[Destructor]

My commander, a Brigadier General, slept on the ground with us troops. General Murphey was always the last man in the company to go throught the chow line. He preferred to let the troops go ahead of him. You just can't make sweeping generalizations! Some commanders do abuse their position, but most are still soldiers.

[Old Sarge]

John F___ing Kerry to you, too, Reese.

[VadeRetro]

I remember being impressed with Charley Reese as recently as about 1999. Not since.

[Tallguy]

There's another difference between the old War (& Navy) Departments and Today's Pentagon: Today's DoD is chock-full of civilians perfoming tasks that, assuming those tasks existed in 1944, used to be done by uniformed personnel.

[JasonC]

"was viewed affectionately"

Uh huh. The Japanese were so tender and loving that Sunday morning.

Our enemies attack us because we have power, not because of what we do with it. Power gets in the way of the schemes of others to rule the world.

There never was an idylic past for the US. The closest we came was the second half of the 19th century. But that wasn't based on being loved by the rest of the world, it was based on being defended by the British Empire.

Which, news flash, isn't there anymore. Abandon our posts, and we will not go back to being defended by them. We will just invite 9-11s and Pearls on a larger scale, until we aren't in anybody's way anymore.

We are stuck with power. And with it both responsibility and enemies. Stop living in fantasy land and deal with it.