Beth's question was Re: Questions regarding NAC ground units

On Mon, 3 Dec 2001 15:59:32 +1100  Beth.Fulton@csiro.au writes:
<snip>. So
>is all this pride in unit history there so that you don't let the side 
>down
>when it comes your turn or is it the hope that you won't let the side 
>down?
>

Beth, sometimes it carries through and sometimes not.  Usually it works
to some degree.

WW2 - 4 (IIRC) Battalions of Nisei were raised to fight in the ETO
(European Theater of Operations.  Even though many wanted to go to PTO
(Pacific) to show they were good Americans I think three ended up in
Italy.

Those three got an extremely crazy number of medals for heroic actions
(when they could get the person to admit doing the thing cited) but one
(the fourth)  was disbanded stateside for discipline problems.	Really
*bad* discipline problems from what I was able to read (wasn't my book
and have never found it since I was a teenager.)

Almost every unit has had individuals who simply never get the value
system.  That's why every military has some version of the UCMJ (Uniform
Code of Military Justice) in reserve.  Some militaries resort to such
means earlier then others, right commissar?  <grin>  And some
armies/forces are not ever truly competent for various reasons. [The
three classes of Armies thing:	1)Real Armies capable of fighting a war
moderately competently against equal sized armies from next door/across
the sea.  2) Armies to keep the other organized bandits... I mean
armies... next door out of the homeland while you pillage... I mean rule
the country.  Token and ceremonial armies fall into this by default of
not making categoty 1 for reasons beyond the control of the army. 
3)Armies designed to oppress the unarmed masses of 'citizens' inside the
homeland. ]

Examples:
1) USA 1944-1945 many European armies starting around Frederick the
Great.	Some of the 'best' third world powers, like Thailand, Singapore,
PRC in Korea, elements of the NVA.
2)Most of  the second tier present third world armies and some current
European armies.  Burma, on a good day.  Luxembourg (numbers, not
quality
issue in that example.)
3)Most of the Third World, especially many Central African armies. 
Burma, on a typical day sparring with the Thais - a definiton of stupid
in my dictionary.

And possibly every unit above Company has had somewhere in its history
(assuming more then one war and more then 50 years of existence) one or
more sub units that failed to met the standard.  Not broke under
unbearable pressure but were unprepared for war and  crumpled
prematurely.  The US Army in Korea initially had several units degraded
by the way the Army was ignored post WW2 (Nuclear strategy/theory and
the
inherent problems of 'Armies of Occupation' being two causes) and
performed down below their history.  Others performed better then their
conditions should have allowed them to do.

And every military of any merit learns from those mistakes ("1973" being
a simple term used to deflate undue cockiness in the IDF still today.)	
Nations with long or intense histories of conflict know that those
traditions are only the seed bed and that those seeds need to be watered
by the blood shed in a conflict at interclass or you risk losing the
truths that keep the institution 'real' and capable of winning wars. 
That is the perverse thing about real armies, they don't want war but
they know that without some conflict (or an institutionalized memory -
such as professional NCO's and good military academies) eventually the
fighting force will be unprepared to wage war because there will be no
'reality check' in the leadership of the force.

Real Warriors tend to be closet pacifists because they know the only
reason to go to war is that every other option is unacceptable.  True
Warriors sweat now to not bleed later, when tehir rulers understand the
importance of that expense.  Warriors do not seek conflict but neither
do
they shrink from it.  It is more of that servant leadership thing only
to
the point where you are willing to die serving others.

Of course the first choice of any smart warrior to let the enemy die for
*his* country but if needed a warrior doesn't consider the cost of his
life too high a price for the land he loves.  A warrior's only regrets
in
that situation is if he is dying needlessly because some 'leader'  made
a
fundamental and unnecessary error.  And that of course, never happens. 
<no grin on this one>

Okay, enough of my drivel.

Gracias,
Glenn/Triphibious@juno.com
This is my Science Fiction Alter Ego E-mail address.
Historical - Warbeads@juno.com
Fantasy and 6mm - dwarf_warrior@juno.com

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