[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by djmcmath
I'm definitely in favor of the military having the best possible tools available for doing their jobs -- but I'm biased, being from the submarine community. We of the silent service have been mostly fortunate -- when we ask for money, we get it, more often than not. Most of the known universe has no clue what happens at test depth, and they don't want to know, so when we say "We need a $35,000 breaker made by Umpty-Froobitz," they say "Ok, we'll take that out of funding somewhere else."

But land-based troops don't have that luxury. There's a pretty tight limit to the amount of money those poor bastards have available, and my heart really goes out to them. Worst case is the Marines, who have been doing so much with so little for so long that they could do anything with nothing forever. If you've ever lived with Marines for a while, you'll know exactly what I mean. Everything they have is old, broken, run-down, and worn out, because they just don't have funding for new stuff.

My point is that you're arguing for The Perfect Vehicle -- fast, light, and so heavily armored that it'll absorb RPG hits, with enough weaponry available to ... oh wait, you've made no arguments for having weapons on our armored vehicles. Anyway, the media has done an excellent job of persuading the public that they want it both ways -- fast/light and heavily armored, as well as fantastically expensive, with precision engineering, and new, but with none of the costs associated with developing that kind of dream machine.

So if you want the military to have better equipment, you need to vote for people who will increase military spending. Or join the military -- we're desperate for good people! If you must play armchair quarterback, at least give the guys with the resources, background, and information necessary to make decisions like that some slight benefit of the doubt.


My $.02, as an admittedly biased warfighter,

Dan

Dan, very good points, but it's on the table that the money is there, the Pentagon just isn't spending it.