The Burn Pit - A new podcast!

I've started a podcast with my son, Aaron. We are talking about all the things that I talk about in this blog, and more. It's called The Burn Pit!

Located at: theburnpit.libsyn.com

We are on iTunes, search for The Burn Pit. We are also on Facebook at facebook.com/burnpittalk

And on twitter @burnpittalk

Talk to us!

Thoughts for ROTC cadets

I retired from the Army on November 1st, 2015. I may write about that process sometime, but all-in-all it was not too traumatic.

I decided to go back to college in order to use up my GI Bill and have an excuse to not get a real job right away. I'm attending the University of Arizona, majoring in Political Science, and trying desperately to get a liberal to make a logical argument.

I see ROTC cadets all over the place. One thing you can say for U of A is that, so far, it seems to be very supportive of the military, ROTC, and free speech. I watched a goofy "street preacher" set up on the grass on campus and draw a crowd by insulting gays and telling women not to be "whores". The students gathered around in a good sized crowd and they shouted back and forth at each other, mostly with good humor and tolerance. Real tolerance, where you let the other guy speak and then respond, not the kind of tolerance you get at some colleges where you shout down people with whom you disagree.

A few years ago my son got his first motorcycle. I wrote a blog post on what advice I might give to a new motorcyclist. (That post is HERE.) I've been thinking about what advice I might give to an ROTC cadet. I think I have some experience that might be helpful.

I served on active duty for 28 years, and I held every enlisted rank from Private to Master Sergeant. I've got four deployments to the middle east, I've served overseas in five countries, and briefly stopped over in many more. I've led Soldiers as a Team Leader, Squad Leader (in Iraq), Platoon Sergeant (in Afghanistan), First Sergeant (also Afghanistan), and as a Battalion Command Sergeant Major, albeit in an interim status. I've also had three MOS's over the years, from support to combat arms and back, on active duty and in the Reserves.

Of course I can't tell a cadet how to be an officer, I'm sure there are very qualified officer instructors who can teach you that. I also know cadets have Senior NCOs around them to provide the enlisted perspective and teach leadership. But I also know that you can't learn everything from one person. You can't base your leadership style or approach on the example of one officer or NCO, there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to leadership. You need to observe many people, many approaches and situations and see how others handle themselves. Take what works for yourself and leave what doesn't.

Leadership is what it's all about, what it all boils down to. The technical aspects of your job, that's another story for another time. And frankly, the military doesn't need to train you for four years to go be a logistics officer or administrator. Hell, even a civilian can fire weapons and (some) can shoulder a ruck like an Infantryman. Where you come in, and where good NCOs come in, is when it stops being fun and becomes hard. Week three of a shitty rotation at the National Training Center, when everyone is tired and pissed off. Month six in Afghanistan, when people you know have died. Or when you are standing in front of a troop who just said, "Fuck you."

You have to have thought these situations through. I've been in all these situations and I can tell you that I handled some of them well, and some not so well. The key is to learn to control your emotions. You can't let yourself get spun up and react in an overly emotional way in the moment. There are exceptions, of course. No one expects (or wants) their leader to be a robot, but troops expect strength, they expect calm leadership in crisis. You can cry, you can get angry, you can yell, but you have to know when. That's the trick, and it can take a long time to learn.

When that Soldier says "fuck you" (yeah, it happens, not often but there it is) you have to be able to reign in that desire to punch him in the throat, you always lose when you lose your cool. What should you do? There are a lot of ways to handle a given situation, I'm a strong believer that there are many right ways to do almost anything. The smart thing to do is a lot of role playing with a good mentor/instructor, and hopefully you are doing this as part of your ROTC training.

There is so much...
I could talk about: The Fine Line Between Hardcore and Stupid. How to tell the difference between good NCOs and bad ones. The importance of fitness. How to earn respect. Or why you should pay attention to Resiliency training. (I was a "volun-told" Master Resiliency trainer, and they won me over despite my reluctance.) 
I may make this a series, come to think of it.

However I think there is one main bit of advice I'd give to a cadet: Embrace being a newbie. Use your time as a butter bar Lieutenant to get the most training, mentoring and experience you can. I mean embrace the whole thing, don't try to fool anyone into thinking you know what you are doing. You don't. We all know that, and we hate it when a kid with 14 minutes in service tries to play like he knows what he's doing.

The worst mistake you can make is pretending you know things you don't. First, you aren't fooling your troops. We know, believe me. And we are making fun of you for it. You want to gain a Sergeant's respect? Ask him to teach you something. It's what Sergeants do, and it shows you know your own weaknesses and are willing to learn.

Your first couple of years in the service is when you are allowed to make mistakes, try things out, fall on your face a few times. Don't be afraid to fail, don't be embarrassed to be a butter bar, own it. Ask senior people questions. Listen to the old guy's stories, and learn from them. Ask a PFC to teach you how to operate a piece of equipment. Treat him like the expert he is.

I'm sure you are coming out of ROTC well trained, but you have very little real experience. If you are smart, you will spend your whole career learning, asking questions and never assume you know everything. But your first couple of years are your best opportunity to address this. When you can say, "I'm a Lieutenant, teach me!" And we will. All the best Lieutenants I knew had this attitude.
That's what we respect.

Good luck!

Wow, that last post...

Is looking pretty good in hindsight. 

Iraq and leadership

Some quick, initial thoughts on the coming fall of Iraq to Sunni insurgents or terrorists or whatever. Especially as it relates to President Obama's actions or in-actions.

First off, many veterans of Iraq are understandably upset that what we sacrificed so much (and so many) for, is being lost back to what is essentially a terrorist group. My unit lost a Soldier while we were deployed, to an accident. However I don't have the same visceral anger over Iraq falling that many do. Maybe because I never really felt a connection to Iraq, but only to my fellow Soldiers. We serve our country and we went there to free the Iraqi people, but when it comes down to it, we fight for each other.

The current situation didn't have to happen. We could have left a residual force in Iraq, which I believe would have helped keep the peace we fought so hard to finally achieve. Obviously there was still violence when we left, but when it comes to Iraq you have to think in relative terms. President Obama decided not to leave a force. I think it's important to look at that decision.

Should we have left a military force in Iraq? It depends, in my opinion, on whether you can look at the problem objectively or not. How much distance can you get from the situation? Up close, the answer is easy: Hell no! I know I personally didn't want to go back and I didn't want any of my Soldiers to go back. (But for a completely different reason than you might think. I'll get to that.) The American people were against leaving any Soldiers in Iraq.

So the President did what the people wanted. He got everyone out of Iraq. And I think the President understands his mandate from the people when it comes to Afghanistan and other places where some have been calling for U.S. military intervention. Egypt, Syria, Nigeria, Ukraine. But Obama knows us, we don't want to get involved, and we certainly don't want to send Americans to fight and die for abstract ideals and people who show little appreciation for our sacrifices.

I don't blame Obama for making these decisions. However...

Is what the people want always what they should get? Is that leadership? Looked at from some distance, the proverbial 30,000 foot view, what is the objectively "right thing" to do?

The people who fought there, and their families, often seem to understand much better than the rest of t he American people what is really at stake. We used to say "we are fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them at home". Which is a way of expressing the idea that if we pull back behind our borders and disengage with the rest of the world, eventually the world is going to come knocking anyway.

And of course, it's not just our safety and security at stake. America really is the "essential nation". No other nation can do what we can do. We have provided peace and security to most of the world for the past 70 years. The wonderful quasi-socialist states of Europe which we are told we should emulate, have only been possible because they sub-contracted their security needs out to the United States. We, and the rest of the developed world, built the modern economy and culture we enjoy in large part based on the free flowing oil from the middle east. And it only flowed freely because of the strength of the United States.

The question then is: what will the world look like when the American people decide we are no longer interested in keeping the world's peace? I think we are seeing that play out already. Russia is getting aggressive and the middle east is falling into chaos. Terrorists kidnap little girls and know that nobody is coming for them.

So this is a leadership issue. In the Army leadership training we talk about choosing the "hard right over the easy wrong". Very often your Soldiers pressure you to let them out of the dirty, tedious work, like weapon cleaning after a long field problem or cleaning the trash out of the vehicles after a long convoy. As a leader you often have to be the bad guy.

Good leaders know that not all of their decisions will be popular. Really good leaders figure out how to "bring the troops along" with them. Make them see the long term benefit of doing the hard thing. This is how you develop future leaders, by the way. The President is not a good leader. He is doing what the people want, but in my opinion, he's not doing what is best for us.

The "hard right" would have been leaving some troops in Iraq. The "easy wrong" was getting out. The easy wrong is apparently our default mode going forward. This will result in more suffering for vulnerable people around the world in the short term, and a more dangerous world in the long term. Who else is going to step into the void we create when we step back from the world? The United Nations? No.

All that said, I'm glad the President is not sending us out to police the world any more. How can I say that after I just said the world will be more dangerous if we pull back? Easy. I don't want another generation of Soldiers sent out to do the hard, dirty (and deadly) work that needs to be done in some foreign land, only to be told when they come home that their efforts were a waste.

I had that experience in 2004 coming back from Iraq and I don't want to see it happen again. Individual people have great respect and appreciation for their military, and I appreciate that. But as a country we don't have the stomach to lead any longer. So I'd rather the world descend into chaos (Sorry world!) than send kids off to war as heroes and welcome them back as victims.

Raising Awareness

What is bothering me a lot right now is this "hashtag diplomacy" as it's being called. The First Lady and a bunch of celebrities are tweeting selfies holding signs that say "#bringbackourgirls". The idea apparently being to let the terrorists of Boko Haram, who kidnapped 300 Nigerian girls, know that we want the terrorists to give the girls back.

This is after we've seen some State Department officials using their personal twitter feeds to make comments about Putin and the situation in Ukraine, among other things.

They think Putin and the terrorists in Nigeria are going to care because... well, that's not entirely clear. But it's understandable with this particular crowd (liberals) because they equate raising awareness with doing something. When liberals say, "It's the least I could do!" they mean that literally.

And it's actually gotten worse over the years. It used to be that you would run a 5K race where a part of the entry fee goes to cancer research. Then at least something goes to the researchers. If you post a selfie on twitter or instagram, no assistance goes to anyone. When you ran the 5K you got a t-shirt so everyone would know you did it, (which is really the point, right?) With twitter you get the narcissism without the effort or expense. It's a win/win!

But that's not really what bothers me about the current situation. It's the logical disconnect, the lack of awareness of cause and effect. I've written about this before, how liberals can't quite seem to connect the dots between their various positions.


'We don't want to be the world's policeman! How dare we insist our culture is superior to another culture! Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an Islamaphobe who shouldn't be allowed to speak!"

How do liberals square these positions with the #bringbackourgirls twitter campaign?

If we are not the world's policeman, no one else is going to be either. So who exactly do they think is going to step up to bring these girls back? The UN?

SOMEONE should do SOMETHING! Yeah, well, "someone" has been the U.S. military since about 1945. And no one looks eager to tag in. "Something" in this case is going to be force of some kind. No one is taking our warnings and strongly worded statements any more seriously than they ever took them from the UN.

I guess the most irritating thing about liberals at the moment is the sudden interest in what happens to little girls in the Islamic world. None of this is new. You should see how they treat them in Afghanistan, and don't ask what the little boys go through. Or maybe do ask.

But really liberals? You are just waking up to the serious mistreatment of women and children under Islam?

Maybe you should stop shouting down every guest speaker who tries to come to your college to talk about something uncomfortable. You might learn something about the world.

I suppose I should just be happy that liberals are starting to notice what goes on in parts of the world that people in private jets don't usually visit. For example, hollywood is currently boycotting a Beverly Hills hotel because the middle eastern country that owns it (!) adopted Sharia law.

Not because of how women are treated under Sharia, mind you. But over treatment of gays. Which is also not new. Iran executes gays. Just saying. Look it up. Been going on for a long time.

Anyway, back to the cause and effect I mentioned earlier. We decided with the election of Obama that we didn't want to participate in solving the world's problems anymore. He ran on that, and we elected him.

It pisses me of to see the very people who wanted the U.S. to play a smaller role in the world wringing their hands now and wishing someone would do something. The reason is a little complex, but stay with me.

There are two ways of going about "doing something". We can wait until something bad happens, like 300 little girls get kidnapped, and then try to go in and save them. The problems with this scenario are many. Like the girls are suffering from the first hour, and without bases nearby, or any previous arrangements with whatever third-world shithole country they happen to be in, the rescue would be a long time in coming. Also that most of the countries in which this might happen won't let us conduct military operations there, and just sending in some drones without permission would be a violation of international law.

The other way involves spreading democracy and trying to help these people into the current century where we don't mutilate the genitals of little girls or rape little boys as a matter of course. This is a long process that requires staying engaged with the world and, sometimes, getting dirty with the bad guys to let them know what is and isn't acceptable behavior.

This seems to me to be the better choice, but we decided we don't want to do that, didn't we liberals? So it's time to make some hard choices, isn't it?

No, lol, not really! I know how this will work for liberals. Before the glow of "raising awareness" by tweeting your hashtag selfie has faded, some evil right-winger will try to cut funding for free birth-control pills and before you can tweet "#firstworldproblems", those little girls will be forgotten.

Syria, not just no...

Hell no.

How many times do we have to go down this road before we learn the lesson? Understand me, the lesson I'm talking about is not that "war is not the answer", or that we can't "impose our will" on another country. Sometimes war IS the answer, and there is no doubt we have the capability to impose our will on anyone we want, with the exception of maybe China. Maybe.

The lesson I'm talking about is two-fold.
1. America lacks the will to win.
2. The "world community" is a bunch of ungrateful bitches and doesn't deserve our help.

Let me start with 2.

Fuck you motherfuckers. That's all I have to say to the "world."

We've been fighting and dying on behalf of Europe and Asia since WWII. What has that gotten us? In Europe, a bunch of ungrateful bastards who have 5-week vacations and free health care, which they can't really afford, but have been able to get away with because they haven't had to provide for their own security for 70 years. So FYMF. We should do what they all say they want us to do and stop meddling around in their business.

We have been fighting and dying on behalf of Muslims around the world since at least the '91 Gulf War, and what has that gotten us? A bunch of ungrateful bastards who seem to want to kill us more the more we help them. So FYMF. We should do what they all say they want us to do and stop meddling around in their business.

Let me clarify something. No one else can do what we can do. No one else has the capability we have. If we disengage from the world, it will become a much more dangerous place. I don't want to see this happen. I joined the Army 25 years ago because I believed, and still believe, we are the good guys and we keep the world safe.

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

George Orwell 

Early in my career I went to West Germany (when it was still West and East Germany), and the Soviet Union was still our enemy. Wish I had kept my SMLM card for a memento. http://www.3ad.com/pio/memorabilia/soviet.mission.htm

Did the Europeans love us and shower us with gratitude for keeping them safe at great expense to our country and personal sacrifice to ourselves? 

FUUUCK NO! They protested outside the main bases, and sometimes outside our little kaserne. So FYMF.

Same thing happened in Korea, protests all the time. FYMF.

Interestingly, the Israelis I met during the Gulf War were awesome. Once the war ended, and we were allowed off base, we were heroes to those folks. They loved us, I never bought a single beer. (Not that we were strictly speaking "allowed" to drink, but it was a different time...)

Now the individual Muslims that I met in Iraq in '91, and in early 2003, were also very grateful and happy we were there. Same with the Kuwati people. We all know how it turned out in Iraq, and as grateful as the Kuwaitis were for us saving their country in '91, I don't see them sticking up for us much now. I suppose I should be grateful they let us keep bases there.

I didn't deploy to Somalia, Kosovo or Bosnia, but those were also missions to save Muslim people. I'm sure I'm missing some examples. 

And of course the end result of 20 years of saving Muslim lives? 9/11 and Benghazi. FYMF.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for all these people to bow down and kiss our collective ass. But how about not attacking us? Or being so fucking smug, Europe. 

You know what though? It's not even them that I'm most upset with. It's us. 

This brings us to 1.

We will never win another overseas war that requires more than a few weeks of combat or any kind of real fighting. We have no heart, and we have no stomach for it. The American character has changed. (Not for the better.)

If anyone attacked us here at home we would wipe them out, no doubt. But I can't imagine a circumstance where we commit troops to an overseas war and go all 12 rounds. We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq in about the 10th round. (Afghanistan was a pure waste of time and lives, let's not even talk about that.)

And that's were we are on the Syria debate. The right thing to do is go in there and punish Assad, and by punish I mean drop a bomb directly on him. Let the chips fall where they may after that. And we would have to deal with the fallout, but that is what we should do.

But we won't. We no longer have the stomach to do what needs to be done. We don't believe that the world is a dangerous, violent place. Assad kills 100k people and we "tsk" and flip the channel. We kill ten villagers by mistake while trying to stop a terrorist who has killed thousands and we are monsters!

This debate reminds me of 2002. When I left for Iraq in April 2003, I was fired up. We had the support of Congress, the people were with us, we were the Good Guys going forth to slay the dragon! Everyone agreed we were doing the right thing.

When I came back in May 2004, (coincidentally an election year), we were the stupid victims of Bush, fighting a mistake war based on a supposed lie.

 “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” Said the same guy who had voted to send us to that war. 

It was like a punch in the gut. Fuck all y'all, congress. 

So that's it. Between politics and our weak stomachs, we should never enter any conflict anywhere but our own shores. I hope we stay out of Syria because I don't want any other Soldiers to go off to war thinking they are going off to fight a righteous battle, only to come home and be told how stupid they were to believe in anything, most especially America.

Why does anyone need an AR-15? I'll tell you.

So I laid out my view in Part 1 that guns = freedom.

Now I'd like to answer the question: "Why does a civilian need an AR-15 or a 30-round magazine?"

First we have to agree that individual citizens have the right to defend themselves. If you are of the mind-set that no civilian needs any gun at all then there is no point talking about the AR-15 is there?

You may believe that a gun in the house makes one less safe. There are studies that support this idea. I don't think they are persuasive though, because they include uses of the gun for suicide and domestic violence.

Suicide is a symptom of mental illness, in my opinion, and guns don't cause it. Domestic violence is a criminal act. It seems odd to blame the gun ahead of time for mental illness and criminal behavior. A gun is a force multiplier, and I freely admit, it works both ways. A gun can make a suicide attempt more likely to succeed and an act of domestic violence more deadly, but it's not causing either of these by itself.

Antibiotics are good medicine, but when used incorrectly can make infections stronger and more deadly. Guns are similar and the key phrase is: "when used incorrectly."

It just seems odd to argue that "in homes where a gun is used, it is more likely to be used against the owner..." because to me, when a gun is used it represents the failure of an entire system of defense. We each set up our defenses, whether we choose to include guns or not. We pick what we hope is a safe neighborhood (if we can afford to), we lock our doors with deadbolts, we keep a light on out front and in the back, maybe we put in an alarm system, etc... All this is done to protect ourselves and our families. Some people choose to include a gun in this system of defense as a last resort.

These studies also fail to take into account the many uses of guns for defense where no shot is fired. This is the vast majority of cases and if these numbers are included, you see that most guns never even get fired in the home.

If it comes down to using the gun, all those other systems have failed and your gun is your last line of defense. Chances are it's all going to come out badly. That's the reality of violent crime. I personally would like to keep fighting until the end, no matter the outcome, rather than just lay down and take whatever is coming just because the criminal got past my locked door.

To argue that domestic violence and suicide should be included in the discussion about whether guns make more or less safe ignores the fact that the perpetrator of these acts of violence has been invited in past all our defenses, knows exactly where we keep our guns and, in the case of suicide, we are not fighting against them. I would argue that this is another discussion entirely.

In any case, if you believe owning any gun is wrong or unjustified, stop reading now. If you believe that a shotgun or handgun is reasonable for self-defense, but an AR-15 is a military weapon that no civilian needs, keep reading.

What are your choices for self-defense weapons? It pretty much comes down to rifle, pistol or shotgun. I'm not going to go deeply into the characteristics and ballistics of each. Let's say you are a small-framed woman, or an older man who has lost some strength over the years, what is the best choice for you?

Any one of the options can be a good choice, but let me make the case for the AR-15. A shotgun can be overwhelming for a small or weaker person. It kicks and has a limited capacity - try not to miss! Contrary to popular myth, you can't just wave it in the general direction of your target and pull the trigger and hit it. You still need to aim.

A pistol must be aimed and controlled and, in the calibers that will stop a bad guy, can also be overwhelming for smaller or weaker folks. A pistol requires the user to practice regularly. If you are not going to practice, you are not going to be able to use it effectively when the time comes.

The AR-15 eliminates some of these problems. It fires a high-velocity .22 caliber round. Yeah, that's right, this scary military assault rifle fires a little tiny bullet, more precisely it's a .223. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read this. (And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you shouldn't be making passionate arguments against it, should you? Lol.)

Why does the military use such a small round? Studies done after WWII and Korea showed that most bullets fired in combat miss. Whether due to fear and adrenaline making troops aim shaky, or just trying to hit moving targets, the majority of the bullets fired just miss.

Most troops back then carried heavy rifles that fired a .30 caliber round or even a .45. These bullets are also relatively heavy and so a guy couldn't carry all that many of them. The powers that be decided that the common Soldier should carry more bullets, and a rifle that could fire more of them between reloading. So they had to go with a smaller caliber. Soldiers still argue about the wisdom of this move.

What I'm talking about here is the evolution of firearms (or Arms, if you like.) In the Revolutionary War the musket calibers were .62 and .45 and .69, so we have seen bullets get smaller and smaller.

So the AR-15 has evolved as a compromise between weight, stopping power and the ability to fire many rounds between reloading. It's a pretty good compromise and so it makes a good offensive and defensive weapon. The technology involved is not significantly different than any other semi-automatic rifle, but the packaging is unique to it's purpose.

In any case, because it is such a small caliber, the AR-15 has very little "kick" when fired. I remember one of my drill sergeants in basic training demonstrating this on the range by putting the butt of an M-16 (the real assault rifle version of the AR-15) against his, um, groin, and pulling the trigger several times. This was done to show the recruits that the rifle wouldn't hurt them when they fired it.

Imagine trying to do that with a 12 gauge shotgun. This is a distinct advantage when teaching someone to shoot, especially if that person is small or weakened by age or illness. It is also an advantage when using the weapon in an actual defensive situation. Little recoil means it's easier to keep the weapon on target between shots.

Another huge advantage for home defense is that you have a 30-round magazine. Most criminals use pistols, that's a fact. (Why they are trying to ban a class of rifles when pistols are used in most crime boggles my mind.) So the criminal usually has between 8 and 18 rounds, if you have 30 available without reloading, you have the advantage.

And you need all the help you can get, right? I mean the criminals know when they are going to strike, what they are planning to do, and they already have their weapons out and ready when they strike. (Even if that weapon isn't a gun, they are ready to go when they break into your house.) You, on the other hand, are not expecting to have to defend yourself, you are probably asleep. Everything you do is a reaction after the attack has begun. You need every advantage you can get.

A couple other points, you fire the AR-15 with both hands which means it's easier to aim. You can mount a flashlight on it which gives you another advantage over the bad guy breaking into your house. It's scary looking, so it's less likely you will have to fire it. And the fact is, once you learn to use it, you don't really have to practice as much with it as you do with a pistol. Of course, you SHOULD practice regularly, by all means. But because it is so simple to operate and it is really "point and shoot," and because you have 30 rounds, practice is less necessary.

Of course there are many considerations in choosing a self-defense weapon that I haven't talked about. Things to think about like do you share walls with neighbors or children and need to worry about your defensive bullets penetrating and hitting innocent bystanders. I believe that in many cases the right answer is not owning any guns at all. Not everyone should have guns in their house.

My point is that there are rational and compelling reasons for civilians to own an AR-15 with 30-round magazines. The AR-15 is not inherently offensive or defensive in nature. A person has to determine which role the weapon is going to play.

The key element in any use of a gun is always, always, always the person.