LIKE, GODDAM ya got Napoleon and his Grand Armee and shit, and then you've got the US with "we can fight wars with people who we just brought in off the street & have been given some drill and shit." Like. Wat. Just no. No wonder that the armies flail about for four years
-
-
Show this thread
-
So at the beginning of the Civil War, the US Army is like, 16,000 people. Ish. And they're scattered all the fuck over the the place. And you're like "ASO, how did that happen?" and I'm like "HAVE YOU MET THOMAS JEFFERSON?"
Show this thread -
TJ, he's like "gentleman farmers will protect our democracy." He was also like "let's have gunboats instead of frigates." Then there's Alex Hamilton who's like "I like big professional armies and I cannot lie" TJ wins the argument and by the Civil War we're doing the USV thing
Show this thread -
What's the USV thing? It's called US Volunteers. So. Ya know how every state has its militia clause? Well, it does. Gotta code and everything. Well, that's cool and chill until you realize that half the states don't allow their militia to go outside their states. No away games
Show this thread -
This is a big ol problem so Congress is like, ok, no militia, we'll just ask all the states for volunteers, and that's how we'll get an army. Which we do. For almost a whole century. And it's a TERRIBLE IDEA. sure, it sounds good and all, but SO MANY PEOPLE DIE UNNECESSARILY
Show this thread -
Look. It's like this. Imagine there's a huge fuckinn hospital. Like, 50,000 beds. And there's surgeries and procedures and shit. And it's all being done by people who signed up because they felt patriotic.
Show this thread -
The Civil War happens and the dudes who rise to the top are, for the most part, the ones who literally trained for this and got a military education and shit And after the war, leaders look around and are like "hey, that went well." like. um. NO IT DID NOT
Show this thread -
So by the time of the next ol scrum, in 1898, we're doing the whole US volunteers thing again. And you'd think, hey, this is the Army that went through the Civil War, it surely learned some lessons NOPEpic.twitter.com/tvt1cYy9Cl
Show this thread -
1898 was the definition of a clusterfuck. Like, go to the dictionary and look up clusterfuck, and there's the Spanish American War staring back at you Regiments got sent home because so many people were dying of typhoid fever No one had a clue how Sustainment worked
Show this thread -
Supplies rotted on the beaches of Cuba while troops starved just a few miles inland. The army left most of the artillery in Florida because THEY DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD BE NEEDED
Show this thread -
Thankfully, some people in the War Department were like "ok so we won but maybe we can do better" and we got Elihu Root who reformed the whole damn system and got us going towards some professionalism and stuff But hell. That was some dumbass shit. And you can quote me on that.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.