We Never Promised You A Rose Garden

La Reddition du Congrès

In the pursuit of victory in Iraq, the US military relies upon lessons from battlefields like Gettysburg, Normandy and Fallujah.  We gain strength from our leaders' fierce convictions and are motivated to overcome long odds by their character.  We revel in the words of Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Davide M. Shoup, wounded during the botched landing on Tarawa and facing 4500 Japanese defenders.  With his back to the sea, he reported "Casualties many; percentage of dead not known; combat efficiency: we are winning."  We fight on, in the most demanding environment imaginable, because of the individuals of our troop.  Warriors like Marine 2nd Lt. John Paul Bobo, who almost single handedly fought off a company of North Vietnamese with his rifle in his hand, and the severed stump of his right leg jammed in the dirt.  He also received the Medal of Honor, posthumously.  We strive for victory like General David Petreaus, who said in his first commander's message in Iraq.  "Hard is not hopeless."  We are confident that we can be victorious in Iraq because the potential for success is measured through the jagged prism of American History.

In the pursuit of victory in Washington, politicians rely on the lessons from battlefields like, Iowa, New Hampshire and Florida.  They gain strength from their own fierce convictions and are motivated to overcome long odds through misinformation, oversimplification and emotion.  They revel in the massive campaign of bumper stickers that proclaim: "Support the troops, bring them home;"  or "Why is it that there is always enough money for war but not enough for education;" and "Buck Fush."  They fight on, oblivious to the professed intentions of our enemies and ignorant of an emboldened and aggressive domestic terrorist movement wallowing in Spain's "redeployment" of forces from Iraq in the wake of 3/11.  Washington politicians strive for victory in 2008, like Democratic Representative David Obey, issuing the rallying cry for de-funding the mission in Iraq: "You can't end the war if you're going against the supplemental.  It's time these idiot liberals understood that."  These politicians are confident that they will be victorious in Washington because they measure defeat in Iraq through the jagged prism of Vietnam.

Regardless of what America might think, the professional warrior is disheartened by the pedantic political firestorm at home.  While the US military has been fighting, bleeding and dying, Americans contemplate the Iraq war with "non-binding resolutions" and national anti-war protests.  When America is faced with a diminishing pool of willing candidates for military service, some turn to blast the US Army for lowering recruiting standards.  Further, the same politicians who are responsible for the lack of funding for military heath care and Veterans Affairs programs  stomp around Washington, stab their fingers at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and hope that no one will remember that they voted to BRAC Walter Reed Army Hospital in November of 2005.  Politicians in Washington must relinquish the self-destructive "deny, deny, counter accuse" mantra.  The Speaker's San Francisco front yard fracas is a prime example of the dangers of using "your constituents" as pawns of political brinkmanship.  America cannot continue to foil itself.  If one should claim "support the troops but not the war," one must understand that real consequences engender such a distinction.

I am fearful that America is no longer capable of wining; not just in Iraq, but anywhere.  Can we ever succeed if America cannot demonstrate resolution at home?  When this nation clings to pessimism, defeatism and death as the metrics to measure Iraq - America has a moral responsibility to order the military to come home tomorrow.  Slowly bleeding our military effectiveness with "non-binding resolutions" won't cut it.  Avoiding a Constitutional crisis is not an excuse.  Revoking the President's authority to invade Iraq 4 years after the invasion, is laughable.  Leaders don't shirk responsibility of find excuses to side-step political peril; they seize the initiative and affect change, reliant upon courageous honor in commitment to action.

If Presidential hopefuls want to "end this war" they must act decisively in Congress today - declaring that pursuing victory in Iraq would require a cost too hight to bear.   But they must be advised - such action was forged in the classic definition of surrender.

Mission Accomplishment and Troop Welfare at Walter Reed

The biggest and most egregious failure at Walter Reed rests on the shoulders of the military leadership.  Sure the General in charge was fired, but he should be court-martialed as well.  He should go to jail, be dishonorably discharged and loose his pension.  The Army should investigate every single CG that was responsible for Walter Reed for the last 10 years and determine if they are culpable as well.  If they are, they should go to jail or at the very least, loose their pensions.  There are two standing orders that apply to every single leader in the military, in every branch of service:

1)  Accomplish your mission; and

2)  Troop welfare.

Sometimes on the battlefield, mission accomplishment and troop welfare are diametrically opposed.  At Walter Reed and in the military medical system as a whole - they are like mutually supporting battle positions with interlocking fields of fire.  It seems to me that the leadership at Walter Reed fell asleep in their fighting holes and allowed themselves to be overrun.

It is no surprise to me that the Walter Reed debacle has occurred.  Unfortunately, the military has long suffered from a deficit in reliable and adequate medical care, practitioners and facilities.  This was apparent from the beginning of my military service - from my 1992 physical evaluation prior to boot camp, to treatment at Walter Reed and Bethesda in 2005 and my dealings with Veterans Affairs following my discharge from active duty in 2006. 

Here's the problem with the current finger pointing and blame game in Washington:  The situation at Walter Reed is a function of long-term neglect, inadequate funding and the cultivation of an anachronistic bureaucracy over 20+ years.  The deficiencies of the military medical system are compounded by three very important factors:

1)  Military medicine has not been stressed by large numbers of war-related casualties since the 1970s;

2)  The current military medical board evaluation system is approxiamtely 1/3 the size of the Vietnam era system (largest number of cases since Vietnam - 15000 cases reviewed in 2005 verses 19000 cases in 1972); and   

2)  The advances in battlefield life-saving techniques have become so advanced, that there are more casualties (vice KIAs) than ever before, and those individuals require long-term wound care and rehabilitation that far exceeds the capability of the medical system.

Of course the Bush Administration must accept some of the blame for the problems at Walter Reed; former SecDEF Rumsfeld was the architect of the "privatization" push in the military medical system.  I believe that part of the problem (as in the execution of the OIF battleplan) lies in his policy of "transformation."

However, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been underfunded for years.  Further, the defense budget was dramatically cut during the Clinton White House as well.  The effect of substantial DoD budget cuts are manifested in the areas that do not directly support breaking things and killing people.  Unfortunately, I believe that many people in the military and congress have convinced themselves that the best way to support the military health care system, is to focus on technology.  In order to decrease the numbers of KIAs on the battlefield, we made the pointy end of the spear the sharpest it has ever been.  In this regard, our betters have far surpassed expectations.

But we never expected that IEDs would become the weapon of choice for our adversaries.  We concentrated on creating air dominance with technologically superior aircraft and incredibly accurate munitions.  We made more powerful bullets and protected our troops with better body armor.  We designed more venerable tanks and armored vehicles outfitted with advanced optics able to see the enemy and engage them at long distances with fire control systems able to track and engage multiple targets with devastating firepower.  We networked communications and created information domination.  For this, no one is to blame.  No one saw the assymetric fight coming in Iraq.  No one saw the resurgence of counter-insurgency.  No one has a crystal ball. 

In reality, the military procurement and budgetary cycle requires a crystal ball; one that can see 10-15 years into the future.  DoD and congress have historically been forced to guess at the construct of the future battlefield.  Since the mid 1990s, DoD and congress have attempted to "shape" the future battlefield with technology in order to mitigate the risks of prediciting future war.  In this regard, they have failed miserably.  Iraq is as asymmetric a fight as one might find and requires humans, not technology to fight effectively. 

The issue here has nothing to do with politics.  We can't blame democrat or republican.  We must fix a system that has been allowed to become disfunctional over decades of neglect.  We never leave a warrior on the battlefield, so why have we abandoned them once they return home?

Semper Fidelis.