Also recently: "US Military's cyber command unit grapples with cluster of deaths by suicide" - 317 points by rbanffy 5 days ago - 563 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220339
Absolutely disgusting treatment under any circumstances, but even worse on what arguably was/is a mission of "spectacle" to distract from Epstein revelations, and an insanely miscalculated "walk in the park" one-day assault, like Putin tried.
And the two at the top (bottom) of this don't seem to care one iota.
I think that psychologically not knowing when it will end is extra difficult. When I served in Afghanistan I knew pretty well how long the deployment would be so my expectations were set. If they kept adding extra months I'd imagine you start to feel like Yossarian.
Sure frame it as bad news. The real story is that Kennedy doesn't have to worry about precious American body fluids being compromised by foreign UHT milk. (I don't think you could have synergy like that before DOGE.)
Morale is so bad that people are trying to off themselves and they aren't even being shot at yet. I have low faith in the USN in the event of a Taiwan contingency. And I think the idea that they can force Iran to their knees with a blockade is looking sillier every day. Brutal.
I've long theorized that if a hot war with China happened, the US would get beaten up very badly, at first.
Likely burning through stockpiles of weapons (obvious now), plus not do well against modern drone warfare and a China that can pump out drastically more weapons, ships, etc.
Would we likely get our act together? I don't even know anymore. But it would not go well in the beginning.
> I have low faith in the USN in the event of a Taiwan contingency
Morale tends to be very different when you're acting as the reactor to some other actor on the offensive, you act (you think at least) as a defender of some larger idea of "peace". But when you instead gets sent out as the aggressor, you don't really have much to defend and hold on to, and it gets harder and harder for people to justify what they're there to do.
Say China were to invade Taiwan and there would be outright war, then a lot of people would feel differently about participating in that, compared to participating with the US acting as an aggressor against Iran for little rhyme or reason.
This is one of the problems with starting a war with the assumption that you’ll achieve an overwhelming victory in a matter of weeks. At this point the only practical options for resupplying the Lincoln are to supply it by sea (involves tying a defenseless ship to the side of it and moving both in a straight line for a few hours) or to move it where the food is and hope it doesn’t impact their blockade plan too badly.
I sometimes see people making fun of the book “The Art of War” because it’s mostly stuff like “you can’t win a war if you aren’t able to feed your troops” that should be obvious to anybody who’s competent. Situations like this show that it’s still useful because sometimes you have leaders that need very simple concepts to be explained to them.
I was stationed on the Lincoln during the first gulf war.
Most folks have 12 hour shifts, you wake up in a triple stacked “coffin” bunk(I couldn’t roll over without my shoulders hitting the top of the bunk) and wait in line to shower, then wait in line for each meal all while performing your responsibilities. Plus repeated fire drills in full gear because if a fire isn’t put out folks die. I certainly remember losing all the scheduled liberty ports due to the war. It definitely builds up your stress levels over time to breaking point levels. I didn’t see anyone attempting to jump overboard but did see some purposely hurt themselves.
The only port large enough for a carrier (at the time) was/is Dubai but that just makes the ship a sitting duck right now. I can’t imagine going that long without a break.
I've said before, and the downvotes prove it, but...
Damn, fighting for the epstein alliance and the president of peace sounds awful.
Still, Trump will soon be able to get the strait of hormuz open like it was before he attacked iran, and he'll be able to get Iran's word they won't make nukes, just like they said they wouldn't before he attacked them...which will be a better victory than spending 20 years to replace the taliban with the taliban I suppose.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 36.4 ms ] threadAnd the two at the top (bottom) of this don't seem to care one iota.
A national disgrace.
I think that psychologically not knowing when it will end is extra difficult. When I served in Afghanistan I knew pretty well how long the deployment would be so my expectations were set. If they kept adding extra months I'd imagine you start to feel like Yossarian.
Likely burning through stockpiles of weapons (obvious now), plus not do well against modern drone warfare and a China that can pump out drastically more weapons, ships, etc.
Would we likely get our act together? I don't even know anymore. But it would not go well in the beginning.
Morale tends to be very different when you're acting as the reactor to some other actor on the offensive, you act (you think at least) as a defender of some larger idea of "peace". But when you instead gets sent out as the aggressor, you don't really have much to defend and hold on to, and it gets harder and harder for people to justify what they're there to do.
Say China were to invade Taiwan and there would be outright war, then a lot of people would feel differently about participating in that, compared to participating with the US acting as an aggressor against Iran for little rhyme or reason.
I sometimes see people making fun of the book “The Art of War” because it’s mostly stuff like “you can’t win a war if you aren’t able to feed your troops” that should be obvious to anybody who’s competent. Situations like this show that it’s still useful because sometimes you have leaders that need very simple concepts to be explained to them.
No matter how powerful your military is, you can't win a war unless you have a political objective that is possible to achieve via the war.
The only port large enough for a carrier (at the time) was/is Dubai but that just makes the ship a sitting duck right now. I can’t imagine going that long without a break.
Damn, fighting for the epstein alliance and the president of peace sounds awful. Still, Trump will soon be able to get the strait of hormuz open like it was before he attacked iran, and he'll be able to get Iran's word they won't make nukes, just like they said they wouldn't before he attacked them...which will be a better victory than spending 20 years to replace the taliban with the taliban I suppose.
Fucking idiots.