USSOCOM Commander Advised to ‘Get the Hell Out of the Media’

Maybe it's because of my Vietnam experience that I don't think much of "special" guys as opposed to ordinary soldiers. In the end, everyone does the job he's trained for and risks his life doing it. The Bin Laden issue was disgustingly made to happen and exploited to justify our Vietnam-style withdrawal from Afghanistan. Tooting successes leads to exposure of failures and loss of national morale, eg. Son Tay raid. Our harebrained generals (many with "0" combat experience have been using the heroics of dedicated men as sure things because of their, the generals, tactical and operational genius. Yet, their total crap outs-- so many more-- are just shrugged off as "fog of war." Today every two-stars on up is assured a cushy Board of Director slot in some war-toys industry paying far better than his career did because his "connections" with the procurement people; it's a sort of closing the buyers and sellers circle, leaving the soldiers and taxpayers out of the loop. Our vets, on the other hand, are proving once again that surviving military service doesn't really make yo a desirable commodity in the civilian economy. We may yet see a repeat of post-Vietnam where the vets are being made to pay for the failure of commanders. Nevertheless "commandos" that plugged an unarmed old man in a room with several of his wives, is being hailed as an act of brilliance only because Obama needs it to distract us from the way "Obama's War" is about to end.

SpecOps involves catching the enemy with his pants down. Fighting him in that condition is not a tribute to your skills as a fighter. So no SEALS gain from publicity to this event. It is still no match for the way 19 UNARMED young Jihadis hijacked three jumbo liners and used them as missiles in a suicide mission. That was skill in planning and a lot of plain dumb luck, given that the airlines were so reckless and the FAA so lax in enforcing life-saving rules. No society is fair to its vets by hailing one as a superman and all the others as plain "troopers." In war almost every soldier, at some time or other, is required to do something heroic and brilliant to make up for the pin-headness of command. How quickly we forget the heroes who tied in Iran's sand storm while hailing the guys who shot an old man in a room with his wives. The less said the less people find out how much "fog of command" rather than "fog of war" characterize our military history. It is EVERY soldier who makes up for that with his/her immediate on the ground compensation with quick wits or death who make our successes possible, not the political "stars" that serve the spin-doctors of the president.

Only by recalling how much EVERY soldier gave of him or herself, rather than pumping up SecOps so that their commanders can put feathers in their post-military careers will we assure that, AT THE LEAST, our "ain't my son going to war" society will make special efforts in assisting vets to reintegrate in both our society and economy. The families of many paid quite a lot as family of soldiers and we owe them the gratitude od special services, not the the computer game heroes, the SEALS or whatever.