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  • From: Tom Caswell <derpimpkar AT yahoo.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] the cowards at the Pentagon
  • Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 09:33:29 -0800 (PST)

My comment actually came from my personal experiences.  I like to play video games and the tanks blowing up railroad cars remark reminded me of the current glut of WWII games.  Tanks don't blow up railroad cars anymore.  I understand you can't distill years of history into an email.  Your generalizations just seemed off the mark to me.
 
Your third idea was right.  I'm basically curious.  However my curiousity doesn't arise from my wealth of military knowledge, rather experience.  I've found that the more you learn about the military from reading, the less you know about it practically.  I'm not suggesting the books are lying about who signed the treaty on the Missouri.  I'm saying what it takes to get there.  Unless you've (collectively) been in the military, you'll never know what it's like or what it does from reading.
 
I'm pointing my hypothesis towards the trained to maim remark.  Sure we're taught that the M16 will maim but no one is going to shoot to maim.  No one is thinking about the effects a wounded soldier will have over a dead one.  Everyone just wants to stay alive.  As paratroopers, we had these huge plans about what will happen when we land on the DZ.  Link up with your company, move out to an objective, seize the objective.  What really happens?  You look around and find a few of your buddies nearby, move out and shoot anything not dressed like you.  Snipers never have the option to maim.  That's why their motto is "one shot, one kill."  A sniper doesn't sit still for two days crapping on themselves to shoot a target in the leg.
 
Deferring to an expert if the question is technologically specific isn't enough.  I would defer to him for most anything related to MI simply because he was there.  I'm commenting on most things Infantry.  I'm suggesting the books published by the War College or TRADOC are crap.  The worst officers came from West Point because they read too much.  The best ones were prior enlisted because they had the best experience.  One of the few ROTC exceptions from the book knowledge perspective is an officer with an Elementary Education degree. 
 
The military is a whole different world.  I don't think you're an asshole and I'm not pissed off.  I actually enjoy good conversation.  I haven't said much when the political or scotch threads went through because I'm not versed on the subjects.  This was simply something I felt I could discuss.
 
Tom

James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org> wrote:

On Tuesday, Dec 9, 2003, at 22:36 US/Eastern, Tom Caswell wrote:

> This is an interesting discussion of military science.  While most of
> it is true on paper, not much of it is true in practice.
>  
> I'm interested in where you picked up your information.  I can't tell
> how much of it is generalization so I'll wait to comment. It seems to
> me that much of your comments mirror a video game's perspective.

That's an interesting assumption, or perspective, for two reasons.

First, I rarely play video games. Don't get me wrong: I love Sid
Meyer's Civilization, and own multiple versions, for both PC and Mac.
I played Half-Life for a brief period - two weeks? - against a roommate
a couple years ago, and once downloaded the Quake II demo from C|Net
back in the '90's, but it only went to level four, and I never actually
played the full release.

Of course, I love Ms. Pac Man and Galaga. Classics never die. Just as
kids are still reading Vergil for school, I fully expect in 2,000 years
that game designers will have to master the intricacies of these two
products of human genius before earning their Ph.D.'s. Otherwise,
though I've tried various games from Duck Hunter and Super Mario
Brothers through an NHL Hockey game and a futuristic motorcycle game
(both owned by a friend with a - Sega? Nintendo?), I haven't really
played video games since the Atari days. Pong, Frogger - not much in
the way of military theory, but then what does a fourth-grader care?

Second, summarizing the lessons of a few thousand years of military
history and theory in two or three email messages requires a bit of --
shall we say, "gloss"? As a result, I figured quoting Clausewitz or
Thucydides at length might turn off the bulk of readers. Had I, in
some self-indulgent fit of pique, given in completely to my
temptations, I might've ended up citing chapter and paragraph numbers
from the Discourses on Livy, no doubt inflaming the sensitivities of
list managers, who might then have gotten around to mentioning that the
topic was actually off-topic, and could we please take it off-list?

As casual as the above paragraphs may seem, they mask a deeper truth: I
suspect your question is intended to draw me out, for one of three
reasons.

First, you know a lot more than I do about military theory and history.
This is eminently possible. At least 1,000, and maybe as many as
1,000,000,000 people are in that position. However arrogant this may
seem, I doubt more than a sixth of the world's population are
better-informed than I am on topics of interest to me. Reverse those
ratios for topics in which I have little interest - say, the life cycle
of the African condor. (*Are* there African condors? Are all condors
actually African? Whatever.)

Second, you think I'm an ass. This, too, is eminently possible. In
fact, it's even more possible than the possibility described in the
preceding paragraph. I come across that way to people I've just met -
and even more so to people I've never met. I'm a little rough around
the edges, and tend towards formality or humor, depending which humour
dominates at the moment. Either way, some people hate formal
discourse, and the rest seem to hate my sense of humor. In person,
it's much funnier - and more sincere. I promise.

Third, you're actually curious, and wish we'd stop skimming the surface
of the discussion. Mr. MacHett, for one, has more practical experience
with specific technologies and institutions than I do. I would defer
to him on most such questions.

If you're actually interested in the subject, though, google for
"military history" or "military historian" and see what kind of reading
lists the professors are recommending. Other really interesting stuff
includes RMA - Revolution in Military Affairs or "Transformational"
technology - much of which can be found at
. The Army War College publishes a
bunch of stuff, much of it available at
. Many of the Army's
manuals are available at the Army's Training & Doctrine Web site
.

I haven't had a chance to read the recently reissued USMC Small Wars
Manual. I haven't mentioned Naval or Air Force resources at all, but
Mahan's _Influence of Sea Power On History_ is a good start. When it
comes to the Air Force, I'm more interested in the space, materials
science, and information warfare aspects than the tactical concerns. A
former professor of mine, though, keeps getting his name in places like
Foreign Affairs and the like, analyzing aerial strategy and tactics in
Kosovo, Bosnia, and so forth. He's definitely in that group of
1,000-to-1,000,000,000 people who are smarter and better-informed than
me.

Hope that helps.

And now, to bed.

*Yawn*
---
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