It's been awhile since I've posted on SA Forums, I've read the above thread and all I have to say is "I am SO GLAD Donald Trump is my Dear Son's Commander in Chief". If anybody thinks the alternative would have been better please respond...
Yes, I think the alternative, John Kasich, would have been much better. But that's absolutely meaningless, since President Trump is the Commander-in-Chief. It's also meaningless what I or any other parent of a cadet/mid thinks about him. I know my DS, full of opinions, is too busy and too focused on his job to care.
I do wonder, however, about what US military personnel think. In particular, I'm thinking about those--mostly guys--sitting in Irbil or Kobane or outside Mosul who have spent the last several years trying to build or rebuild relationships with local forces to achieve the geopolitical goals of the politicians. Imagine a twentysomething year old US soldier on patrol with a mostly Kurdish militia, in a newly liberated Yazidi village which was abandoned by an all Shia unit of the Iraqi National Army. The Militia Commander lost siblings and cousins during one Sadaam's ethnic cleansing gassing campaigns to clear parts of Northern Iraq/Kurdistan of Kurds. One of your interpreters, is a Sunni Arab whose brother and father were executed by ISIS and whose mother and sisters are still holed up in Western Mosul. When they arrive in Mosul they will be only one of many military units, some with and some without US "Advisors". This densely populated city will be liberated street by narrow street. Some of the streets will be cleared house by booby-trapped house. Neighbors may or may not know which houses are booby-trapped. Your interpreter, who grew up in Mosul, knows the city and is
your best judge of who is and isn't lying. At almost any moment the safety and that or your people, who are massively outnumbered, is dependent upon the trust built up in both directions.
So, I'm not sure if that young US O-3 or NCO even cares who the Commander-in-Chief. After months and months of
Sadaam killed terrorists, Obama and Clinton founded ISIS, We're going to bomb the $h!+ out of ISIS (which means bombing the $h!+ out of Mosul and potentially that interpreter's family),
We should just take the oil, I can only imagine he would say what everyone from David Petraeus to Robert Gates to Gen Tony Thomson has said to the Command-in-Chief, "Would you please just STFU and do your job. There's a war going on here."