Too much armor robbing Marines of speed in combat

[rgrpuck]

Solution: Make uniform wear a commander’s decision as part of the COA development.

Bingo ...this has been a topic of conversation, with my commander and I, quite frequently lately.

[K.Ingraham]

1998. Not long after the wag-the-dog Kosovo debacle, when someone tried to call slickWillie on his phony war, Hillery's husband replied "We fought a war for forty days with zero casualties, now I call that success by any measure" (typing from memory so quote might not be exact but is close enough to make my point).
POTUS: Zero casualties = military success. Not one thought about what strategic or moral goals our nation might have had, beyond distracting the electorate that is, or if any of those goals (if there indeed were any) had been achieved.
Lets see...ROE so restrictive that it was nigh on impossible to effectively strike targets or perform BDA, spend a kabillion dollars worth of "smart" weapons, lose rare F-117s and degrade the arsenal, enable the genocide the bombing was somehow supposed to stop, spend billions, risk many lives and kill dozens of Serbs for no achievable goal and success for the allegedly most powerful nation in history is defined as "none of our guys got killed".

Eighteen men killed in Somalia on a messy, but successful misson and the cabinet meets - and never once mentions, much less discusses that most salient consideration "are we closer to the goals we deployed TFR to achieve?" - but instead ponders that mornings opinion columns and orders us to flee like little girls before TFR has even finished cleaning their weapons.

And the "Candidate for Change" just built an administration made up largely of that former regimes "thinkers".

Our wars will now rely even more on standoff "smart" weapons, UAVs, force protection measures, huffing and puffing and public image management supported by interrogations that begin with "pretty please, will you...".

Please, may I turn out to be wrong about where we're going, but the evidence from where we've been doesn't support any other conclusion.

[BadMuther]

I'm speaking out of nievity(sp?) here..... when and at what level can a commander make the decision to go w/out armor for a mission or just go plate carrier?

Battalion will recommend it. But B rigade will be the approveing authority.

Thanks for the input.















K. Ingraham, oh, but you forget Scott Grady, surviving on "only" an MRE and a half per day!!