I'm scrambling trying to put it in ground-pounder terms so Fitz can relate.
Hmm... (Tongue-in-cheek, but you get my drift)
Don't need or can't afford the HMMWV, besides, there are plenty of M-151 Jeeps still doing what they do best.
Don't need or can't afford the M16A2, there are plenty of slick-side M16s and M16A1s out there. The M4 is for elitist units that should stop being so prissy and standardize like the rest of the Army.
How 'bout them Patriots? No, really, have Patriot missile batteries really ever produced the number of intercepts promised?
That durned Bradley Fighting Vehicle, it's aluminum, I tell you! Why, even the M113 was made of proper steel!
People bitch about us not learning from our mistakes and always planning to fight the last war.
Then they grouse that by upping the ante we've bankrupted ourselves.
I'm reminded of that old between-war footage where trucks are driving around fields with "TANK" signs on each side, and soldiers are holding broomsticks as rifles.
I'm also old enough to remember the hollow force of the Carter Administration, where jets were parked on the ramps, but if you looked real close you'd see the engine cowls were empty of innards.
We're gonna see austere times with respect to the U.S. military. That's expected, with the drawdown in Afghanistan and Iraq operations.
Even during my tenure, overseas bases were closing faster than Charlie Sheen's coke deals. There's only a handful of them left now.
I understand we as a country have to rein in the budget, and that those cuts are going to be deep. It needs to happen, but it should happen with some forethought.
Just don't be surprised when those deep cuts knock us off the top of the Superpower hill. Once upon a time, the sun never set on the British Empire, either...
