SharrellAnne

I wasn't a soldier during GWOT, I retired in 1996. But I was contracted by DoD and DoS to conduct military training in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I am/was a pretty damned good developer of training that increased the war-fighting capability of the students and units that I trained. My only goal was to ensure victory. That goal was blocked by the bureaucrats, lawyers, and incompetent/corrupt politicians in both cases. We had a chance in Iraq. It had been a functioning nation. I was in the business of helping the Iraqi Tactical Training Command produce viable, reliable, combat-ready brigades to fight the insurgency. We came close to accomplishing that task.Twice on that job, a couple of my Iraqi co-worked saved my life from targeted attacks on my person. We'd developed a damned good working relationship. Creating a voting democracy there was incredibly difficult. I worked alongside the Coalition members who were trying hard to make that happen, even though it may have been not in the cards. Never in that region's history had the populace ever elected political leaders. But the members of the Coalition and many Iraqis were trying. There was a chance. Truthfully, we never had a chance in Afghanistan. That was never a functioning nation. It is just a region of warlords and thugs whose only goal was to maintain the 7th Century religious cult that is Islam. I lost two good friends there. Both retired Infantry or SF sergeant majors, some of the best trainers you could ever find. Shot in the back on a BRM range by an insurgent infiltrated into the Afghan Army by the Taliban. Green on Blue they called it. The man who shot and killed them was immediately shot and killed by another US Army veteran. We knew the risks. But we had lost the battle with our own government about vetting new recruits. Yeah, it was difficult to vet them. But we did a piss-poor job of it because of the bureaucrats. Until that lily-livered Obama yanked us out. "Iraq was the wrong war, Afghanistan was the right war", he said. Never in the history of the American Presidency was any president so stupidly wrong. We gave Iraq to ISIS and the ayatollahs of Iran with that move. Moqtada al-Sadr was overjoyed. The United States military has gone through a weakening ever since Bill and that law-breaking Hillary became in charge. Stupid mandatory training requirements, putting women in close combat units, acceptance of trans and gender queer people into combat units, Affirmative Action promotions, political promotions, DEI, etc., all contributed to the decline of our nation's defenders from achieving maximum military efficacy. Pete Hegseth saw the result and saw the solution. And with President Trump's backing, @SecWar Hegseth implemented that solution. When @President_Tump saw a nuclear-armed Iran in the near future, he directed Hegseth to reduce their nuclear capability. Knowing that this was going to negatively impact on his political future, President Trump directed the implementation of combat power anyway. (Well, done sir!) Yeah, we don't want boots on the ground in Iran, and the alternative is muddy, something HAD to be done. So he did it. Attempting to impeach Pete Hegseth for trying to do a difficult but necessary task is blatantly stupid. But this is the morass we've gotten ourselves into. Just another step into the destruction of our republic. I am a two-time combat veteran, a product of the reforms the Army made after the Viet-Nam War. A recipient of what was called Battle Focused Training. I rose through the ranks to become one of the soldiers responsible for developing and implementing combat training. I know how to create combat ready soldiers. I have done it it in the US Army and three out of four different nations. Pete Hegseth deserves our support. Impeaching him would be a set back for the men and women who sign on the dotted line to competently defend our nation. Anything else is bullshit.