Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they've been given.

Because here's the thing―we don't give a shit about fairness here. We're soldiers. Soldiers do not give the other guy a sporting chance. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the enemy and outnumber the other bastard every chance they get. Your kind of murder only works among civilians. And you were too cocky, too stupid, too insane to realize it.

Scholars don't have blood flowing in their veins," said Hamlet. "When they're wounded, they bleed logic, and when all of it is gone, their brains die, and they become ... soldiers.

But in the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the system. You have to look like what the officers above you think that officers should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with.

The result was that you ended up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they eventually got out.

That was the military.

The Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program and a variation of the Thrift Savings Plan, the Military Savings Plan, being opened up to active-duty military personnel were the result of AFAP initiatives.

I am especially grateful, however, to have known the fifties, before we began to poison our own civilization - or at least before the effects of the poison began to be felt.