Today’s Military: Too Dysfunctional to, uh, Function? An Unscientific Analysis

If you haven’t been to the Hale Koa hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii, you need to make it happen. This military-only hotel really is the proverbial wretched hive of scum and villainy, and I mean that as a compliment;  I absolutely loved it. Nowhere else on the planet are you as likely to hear groups of 80 year old American men use words like “cocksucker,” and “cooze,” all while slugging shots of terrible smelling old-timey alcohols. Well, save perhaps the local VFW.

Which the Hale Koa pretty much is, in a way. Located smack dab in the heart of Waikiki beach, this hotel lets military members and retirees a chance to vacation on the cheap. How cheap? It costs a little over a hundred bucks a day for an ocean view room. By comparison, the the Hilton Waikiki right next door starts at about four times that for a similar room.

And I needed a break from inflicting democracy and ‘Murica upon suspicious foreign countries. So no shit, there I was, sitting at the beach bar a while back, about a dozen mai-tais on board with more on the way. I was having a good time listening to the old-timers reminisce about the “real wars” while they guzzled margaritas and blatantly ogled my hot blonde lady friend. (Easy, fellas.) But it got me thinking.

Is the United States Military the most dysfunctional it’s ever been?

I think it is. I hear the old guys laughing their asses off already, but bear with me for a second.

The dysfunction starts with just getting in to the military. Hands down, it is BY FAR harder these days. Shit, back in the day, you barely had to have a pulse. You could just make up a new name and lie about your age. You could be one step above retarded and still get in. Cannon Fodder was always useful. If you happened to be an idiot, you could always peel potatoes or clean shitters. But all the menial tasks have mostly been outsourced now, so it’s actually pretty tough if you’re a total mongoloid.

Guys who had police records were routinely allowed to enlist. Remember the good old days, when little Johnny would shoplift a comic book, and the judge would give him the option of jail or the marines? HOW QUAINT. You couldn’t get away with that anymore. Now, the kids are having orgies by age six and running guns for the drug cartels by 13. Can you imagine some MS-13 executioner in front of the judge now?

Then there’s basic training. Things were so much simpler back in the old days. This one old gunny told me a story about arriving at Parris Island back in the early 1960s for USMC basic training. Apparently, they pulled up in a train, and there was one street tough from New York City who declared he wasn’t going to take no shit from no army dudes.

So the train stops, and two enormous drill instructors get on the train and order everyone off. This gentleman decided he wasn’t going anywhere, and told the DIs they could, um, fellate his turgid member. One of the instructors promptly reached down, picked up the tough guy, and threw him through the train window. They never saw him again. That man would later go on to be Al Pacino. (ok, I made that last part up.) Now, the DIs have to talk nicely to guys like this.

How about combat itself? It is a bureaucratic disaster now. You need like 12 lawyers, five reflective belts, and Jesus Hank Christ himself to sign off on a night raid to try and get a guy who’s killed forty marines. In ‘Nam, they used to burn entire villages to the ground and nobody gave a shit. Not to mention, after the patrol, there was plenty of heroin, weed, booze, and prostitutes for everyone! Meanwhile, the modern day soldier has to put up with General Order Number One and making sure nobody has a tattoo below their elbow. More like General Order NO FUN, Amirite?

Look at how Japan was dealt with in WW II. They make a pretty good comparison to today’s enemy: Dug into their home turf, fanatical, willing to use suicide as a weapon, and fans of swords. So when it came time to invade, we just nuked them. Zero fucks were given. And then, juuuuuust to be on the safe side, we dropped a second one on them a few days later. WE HAD TO BE SURE. Japan surrendered approximately 4 minutes later.

Fast forward to the present day. We’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for 129 years because we are trying to be the most careful fighting force in the history of the world. Generals are now on camera more than they’re in the field. Our soldiers have to be armed 27/7 out of fear our “allies” might kill them in their sleep. SECDEF Chuck Hagel is forced to maintain a twitter account so he can get a daily haranguing from @liberaldoucheturd about how he’s a bloodthirsty warmonger and that there are “too many” white devils in the officer corps.

Speaking of that, look at the social issues the Command Staff have to deal with now. We are pretty freaking far down the road from only worrying about “Bullets ’n Beans.” Now, Generals have to go on CNN to answer questions about 15,000 service members (!!!) wanting to chop off/sew on penises, women in infantry school, and the military’s biggest secret, male-on-male sexual assault. If you re-animated Chesty Puller’s corpse, he’d take one look and ask to go back in the hole.

(Side note about that transgender number: I am amazed at the media took this number and running with it unquestioningly, not even bothering to do basic math. That would mean more than 1% of active duty military is transgender. Yes, more than one out a hundred. One out of about 140 if you count guard/reserve; the NY Times wasn’t clear. Per Capita, that would be 5 times greater than the also-suspect civilian population estimate. Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on that one. Do you know how they arrived at 15,500? It was a Wild Ass Guess by a panel from San Francisco State University’s political science department. And, as we all know, social scientists from a left-wing department at a left-wing school in the world’s gayest city can be counted on to submit an agenda-free report based on facts and logic and… HAHAHAHA; oh, man. Sorry. I couldn’t make it through that sentence.)

Where was I? Ah, yes, the dysfunction. Well here’s the heart and soul of the professional military: TRAINING! How about that training? Everybody loves it. HELL YEAH HOOYAH HOOYAH. But honestly, training has become a huge pain in the ass because of all the other crap you’re required to deal with. Back in the day, a typical soldier could get up, say goodbye to the wife, say goodbye to the mistress, have a steak, cigarette, and whiskey, do some PT, go shoot stuff/blow stuff up, call it a day, and go meet the boys at the NCO club for a case of Nattie Light or two.

Well, the good news is that we still do all that fun stuff. BUT… the meetings. MY GOD, the meetings. And the power points. And the paperwork. And the computer-based training. I can pretty much guarantee, right now, somewhere in the world, a grizzled operator is missing out on the CQB training and HALO ops because it’s the last day of the quarter and he hasn’t finished his “Law of Armed Conflict” and “Human Trafficking Is Bad” training.

But, but… There’s always discipline, right? Practically synonymous with the military profession is Discipline. It’s the glue, the rock, the gigantic woobie that holds it all together. Take it away, and all you have is a bunch of disgruntled guys with guns. And tanks. But discipline and the enforcement of said discipline has changed quite a bit throughout the years. For example, let’s look at the modern career-ender, the good old Driving Under the Influence. The old timers definitely got away with some shit here.

Drinking and driving was literally not even a crime back in the day. It was considered completely normal, even proper, for the boys to knock back a fifth of Beam after a hard day of freedom. And when it finally did become a crime, it was looked at as no big deal. Remember Tommy Wolfe describing Chuck Yeager and the boys at Edwards AFB in “The Right Stuff?” Flying and Drinking and Drinking and Driving was a way of life. It was not uncommon for senior NCOs and officers to have multiple DUIs. Which is understandable. I MEAN HOW ELSE ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GET THEIR CORVETTES HOME FROM THE O CLUB???

But while some youthful hijinks can now get you canned, other, more serious charges don’t get you shit. Remember when desertion in the face of the enemy was a thing that was bad? They would barely even have a trial. An officer might give you the courtesy of reading the charges aloud, which gave them just enough time to throw a rope over a tree branch.

Now? Deserter Bowe Fucking Bergdahl is running around a free man as we speak. Today, being a dum-dum who actually goes into Taliban country for an extended group session of hide-the-salami is service lauded as “Serving with Honor,” by Susan Rice, who apparently will go on TV and say anything you want her to say for a couple of nickels. Hence, we are treated to the spectacle of Bergdahl’s weirdo hippie father and the radical imam of the local mosque President of the United States holding a press conference together at the White House praising Allah. CALM DOWN IT’S A JOKE.

And even when “justice” is served, it’s a bureaucratic nightmare. Remember Soldier of Allah Nidal “Workplace Violence” Hasan? All he did was kill 13 people, wound 30 others, while pretty much telling anyone who would listen how he was in full support of Al-Quaeda and hoped to help them out with Jihad some day. Alas, nobody actually believed him because, as is well known, there is a special medical procedure that all officers go through when they pass O-6. This involves removal of both testicles and a frontal lobotomy. (“Mad Dog” Mattis was one of the few who escaped when the scalpel was unable to penetrate his cast-iron scrotum.)

Did you know Hasan’s trial took 4 years? FOUR FREAKING YEARS. For a guy who spends his time writing fanboy letters to ISIS asking to join the club. Anyway, eventually they gave him the death penalty, which is sure to be administered in a timely… HAHAHA! Ha. Ahem. Dammit, I just can’t get through some of these sentences. Nah, his death penalty sentence is currently under appeal, which is sure to drag out for the next decade.

I always think about the guy who finally shot Hasan down.  It was a civilian police officer, Sergeant Mark Todd. For some god-awful reason, after shooting him a half a dozen times, Todd didn’t put just ONE MORE round into his head, thereby saving the taxpayers untold millions of dollars, giving the families of the victims vengeance, and delivering Hasan his free ticket to the 72 virgins. So good job on that one, TODD. I guess.

Obviously I’m prone to a little hyperbole. There’s no doubt that the United States military is still the best and most fearsome military on the planet, thanks to our warrior men and women who comprise the ranks. It’s like your little brother growing up. You love him and all, but goddamn,  he can drive  you crazy.

I could go on another ten pages, but I’ll leave that to you guys in the comments.  I’m going to the bar.