Here's another article (more up to date) that fits this conversation about 'supporting' the troops. I think it would be difficult to say this Admiral doesn't support the troops, but if a non-military person said this they'd probably be accused of doing just that.....
If The War Were Just, Rumsfeld Would Be Right: Fight With What You Got
by Adm Jack Shanahan (USN, Ret.)
You may recall that last year Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told a soldier in Kuwait that you go to war with the army you’ve got. That happened to be true last year and it’s still true today.
And, as more of our sons and daughters die, we should still be talking about it -- because you won’t find a better argument showing that this war is senseless and was so from the start.
Here’s what I mean: If you’re fighting a war that makes sense, you fight with the soldiers and equipment you’ve got—because you have to fight.
There would have surely been no backlash or criticism during WWII if the Secretaries of the Army and Navy had told a trooper you go to war with the Army you’ve got.
During the early stages of WWII, the Roosevelt administration gave priority to the European theater—for obvious reasons. Those of us in the Pacific theater were frequently short-changed. For example, replacement aircraft were shipped to us without weapons, bomb racks, radios and navigation gear. Our solution was to locate shot-down and crashed U.S. aircraft, send out small teams to salvage what we could, bring the stuff back to our base, install it in the new aircraft, and get them in the air.
The unacceptable option in our minds was to sit around, complain, and wait for someone else to solve our problem. And by the way, there was no policy of rotating us back to the United States every six or twelve months.
And if we had complained or demanded to go home, our peers would have been just as unsympathetic with us as our commanders. And we would have received no sympathy from the home front, which was fully mobilized on our behalf.
We all knew WWII was the right war at the right time.
Even in the case of the unpopular Vietnam conflict, the military went about its business with only the normal grumbling. For example, the swift boats and river patrol boats played prominent roles during the Vietnam conflict. They lacked armor. Like in the situation in Iraq, the crews had no place to really take cover during firefights and frequent ambushes. We had two options: Don’t go on the mission (unacceptable) or improvise. The crews lined the gunwales of their boats with flak jackets and spare body armor, so they could take some cover while on patrol. There was no complaining to the Secretary of Defense. Just do what had to be done.
But judging from the unprecedented reaction to Rumsfeld’s comment last year, it’s not only our soldiers who may think the Iraq war is the wrong war at the wrong time, but also the pundits and members of Congress who were upset at Rumsfeld’s remarks—and felt they could express their dissatisfaction without being sent home by their constituents.
And it makes sense. If you’re fighting a war as a last resort, as should always be the case in war, you fight with whatever you’ve got.
The fact that Rumsfeld did not appear on national TV and express his own outrage at being challenged in public by a soldier makes it appear that he, too, has doubts about the legitimacy of the war. And if he does, he should say so. And our nation should take corrective action as soon as possible.
A military leader, fighting a just war, would have told Americans that the soldier who questioned his country’s commitment to its troops is mistaken and misinformed—and further complaining of this type will not be tolerated.
As the Iraq war drags on and more people die, you can bet you wouldn’t hear anything like this from Rumsfeld if he were confronted by another soldier today.
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan (USN, ret) formerly commanded the U.S. Second Fleet and heads the Military Advisory Committee of
www.Truemajority.org, a project of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.
