Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 19, 2024

Is there money to be made here? Is there a will?

I agree with Mark. Men who handled the supply chain kept the fighting heroes to keep fighting.

supply/support/logistics. for each infantryman, there are 11 to 20 non-combatants behind him. IOW, for a 10,000 man force it would, at a minimum, require a support force of over 100,000 personnel providing the bread, bullets, equipment and documentation. this in itself is what was really incredible about D-Day’s success.

Soldiers beat warriors every time because they work as a team.

Wasn’t Radar company clerk?

Was Phil’s father also George H. W. Booth?

Amatures in war obsess about tactics and strategy, professionals focus on supply, communications and intelligence. Any fool can be taught to fight, and often are, but no one fights unless they are fed and armed, know their orders and where the enemy is.

During WWII many people served without being in the service. Their jobs were considered essential to the war effort.

The military cooks also played a vital support role during WWII. After all, the famous quote about the army marching on its stomach was not about soldiers crawling on the ground.

I don’t know Radar O’Reilly’s experiences would make a good read.

“Dad pulled some strings.” For the draft deferment heard around the world, Google: Trump draft deferment podiatrist Fred Trump.

USA TODAY published in 2018: Podiatrist’s daughters say bone spur diagnosis that helped Trump avoid Vietnam draft was ‘favor’

“Two daughters of a New York podiatrist say that 50 years ago their father diagnosed President Donald Trump with bone spurs in his heels as a favor to the doctor’s landlord, Fred Trump, The New York Times reported Wednesday.”

“Trump received five deferments from the draft for military service during the Vietnam War. He received four education deferments while he was a college student and a fifth deferment in 1968 for a medical exemption after he graduated.”

For some War is Heck.

A soldier returned from Vietnam told some of his younger acquaintances that if any of them got drafted, they should say they could type, because that way they’d be assigned to office work and never get sent into combat.

Another soldier returned from Vietnam told some of his younger acquaintances something different: that if any of them got drafted, they should never admit it if they could type, because if they did they’d never get out from behind a desk.

(I think I was actually present for the second incident and maybe only heard or read about the first, but it was a long time ago, and I turned out to be 4F anyway.)

Brings to mind Bob Newhart in ‘Hell is for Heroes’.

amatuers talk tactics, professionals talk logistics

Too bad the Allies didn’t turn north to the Scheld Estuary after D-Day, instead of racing to Paris. They could have captured the largest ports in Europe.

Reminds me of an OLD allegory: For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost. For the want of a shoe, a horse was lost. For the want of a horse, a soldier was lost. For the want of a soldier, a battle was lost. For the want of a battle, a war was lost. And all for the want of a nail.