Project 2025

[Dill]

(06-19-2024, 03:53 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Also in Afghanistan, so far as I know, they only let company grade officers lead combat missions.  Colonels only left base

for big meetings with local head men or in Bagram or Kabul. I don't know if they count command of a FOB in a war zone 
to be actual battlefield experience.

Commanding troops in combat counts as combat experience.  Once you get to O6 and above you're not going to be directly involved in combat unless something has gone very wrong.

My question was not whether commanding troops in combat counts as "combat experience." The language used in Project 2025 is "actual battlefield experience."

E.g., a Colonel in charge of a FOB who does not lead combat missions, but directs them from a command center in war zone. Is that "actual battlefield experience"? 

(06-19-2024, 03:53 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I do have a concern that legitimate trimming might be cover for re-shaping the military according to right wing or even

Christian Nationalist ideology. The Project makes of point using their more direct control of the DOD school system to
select what is "appropriate" for the curriculum. 

Does you concern extend to a similar thing happening as we speak?
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/06/hundreds-troops-complain-about-woke-racism-extremism-training-cotton-claims/174672/
I realize the issues in the article are not directly substantiated, but I can say from personal experience with guys in the service, or have recently left (lots of my colleagues are/were reservists) that this is a common complaint.  That training on actual military matters is taking a backseat to these types of courses.  Wonder why recruitment levels are so low?  Because no one signs up to join the military to be hammered over the head with this type of crap.

I already know your counter will be this is all anecdotal, which is fair.  But it's also ignoring a very real problem.

Tom Cotton calls for complaints about "woke training" and gets some. 

According to the most recent study, right wing extremism is not greater among people IN the military than in the general population. Among veterans it's a different story though. https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/extremism-disinformation/2024/01/05/troops-do-not-have-an-extremism-problem-but-veterans-do-study-finds/

Not meeting recruiting goals is "a very real problem."  But it's rather a jump to suppose people are staying out of the military for fear of "woke training" when recruiting is still strongest in red states and weakest in the wokest blue states. There are so many other factors, like high standards for admission, a strong economy, an ever smaller percentage of the population with military parents, etc. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-recruiting-and-confidence-in-americas-armed-forces-is-so-low-right-now