Pet Generals or Warriors?

Americans expect our Generals to be aggressive, especially in a time of war. We want wildcats not housecats, wolves and not lapdogs. Presidents and other civilian leaders tend to prefer politicians in uniform, they want pets not guard dogs.

Very few Generals (and some Admirals too) in American history have found a way of entering immediately into the collective consciousness in a way that leaves no doubt of their ferocity as warfighters. Men like Grant, Sherman, Patton, Halsey MacArthur, Swartzkopf, Petraeus, McChrystal.

Others have proven their combat competence with less flair and flamboyance, George Washington, Phil Sheridan, Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower all winners, and eventually household names. These were leaders, the kind whose warriors would follow them into Hell itself.

There have always been Generals who succeed more as political animals, leading organizations, developing a sterling reputation, but never evolving that fighting persona. George C Marshall and Colin Powell for example, led the military, in time of war, without . Some Generals, like William Westmoreland are haunted by the perception of failure.

Many Americans misunderstand the role of the Joint Chiefs.  They are NOT combat leaders.  They are the policy and administrative commanders of their respective services.  They ensure that the men and women under them are trained and led, and prepared to fight. They also serve as the senior military policy board, and the second senior most National Security policy board (second to the National Security Council).  They are led by the Chief and Vice chief, and the Chief serves as the President's Senior military adviser.  They must however, by law allow the Combatant Commanders (like Centcom) fight our wars.

There policy and advisory role, however is important to our military and to our nations.  Today these chiefs are a mixed bag in terms of Combat Leadership. A few of them Like Martin Dempsey and Ray Odierno have served as Generals in Combat. Some like National Guard Bureau Chief, have never seen combat. They have all shown the talent it takes to gain promotion to their services senior ranks.

The last decade, plus, of strife and combat has produced some Genuine American Hero type Generals, men with a reputation for taking it to the enemy. Petraeus, and McChrystal, along with General John Allen were perceived as warfighters, but have all been troubled by scandal, not for the first time in our history. Marine General James Mattis, and Navy Seal Admiral Bill McRaven heading Centcom and USSOCOM respectively, seem today to be the only real wildcats left in the fight, and it's probably best that they have the two key combatant commands in our current conflict.

Our current Joint Chiefs are largely a collection of house cats or lapdogs. Even the Commandant of The Marines Corps, a job held in esteem by active duty and prior service Marines, as THE Guardian of America's warrior traditions, ethos, and standards, is currently an Aviator. Sure USMC Aviators, like all Marines are grunts first, but isn't there a subtle signal sent when the Marines' Commandant, and representative at the highest levels of government spent his career supporting rather than executing the USMC's core competence of Amphibious Infantry operations?

The Chief of Naval Operations is a Submariner. The Air Force Chief spent the better part of the post 9/11 era in bureaucratic jobs, at The CIA and at training units. When he returned to a warfighting command it was in Europe, not exactly the current hotspot of conflict. National Guard Bureau Chief, Frank Grass served as an Army Engineer, as both a National Guard Officer and a civilian in the Army Corps of Engineers. In spite of an operational tempo that has seen hundreds of thousands of National Guard Soldiers and Airmen deployed to combat General Grass has not served overseas in combat.

The JCS, Chairman Army General Martin Dempsey, may at first glance seem like more of a war dog. He commanded the 1^st Armored Division during a prolonged and heated 13 month deployment to Baghdad in 2003-2004 where his division fought and tactically defeated Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi's Army. After promotion to deputy commander at Centcom, he was allowed to act as Centcom commander when Admiral William Fallon retired from that role. However after only six months under Dempsey, command at Centcom went to Dave Petraeus, and Demspsey was hustled off to head the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. Not exactly an endorsement of his warfighting.

General Odierno the Army's chief of Staff is the one semi-exception.  A division commander in Iraq as well, he is known, in the Army as a hard charging military leader.  More of a Bradley than a Patton, he still holds the respect of his soldiers unlike his immediate predecessors, (including Dempsey who he seems to overshadow during joint public appearances).

Look, it takes an enormous amount of education, dedication, competence and other traits to make to even a one star position in the US Military, there is no doubt that all of our Joint Chiefs, like all the men and women they lead are capable and dedicated public servants, who deserve our respect. One does wonder though why during a time of war, maybe one of our military's top brass has a reputation for killer instinct.

The internal politics, within each service, between them, with the civilians at DOD and at the White House, that determine who is on the JCS are complicated, and hardly transparent. Two things, however are clear. It is certainly is politics that determines who is at that table, and who sits at its head. The politics begin start at those officers careers, in service academies, ROTC programs, and their earliest commands. The second thing: the politics for JCS end at the White House.

The Joint Chiefs serve at the pleasure of the President. They may be recommended by current leaders, and they need to be confirmed by the Senate, but they are nominated by the president. Thus in his role as Commander in Chief the POTUS chooses the men who act as Service Chiefs and as his senior military policy advisers. If we ask why the JCS seem more like lapdogs than war-dogs? The answer is simply that President Obama prefers lapdogs.

Debt, Deficits, and Defense Dollars, what about Strategy?

“Our strategy starts by recognizing that our strength and influence abroad begins with steps we take at home. We must grow our economy and reduce our deficit.”

“We must also build and integrate the capabilities that advance our interests and the interests we share with other countries and peoples. Our Armed Forces will always be a cornerstone of our security...”

These statements appear in the opening paragraphs to the National Security Strategy of the United States of 2010. They are in the introduction, signed by Barack Obama himself, they are echoed in language throughout the rest of that document. The National Security Strategy is a document that is periodically rewritten by the executive branch which outlines the major national security concerns of the United States and how the administration plans to deal with them. These sentences are underscored by additional, similar statements within the document. President Obama and his administration have made it their unequivocal and official position that deficit reduction and military preparedness are keys to America's security. 

 

You wouldn't know it from the administration's words and actions since then. From last year's Debt Ceiling Crisis, to the most recent Fiscal Cliff deal, the President has demonstrated a lack of commitment to deficit reduction, debt relief, or serious defense reform. Not that Congressional Republicans have performed much better. Their negotiations have resulted in a continuing series of “Punts” that have postponed any real discussions on these issues.

America's strength has for decades rested on two integrated pillars, our economy and our military. Economic strength and growth ensured that our military maintained technological and training advantages over diverse threats ranging from the old Soviet Union, to today's International Islamist movement. Our military meanwhile, secured free seas and open trade, and ensured that our economy could grow and remain strong.

Long term economic trends in America today are undermining these pillars. Continued deficit spending has swelled our national debt to sixteen trillion dollars. That's roughly one fifth of the Global Economy. Servicing our debt now costs us roughly 250 Billion dollars a year, an amount that will grow with deficit spending. Our defense budget gobbles up another 900 billion annually. But these two numbers still don't account for the 1.27 trillion in deficit spending. 

A serious, and truly “balanced approach needs to be implemented. Continuing to raise the debt ceiling will only increase our interest payments. Serious spending cuts need to be implemented, and yes there is surely some fat to be cut from defense. Cutting the entire DOD budget, and nothing else though, would still leave us 400 billion in the red annually. While we need to reform defense spending, by analyzing threats and focusing on core capabilities to defeat those threats, and by reforming the acquisition processes that have wasted defense dollars since the 1950s, we also need to reform our entire national budgetary process.

March 1, looms as the next cliffhanger date, by which time defense spending must be addressed, or automatic “sequestration” cuts will proceed. More likely, Congress will act, by punting again. We will postpone any real discussion. Meanwhile the President will continue to dodge on spending reform outside the Pentagon. His selection of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense hints at a preference for deep cuts to the Pentagon's budget. In Congress, Republicans having caved on the Fiscal Cliff, and seem set in the Senate to cave on Hagel's appointment.
So the “who” and the “how” stand as open questions regarding our National Security Strategy. 

President Obama, in contradiction to his own written strategy appears unwilling to reduce spending anywhere but the defense budget. This will undermine our economic strength, erode our military power and weaken our security in the world today. Who will ensure that we reduce our debt, reduce our deficit, ensure continued military advantage? More importantly perhaps: how can we achieve this in the face of leadership that ignores its own strategy?

Women in Combat?

 "The Infantry closes with the enemy by means of fire and maneuver in order to destroy or capture him or to repel his assault by fire, close combat, and counterattack."

Leon Panetta's decision to open more Combat roles to women is a potentially disastrous action. In seventeen years of service, in the USMC, and the Army's National Guard, I have held only two Military Occupational Specialties, Combat Engineer and Infantry. Both of these are designated as Combat Arms, roles that until this week had been closed to women. I have served in three combat zones including Somalia and year long tours in Iraq, and Afghanistan. Each time, there were women serving alongside, executing their missions with outstanding professionalism. So why, am I against this change?

In the summer of 2001, just weeks before the September 11 attacks, my Army National Guard Brigade completed a grueling rotation at the Army's Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk Louisiana. JRTC is where the Army evaluates Infantry units. JRTC rotations are highly realistic exercises which require soldiers to perform round the clock under simulated real world conditions. In 2001 we spent eleven days “In the Box!” participating in a simulated counter guerrilla campaign on a notional Atlantic Island nation. 

 
The night before our notional deployment, several soldiers were weighed with and without the equipment we would be carrying, the average load was 100-110 pounds. This included food, water, ammunition and helmet and equipment. It did not include the body armor that deployed soldiers wear today. We spent eleven days “humping” this load through the swamps and woods of central Louisiana in the summer heat and humidity. We walked an average of sixteen miles a day, and slept an average of four hours a night.

Each movement was a combat patrol. This required moving this 100 lb. load while maintaining awareness, holding one's weapon in a ready position. Some bodily functions were handled while on the move, more complicated ones during security halts with a battle buddy standing guard. There were no showers. It was more brutal then most of my real world deployment time. We were actually lucky, active duty units usually spend as many as 30 days in that scenario.

,

Most of the war in Iraq and much of it in Afghanistan followed a different template. Humvees, MRAPs, Strykers, and other vehicles tied troops to the road net. Females have been able to engage in active combat operations, and they have performed exceptionally. Women perform in multiple roles that work closely with combat troops. Medics, Intel specialists, Civil Affairs troops, Motor Vehicle operators all are routinely attached to or members of units that may end up in contact with the enemy. Women serve in the Military Police, where there is at times an overlap with the Infantry mission, in that MPs can and do, on occasion, directly assault enemy positions. At the end of the day each and every US Military Service member male or female, needs to be prepared to fight, when necessary.

Not every battle has been along a roadway however. In Afghanistan particularly our enemies have used mountainous terrain as their ally. When it comes to tackling al-Quaeda and Taliban forces in the mountains, our leaders rely on those Infantry soldiers, (Engineers, Scouts, Artillery Observers, and Special Forces as well) in those all male units that have been prepared to move hundred lb. loads up mountains that are two miles high. 

 
During Operation Anaconda in 2002, a combination of Special Forces and Infantry battled al-Quaeda on and around Takur Ghar an 11,000 foot giant near the Afghan-Pakistani border. All male Infantry battalions from the 101^st Air Assault and 10^th Mountain Divisions climbed their way into battle. When battles like this begin, commanders of all male units are able to send them up that mountain without females attached in support roles. If those units included women, they could not be pulled out of their squads and fire teams without degrading unit integrity and combat effectiveness.

“So what?” Ask the feminist advocates for women in the Combat Arms. “If women can meet the standard they should be allowed in. Right?” Not so fast. Selection for Infantry and other Combat Arms does require passing standard Army (or Marines) Physical Fitness Tests, and trainers for those MOS's hold recruits headed that way to high standards, but... The tests don't measure one's endurance “humping” that rucksack day in and day out. Only training and time in a unit can measure that. Statistically speaking men can, and generally do develop into stronger and faster load bearers than women. Those men who simply cannot cut it in these Combat Arms units are generally transferred into other specialties. 

 A very close friend, and overseas battle buddy confided in me. On active duty, in an Army Infantry Battalion, he had served in a Scout/Sniper Platoon. When he was injured and undergoing recovery from surgery his platoon sergeant hinted that he should use steroids to build back his muscle mass. “If you can't keep up, I can't use you!” While this is a reprehensible act, contrary to the Army Values, it does indicate the pressure to perform in those roles.

Dropping the occasional male from a Combat Arms billet, and re-classing him somewhere he can still serve, raises no political red flags. What happens when women begin to crash and burn out of these units? Will politicians who have never served in combat have the wisdom to leave it alone. Will Generals who rely on Congressional support have the integrity to uphold the standards? Not if recent history is any guide. Then, will our politically correct, equality focused military be capable of defending us? One can only hope.

Of Battleships and Bayonets!

The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas.
—Mission statement of the United States Navy




It is true that the US Navy is the largest Navy, by far, in the world.  It is estimated to be larger , with more vessels, than the next thirteen navies combined.  Our Navy has as many aircraft carriers, eleven, as all the other navies in the world combined, and most of those are in the hands of allies.  So why could we possibly need to enlarge the US Navy?

Well first of all, let’s note that the US Navy must carry out it’s mission on more than 139,000,000 square miles of ocean waters, this planet’s surface is  as we know from grammar school, almost 71% water.  There are nearly 223,000 miles of coastline in the world.  Something approaching half the seven billion humans alive today live within 100 kilometers of a coastline.  All this water and coastline must be covered with only 287 ships of the US Navy.

Iran, North Korea, China, Russia all have coastlines.  They all have large relatively modern air forces, of the kind that can make life difficult for US Naval forces off their coast.  They all have sophisticated anti-ship missiles, which can be launched from ships, planes or from land.  In the case of Russia and China, each has an aircraft carrier, which while no match for America’s forces could pose a significant obstacle to operations in contested seas should they choose to.

Eleven aircraft carriers may seem sufficient, and the President’s comment, in the third debate seemed to suggest that our carriers,  along with submarines (“boats that go underwater“) have rendered other vessels obsolete.  This is patently false as the president knows.  While WWII and post war developments indeed saw large battleships fade into history’s junkyard, our aircraft carrier supremacy depends on other vessels.

As noted, anti-ship missiles have proliferated throughout the world.  Compared to carriers and modern airplanes anti-ship missiles are cheap.  While these weapons do not allow the projection of power the way even a small carrier based naval force does, they do allow for  the denial of  access to a nation‘s coast.  In 1982 an Argentine air launched Exocet missile destroyed Britains HMS Sheffield, a modern destroyer.  Carriers operating alone would be extremely vulnerable to these types of missiles.

In the same conflict a British submarine sank the Argentine cruiser Belgrano.  Along with missiles all four of our most dangerous competitors abroad have a submarine fleet.  Like missiles, these vessels cannot dominate the seas, but they can deny the seas to unfriendly vessels.  Carriers are also vulnerable to submarines.

To combat the combined missile and submarine threat US Navy Carriers never travel alone.  They cruise the oceans in Task Forces of mixed vessels, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, frigates and smaller patrol and support vessels.  These vessels form a screen that use integrated technology and layers of weapons to protect the carriers from their greatest threats.

Our navy also has the mission,  in conjunction with the US Marines Corps of projecting power ashore.  “Boots on the Ground“, are sometimes a requirement to ensure sea power.  To this end we have ten  Amphipbious Assault Ships, which are like flexible small aircraft carriers, full of Marines.  They are in turn supported by another twenty or so amphibious support and docking ships.  Like carriers these vessels are vulnerable to attack and must be screened by surface vessels and submarines to be able to approach the shore and fulfill their mission.  These are organized into Amphibious Readiness Groups of three or more ships.

A typical Aircraft Carrier Strike Group (CSG) has about seven vessels altogether, depending on circumstances.  An Amphibious Readiness Group  (ARG) is often attached to a CSG.  So Carriers typically travel in Squadrons of eight to ten  ships.  This requires ninety five ships, just  to keep all eleven carriers and attached ARGs safely at sea.

The maximum range of  strike aircraft operating off of a carrier is about 550 nautical miles.  This limit’s the effective ocean footprint of a CSG to something less than 100,000 square miles of ocean.  With only eleven CSGs and 139 million square miles of ocean there’s simply too much  blue water to cover.  Even with all eleven carriers at sea we could only patrol 7-8% of the Ocean with aircraft carriers.

A few facts.  Some Hotspots in the world require more than on carrier, the Mid-East for instance.  Carriers can’t stay at sea indefinitely, nor can sailors.  US Navy Cruiser and other surface vessels cannot patrol alone, and none of them can stay at sea forever either.  A further sixty one of our naval vessels are Nuclear Missile submarines (SSBNs), which can patrol in an information gathering capacity but are not designed to secure a section of  ocean.

As mentioned,  neither sailors nor ships can remain at sea forever.  In fact the operational tempo of the last decade has exhausted the US Navy much as Iraq and Afghanistan have exhausted Army and Marines forces.  Cruises are getting longer, and in port turn around time is getting shorter.  Some task forces have spent more than a year at sea recently, a situation which stresses ships, sailors and families back home.  Typically, ships and crew are in port at least as long as they are at sea.

So let’s look at the Math.  We now have 287 ships in the US Navy.  Subtracting our 61 SSBNs leaves us with 226 surface vessels and attack submarines.  We have approximately 90 ships tied up in our Carrier based CSGs which if they work 50/50 tours, can ensure coverage of about 3-4% of the Oceans at any given time, and which are surely focused on China, North Korea and  Iran and the Mideast.  That leaves 136 vessels to patrol 95% of the world’s oceans.  Now they can’t stay at sea forever either , so they split 50-50 as well (and that is generous.)  That means 72 ships are available to patrol  the rest of the oceans.  They as stated must patrol in small task forces as well.  Say they average 3 ship task forces, we are then talking about 24 task forces, to patrol some remaining 132 million square miles of Ocean.  These units have even smaller footprints than carrier groups do, so some 125 to 130 million miles of Ocean is routinely un-patrolled by US naval forces.

So what happens in these un-patrolled oceans of Earth?  Why is it our problem?

Well aside from ensuring the best behavior of North Korea and Iran, which is in both the world’s and the US’s interest, likewise keeping a wary eye on China and Russia; the Navy secures the sea lanes for trade.
Piracy is still a huge issue in the world.  Piracy already costs the world economy an estimated 15 billion in losses every year.  Some of these losses are in oil, which causes a rise at the gas pump, and in all consumer goods.  Pirates also fund terror groups.  Some amount of piracy occurs as does terrorism, under the permissive eye of local navies.  Without the US Navy, piracy would be much more costly.

Drug smuggling is another social ill that would be worsened by a smaller navy.  Illicit drug trade continues to bleed dollars out of the legitimate economy.  In short the US Navy does the heavy lifting in today’s world, ensuring freedom of the seas for all nations.  This along with their role in defending our nation and pursuing our enemies are fundamentals of the navy’s mission.

We are asking them to do this, without enough tools.  President Obama can glibly compare ships to horses and bayonets (I still have an assigned bayonet as a soldier in the National Guard) but he is obfuscating.  His cuts have stressed our Navy’s ships and our sailors and endangered our economy and our national security.  They quite frankly have also risked the peace that we do have in many regions.  When hegemons are seen to be receding, war, rather than peace usually follows.

Speech At USS NC!

Apologies to those who've seen some of this before.  I used a past speech as a preview for a call to action, if you find my experiences on 091101 boring, just skip to the end.



Good morning!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m John Byrnes.
It’s a beautiful morning outside here in North Carolina. Just more than  eleven years past , I can still remember a beautiful morning in NYC. The sun was out, it was a warm September day.

That day was an Election day in New York, primary day.  Like our coming election day, September 11, 2001 was to be a decisive day in history.

Eleven years ago, I was an adult student at Hunter College in upper Manhattan.  I had been an enlisted Marines in the 1990s, and in September of 2000 I joined the New York Army National Guard combining free tuition, with GI Bill payments. That Tuesday, after a
morning swim, I sat down early for a 9:10 Am class.

Moments later, fire engines, sirens wailing, began rolling outside the window. After a few minutes a young woman in the rear of the class room looked up fromher cell phone and said:

“ An airplane just hit the World Trade Center.”

And the world changed.

I’m hoping some of the folks who stand here were only children that day. You have grown up in a post 9-11 world. Some of you are veterans from a previous era.

It has been a different world.

My Armory was 2 miles downtown from Hunter College.

I jumped in a Taxi, the driver offered to take me over the bridge to Queens.

I showed him my Military ID and promised bodily harm if he didn’t get me to the Armory. I was one of the first soldiers from my company to arrive, but there were already a few soldiers standing guard, with Bayonets attached.

By 10 AM I was in uniform double timeing to Barnes and Noble, running against the Human current pushing north from lower Manhattan,  Civilians staring at me in fear and in awe.

Most of the first day was spent in frustrating formations, getting new head counts. Watching the events unfold, in horror, two miles away and feeling powerless.

Eventually as the sun went down my company moved out to help secure lower Manhattan. After we were posted in teams we took turns walking the last single block down to ground zero to view the devastation. It remains to this day the single most horrific sight I have ever seen. Even after three combat tours.

For the two weeks we stood a 12 hour shift every night, securing ground zero. By day we helped out with traffic management, crowd control, and the bucket brigades. I averaged only three or four hours of sleep. Almost every New Yorker lost friends, family, or acquaintances that day. Five of my school friends from Grade School, HS, or College, perished. Our armory became the family support center for families of the the nearly 3000 murdered NYers.
My platoon leader lost his sister, it took, a long time for him to accept the loss. Her funeral, weeks later was the saddest I have ever been to, as my unit’s shared grief focused on one woman.

We worried for comrades too. Like all Guard units we had a number of firefighters and police. While almost all the police in my unit chose to respond with the Guard, the firefighters all reported in to their fire companies that day.

When SSG Sean Goodridge, and Sgt Chris Engeldrum appeared on our lines wearing their bunker gear, our relief was overwhelming.

Chris Engeldrum died three years later in an IED attack in Baghdad, on November 29 2004, he was killed alongside Spc Wilfredo Urbina who stood next to me that morning when Chris “finally showed up.”
I don’t imagine there are many veterans here who don’t know the sense of grief from losing a battle buddy, if you don’t I hope you stay lucky.
Loss is now part of a soldier’s life, part of the fabric of being in a military family

We are losing more than buddies though.

Deployed in 2004 and 2008 I essentially lost the right to vote in a presidential election.  Twice the local BOE in Queens NY failed to send me a ballot and forced me to rely on the default federal ballot.

I recently got an email from a NC NG NCO who is deployed to Kuwait.  Today in 2012 he can’t get a ballot from NC.  The Army has been in Kuwait for 20 some odd years, and they haven’t figured out how to ensure soldiers there can vote?

It’s unacceptable.  Military leaders have, frankly pissed away, millions of dollars of money designated to help SM’s vote, and now they publicly fret over sequestration.  A concern BTW  I share. But come on!

Veterans are slowly losing access to benefits we earned, as the VA  lags and wait times for cases drags on past one year. Tricare is raising premiums on new retirees.

Eleven years after September 11th we veterans and military are in danger of losing ourselves.  I was proud, and thankful that day that I had a role, that I was already in the military and could play a part.

Today I am concerned,
Veterans need to speak, united where possible, in one voice.

There are some things we can all agree on.  America needs a strong National Security policy.  This must be founded upon a sound economy.  America must stand up for her military assigned overseas, ensuring their vote counts.

And America must stand by those who have served.  Veterans and retiree benefits are not entitlements.  They are offsets to the opportunities that Veterans opted to forego, to serve our country.




We can and must hold our leaders accountable.  Let’s show them what that looks like.  Veterans have to get out and vote.  They have to be seen voting.  If everyone here today picks up the phone and calls for one hour, encouraging veterans to get out and vote  I guarantee you our voice will not only be heard on November 6, but it will continue to be heard.

A Word About Veteran's Employment

As North Carolina’s servicemen and women return from protecting our freedoms around the world, many are coming home to a job market that is anything but welcoming.

In January of 2009 my wife and I moved to Raleigh, following my last deployment, to Afghanistan.  While I had a college degree, over 15 years of military experience, six on active duty, and a resume that reflected both military leadership and civilian management experience, I still struggled to find meaningful employment.  I volunteered for a start up veteran’s charity that currently remains unable to pay their employees.  Additionally, I served as press secretary to a local political party.  And yet none of my connections or efforts helped me to score a career oriented job.

I worked for a few months managing a holiday store, eventually I took a private security job that required downsizing our family budget and stressed my marriage but enabled us to stay afloat.

Today, veteran unemployment—at 10 percent—is two full percentage points higher than the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have the hardest time finding work.  Here in North Carolina alone, more than 40,000 veterans are currently without jobs.
The government has responded to the problem of high unemployment among veterans with ineffectual programs narrowly targeting unemployed veterans. Sadly, this has not done enough to help our veterans—and there’s no shortage of news reports telling of the fate of hundreds of thousands of vets who are frustrated and disheartened at being shut out of the work force after returning from deployment.  The government needs to focus on implementing broad pro-growth policies to get the economy moving again for everyone.  As John F Kennedy reflected fifty years ago:  “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
To make matters worse, planned cuts to defense, scheduled for 2013 and beyond, will only worsen the problem.  Officials estimate that the U.S. Army could see layoffs of up to 24,000 enlisted personnel, including up to 5,000 officers, while the U.S. Marine Corps could shrink by some 20,000.  This means more young veterans will soon be competing for work, in a very tough jobs environment.
In addition to the lack of job security in the military and lack of opportunity in the economy in general, veterans face a culture of waste and inefficiency at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that results in long waits, delayed benefits, mishandled documents and poor service to veterans.  Currently, the VA has 890,000 pension and compensation claims that remain unfulfilled—a number that has more than doubled since 2008. Today, it takes 240 days to process the average claim—60 days longer than a decade ago.
Runaway government spending makes it all the  more difficult to address these problems in the future.  In a nationwide Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) poll conducted in late September, 72 percent of veterans named the economy and the debt as their top concerns in 2012.  These veterans recognize that a weak economy and towering national debt only serve to compromise our nation’s long-term security.  This leads to a continued lack of opportunity for work and prosperity for military families as well as the country in general.

We can do better than this. We must do better.

CVA is bringing attention to these and other issues facing our country’s returning service members — many of whom have had little say in our country’s leadership because of dysfunctional military voting procedures that disenfranchise service members.  The “We Can Do Better” bus tour, slated to swing through North Carolina on October 22-23, will allow veterans to hear directly from leaders in the veterans’ community about these and other critical issues.

We at CVA invite you to join us, whether on the road or at the ballot box, in urging Washington to focus on a comprehensive agenda of fiscal restraint and pro-growth policies that allow businesses to expand and create jobs by holding the line on taxes, cutting burdensome regulations, and getting out of the way of the private sector.

We owe our military servicemen and women better.  We can do better.  Join us in urging our leaders to deliver the future that North Carolina’s 765,900 veterans, and all Americans, deserve.

John Byrnes is a writer, a veteran and a member of Concerned Veterans for America.  He served in the USMC in the 1990s, and was deployed to Somalia for Operation Restore Hope.  He returned to service in 2000 When he joined the New York Army National Guard.  He was deployed to Ground Zero on September 11 2001, and has since served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He currently serves in the North Carolina Army National Guard, and lives in Raleigh with his wife.

Learn more at: http://concernedveteransforamerica.org/.

Originally printed in the Fayetteville Observer:
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2012/10/21/1211431?sac=fo.opinion

A Very Brief Summation of Conservative Objections to Obamacare

 In response to a friend who could not see any downside to ObamaCare, I have to say that anyone who says they can’t see the down side of a major piece of legislation, forged in compromise between the various factions of one party with a handful of defectors from the opposing party, hasn’t looked at the law or the facts. Even when Congress acts in ways I approve of , I know that there is a downside, and that a significant portion of the citizenry strenuously objects.

 The foundational concept of economics is scarcity. There are simply never enough resources to do everything. Even the wealthiest persons and the wealthiest societies must prioritize where to spend their resources. For example, Even Bill Gates cannot maintain his lifestyle and feed everyone in Africa, even his resources are not enough to do both. How we organize our society to use resources defines our economy. 

Modern economies exist along a continuum, stretching from capitalism through socialism to communism. Neither pure capitalism, where a laissez faire market makes decisions with no governmental interference nor pure communism where no markets operate and the government makes all economic choices, actually exist. 

America has primarily had a democratic capitalist economy throughout history, with growing government regulation of markets since around 1900. Europe, on average, has a stronger socialist tradition and has markedly more government decisions made in the economic sphere, while still retaining quite a bit of a capitalist market. In Europe over the last few decades the government has essentially taken control of the healthcare industry and removed the market’s ability to make decisions based on supply and demand, and the government allocates the resources. In America government interference in the health care market has been slower but growing.

 In the last century, medical technology has improved exponentially. Diseases, disorders and injuries that were once life threatening are now routinely cured. In western civilization, infant mortality has virtually vanished and average life spans have almost doubled. The technological means to treat illness and injury have created a longer lived populace. No one has yet found a way to pay for all of this. Health care is now said to occupy 18% of the US economy. A few more cancers subdued with new treatments and that percentage will grow. Larger, and aging populations along with better treatments mean more and more people demanding health care. Eventually, if technology advances enough, economic demand for health care will become completely unsustainable. More 90 year olds, 25 years retired, demanding their latest cancer be cured, their lives prolonged, will subsume the economy.

 Conservatives believe that the best way to solve the problem is through the market. Let an open market system value health care and it should make efficient decisions about how to allocate resources. Market economics also allows for the best re-investment in R&D, which is why the US’s much criticized health care system still counts as the most technically advanced.

 According to liberals, the market is not fair. It is, by their narrative, essentially unjust because the wealthy do better than the poor. Even with America’s evolving system of insurances and HMOs, poor folk are can be priced out of newer and more expensive treatments.

 For conservatives, the issue is complex but the principles are simple. While the market may make decisions that seem unfair to certain observers, it makes them efficiently and facelessly. If the insurance market was more de-regulated, allowed to cross state lines, used only as insurance, and not as a complete health care funding apparatus, costs would become more generally affordable.

 ObamaCare means to further regulate the market. But Hayek and history have shown that when governments attempt to supplant markets several negatives accrue. First the government becomes more powerful. No more does the market decide that nonagenarians who still have wealth can be treated for melanoma. Now a bureaucrat decides that no melanoma patients over 93.25 years will be funded for melanoma treatments. Second, the government is never as efficient as the market at making decisions, so it will use resources far less efficiently. Ultimately inefficiency will create even more unfairness than the market.

ObamaCare’s mandate/tax provision means that the government is now essentially telling everyone how much they are required to spend on Health Care. The act also defines what everyone must receive as part of their health care plan. Hence, the religious community’s objections to cover abortion and abortifacients. So the conservatives see downsides in inefficiency, in growth of government power, in loss of freedom of choice.

 I’m sure there are positives, especially for those who believe in a different philosophy of government. I simply don’t believe they outweigh the negatives. It seems either extremely biased or extremely uninformed to deny any downside to ObamaCare.