George 1, How dare you compare the Desert One disaster with your other 5 points. It was a risky, yet bold plan to rescue Americans. The men that were going into Iran, greatly outnumbered knew it well could have been a one way trip, yet they all jocked up. American service men died to rescue other Americans!

There is a quick-and-dirty – yet quite accurate – method of charting the downward spiral of the U.S. military as a serious institution, or conversely, documenting the degree of institutional rot, corruption and incompetence within it. Namely, medal inflation We can agree that General Milley has had a long career and has seen/done much during that time, and also upon the fact that military men “wear their resume” to a certain extent in their ribbons, qualification badges, patches, and other insignia and regalia. However, having said that, look at the man’s Class A uniform: It is so beribboned and festooned with doodads as to be almost a parody of itself, something out of a Sigmund Romberg operetta or the like and not the uniform of a man of moral and intellectual rectitude. It is germane to note that the last soldier promoted to five-star “General of the Army” rank was General Omar Bradley, a soldier so unpretentious he often dressed in the same clothing as a private, pinning his badges of rank to them and his overseas cap. Bradley rarely donned his dress uniform or wore all of the decorations to which he was entitled, believing that he was most-effective out-of-the-spotlight, and the focus of any publicity should not be on him, but on his men…. the ones doing the actual fighting and dying. Now, contrast Milley to some officers and men who fought in the Second World War. Major Richard Winters, the commanding officer of Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne, during much of the unit’s time in combat in the ETO, dropped into Normandy a first lieutenant but finished the war as a major and 2nd battalion executive officer. For his heroism and leadership during the Brecourt Manor operation, he won the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest award for valor in combat. Wounded in action, he received the Purple Heart and like his fellow paratroopers, the combat infantry badge. At war’s end, he had 2-3 rows of ribbons (he would add to those later on due to his non-combat service during the Korean emergency). Now, let’s look at some enlisted men… Staff Sergeant Darryl C. “Shifty” Powers was known as one of the best soldiers in Easy Company, and as a crack shot and back-woodsman. A “Toccoa man,” he’d been with Easy since the unit’s beginning at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. He was involved in every significant combat action seen by the company, from the D-Day Invasion of Normandy night parachute drop to Operation Market Garden to Belgium and Bastogne and finally Germany itself, yet was not wounded – one of the few Easy men to be able to make that claim. Despite all of that action and having been in the thick of it, Powers didn’t have enough points to return home right away at the conclusion of the war. He won a company lottery (drawing) to win the right to go home shortly after the war ended, but was severely injured during a motor vehicle accident on… Read more »

@ George1 Re: “The WW II stories are truly incredible. The one I remember most is the story of Taffy 3 in the Battle off Samar. Pretty sure you are familiar with the Battle.” Yes, I am indeed familiar with that now-famous battle. But not so familiar that I am not awed at the courage and fortitude of those men. I’ve been a student of military history for a solid half century. I started reading about WWI and WWII as a kid in grade school. One of the very first things I remember reading was an “American Heritage” hardcover book about the naval war in the Pacific. Including about the pitched battle off Samar and the heroic stand made by the sailors of Taffy 3. One of the pleasures of reading history is discovering something new even after all of these years. Perhaps you’ve heard of the author James Hornfischer, whose 2004 book “Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors,” tells the story of the men of Taffy 3 and the epic sacrifices made by sailors like Gunners Mate Paul Carr of the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts and so many others. I am not easily-impressed, but without question Hornfischer did a superb job. I was saddened to learn recently that Hornfischer died unexpectedly earlier this year. That was a blow to me – and to his many readers, fans and admirers as well, one imagines. All of his works about the War in the Pacific are outstanding, but in my view the other one which rises above even his usual lofty standard is “Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal,” which tells the story of the naval battle for the Solomon Islands in 1942-1943. I’ve studied that stage of the war for years, but prior to reading his work, did not know – had never compared the numbers – that the U.S. Navy sustained more casualties at Guadalcanal, than the Marine Corps. The popular mythology, I suppose one can call it, is that the Guadalcanal battle was a Marine victory and not a navy one. Hornfischer conclusively shows otherwise and tells an epic tale in the process. I regret that my late father isn’t alive to enjoy Hornfischer’s books – he was a USN enlisted man during WWII – because I know he would have been captivated by them. “‘Courage without measure’ is how it was described. Many of our young people we sent to the Middle East were just as brave. Sad that they no longer have good top leadership.” In the Great War, the British Tommies died in the tens of thousands at places like the Somme, because arrogant senior officers far back from the lines refused to learn from experience what worked and what didn’t – and kept sending those men over-and-over again into “No-Man’s Land” – and into the mouths of German Maxim machine-guns, artillery, barbed wire and the rest of it. They died in the mud of Flanders; General Douglas Haig got promoted to Field… Read more »