Meet your next Army Chief of Staff. Maybe.

Here he is. Seems like a hell of a soldier.

The thing, I like? He started as a tanker! I'm sick of all these goddamn legs telling me that "ARMOR IS OBSOLETE! TANKS ARE SO WWII! BLAH BLAH BLAH!"

Oh yeah? Where were your fancy f-ing missles and squad machine guns when you came under sniper fire in Iraq? Hiding behind an M1a1! (Or, in all fairness, waiting for an airstrike.) No, I got nothing but love for my infantry brothers. Poor bastards.

Maybe he'll see we get an "Expert Armor Badge" or our own braid now. 8)

Reaper, what was your opinion of Shinseki? Just curious....seemed to be a lot of bad mojo surrounding him. Or is it Rumsfield''s ''new army'' concept that''s to blame?

The new nominee ran Delta for godsakes. Hard to argue with that.

Can anyone else here imagine Reaper as the Army Chief of Staff?

If he was, he''d be the fastest one to tick off the Secretary of Defense.

My opinion of Gen. Shinseki? I have two.

Number One

Number Two

Number One: You can argue it for better or worse but that damn thing is here to stay.

Number Two: See #1
(I''m glad they upgraded the ballistic ""protection"" to stop the 14.5 mm machine gun round employed by most Soviet fighting vehicles. I thought it was utterly assinine that it originally only stopped a 12.7 mm NATO standard round. Did we really expect to be attacked by the French so soon? Of course, you''re still SOL on the 30mm cannon employed by Russian fighting vehicles since the 70''s.)

I keenly understand the need for a medium weight armored vehicle that is not the Bradley or the M1a1. They don''t fulfill a peacekeeping role very well. And that, to me, is the heart of this matter. If you look at how the new interim brigades are being organized, they closely resemble a peacekeeping unit. Highly mobile, infantry heavy, relatively low anti-armor capacities. Keep in mind I was trained back when the Army was focused on fighting Soviet technology in the hands of Soviet styled regimes. I can''t honestly count how many times I''ve screamed something to the effect, ''Die you f*ckin'' commie!'' on the range. That''s all I heard in Basic. So, anything that threatens to take away my personal ability to destroy T-72''s at 1500 meters is inherently wrong.

It''s also worth noting that the Objective Force 21 concept far pre-dates SecDef Rumsfeld. So to pin this whole thing on him isn''t entirely accurate.

The ""bad mojo"" IMO comes from certain members of the military with advanced training (NOT Special Forces) that feel the wearing of beret wasn''t good enough for Joe Troopie and that you had to go through what is essentially an advanced infantry course *cough*RANGERS*cough* to be good enough to wear the beret. This created some strife amongst the troops and was quickly laid to rest when the Rangers donned tan berets. Dorks.

Keg: NEVER. NOT FOR ANYTHING. I remember talking with a couple of my sergeants a few years ago and one of them looks at me and says, ''You know man. You''re like Colin Powell. You''re only guy fit to run the show but you''re too smart to take the job.''

Rat Boy: I''d award myself a medal.

Thanks for the depth of that response, reaper. Allways interesting to read a soldier''s perspective, instead of the armchair generals.