re: Generation Kill - Late to the Party

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But there are frick ups everywhere, no matter the profession. It’d be naive of me to think our Armed Forces are led 100% by completely competent men.

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I just want to be clear that I am NOT claiming that 100% of military officers are competent. I have known some pretty big morons in my day. What I and others are saying is that the Hollywood trope of virtually all of the young enlisted troops being the wise, experienced, all-knowing and virtuous ones while the officers are the dumb, inexperienced, career-driven morons making stupid and dangerous decisions at every turn while their troops shake their heads in the background.

yes, there are bad officers and smart enlisted troops. absolutely. but by and large, especially at the tactical level, the majority of officers are between competent and very good. the bad ones generally get weeded out.

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Maybe they exaggerated it moreso than reality, but a few officers being complete fricking idiots fits pretty in line with every military history book ive read in every war going back to the Revolution.

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most popular "history" books are written by journalists, and most journalists have the same or similar Marxist outlook on the military, where underlying themes are the struggling "working class" enlisted man getting screwed over by the aristocratic brass. these men have never been in the arena but still feel fit to criticize those who have.

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Not every officer is a moron, but when the expectation from us civilians is of competence, when you’re not it really stands out.

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that's fair, but i'll also counter with this - it also really stands out when that's all you hear about. denominators matter.

the military today is changing a lot, so am hesitant to get too into that. but during the Iraq / Afghan GWOT years, there were a lot more Winters, Nixons, Comptons, and Speirs than there were Sobels and Dikes. especially in the infantry. a LOT more.