What do you know about War??

[Ahmad Ali Pak Air Force]

War is an natural subject on a defence forum, the aim of a Defence Force or a Military is to fight a war, many membere here talk about war, many of those go into deep and advocate one and sing praise and bang wardrum all over the place. But what do you actually know about war?? Let me, a veteran of 1 and a half war, show you the rope.

War is a concept, where 2 parties or more, fought to achieve some goal. An Objective if you insist to put a word for it.

People who have an education, whom have a TV set will tell you, War is a glorious thing, to die for your country is proud, and the excitment of war, the thrill you get from killing your enemy is satisifying feeling. And that most of them seems to think War is one of the way (Some say the ONLY way) for power projection.

What is war, really?

War, as i said, is a concept to settle a conflict, an conflict of idea perhaps, but a conflict nonetheness. The problem with war is, no two side always agree with each other on the same term (That's why war is started in the first place) and most importantly, most ususally, the one that actually start the argument on either side (The person who started the war), would not be in any part of that war.

You see, soldier follow orders, and when you are a soldier, regardless of rank, you would always have people above you that out rank you, and you always have people who listen to you. So, in Army term, shiite roll downhill and everyone, from General to Private, are simply following orders.

The orders, or objective (Another army term) however, is vague...It got pipe-down, translated thru different layer of rank and protocol and it defined and refined over and over again during the chain of command. And the order it came from the very top is very much unregonizible when the 2LT ordering his platoon and the private or sergeant who follow it.

Soldier follow orders, no matter how ridicious it was, the problem is not the order itself, but the people who gave those order. See, in company level, each of us is just doing our job, how you could perform an attack, and try to minimal the risk that your men expose to. The reason is simple, because wherever your men go, you are usually just steps behind. Sometime to most of the time, you are actually in front, damn that lead by example bullshite...

Whatever you do, you think of your men, and when it got down to smaller and more individual, the reckoning is simple. "It is your life"

Things is not the same work in Battalion Level. They have to please the staff level people, the top brass, and their leadership constitution and position is weak too, i mean, being relieved of command of a battalion is a very much "THE BIGGEST JOKE" you can get in the military. so, arse-kissing is a must for some of the battalion CO.

As for how to please your boss?? Well, by taking riskes. You do something other wouldn't, you trying to outdo each other. How far my battalion goes verus how far does yours goes? How many objective our battalion took vs how many yours took. Battalion commander have a things for out doing each other, it would have been fine when you are in peace time when you are talking about how many clicks your battalion march, how many dish yours wash, how many barrack cleaned and so on. In war, those "Objective" would become how many enemy your battalion neutralised, how many insurgencey enclave neutralised, how many suspect insurgent you took prisoner and how much ground you had covered. Those kind of things does not comes with the risk of the people who are actually doing it, i don't see my battalion commaner next to me when we took that objective in Badghdad or Fullajah.

However, that ain't the worse, the shiite is smellier when it rolled higher in the chain of command. Now, we are talking about the stars, and the bird. They only have two things in mind. Where is my objective, and when can i achieve my objective. For them, their order is simple, it could be "I need that hill", "I need your battalions to move 2 mile North of us" and followed by the question "When can your battalion get there??" Did they have the feel for the little guys that actaully make that happen? Well.........

They do battlefield accessment however, a mathematical calculation on how quick a fully equipped battalion can move, against the level of defence. All BS to the lowly soldier, execpt when it goes down to the casualty prediction. For the Generals and Colonels, you are just a number, not a name, nor not even a serial number, just a percentage, the percentage of people they need for the objective. They don't care about you, hell, they don't even know you.

The top brass is not stupid, they know it would be useless to capture an objective with heavy casualty, by then you will not have enough to hold the objective. So, they will do a casualty estimation everytime they start a major ops. For example, it would be acceptable if we suffer 40% casualty in order to take that particular objective, be that a hill, a bunker or a country. But it would not be acceptable if we suffer 50% casualty. Quite caring, don't ya think?? Do you know what that means?

That means, when you stand infront of a heavily fortified hilltop, it is acceptable for you to lose 40% of your people (Yourselve maybe included) to charge that hill with basic infantry equipment. That is because the same top brass think the help from an AC-130 is not economical for said battle. You still don't get it?? That mean you, and 40% of the people around you are acceptable loses for that particular objective. Now, tell me, what would you think if you are the person that's standing infront of that objective and prepare to carry out the order??

Oh, i forgot to mention one thing, everybody start from scratch, meaning you have to go thru the stage of getting crap, then you can dish out some, NOBODY START FROM THE TOP

 
Nobody start from the Top