Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Remember my blogging Ricks saying that one-third of the soldiers on the ground get it, one-third don't and one-third are lost somewhere in between?

Well, this guy gets it, and expresses the SysAdmin reality as well as anyone.

We are citizen-soldiers. The Joes who now meticulously clean their M240s and PMCS their Humvees were months ago working as policemen, teachers, carpenters, engineers, accountants, salesmen, and students. Now they are soldiers. 100% of the soldiers I'm with either signed up or re-enlisted after September 11th, and a solid majority of them are volunteers. Even in uncertain times, these men have cast aside their civilian lives, loved ones, and homes to pick up a rifle and go abroad to fight for their country. A large part of the work of a soldier nowadays isn't fighting and killing terrorists so much as it is developing societies, infrastructure, and securing the internal defense of foreign countries. Killing terrorists is treating a symptom, fixing broken countries is treating the disease. Of course, it is possible to treat both at once.