Perspective, based on 20 years active duty and 20 more supporting the military: the wasteful mindset goes farther back than just the last few presidents. Examples: the Cheyenne helicopter, cancelled after all the problems were fixed; the Bradley armored vehicle, essentially cancelled and restarted to redesign; the Stryker wheeled vehicle, so narrow for navigating streets it flops on its side from cannon recoil; the M1 Garand, selected over the far superior Johnson rifle, a result of corruption; the M16, hard to maintain, with a puny round. I sat through a DARPA announcement to hear the agency director declare he was proud that 99% of DARPA projects were failures because that showed they were pushing the technology to its limit (the reality is that DARPA projects fail because of interference from the program managers, who think they're better engineers than the contractors).

Social engineering experiments are almost a military tradition. Woodrow Wilson imposed segregation on the military during WW I, then Harry Truman desegregated the forces in the late '40s. Women gradually overcame resistance to female service members, and misguided politicians pushed to get women into even the toughest combat roles. Gays have served in the U.S. military without public acknowledgement since the beginning of the republic, with some having very distinguished combat records, so the recent official acceptance isn't so new. The transgender experiment is a different kind of wrinkle with outcome to be seen. I suspect the robotics and Artificial Intelligence incorporation will sneak up on people who don't see it as a social issue.

The worldwide cop role isn't new, either. The Spanish-American War, with resulting years of fostering the Philippines was probably the start of significant policing. The Boxer rebellion in China, deployments to Central America in the '20s. Technically there wasn't any good reason for us to get involved in WW I, so you could consider that well intentioned meddling in European affairs (as my German sister-in-law refers to it, as she points out how much better she thinks things would have turned out with the Kaiser victorious). We have nearly 200,000 troops deployed to 177 countries across the globe, often without a clear purpose. So, should we draw back from most of those and get more focus on the real defense issues? That certainly would retain more of the budget where it should be, on better equipment better maintained.

Based on today's musicals, I'd say that they should get off the stage and into the pit. Which is where they belong -- the snake-pit.

Sorry too late to correct, should have said Colonel Pickering;^)

We should rename Washington DC... Pansy Land, and sell tickets to fund the military.

Get specific. Irrational -- how? ( Add to above post.)

So....all the hoo-ha about the poor military is just so much B.S.?I don't think so. In addition, our enemies know this. But, even at our weakest we are stronger than anyone else on earth. And are ability to create war machines quickly is unrivaled. To be specific, what part of the above is untrue? It would help a lot to know and to make them or you defend that position.

She may well be a toothless crack whore, but she was once a great lady. If we can clean her up and get her to remember her heritage, just maybe she can be great again , or are we deluding ourselves?

Listening to the retired Generals on FOX talk about the recent scare to Hawaii showing how unprepared we are in the event N. Korea decides to throw an ICBM loaded with a WMD at us. with any area of heavy population the result could be devastating. OK we could respond by turning N. Korea into a desert. But that won't bring back the millions dead or the future generations destroyed or deformed by radiation poisoning.

I love more is less stories almost as much as less is more stories. Regardless of the ratio to GNP, we spend a hell of a lot of money, that we don't even have. The financial collapse from the debt is more likely to do us in than a North Korea nuke.