Politics and religion.

[Lady's Human]

Those piles of ribbons weren't worn by Ike because a) they didn't exist at the time, and b) the uniform regs were somewhat different.

Now, it's nearly a requirement to wear every award you've been given. Then, they were for the most part optional.

Go ahead, show up for a greens inspection not wearing an award your CSM knows you have.

Also, Ike, for all his prowess as an organizer, wasn't a particular standout until his skills came to the fore during the planning to take back Europe. He was largely a political General.

Patton, on the other hand....



Yeah, he had a lot of awards for not soiling his pants as well.

[RICHARD]

Patton, on the other hand....



Yeah, he had a lot of awards for not soiling his pants as well.

I would have like to have seen him walk thru a doorway and not get his sashes hooked on a doorknob?

He would have kicked that door's arse.

But, Chuck Norris would have knocked the whole house down.

[Edwina's Secretary]

Respect is a "goes around, comes around" thing.

People who do not think being the President of the United States - elected by a majority - deserves respect should not be surprised by disrepect.

If you think it is okay to disrepect the position of those you don't like it gives permission for others to express disrepect as well.

[Lady's Human]

And this from the woman who is so concerned about the troops she spend Sunday morning reading obits.

Because you have an issue with someone it's okay to disrespect millions upon millions of servicemembers?

Here's a buck.



Go buy yourself a clue.

[RICHARD]

Here's a buck.



Go buy yourself a clue.

Target-

Three for two dollars?

[lizbud]

Chuck Norris would have done HIS OWN surgery.

Forgot to give the link on Petraeus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus


And to think he might not have been alive if this soldier's gun had found
a better target.

[RICHARD]

Forgot to give the link on Petraeus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus


And to think he might not have been alive if this soldier's gun had found
a better target.

Chuck Norris would have taught the recruit how to use his rifle, then instructed said recruit on the care of his weapon, policed the used brass from the area, driven himself to the hospital after stopping to change his uniform and have a beer with boys.


Then he would have operated on himself....


I can barely get out of bed in the morning and he's doing pushups two days after being shot?
---------------

About DP breaking his pelvis?


CN would have pushed the Earth out of orbit when he hit.

[blue]

Go buy yourself a clue.

She might also try

sudo apt-get -y install a-clue

Sorry for the bad joke, Im up late and feeling geeky.

[Bonny]

Bravery, Courage, & Dignity seem to have lost their meaning in other places of the world but in mine it is alive & well. The other day Christopher Opat came home in a coffin. The streets of his home town were lined with over 2000 people coming together to pay him honor. Our governor ordered our countrys flag to be flown at half mast that day. The representative sent by the military was in tears because he had never seen so many people turn out for a military funeral before. I heard a song played in memory of Christopher on our local country western station where at noon before the news the Star Spangled Banner is still played. Bravery, Courage, & Dignity are still alive in my part of the world. THANK GOD!

[RICHARD]

Bravery, Courage, & Dignity are still alive in my part of the world. THANK GOD!

I think you forgot Humility.

I am sure that each and every service person would blush at all the attention they receive when they finally come home.

[lizbud]

I saw a story with the lead line of "Rush gets star on walk of fame" so
I worked up a rant and clicked on the story........... It was about the band
Rush, not the big fat moron. A perfectly good rant gone to waste.

[RICHARD]

I saw a story with the lead line of "Rush gets star on walk of fame" so
I worked up a rant and clicked on the story........... It was about the band
Rush, not the big fat moron. A perfectly good rant gone to waste.

WTF, do have against one of the ALL TIME GREATEST ROCK BANDS?


Easy, Turbo.....





I do that often and I blame it on lazy editors.

[Grace]

Would you like to be nominated?


From Wikpedia -

Each year, an average of 200 nominations are submitted to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Walk of Fame Selection Committee. Anyone, including fans, can nominate anyone active in the field of entertainment, as long as the nominee or his or her management is in agreement with the nomination. (A letter of agreement from the nominated celebrity or representative must accompany the application.) Nominees must have a minimum of 5 years' experience in the category for which they are nominated. Posthumous nominees must be deceased at least 5 years. At a meeting each June, the Committee selects approximately 20 celebrities to receive stars on the Walk of Fame during the following year. One posthumous award is given each year as well. The nominations of those not selected are "rolled over" to the following year for reconsideration; those not selected two years in a row are dropped, and must be renominated to receive further consideration. Living recipients must agree to personally attend a presentation ceremony within five years of selection. A relative of deceased recipients must attend posthumous presentations. Presentation ceremonies are open to the public.

A fee (currently USD $25,000), payable at time of selection, is collected to pay for the creation and installation of the star, as well as general maintenance of the Walk of Fame. The fee is usually paid by the nominating organization, which may be a fan club, or a film studio, record company, broadcaster, or other sponsor involved with the honoree's current or ongoing project. The Starz cable network, for example, paid for Dennis Hopper's star as part of the promotion for its series Crash. It was unveiled in March 2010, shortly before his death.

Traditionally, the identities of members of the Selection Committee have not been made public in order to minimize conflicts of interest, and to prevent lobbying of committee members by celebrities and their representatives (which was a significant problem during selection of the original 1550 recipients in the late 1950s). However, in 1999, to answer growing charges of "back room politics" in the selection process, the Chamber disclosed the members' names: They were Johnny Grant, who chaired the Committee and represented the television category; Earl Lestz, president of Paramount Studio Group (motion pictures); Stan Spero, retired manager with broadcast stations KMPC and KABC (radio); Kate Nelson, owner of the Palace Theatre (live performance); and Mary Lou Dudas, vice president of A&M Records (recording industry).

After that disclosure, however, the veil of secrecy was restored; subsequently, the Chamber would say only that Lestz (who received his own star in 2004) became the Committee's chairman after Grant died in 2008, and that "each of the five categories is represented by someone with expertise in that field."

As of June 2010, Lestz had apparently been replaced as chairman by John Pavlik, former Director of Communications for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. While no public announcement was made to that effect, he was identified as chairman in the Chamber's press release announcing the 2011 star recipients.

[lizbud]

Interesting Washingto Post article I read the other day. Something to
think about.


Endless war, a recipe for four-star arrogance

By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, June 27, 2010

Long wars are antithetical to democracy. Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government. Not least among those values is a code of military conduct that honors the principle of civilian control while keeping the officer corps free from the taint of politics. Events of the past week -- notably the Rolling Stone profile that led to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's dismissal -- hint at the toll that nearly a decade of continuous conflict has exacted on the U.S. armed forces. The fate of any one general qualifies as small beer: Wearing four stars does not signify indispensability. But indications that the military's professional ethic is eroding, evident in the disrespect for senior civilians expressed by McChrystal and his inner circle, should set off alarms.

Earlier generations of American leaders, military as well as civilian, instinctively understood the danger posed by long wars. "A democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War," Gen. George C. Marshall once remarked. The people who provided the lifeblood of the citizen army raised to wage World War II had plenty of determination but limited patience. They wanted victory won and normalcy restored.

The wisdom of Marshall's axiom soon became clear. In Vietnam, Lyndon B. Johnson plunged the United States into what became its Seven Years War. The citizen army that was sent to Southeast Asia fought valiantly for a time and then fell to pieces. As the conflict dragged on, Americans in large numbers turned against the war -- and also against the troops who fought it.

After Vietnam, the United States abandoned its citizen army tradition, oblivious to the consequences. In its place, it opted for what the Founders once called a "standing army" -- a force consisting of long-serving career professionals.

For a time, the creation of this so-called all-volunteer force, only tenuously linked to American society, appeared to be a master stroke. Washington got superbly trained soldiers and Republicans and Democrats took turns putting them to work. The result, once the Cold War ended, was greater willingness to intervene abroad. As Americans followed news reports of U.S. troops going into action everywhere from the Persian Gulf to the Balkans, from the Caribbean to the Horn of Africa, they found little to complain about: The costs appeared negligible. Their role was simply to cheer.

This happy arrangement now shows signs of unraveling, a victim of what the Pentagon has all too appropriately been calling its Long War.

The Long War is not America's war. It belongs exclusively to "the troops," lashed to a treadmill that finds soldiers and Marines either serving in a combat zone or preparing to deploy.

To be an American soldier today is to serve a people who find nothing amiss in the prospect of armed conflict without end. Once begun, wars continue, persisting regardless of whether they receive public support. President Obama's insistence to the contrary notwithstanding, this nation is not even remotely "at" war. In explaining his decision to change commanders without changing course in Afghanistan, the president offered this rhetorical flourish: "Americans don't flinch in the face of difficult truths." In fact, when it comes to war, the American people avert their eyes from difficult truths. Largely unaffected by events in Afghanistan and Iraq and preoccupied with problems much closer to home, they have demonstrated a fine ability to tune out war. Soldiers (and their families) are left holding the bag.

Throughout history, circumstances such as these have bred praetorianism, warriors becoming enamored with their moral superiority and impatient with the failings of those they are charged to defend. The smug disdain for high-ranking civilians casually expressed by McChrystal and his chief lieutenants -- along with the conviction that "Team America," as these officers style themselves, was bravely holding out against a sea of stupidity and corruption -- suggests that the officer corps of the United States is not immune to this affliction.

To imagine that replacing McChrystal with Gen. David H. Petraeus will fix the problem is wishful thinking. To put it mildly, Petraeus is no simple soldier. He is a highly skilled political operator, whose name appears on Republican wish lists as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. Far more significant, the views cultivated within Team America are shared elsewhere.

The day the McChrystal story broke, an active-duty soldier who has served multiple combat tours offered me his perspective on the unfolding spectacle. The dismissive attitude expressed by Team America, he wrote, "has really become a pandemic in the Army." Among his peers, a belief that "it is OK to condescend to civilian leaders" has become common, ranking officers permitting or even endorsing "a culture of contempt" for those not in uniform. Once the previously forbidden becomes acceptable, it soon becomes the norm.

"Pretty soon you have an entire organization believing that their leader is the 'Savior' and that everyone else is stupid and incompetent, or not committed to victory." In this soldier's view, things are likely to get worse before they get better. "Senior officers who condone this kind of behavior and allow this to continue and fester," he concluded, "create generation after generation of officers like themselves -- but they're generally so arrogant that they think everyone needs to be just like them anyway."

By itself, Team America poses no threat to the constitutional order. Gen. McChrystal is not Gen. MacArthur. When presenting himself at the White House on Wednesday, McChrystal arrived not as a man on horseback but as a supplicant, hat (and resignation) in hand. Still, even with his departure, it would be a mistake to consider the matter closed.

During Vietnam, the United States military cracked from the bottom up. The damage took decades to repair. In the seemingly endless wars of the post-Sept. 11 era, a military that has demonstrated remarkable durability now shows signs of coming undone at the top. The officer corps is losing its bearings.

Americans might do well to contemplate a famous warning issued by another frustrated commander from a much earlier age.

"We had been told, on leaving our native soil," wrote the centurion Marcus Flavius to a cousin back in Rome, "that we were going to defend the sacred rights conferred on us by so many of our citizens [and to aid] populations in need of our assistance and our civilization." For such a cause, he and his comrades had willingly offered to "shed our quota of blood, to sacrifice our youth and our hopes." Yet the news from the homeland was disconcerting: The capital was seemingly rife with factions, treachery and petty politics. "Make haste," Marcus Flavius continued, "and tell me that our fellow citizens understand us, support us and protect us as we ourselves are protecting the glory of the empire."

"If it should be otherwise, if we should have to leave our bleached bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware of the anger of the legions!"

Stanley McChrystal is no Marcus Flavius, lacking the Roman's eloquence, among other things. Yet in ending his military career on such an ignominious note, he has, however clumsily, issued a warning that deserves our attention.


The responsibility facing the American people is clear. They need to reclaim ownership of their army. They need to give their soldiers respite, by insisting that Washington abandon its de facto policy of perpetual war. Or, alternatively, the United States should become a nation truly "at" war, with all that implies in terms of civic obligation, fiscal policies and domestic priorities. Should the people choose neither course -- and thereby subject their troops to continuing abuse -- the damage to the army and to American democracy will be severe.


Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His book "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War" will be published in August. He will be online at 11 a.m. on Monday, June 28, to chat. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.

[Bonny]

That read is a big eye opener. My thought is someday this country will fall like the Roman Empire. What about the United Nations? That is not mentioned in there. Aren't there war rules our military & every other country that belongs to the United Nations have to follow? Isn't that what happened in Viet Nam? It has been a long time but was the United Nations put together to promote world peace? Just some questions I need answered. Jump in someone that knows world history.