On the contrary, I have a great deal of faith in the American soldier.
I acknowledge and commend that!
Yes...we have a different attitude on this. My perspective is that very little is different between the attitudes and motivations of professional Soldiers between the ages, and even between nations. Professionals in small combat units go about their duties the same today as the Roman officers and NCOs did in their day...not much difference in attitude towards their duties or their conduct towards getting their units ready for combat. Very few "slouchers" here, or there.
Now HOW can you make such a judgment?! You imply that only a few NCOs were worth a damn in the Old Army, and that most were slouchers. I find no evidence of this. In my studies, Regular Army NCOs in the U.S. Army have been quite competent and professional with very few exceptions. I see no reason to denigrate the quality of the NCOs in the 7th Cavalry that day.
To identify which Soldiers are to become NCOs. The officers promote them, and they need a system to do so. Note that we aren't talking, though, about the Soldiers here...we are talking about the NCOs and officers. The rank and file are all over the map in any army, and varies greatly from age to age, and nation to nation. But we are only talking here about the professional core of small combat organizations...the dozen or so "grizzled veterans" that keep all professional armies going decade after decade.
Because you are talking strategic-level readiness here...large organizations, and in that you are correct. But you are not correct in using such to analyze the combat readiness of companies and battalions/regiments. They may be short of stuff to train with sometimes, but the leadership remains solid and professional and highly motivated.
We aren't talking the Vietnam Army here. We are talking about Regular Army units with volunteers. I see no evidence that the combat units out West were not highly motivated to find and destroy their enemies whenever and wherever they could find them. The units enjoyed being out in the field on combat operations, rather than in garrison. They liked action...they hated boredom. And they liked being away from details and garrison duty. They liked to fight Indians...always looked forward to it, wherever I see opinions expressed.
And the 7th Cavalry was very much looking forward to fighting and destroying the Sioux and Cheyenne that day in 1876.
Of course it could, if it were a little ad hoc regiment trying to hold back a horde of North Korean tanks. That TF was thrown together and unprepared for its mission, even though they were Regulars. They got swamped, but their professional leaders got them through it.
Exactly...they were organized and trained as a constabulary, and had to do some hasty re-org and train up to fight as a combat unit, and didn't have enough time to do that at the start of the Korean War.
Not one bit true. It was poor decision making by the high command...had nothing to do with the training of any combat units, you see.
I agree with that, even today! But again, it doesn't mean the Regular army NCOs and officers in companies and battalions are doing all they can to prepare their units to accomplish tactical missions. There are no "slouchers" here. They may not always train the right missions, or for the right enemy, but they are always working hard to "be all they can be." When they get into combat and find conditions are different, as usually happens, they make professional adjustments.
Yes, just so!
I think I just did. <g> But again, it doesn't mean these Regular NCOs and officers are "slouchers" and aren't doing all they can to prepare their units for combat.
More specifically, you need to point out where at the LBH battle poor prepartion of the companies' tactical expertise contributed to Custer's defeat.
That makes no difference at all...in fact, combat operations DEGRADE unit training and readiness...they don't improve it in the long run. You NEED "quiet time" to properly train a unit for combat. And when a unit has been in combat for a long time, you need to pull it out to retrain all the skills it lost by being in combat so long. Combat only trains the skills actually used in that particular operation, but combat units need to train to do many different kinds of operations...skills they lose if they only fight in one kind for a period.
Who cares what the Soldiers think? NCOs sometimes led their Soldiers into desertion. <g> But those are the rare exceptions. MOST Soldiers did not desert, and MOST NCOs properly motivated their Soldiers to do their duty...whether the Soldier appreciated that, or not.
If they didn't reenlist, it wasn't their calling. That's fine...we don't expect, or want, every Soldier to reenlist and become NCOs. We only want the few most motivated and "called" Soldiers to reenlist and rise in the ranks. This is what makes our great NCO Corps. If only one in 12 men reenlist and become NCOs, you will have a good company. In today's Army that ratio is much higher, but we send them out of our combat units in most cases, to all kinds of "anxilliary duties."
How do you know that? What makes you think no NCO ever tried to do this? In any event, that is irrelevant...the NCOs made sure each horse was as well trained as possible to withstand combat, period. That you CAN bank on, eh?
Some do...some need more, some don't need this much. Each NCO sizes up his men and decides what and how much training of any given type they need to be best prepared for the kind of combat they are expected to fight. Don't you think this is exactly what happened in all those hundreds of combat companies out west in the '70's?
You are fine to hold that opinion, buy my judgment is that you are very wrong in this, and should keep an eye towards reconsidering it. I think the Regular Army companies out west in the 1870s and 80s could run rings around ANY Civil War outfit of any year in combat. That's the difference between professional Soldiers and Soldier volunteers or draftees "in for the duration only." It's all in the career-minded professionalism of the NCOs and officers in every company, and every regiment. You can't mimick this in any "volunteer" organization, no matter how experienced in combat they are.
That's fair...me too.
Very well said, and thank you. There are two kinds of American Soldiers in our society, and BOTH are worthy of great praise, especially on this great day, and thank you very much for this discussion!
You have our "citizen Soldiers," that rise to every occassion, and manage to do great feats although it is not their calling, nor are they often well prepared for the trails of campaigning and combat. More of our volunteers died of sickness in their training camps than died in combat in our Civil War, I believe.
I'll put our American volunteers against any other people's of any age in any argument.
The other category are our Professional American Soldiers. This mainly applies to those that stay past their first enlistment and decide that military life is their calling. They pursue their calling with a passion and dedication that is truly remarkable, all in support of our Constitution. This is what makes them different from mercenaries.
These two categories of American Soldier are apples and oranges when you have discussions about motivation, training, capability, etc. So you have to always keep this difference in mind. All of our big wars have been fought by citizen Soldiers in the main, so that is what most people think of when they think "U.S. Army."
But the U.S. Army professionals usually think of the small core of professional units that maintain themselves between all these large wars as being "the Army." So there is a big difference in perspective here about what most people think are "Soldiers" and what military people are usually talking about.
Again, both are great, and both have problems, but they are different when talking various issues.
To ALL Soldiers and ALL veterans of our wars, and any out there from the other Western democracies...thank you for your service...
Clair
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they
