I understand you. I do.

As a mom....I would sure feel better about our kids and families being in Germany or someplace like that.
We must keep our military busy somewhere, doing something or we will most assuredly be caught with our pants down.

Kat

While I agree that we cannot pull out of all the foreign nations we have bases in, we should scale down a bit. I mean, do we really need 2 dozen installations and 70,000 troops in Germany? We do need to keep some of those there for intelligence and quick-strike capabilities but 70,000 is an invasion-size force. We could easily close a few bases in Germany and consolidate down to 15,000-20,000 or so.

Negative.

When I served there were 365,000 active duty regular Army stationed CONUSA. There were an equal number stationed USAREUR.
That's not counting the Marines, Navy, Air Force, Reserves, or NG.

Total US Army today is only 453,140-enlisted, 87,680-officers, Total-545,279.
I'll bet only 1/3 of those are stationed here at home.
We have plenty of room here to support more.

I ripped him a new one for saying it to be honest. Problem is, it was when I was with (among others) one of my buddies who is in the marines and on leave and a girl I've known that was a medic in Baghdad. Not the best time for him to be saying that lol. The funny part was he just stood back and held in his anger - she almost broke a glass over his head.

I am a veteran of the war in Iraq. I've also helped train troops to go fight just about anywhere we are deployed. I was infantry, so i was one of the folks literally kicking down doors...

I used to think i knew everything about military strategy and the affects it had on the world. I was wrong.


Here's the problem. Starting wars to prevent others causes our problems. This is the conclusion i have reached. If Israel is our ally, and we genuinely NEED to protect them (meaning its in the best interest of our national security somehow), fine, wait until another nation is literally trying to invade Israel, then declare war. When the war is over, leave.

The problem is our military has evolved into the World Police, literally. I blame this partially on our involvement with the U.N. as we are considered their "go to" boys. Screw that. Not only does our foreign policy cause things like 9/11, but WE CAN'T AFFORD IT, plain and simple. If the world really needed us to play policeman, then we should collect taxes from the world. Only seems fair doesn't it? (Although this would be the goal of campaigning for a one world government.)

A big part of our economic termoil is the fact that over a trillion a year is pumped out of our country, never to be seen again. It's total nonsense, and it's highly illegal in accordence to a document we rely on to keep our country going, the constitution.

The problem right now, is the invasion of Afganistan, although justified to some, was never intended to to damage to our attackers. Instead we put our main focus on Iraq. This is bad.

If military leaders truly wanted to get rid of the taliban in Afganistan, it would have been done in less than two years. There is no point now in continuing over there. It's no longer a stronghold. The people we are dealing with aren't stupid. Look at Vietnam. The NVA would hide out in Cambodia, so we couldn't launch massive attacks on their main body.

I say we weren't serious about the battles in the first place, bring them ALL home. Bring them home from Korea, germany, italy, Afgan, Iraq, EVERYWHERE. Secure OUR OWN BORDERS. If anyone tries to attack us, destroy them, then come home. This is what our forefathers wanted. This is the only course of action we can afford in our budget.

End of statement.