NahnCee—apples and oranges. With State your talking about a ‘handful’ [compared 1mil+ for the Armed Forces...] of individuals, WITH civil service regs shielding them.

No disrespect to you, but you haven’t the faintest idea how bad things were when Dubya took office in 2001. The number of AF squadrons with non-operational aircraft [hanger-queens], the number of Army manuver battalions at CAT-3/-4 readiness levels, etc. I won’t print the numbers here, my OPSEC reflexes won’t let me. I’ll give one hint: everybody babbles on about the troop levels for OIF…there was NO plan B force structure. We went with what was capable of fighting, 2+ years into Dubya’s 1st term. The rest were either still rebuilding, or reserves [in case something else happened...]. You don’t advertise the fact that your army is a shattered mess.

No NahnCee, for the military, money is air and water. No ammo, no POL, no training=no readiness. Want an example? Korea—Task Force Smith. Yeah, you can send them out against the Bad Guys, just don’t expect that many of them are coming back.

The same under Carter. I know. I was there.