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Old 05-30-2008, 20:32   #31
stanley_white
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Would anyone here agree that the reason MARSOC / NSW / Whomever is trying to get in the FID business is because there aren't enough Special Forces Soldiers to meet all of the current FID requirements in both theaters?

At my level I don't know how many SF Groups, MARSOC FID, MITT Teams etc are running around each theater doing what jobs.

Obviously if the world were perfect Special Forces Soldiers would be handling all of those duties due to their higher level of training and experience. However, in this imperfect world it seems as though the force is being resturctured in order to meet a present need.

Thoughts?
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Old 05-30-2008, 22:51   #32
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In my admittedly narrow, second or third-hand view, I think that there probably is plenty of fight out there for everyone in the job, and more. However, I don't believe that throwing insufficient resources at the problem is the answer. This is not to say that I believe individual Marines (or sailors, or airmen, or whoever) aren't capable of performing the task. I do feel though that they aren't receiving adequate training, don't have the correct command environment and support, and won't be allowed to build the requisite experience to become truly effective at the job. Sending someone to a crash course and then calling them a FID/COIN trainer does not magically give them the skills, knowledge and experience they need to perform to standard, unless of course we gut the standard to match inadequate performance.

You can't make up for a lack of qualified doctors by putting philosophers through a semester of high school A&P and expect qualitative results; why would this situation be any different?
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Old 05-31-2008, 06:32   #33
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You can't make up for a lack of qualified doctors by putting philosophers through a semester of high school A&P and expect qualitative results; why would this situation be any different?
I am in total agreement with you.

What would be a solution?

The reason I am asking is I get into a similar discussion with folks routinely where I work -- mostly with the Cold Warriors. They always complain about "hiring all these kids" and "putting them through minimal training" and "lowering standards to meet wartime needs" and believe me I agree with them.

However, at the end of the day we are at war and someone needs to go handle things.

In your situation the best option we all agree is to send Special Forces Soldiers but it seems there simply aren't enough thus the operational need forces someone less qualified or new to the game to be sent i.e MARSOC / NSW / MITT etc.

If it comes to throwing a less qualified person into the mix to work on the problem versus nobody because the Special Forces Soldier is preoccupied which is the better option?

As messed up as Rumsfeld was one quote he said that I agree with was "You go to war with the army you have." I think we all agree that the idea of pausing the war to properly train / produce Special Forces Soldiers isn't workable but someone has to be sent to do the job / something has to be done.
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Old 05-31-2008, 08:32   #34
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What would be a solution?
I think if you analyze what it takes to do these missions and compare what each of these organizations brings to the fight you should be able to answer your own question and draw a logical conclusion. There was an interesting bit today in one of the military early birds that mentioned that there was a MARINE handing out christian coins to muslim folks in theater-that sort of should give you an indication.

I also am not so sure that it is a shortage of SF as much as it is the proper utilization of the SF we have. I am working on cleaning up an oral interview I gave to USASOC in December 2000 and I am amazed at some of the predictions I made and what I saw then and what is occurring today-I wish I was as accurate in my stock portfolio. The same utilization problems I noted then exist today, such as sending, in the late 90s, 28 A-teams to essentially train two battalion of a host nation's infantry when all it really should have taken was a good SF company-and even that is a little overkill.
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Old 05-31-2008, 08:41   #35
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I am in total agreement with you.

What would be a solution?

The reason I am asking is I get into a similar discussion with folks routinely where I work -- mostly with the Cold Warriors. They always complain about "hiring all these kids" and "putting them through minimal training" and "lowering standards to meet wartime needs" and believe me I agree with them.

However, at the end of the day we are at war and someone needs to go handle things.

In your situation the best option we all agree is to send Special Forces Soldiers but it seems there simply aren't enough thus the operational need forces someone less qualified or new to the game to be sent i.e MARSOC / NSW / MITT etc.

If it comes to throwing a less qualified person into the mix to work on the problem versus nobody because the Special Forces Soldier is preoccupied which is the better option?

As messed up as Rumsfeld was one quote he said that I agree with was "You go to war with the army you have." I think we all agree that the idea of pausing the war to properly train / produce Special Forces Soldiers isn't workable but someone has to be sent to do the job / something has to be done.
I have to respectfully disagree.

I have seen many situations where sending the wrong forces, conventional or SOF, made things worse. Some times, catastrophically worse.

I think it all comes back to the SOF Truth in my sig line. Accept the fact that we started this war without lack adequately resourced SOF, largely due to inattention and other priorities, even within SOCOM.

I believe that we should work to recruit, select, and train as many qualified SF personnel as possible WHILE MAINTAINING THE STANDARDS.

Prioritize the critical SF missions and develop a sustainable plan to service those requirements as long as the need requires.

Increase resourcing and force structure for the future that we can grow into over time rather than trying to surge and create them in short order. The resulting numbers of sub-standard soldiers who inevitably slip through the crack in a surge will cause us more problems than the personnel shortages would have. Lock these changes into the POM for the out years and beyond to prevent the roller coaster effect we have experienced over the years.

Determine the best method to retain experienced SF NCOs, warrants, and officers and create a path of success that rewards our troops adequately (financially, promotions, assignments, education, etc.) to cause them to want to continue to serve until they are at or beyond retirement age.

Select competent SF leaders who will focus primarily on men and mission, rather than careers, and who possess the intestinal fortitude to tell the Boss the truth, however painful or ugly. If your CO or CG doesn't have the moral courage to put his career on the line with his leadership (to include terminating), how can he be trusted to make the right decision with your life? We have all served under both types of commanders. Unfortunately, making it from Colonel to BG seems to require far too much careerism and politics over competency and courage. The number of good SF commanders who have actually spent time on an ODA and spent their careers in SF while making General officer is very low.

Just my .02, YMMV.

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Old 05-31-2008, 12:20   #36
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Thank you Gentlemen for your replies.

Your opinions are valued and eye opening.

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Old 06-01-2008, 21:30   #37
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This article has been passed around for a year now with no basis in fact.

It is an effort by MARSOC to solicit funds for a 'new command' and nothing more. Guest had been paid by the Marine 'SpecOps' command to write this article because they were standing up a new unit meant to rival, or attempt to, the US Army Special Forces.

It's all about money, gentleman, and MARSOC is searching. Guest never earned the respect of the men under him, as attested to on this thread by quite a few BTDT's, and his paper supporting the developement of MARSOC as a possible 'replacement' to USSF is just a testament to who the man really is and where he came from.

Soldier of Fortune is promulgating the story to sell copy.......no more, no less.

We're not going anywhere, and to get spun up about a non-story is to allow yourself to believer the propaganda spewed by 'the right'......

The recent MARSOC 'incident' in A-stan didn't aid their cause.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news...marsoc_070505/

This should be the main story.

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Old 06-01-2008, 23:47   #38
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I'm glad to see a little light shown on the topic. I am ignorant and got sucked into the article, fearing that the only thing I've ever wanted this badly was going to vanish. I realize I have far less invested than the QPs, but it was still unnerving. I've only spent one day here and learned far more than anywhere else I've searched for the past year. I've gained tremendous respect for this profession. Glad to see Guest's word and motives confirmed as tainted.
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Old 06-02-2008, 09:39   #39
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Select competent SF leaders who will focus primarily on men and mission, rather than careers, and who possess the intestinal fortitude to tell the Boss the truth, however painful or ugly. If your CO or CG doesn't have the moral courage to put his career on the line with his leadership (to include terminating), how can he be trusted to make the right decision with your life? We have all served under both types of commanders. Unfortunately, making it from Colonel to BG seems to require far too much careerism and politics over competency and courage. The number of good SF commanders who have actually spent time on an ODA and spent their careers in SF while making General officer is very low.

Just my .02, YMMV.

TR
TR I'm not trying to hijack the thread by any means, I'm just curious about how you feel the Army could discourage this type of careerism. (If it's an inappropriate place admins please move or delete) though I hope it’s not as bad in the Army, I have seen the Air Force become more and more stricken with careerism, and it sickens me. In the AF the powers that be continue to propagate careerism by promoting dirt bag brown nosers who don't rock the boat, often times at least IMO because the powers that be simply don't want to do the hard work to get rid of bad officers. My last squadron commander on active duty was a complete POS, unwilling to step up as a commander and say no when his people were asked to do downright illegal stuff. As if that wasn't bad enough he himself would break rules to try to get ahead in his own career, he berated a young airmen to get an inappropriate look at the stratification on his OPR before it was signed (big no no) and these are just a couple of the many examples of his misbehavior, his O-6 commander knew he was a problem (to the point the retention of troops in his squadron was only around 40%), but instead of doing anything about it his O-6 simply pushed to send him to Air Command and Staff college (to get him out of the squadron) which effectively was a promotion. In any case it would appear from your post that this type of careerism exists in the Army to some extent.

I've seen in my own career from personal experience in the AF that if you do the right thing, push/fight for your people, and call the baby ugly when it's necessary you become very unpopular with many senior officers especially when your honestly reveals a problem that is within their power to correct, or when it creates a little extra work to make a broken system work, or worst of all when it speaking the truth about an issue reveals a senior officers flaws/errors (behind closed doors of course). Doing so often will have a positive effect on the troops involved and the mission at hand but I don't think it has any effect on the chain of command. My frustration is that if the senior offices don't change and get rid of bad officers below them the system will continue to propagate careerism. So my question is how does one go about effecting change under these circumstances, knowing that the officers who do the right thing will most likely not be promoted into positions to make the cultural changes that are needed.

Again not meant to be a thread hijack, I don't know if the Army situation is similar to the AF situation but this is something I've been spending allot of time thinking about and I've wondered if the other services suffer from the same problems as the AF.
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Old 06-02-2008, 13:46   #40
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So my question is how does one go about effecting change under these circumstances, knowing that the officers who do the right thing will most likely not be promoted into positions to make the cultural changes that are needed. .
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Old 06-03-2008, 08:33   #41
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I originally posted this over at another forum and it didn’t generate as much discussion as there has already been here. I do feel that SF is at a critical cross roads right now. We sewed up our importance back in the fall of ’01, but now Big Army doesn’t quite know what to do with us, and we (our senior leadership) aren’t doing a good job of voicing that we are being improperly utilized and what it is we should be doing.

I think we blew the golden opportunity thrown our way in early '02 and are now not sitting as pretty as we'd like to think. 5th Group was thrown at a problem in the fall of ’01, until the big brass could figure out a plan and move enough forces to execute it, only no one told 5th Group that, so off they went. Word is in the Pentagon there were Generals yelling’ and cussing’ and screaming for someone to stop “them Cowboys” when Kandahar and Kabul fell, but Rumsfeld told them to shut the fuck up!

Since then however, I believe we've slowly allowed ourselves to become marginalized, pushed out to the periphery of the fight (at least in Big Army's eyes) until the Big Army can figure out what to do with us.

I don’t know about Iraq, but over in OEF, we have been ushered out to Fire Bases in what is akin to a more traditional Cavalry role (economy of force operations). As of the end of our most recent rotation (May this year), we don’t even own any terrain now, all of the Firebases are owned by a Conventional Force Commander. The guys will tell you all they are really doing is Movement to Ambush, and they're tired of it. Hell, before long you'll be able to say traditional “Armor Cav” role, as the fielding of the MRAP is in full swing, but the relative merits for, and/or against that are a whole other discussion.

Approval of a CONOP based on the ODA’s assessment of the situation and development of their own intelligence are rare. They are mostly Top Driven and rarely a well thought out, comprehensive plan that supports the ODA’s long term engagement plan for their area.

The Army and Marines are, or have, taken over our Bread and Butter, FID, and are now the ones doing the living with, training, cultural awareness thing with the "Indig" while we drive around the countryside waiting to get hit. Right now in OEF, there are no more Host Nation forces working directly with our guys. If we want the HN support, they have to go coordinate with the MiTT for theirs. Hell even the fleet Navy and Air Force are getting a piece of the action. Both have FID training/cultural awareness courses and are offering up troops to augment PRT’s and MiTT’s.

To a degree its our fault...back in the early 70's Bldg 4 ripped the proponency for Counter-Insurgency away from the JFK Center and then let it sit for years without capturing the valuable lessons learned from Vietnam, and then when we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of one, instead of turning to the Subject Matter Experts, SF, it took Big Army what, three, four years to capture in writing and publish what SWC has been teaching for decades? And since Big Army wrote the book, you know the Big Army is going to run the fight, even though 5th Group did just fine before Big Army (XVIII ABC) showed up in mass in June of '02.

Right now, training and advising, host nation building, etc., is viewed as the critical component of the “Long War,” not only in both ongoing AOR's, but as part of preparation of the battlefield for future fights...remember the "Long War" will be far from over when we are done, pulled out, win, whatever you call it in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So right now all the other Services see it and are chomping' at the bit to get a "piece of the action" to ensure future relevance. All the while, we are dead set on kicking in doors and shooting people in the face. Not to say that isn’t good shit, but that should not be our sole purpose, if you want to do that, and that alone, take the long walk, there is a very good element that does that very well.

Kicking in doors is a component if you will, of FID, but if you are doing it (FID) right, it’s not long before the Host Nation Forces are doing the kicking. In mid '02, 1/3 opened up the Training Academy in Kabul with a grand plan to turn out X number of trained and equipped Afghan Army troops and soon we'd be done and Karzi able to stand on his own. That rotation wasn’t even over before over half the Teams assigned to training were out roaming the battlefield, and the 10th Mountain was ear-marked to take the whole thing over. OUR mission given up as quickly as we could so we could go out and shoot people...which again, I'm all for, but we are the FID SME's, cultural experts, world class instructors, aren’t we?

We should have been running that Academy, and as part of the Graduation Exercise, running live combat patrols, then the Teams would still be getting their killing on, but by now, there would be a far more competent, cohesive Afghan National Army to take over the countries internal security issues.

There are some that would argue we are also violating three of OUR SOF Truths...Quality is better than Quantity. Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced, and Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.

If we look at the Pipeline right now, I fear, but can’t say for certain that the Mass Production of us is ongoing. The only capitalization on our early success is our growth... just a few years ago, we totaled 6000 give or take in the Active Component Groups, and now we are trying to increase by a battalion+ a year, over the next five years, which what that really amounts to is we are trying to increase the force by roughly 2500 in five years, while simultaneously sustaining the normal attrition of the current force, and all the while fighting a Global War.

SWC has almost totally revamped the Q to increase through-put, and say they have maintained quality, but the instructors I know and have talked to would probably be willing to have a professional discussion on the merit of that statement. I don’t know if the standard has been lowered or not, but it seems as though something has to have given, or will give very shortly if we are to man the growing force over the next five years.

According to some calculations, as of today, MFF and CDCQ cannot at maximum output, adequately man the current force, and as a new battalion grows each year, there is no accompanying growth of these two schools. SWC says they are at maximum output and with the exception of attrition, can and are going to meet the needs of the force. All of the projections based on current allocations and success rates say otherwise, but the Pipeline has priority, and is going to maintain priority for some time.

On top of the possibility that the standard may be suffering in the Schoolhouse, in MY OPINION, the turnover of personnel is killing the quality of the force. In the old days, you would hear Team Sergeants all the time talk about "Building a Team," how the Team Leaders were "Transients" and it was commonplace for a Team Sergeant, and the Warrant, to be on a team for five, six or more years...now the Team Sergeants come and go as fast as Team Leaders, two years and move out...even the SR/JR NCO's are getting about three years before the long arm of SWC reaches out and grabs them. This might be more of a problem here (FBNC) due to being so close to SWC's flagpole, and it being an intra-post PCS, I can’t say for sure. Some of the turnover is the willing, moving out of the Groups to somewhere to take a "Break" after five rotations, and that is understandable, but it is still impacting the force.
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Old 06-03-2008, 08:34   #42
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Part Duex...

THE FUTURE….

When the National Command Authority sits down at the table and someone throws a mission folder on it and they pick it up, if it’s a Direct Action, one unit immediately comes to mind, No Brainer. If it’s an underwater infill to plant mines on the hull of a ship, or take down a gulf oil rig, one unit comes to mind, easy. If its surgical bomb strike in downtown Mog, the call is plain. But right now, what is it that we, SF, immediately come to mind when it’s dropped on the desk?

Until recently Special Forces had five primary missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, counterterrorism, and direct action. Not to long ago, two new missions, information operations and counter-proliferation were added to the mix. With the exception of UW, someone else can claim expertise equal to or greater than ours, and claim that their specialization at it makes them better than our “Jack of all trades” approach. Doesn’t make it true, but the argument can be made. Regardless, we don’t own sole responsibility for anyone of them, except UW.

Even UW doesn’t have the relevance it should. Even after the success of 5th Group in OEF, UW didn’t play near as important a roll in OIF as it could have. In the north, there was a much larger, better organized and motivated force, the Peshmerga, than you had in the Northern Alliance in AStan. Despite this resource, the mission in the north was to FIX even though a couple of key strategic targets lay just across the Green Line, Mosul and Kirkuk. Eventually these two cities were claimed by forces from the North, but more to keep the Kurds from raping them, especially the oil facilities at Kirkuk, than as pre-planned combat objectives.

And with UW, we all understand that it’s a long term commitment, built upon long term relationships and trust. Yet we rotate in/out of theater right now quicker than the conventional army. And when we rotate back in, there’s no guarantee the same team will be at the same location, or if it’s the same team, the same personalities will still be on the team. So the first part of every Transition of Authority is spent rehashing the same feeling out period. Right about the time a Team gets a handle on the personalities and players in an area, its time to start handing things over to their replacement.

So what needs to happen..? I Believe, we need to cut sling load on both OEF and OIF and let Big Army, the Air Force, Marines and the Navy have all the Counter-Insurgency/FID they can stand.

In my opinion, SF’s focus as a Force, that thing that immediately comes to the NCA’s mind when they see the requirement, should be the next fight, not the current one. Once the invasion is over, if Big Army wants FID and the Counter-Insurgent fight, give it to them, and let SF get busy preparing the future battlefields.

Each geographic region has a potential future fight, the Horn of Africa comes to mind, as does Indonesia, there are many. But we should be doing a combination of things to set the conditions for quick success once we get around to picking where is next, ....building strong relationships with those countries we feel will be allies, building "information" on those we don’t, training the Armies of those we see as futures ally’s NOW, not after we run off whomever the enemy is....

I BELIEVE the early successes in OEF were achieved years before, with Teams going abroad on JCETs, and building rapport building skills, interpersonal skills, cultural skills, and war fighting skills, and all of which came into play when 5th Group Teams infilled way back in '01.

One article I read stated that “THE GREEN BERETS GREATEST CONTRIBUTION TO THE CAMPAIGN IN AFGHANISTAN CAME TWO YEARS BEFORE THE TERRORIST ATTACKS.” In 1999 President Bush’s Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni—then the four-star Marine general also responsible for the former Soviet republics in Central Asia—directed his Special Operations Forces in the words of Brig. Gen. Frank Toney, Jr., to use their “military-to-military peacetime engagement techniques to open up |the new Asian nations] for training with U.S. forces.” At a time when U.S. businesses and many diplomats viewed the region as a dangerous place best left to its own devices, Army Special Forces teams were conducting training missions in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, where they developed personal relationships that remain critically important in that part of the world.

When war came, the Uzbeks immediately offered their assistance. American transport aircraft were touching down on their soil barely a week after September 11, and a major base was quickly established at Khanabad, 130 miles north of the Afghan border. By mid-November the Tajiks had made available three bases from which offensive operations could be launched (of which the Pentagon chose one), and they were soon followed by the Kyrgys. Special Forces’ familiarity with each nation’s culture and topography, along with the mutual trust developed between the Central Asian and American soldiers, allowed combat operations to be conducted with stunning rapidity and effect.


We should be re-honing these skills while providing the Combatant Commander the necessary information NOW, to ensure victory LATER when ever the NCA gets around to getting it done. Right now we're just driving around the battlefield waiting for the next IED.

I also believe the longer we continue to work under a CJTF, they will continue to marginalize us until we are so far away from the center of gravity, or even main effort, that the argument, "what do we need them for anyway," will soon follow...and the Big Army will have an answer, and it scares me.
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Old 06-03-2008, 09:03   #43
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THE FUTURE….
Good piece. I thought I was reading something I had just finished writing about earlier times. I gave an oral interview about some of my observations to USASOC in December 2000 and shared some of the very concerns you brought up as fact that I predicted as possibilities. I am very sorry that my predictions were correct and it concerns me that no one is listening.
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Old 06-03-2008, 11:23   #44
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Question

ONE
From what I have seen so far of Mother Army, she is most definitely suffering from 'Corporate Syndrome'; where the organism is so big that often important information / valid opinion just doesn’t get to the right person at the right time.
i.e. It taking four years to implement a valid COIN model in OIF.
i.e. Mother Army’s general misuse of USASF
i.e. The general lack of understanding conventional COs have of SOF units and the benefits they bring to the battlefield.
i.e. SOCOMs apparent misunderstanding of what it takes to do real UW/FID brought on by a lack of SF in command positions (Doesn’t congress promote generals = ability to influence).

TWO
USASF is one of those rear organizations, where a large number of individuals stay in close contact with the ‘going ons’ of the regiment even after retirement. Many of you still have friends in high places who will listen.


So here's my question, as an organization do we have a proactive, cohesive, non Army, lobbying initiative. I as a civilian have already experienced what a well thought out, properly marketed idea can achieve with Mother Army. If it is packaged right I believe she will listen.

Bad example I know, but look at the Gay lobby initiative, not since the civil rights movement has a minority made so much ground against general consensus. Something like 99% of homosexuals vote, where as little as 50% of heterosexuals vote; are we voting or standing by? (Not that I'm calling every other SOF gay).

With good planning and execution you retired warriors could still make a marked difference. Aren’t we the best at taking a small force (us) and making a big mess? Surely we could bring that skill and experience to bear on a different battlefield; the battle for the Regiment.

Where is the SFA in all this?

Thoughts?


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(Disclaimer: By 'Us' I mean 'You' )
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Old 06-03-2008, 11:38   #45
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TWO
USASF is one of those rear fraternities....
I'm not sure I like the sound of that.

TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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