MUST READ!!

The Privatization of Victory:

A corporal can destroy all that a battalion creates

by Sgt Roger D. Huffstetler, Jr.

http://www.marinecorpsgazette-digital.com/marinecorpsgazette/200701/?pg=20&pm=2&u1=friend


For those who need a teaser: "The permanence of the mission and, therefore, its accomplishment should be the basis for victory; however, limiting the number of casualties now supplants mission accomplishment as the metric for victory..."
"GEN Wesley Clark, USA(Ret) is often cited as winning the Kosovo conflict 'without a single casualty.' That phrase is meaningless..."
"Forget politics and for a moment put yourself in the place of the junior Marine. All he knows is that he has to follow orders and accomplish the mission because his mission, like the Marine Corps' mission, is permanent. His government owes him the knowledge that, even if he dies, the cause will go on because it is immutable, noble, and clear. Missions cannot remain permanent if we allow outside, shifting criteria to determine their importance, and disintermediation has played a role in doing just that."
"...the perceived information transparency has undermined the administration's effort to use a shifting rationale for war rather than a permanent one."