Beth's question was Re: Questions regarding NAC ground units

> On Mon, 3 Dec 2001 15:59:32 +1100 Beth.Fulton@csiro.au writes:
<snip>. So
> is all this pride in unit history there so that you don't let the side

Beth, sometimes it carries through and sometimes not. Usually it works to some
degree.

WW2 - 4 (IIRC) Battalions of Nisei were raised to fight in the ETO
(European Theater of Operations. Even though many wanted to go to PTO
(Pacific) to show they were good Americans I think three ended up in Italy.

Those three got an extremely crazy number of medals for heroic actions (when
they could get the person to admit doing the thing cited) but one (the fourth)
was disbanded stateside for discipline problems. Really *bad* discipline
problems from what I was able to read (wasn't my book and have never found it
since I was a teenager.)

Almost every unit has had individuals who simply never get the value system.
That's why every military has some version of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of
Military Justice) in reserve. Some militaries resort to such means earlier
then others, right commissar? <grin> And some
armies/forces are not ever truly competent for various reasons. [The
three classes of Armies thing: 1)Real Armies capable of fighting a war
moderately competently against equal sized armies from next door/across
the sea. 2) Armies to keep the other organized bandits... I mean armies...
next door out of the homeland while you pillage... I mean rule the country.
Token and ceremonial armies fall into this by default of not making categoty 1
for reasons beyond the control of the army. 3)Armies designed to oppress the
unarmed masses of 'citizens' inside the homeland.]

Examples:
1) USA 1944-1945 many European armies starting around Frederick the
Great. Some of the 'best' third world powers, like Thailand, Singapore, PRC in
Korea, elements of the NVA. 2)Most of the second tier present third world
armies and some current European armies. Burma, on a good day. Luxembourg
(numbers, not quality issue in that example.) 3)Most of the Third World,
especially many Central African armies.
Burma, on a typical day sparring with the Thais - a definiton of stupid
in my dictionary.

And possibly every unit above Company has had somewhere in its history
(assuming more then one war and more then 50 years of existence) one or more
sub units that failed to met the standard. Not broke under unbearable pressure
but were unprepared for war and crumpled prematurely. The US Army in Korea
initially had several units degraded
by the way the Army was ignored post WW2 (Nuclear strategy/theory and
the inherent problems of 'Armies of Occupation' being two causes) and
performed down below their history. Others performed better then their
conditions should have allowed them to do.

And every military of any merit learns from those mistakes ("1973" being a
simple term used to deflate undue cockiness in the IDF still today.) Nations
with long or intense histories of conflict know that those traditions are only
the seed bed and that those seeds need to be watered by the blood shed in a
conflict at interclass or you risk losing the truths that keep the institution
'real' and capable of winning wars. That is the perverse thing about real
armies, they don't want war but
they know that without some conflict (or an institutionalized memory -
such as professional NCO's and good military academies) eventually the
fighting force will be unprepared to wage war because there will be no
'reality check' in the leadership of the force.

Real Warriors tend to be closet pacifists because they know the only reason to
go to war is that every other option is unacceptable. True Warriors sweat now
to not bleed later, when tehir rulers understand the importance of that
expense. Warriors do not seek conflict but neither do they shrink from it. It
is more of that servant leadership thing only to the point where you are
willing to die serving others.

Of course the first choice of any smart warrior to let the enemy die for *his*
country but if needed a warrior doesn't consider the cost of his life too high
a price for the land he loves. A warrior's only regrets in that situation is
if he is dying needlessly because some 'leader' made a fundamental and
unnecessary error. And that of course, never happens. <no grin on this one>

Okay, enough of my drivel.

Gracias,

> Glenn M Wilson Wrote:

*Major and excellent snippage*

> Okay, enough of my drivel.

Would that I were capable of such "Drivel"