[OT]Military discipline problems

I see people talking about the US Army in the
post-Vietnam phase. Interestingly, John Ringo
makes some comments about this in his book a Hymn Before Battle and they do
seem to be of the form that the 1970s US Army wouldn't have
been the best war-fighting institution and that
the Army worked very hard at straightening itself out and getting the drug
problems and discipline issues under control. It comes up in Ringo's work
because of the extraordinary problems of trying to cram 4 million soldiers
through the training system fast.... which is an interesting issue if you
consider the scenario in Ringo's book somewhat equivalent to Humanity
versus the Kra'Vak - if that invasion forces a
very heavy call-up and the pushing through of
many more men through the system, especially unwilling draftees, the quality
of even the high end powers (NAC) may (on average) decline as a consequence.
Or maybe just individual units really suck. Somebody (Allan?) pointed out that
units formed pre-hostility in wars and the
soldiers who were soldiers beforehand tend to have longer lifespans (and more
competence)
than newbie rapid-train recruits.

Derek Fulton commented:

> You think just the media despises the

To which I must say: Spoken like a true Queenslander.....;)

Tomb