From: word_chemist@hotmail.com   
      
   "Bayle"  wrote in message   
   news:1145366998.480471.38470@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...   
   >   
   > selene1022 wrote:   
   > > "Ever wonder   
   > > why most of the guys you see who make sense are often Colonels. Because   
   > >   
   > > to make General you have to have your nose so far up the ass of your   
   > > superiors that any one with any guts often gets out or isn't promoted.   
   > > I've seen the desk jockey test-takers. Never follow em if your life   
   > > depended on it though."   
   > >   
   > > Amen brother.  And don't forget that most of our current crop made it   
   > > when Clinton was in office (a lot of good guys got out because they   
   > > could not stomach calling him "commander in chief.")   
   >   
   > Yeah not to mention the fact that they started when I was in, the   
   > Carter days, post-vietnam syndrome, etc. Two of my best friends were in   
   > Maj. Gen. David Petraeus' class at West Point (1974) so they are my   
   > generation. One who was a military historian died young. I'd love to   
   > know what he'd think of this.   
   >   
   > (Check out a recent interview on Charlie Rose with James Fallows and   
   > three of those colonels from three different generations - the one from   
   > mine is the least impressive - the older one (Sorley) wrote a book   
   > showing how the war was won in Vietnam - the youngest (Nagl) claims the   
   > Army is learning a tremendous amount in Iraq)   
   >   
   > "U.S. Military Strategy in Iraq with: Guest Host: JAMES FALLOWS, The   
   > Atlantic Monthly; Guests: LT. COL. JOHN NAGL, U.S. Army / COL. LEWIS   
   > SORLEY, U.S. Army (retired) / LT. COL. CONRAD CRANE, U.S. Army   
   > (retired)"   
   >   
   > I'm reading Newt Gingrich's alternative history novel Grant Moves East.   
   > Same old shit, the generals didn't want to fight, politicans and   
   > generals playing games and the wackers, in this case the Irish making   
   > trouble cause who in there right mind in those days wanted to die for a   
   > bunch of n*****. Other than a bunch of neo-con religious nuts like the   
   > abolitionists of course. And the slaves themselves as the multiculti   
   > historians have been so proud to remind us ad nauseum. Now there is a   
   > Moral History of the war by a guy named Stout, the editor of the   
   > Jonathan Edwards papers IIRC, who is questioning the morality of the   
   > Civil War. (MacPherson trashes the book in the NYRB) I bought it cause   
   > I think it might raise interesting questions, which MacPherson admits.   
   > I'm adding it to my whining post-facto histories like War Without Mercy   
   > written by people with the luxury of standing in the better world that   
   > the tough choices of their immoral forbearers made possible.   
   >   
   > Roosevelt was lucky, even though MacArthur tried to screw it up.   
   > Marshall almost didn't make it. And then Washington had well ...   
   > Washington.   
   >   
   >   
   > And do you know that head Weasel Clark is actually editing a serious of   
   > biographies of great generals, starting with Patton and then Grant.   
   > Tell me again what Clark ever won. I recently learned that even Carter,   
   > by getting Italy to deploy missles to counter the Soviet threat, did   
   > more than any of these guys.   
   >   
   > And for Robbie, in front of the flag:   
   >   
   > "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by   
   > making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."   
   >   
      
   No offence intended.   
      
   ROBBIE   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)