34,000 troops will be sent to Afghanistan

[WAMom68]

another article of interest

Cadets dissect new Afghan strategy
By Meghan E. Murphy
Times Herald-Record
Posted: December 03, 2009 - 2:00 AM

WEST POINT — The world watched Tuesday night as video cameras intermittently shifted focus from President Barack Obama to the rows of uniformed West Point cadets watching him speak in Eisenhower Hall. Videographers panned over about 4,400 future Army officers and zoomed in on a few nodding off.

The next morning, in a West Point media and politics class, Maj. Kevin Toner showed his students an online clip of one soldier practically snoring. Teaching, not scolding, he also replayed a clip of political commentator Chris Matthews saying the cadets' demeanor reflected an "enemy camp."

Sitting at a boardroom-style table with classmates, one senior cadet smacked his forehead to his right hand, disappointed and frustrated.

"The Taliban are the enemy, not West Point cadets who are bored, tired and want to go back and write papers and go to bed," another senior cadet said.

Full article:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091203/NEWS/912030319/-1/NEWS

 

[Maximus]

Full article:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091203/NEWS/912030319/-1/NEWS

I wonder how the author of that article was able to deduce that the cadets thought things like this quote from the article?

"They compared Obama's strategy with that of his predecessor, George W. Bush, seeing the sitting president as more interested in stability overseas than in nation building."

I guess she didn't want to quote the cadets (conveniently) and it really isn't a hatched job on the last CiC lol

Great article!

 

[SteveHolt243]

That is almost a "must read" book for the professional soldier.(On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society") It's written around 15-20 years ago by a then LTC by the name of Dave Grossman and it deals with a real world subject- how do you train soldiers to overcome their innate inhibitions to kill in War and how do they deal with that. This is a wartime Army- it's a current issue. While this book is a dense and scholarly read- it's a pretty detailed and indepth look at the mindset of your soldiers- I'm pretty impressed that this Cadet is plowing thru this book.

While it's definitely a good book to read, a lot of it needs to be carefully considered. The historical examples are of mixed usefullness; I'd especially be careful about using the Civil War examples he presents. The major WW2 study he uses has also taken quite a bit of scholarly heat in recent years. I'm not saying not to read Grossman's work, just recommending that large portions be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Momof2cadets]

The book pictures were taken of my son's company. Both of the books are required reading, and the cadets were preparing for class (he said specifically the "On Killing" was for an ethics class). They learned a lesson about media , as these were two books among many, but were the only ones the photographer chose to shoot with the titles showing prominently...what is the old saying about taking everything at face value?