My rabidly Republican sister is the widow of a career Air Force officer; most of her friends have a military background. She always maintained that Clinton effectively crippled the military, primarily because he was a “card carrying member of the Communist Party.” She went so far as to say that routine target practice had been discontinued because the military didn’t have enough money to buy bullets. She was supported in this by several retired officers; I really enjoyed asking her how a bankrupt military staffed by people who hadn’t been properly trained could be brought up to snuff and deployed on two fronts in such a relatively short time. She never had an answer, nor did any of her rabidly Republican friends. I have to add that I have seldom encountered such rage and vitriol as was exhibited by she and her friends whenever the subject of Bill Clinton came up.
It would appear this soldier was not a fan of Hillary Clinton.
It’s been some time since I went through BCT at Fort Knox. I don’t recall what the terminology in the Army then was and, since I later enlisted in the Navy, I really never had any occasion to be carrying–or, obvously, clearing–any weapons all the way up to retirement. So, I’ve no idea what the terminology was in the Navy over those years either. But, as with many corporate buzzwords, I wouldn’t be surprised if the terminology had changed from time to time.
Oh, well. I like the term you use much better, anyway.
Absolutely.
I find it infuriating when people refer to our military as if it were the Borg or something. Our military is made up of individuals, each of whom have their own opinions about just about everything, including politics. I was active duty myself from 1981 until 1986, and my husband was active duty from 1976 - 2002 – I knew a lot of active duty military members during those years and a bunch of them voted for Clinton. I have a very good friend who just retired this year (16 years of service) who voted for Clinton twice. Heck, Diogenes the Cynic served in the Navy, you know! Although I’m not sure whether or not he was active duty during Clinton’s term. The military aren’t the Borg.
The thing about having to ‘protect’ a serving President by disarming service people who would surely have assinated him had there been bullets in their guns is just a nasty slander.
Like Monty, I wonder whether or not the OP’s friend was really in the service, that he would believe and repeat such silly things. On the other hand, as I just said: the military aren’t the Borg. Among the military, as among the general population, you will find ignorant, lying gasbags. The OP’s buddy is proof of that.
Typo. That should have been 26 years.
You will be returned to The Collective. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be reassimilated.
I remember clearly running out of fuel in September and not being able to fly until the new fiscal year. This happened both under Bush I and Clinton. Budgets got tighter after the Cold War ended. I wouldn’t be surprised it was more likely to happen under Clinton as he continued to make the military smaller.
(added emphasis mine-JRD)
Hell, it even was happening in some units halfway through *Reagan’s * admin; though in that case it was that the re-buildup in people and ships, tanks, planes, was outrunning the appropriation for mundane expendables such as fuel and ammo.
But thanks for bringing up another part of that time period: the downsizing of the 1990s was initiated by Bush I. Whole divisions, air wings and major combatant ships were marked for demobilization shortly after returning home from Desert Storm. That Bill then came in with** his own** brand of further changes of priorities is just par for the political coursey, though understandably aggravating to a large segment of the audience.
And Clinton’s last budget (FY 2001) was a big upswing in military spending.
He is indeed. Ex-army to be exact. I have known him since his active days, and he was my roomate while he was in the reserves.
Normally he is a rational person, but in addition to being ex-army, he is also a gun collector. From what he tells me, there are a few gun collecting messages boards out there, with an anti-Clinton stance among the membership. I suspect he may have gotten this from one of them.
I wanted proof, and figuring that I wasn't going to get it from such a message board, I searched news sites, snopes, magazine articles, you name it. I found nothing. Looking through the responses to this thread, and the fact that everone who has posted so far finds the story as preposterous as I did, there is also the unfortunate posibility that he just made it up.
Thanks fellow dopers!
Sweetums
Your friend didn’t make up the story. He probably read it on some message board. Here’s one such board:
http://cigar.ambackforum.com/printview.php?t=5582&start=0&sid=23fe6083f0e967e267f1fd652e4a62a5
He may also have heard it someone tell the story. Your friend is gullible.
I wrote:
> He may also have heard it someone tell the story.
I meant:
> He may also have heard someone tell the story.
Incidentally, the story is told in a post towards the bottom of that webpage.
Ever hear of Wesley Clark?
Spartydog writes:
> Ever hear of Wesley Clark?
The poster or the retired general? What does he have to do with this discussion? What point are you trying to make? You know, it would really help if people would quit speaking in this abbreviated code where they think that we’re supposed to understand every subtle little comment they make.
This really shouldn’t be a difficult one to figure out. The guy only ran for president as a Democrat in 2004 and is still on the political scene. Retired General, friend of Bill Clinton, from Arkasas. Rhodes Scholar.
From Wiki:
Exhibit #1 to disprove the notion that the entire military hated Clinton.
Yikes! Scaning that page gave me about 70% of the text of my friend’s last anti-Clinton rant. At least I know where he gets his information.
This may only be NJ Guard SOP. I didn’t see it either until I joined the guard after active duty. I didn’t know if it was a shift in physical security SOPs army wide or just in the state. It’s been the standard around here since I joined the guard in 93. I have been in quite a few units around the state so I can assure you it is not just in one unit.
It’s cheaper to hire civilians, pure and simple.
I agree, your friend’s assertion is BS. It flies in the face of 230+ years of American civilian control of the military, which is a bedrock element of constitutional government. It’s a slur on the modern professional military.
I’ve seen various emails suggesting that officers and soldiers resisted toasting “the President of the United States” in the early Clinton years, or that the soldiers at the base of the stairs to Marine One salute more enthusiastically for Dubya than for his predecessor. BS of the first order, says I.
As for guarding with unloaded weapons - the deck-mounted machine guns of the USS Cole were unloaded at the time the suicide boat approached it in the Yemeni harbor, IIRC. Or am I mistaken?
Yep. A civilian you have to pay $8 an hour (or 10 or 15 not sure). For military personnel you have to billet and feed them. You have to provide free health care. You have to provide free health care for their families. You also have to train them. For a civilian the contractor has to train them. You would have to pay the civilian quite a lot before it would be cheaper to have soldier do it.