
“I’ve done my own bit by fulfilling my national obligation, with an Honorable Discharge from AUS as Sgt.E5 MG squad leader, 1962. And I consider it very, very miniscule ...
... I’m not impressed with that plebe line of approach, either; nor is it moving when you essentially call the people who wrote about their participation in the A-bombing of Japan a bunch of liars, according to your way of reading their intents. ...”
Dear i -
I don’t care what you respect.
I am grateful that you served a hitch. You did so before I was old enough to do anything. It’s part and parcel of the esteem I do harbor for everyone who did sign on the dotted line (as we whimsically spoke of volunteering, whilst I was a cadet) - including the ones who lived and died, serving in some cases centuries before we who are still among the living showed up on this planet.
Shared effort and mutually acknowledged sacrifice down through the generations bind the country together. Not much else does.
No part of providing for the common defense is an individual effort. So I do find it laughable when someone hurls accusations of egotism and vainglory. Yours is not an especially new critique.
It was my privilege to work with every technical specialty in the armed service of the USA, plus significant segments of the intel agencies, personnel from some Allied countries, and with designers and engineers and technicians, who built the systems all of us used. I cannot express the breadth and depth of my gratitude for all they did, and are doing. Heck, I confess to being grateful for the common soldiers of the Red Army, Russian and otherwise, who suffered so greatly in fighting the Third Reich - not to mention the poor treatment they received from their own government in the USSR.
You may have misread my skepticism of pronouncements about what might have happened in the downfall of Imperial Japan: forecasts are always a hazy thing, and the airing of so many demurrals from senior US military leaders after VJ Day cannot help but fuel suspicions. And you have confused forecasts & demurrals with personal accounts of veterans, concerning their experiences in action.
I’m not presuming to doubt such accounts, but establishing their veracity by objective means is far more problematic. The chaos and uproar of action is such that each individual may recall inaccurately, or become so rattled by the horrors they have witnessed, that they self-censor. And there is another limitation: any individual, no matter how careful and observant and level-headed, can never see more than the tiniest slice of what’s going on. They cannot hope to capture enough detail to fill in the full picture.
What this boils down to is that wars are singularly bad places to collect data on the effectiveness of systems. If the hardware we have is to function at all, other approaches must be taken, to measuring and assessing outcomes. Some way are better than others, at doing so - something that American Expeditionary Forces in World War One had to learn the hard way. Figuring it out came at great sacrifice - and after the Armistice a good share of the knowledge was lost, forcing the Army Air Corps to go through the process all over again as World War Two loomed - again, accompanied by yet more sacrifice.
It’s worth remembering that military aviation wasn’t dreamed up and created because a bunch of college boys wanted a new plaything. It was conceived of, and undertaken, to rescue the ground forces (and naval vessels) from the stalemate the senior services were mired in, during most of World War One. In sum, it was invented to save their bacon - to reduce the risk and suffering so many were going through, where all their heroism meant nothing.
Adherents of the senior armed services have trouble with that notion, down to this very day. They greatly resented it during World War Two and still see it as an insult to their manliness.
“I’ve done my own bit by fulfilling my national obligation, with an Honorable Discharge from AUS as Sgt.E5 MG squad leader, 1962. And I consider it very, very miniscule ...
... I’m not impressed with that plebe line of approach, either; nor is it moving when you essentially call the people who wrote about their participation in the A-bombing of Japan a bunch of liars, according to your way of reading their intents. ...”
Dear i -
I don’t care what you respect.
I am grateful that you served a hitch. You did so before I was old enough to do anything. It’s part and parcel of the esteem I do harbor for everyone who did sign on the dotted line (as we whimsically spoke of volunteering, whilst I was a cadet) - including the ones who lived and died, serving in some cases centuries before we who are still among the living showed up on this planet.
Shared effort and mutually acknowledged sacrifice down through the generations bind the country together. Not much else does.
No part of providing for the common defense is an individual effort. So I do find it laughable when someone hurls accusations of egotism and vainglory. Yours is not an especially new critique.
It was my privilege to work with every technical specialty in the armed service of the USA, plus significant segments of the intel agencies, personnel from some Allied countries, and with designers and engineers and technicians, who built the systems all of us used. I cannot express the breadth and depth of my gratitude for all they did, and are doing. Heck, I confess to being grateful for the common soldiers of the Red Army, Russian and otherwise, who suffered so greatly in fighting the Third Reich - not to mention the poor treatment they received from their own government in the USSR.
You may have misread my skepticism of pronouncements about what might have happened in the downfall of Imperial Japan: forecasts are always a hazy thing, and the airing of so many demurrals from senior US military leaders after VJ Day cannot help but fuel suspicions. And you have confused forecasts & demurrals with personal accounts of veterans, concerning their experiences in action.
I’m not presuming to doubt such accounts, but establishing their veracity by objective means is far more problematic. The chaos and uproar of action is such that each individual may recall inaccurately, or become so rattled by the horrors they have witnessed, that they self-censor. And there is another limitation: any individual, no matter how careful and observant and level-headed, can never see more than the tiniest slice of what’s going on. They cannot hope to capture enough detail to fill in the full picture.
What this boils down to is that wars are singularly bad places to collect data on the effectiveness of systems. If the hardware we have is to function at all, other approaches must be taken, to measuring and assessing outcomes. Some way are better than others, at doing so - something that American Expeditionary Forces in World War One had to learn the hard way. Figuring it out came at great sacrifice - and after the Armistice a good share of the knowledge was lost, forcing the Army Air Corps to go through the process all over again as World War Two loomed - again, accompanied by yet more sacrifice.
It’s worth remembering that military aviation wasn’t dreamed up and created because a bunch of college boys wanted a new plaything. It was conceived of, and undertaken, to rescue the ground forces (and naval vessels) from the stalemate the senior services were mired in, during most of World War One. In sum, it was invented to save their bacon - to reduce the risk and suffering so many were going through, where all their heroism meant nothing.
Adherents of the senior armed services have trouble with that notion, down to this very day. They greatly resented it during World War Two and still see it as an insult to their manliness.
Thank you for taking the time to add to your contribution. This is not the first time that a West Point man has crossed my path. A cadet could give several points to a Marine Drill Instructor in how to properly humiliate a candidate. I had some cadets as tac officers in my NCO Schooling, at one time with one on each ear in addition to the one with his nose a microinch away from mine. Good for the soul, actually.
But do not think by any means that I doubt the need and effectiveness of deploying the nuclear card to convince the obstinacy of the traditional Japanese mind to quit. My compassion does not extend to condemning the force necessary to terminate that situation.
But I will say that I was solicited once,based on my materials science specialty, to create the substances necessary to construct the triggering mechanism for the neutron bomb, with promises that my employment would be permanent, nicely situated, and fully rewarded. I chose not to do that. So whatever morality you want to figure into that, it is not chatter.
Cheers!
Ah, yeah, maybe WWII-era, Nationalist Chi-Shek-aligned Chinese might argue it’s necessary, but China of today, heck, Mao Zedong’s Chinese would probably side with the anti-nuke crowd and claim falsely that they were unnecessary due to viewing it as great propaganda value against us Americans. Remember, the USSR were pretty much the reason why Dresden is propagandized as being an American-made war crime from World War II.
Still, I agree with your overall point.
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