RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

Nice little article in Taps just received on Westmoreland’s funeral at USMA in July. Reminds me of the day the young, petulant King who became Kaiser Bill of WWI succeeded, with the help of the liberals of his day — we would call them businessmen and in this country in the 1860s-90s in the South they were called carpetbaggers — in driving von Bismarck from service, whereupon Bismarck told him: “The Army will not go along with what you intend.” The Army in that context meant the Junkers, the Prussian Warrior Families who led it. The families finally had their way, with Kaiser Bill, who had to run, and also with Hitler, who also had to run.

Bismarck, you know, a Junker himself, made Germany the first nation to mandate regular humane hours for workers, with days off each week, and sick leave and healthy working conditions and, if I recall accurately, some sort of medical care, vacation schedule and overtime pay. I think there was also some sort of welfare scheme. He got these ideas from a member of the national legislature whose intellectual prowess and personal uprightness he admired. The fellow, in fact, was a Jewish Socialist and it raised eyebrows in Berlin that Bismarck would invite him for supper and long chats on how to unburden the lives of workers. But Bismarck wanted to do just that.

Businessmen, especially, hated him for the laws that came out of those chats. They lobbied the young King William to retire him and his policies both domestic and international. They induced Bill to start war on two fronts, with Russia and France, which Bismarck had striven successfully for decades to avoid because he knew Germany could not win such a conflict. Later, the families of the same businessmen plus new ones supported Hitler’s political megalomania … and lost again.

Through it all, the German Army first objected, then went along, then worked to end both reigns of self-aggrandizement, stupidity and terror that businessmen had foisted on the nation. Bismarck was right, the Army would not go along.

The images and writing in the Westmoreland obit reminded me that the same is true of our Army, thankfully. The difference now is that whereas Westmoreland was kept from holding onto his successes — since beating the communists was not the wish of socialists/communists in our schools, churches and federal administration at the time — today the field commanders are allowed to hold onto their successes because, although the schools and churches are even more firmly in the hands of socialists/communists, the administration is in the hands of the American version of Junkers — notwithstanding socialist/communist cries that it is in the hands of businessmen, which it is not — and they will see it through. The extent to which this administration is Junker-controlled correlates directly with the vitriol directed against it from the socialist/communist centers in schools, churches and print/visual media. Their hate and lies measure the administration’s success.

Update 1: Putting Women In Combat Is An Even Worse Idea Than You’d Think

Update 2: Murphy’s Law: The Realities Of Defense Spending

Update 3: Attrition: The Incredible Shrinking U.S. Army

AMDG – VICTORY