If we had to fight WWII as we fight wars now

[regent]

The last surviving member of the air crew that dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima died at 93. The dirty little secret not available to the crew of the Enola Gay was that the Japanese were frantically trying to negotiate surrender terms but high school educated Harry Truman was determined to go with his former boss's mandate of "unconditional surrender". While the Japanese were trying to negotiate terms with our "ally" Joe Stalin the hangup was the preservation of the Japanese Emperor and ironically the Japanese emperor was preserved after Truman OK'd two horrible weapons to be deployed on civilians for the first (and last?) time in history.

What would have been the reaction of the American people if FDR and Truman had given surrender terms to Japan after Germany had surrendered unconditionally? Think of the political fallout even on these boards today. Instead of accusing Truman of only having a high school diploma we could be accusing Truman of cowardice, of liking the Japanese better.
The end of the war was in the emperor's hands, and the emperor sat on his hands and let his military debate ending the war. When the emperor decided to end the war, it ended, and it seems the bombs gave the emperor the arguments he needed to convince his military to end the war?

 

[Mushroom]

Our military is incredibly bloated with eqipment we will never use again because we will never again fight a war where 'taking real estate' is the point.

Really?

Because that exactly was the point in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. To take real estate and drive out the enemy forces. And that equipment you state we will never need we are using right now.

Now as to your stupid charts, throw in something else, ok?

The largest single piece of the DOD pie goes to payroll and benefits. That is not equipment, it is pay. Pay to those of us in uniform, health insurance for us and our families, barracks and housing for us and our families, and the like.

Also it supports what I think is the largest bloat, the roughly 1/3 of those who get paid by the DOD who are not even in the military. Think I am kidding?

Of the 2.1 million who are paid directly by the DOD, over 700,000 are Civilians. And that does not even count the additional 500,000+ that are contractors, not getting paid directly by the DOD, but getting their pay from them through other companies. This is why we have civilians on military bases getting paid $18 an hour to wash dishes ($3,600), instead of having some private do it at $1,500 a month. We have civilians guarding our gates, civilians handing out our equipment, and civilians doing oil changes and replacing tires on our trucks.

I am all for cutting the bloat, and think you are looking the wrong way. Take the axe to the civilians (mostly Union government employees) who are riding the coat tails of the military for a free meal ticket. The 2 man crews who's only job is to replace light bulbs. The people who's only job is to hand out towels in the base gym. The ones that now run the barracks and base housing.

That is the bloat, that is the waste, you are looking entirely in the wrong place.

 

[Mushroom]

The last surviving member of the air crew that dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima died at 93. The dirty little secret not available to the crew of the Enola Gay was that the Japanese were frantically trying to negotiate surrender terms but high school educated Harry Truman was determined to go with his former boss's mandate of "unconditional surrender". While the Japanese were trying to negotiate terms with our "ally" Joe Stalin the hangup was the preservation of the Japanese Emperor and ironically the Japanese emperor was preserved after Truman OK'd two horrible weapons to be deployed on civilians for the first (and last?) time in history.

Actually, they were not trying to do any such thing at all.

They were trying to desperately negotiate armistice terms, not surrender terms.

An Armistice and a Surrender are 2 completely different things. And even with 2 atomic bombs dropped, the Soviets invading their Asian territories, the amassing of a landing force of over 1 million Allied soldiers, and a pending palace coup, the Imperial Council still could not agree to any kind of surrender, and only did so with the intervention of Emperor Showa himself (something that had never happened before).

Japan was not trying to surrender, they were trying for an armistice, a quid pro quo ante bellum, with no surrender, no occupation, all borders returning to where they were in 1941 and return of all islands captured (Saipan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and others) with no occupation at all. Needless to say, a condition absolutely unacceptable to anybody.

Be careful making such claims, because they are completely wrong and contrary to the facts. But please, if you can provide me proof that they were trying to actually surrender, then please present it.

 

[bodecea]

Not only would we have lost, but there'd probably have been an American revolution in the middle of it all.

40 million dead in World War 2. We start screaming for leaders' heads if a few dozen die now. Compared to the willingness to sacrifice and toughness of our past, we're a bunch of whiny pussies today. Ask people to conserve and cut-back and they don't. Makes us stronger you tell them, reduces dependence on foreign sources of energy we say. But no, they just want everything they have and even more. Concept of teamwork and collaboration are foreign words to them.

We love to say we support the troops. But what we don't say is "...as long as I'm not asked to sacrifice anything or will be inconvenienced." Soldiering and military service has become a kind of lowest 'untouchable' caste in our society. There's the rich, the poor, and the military. Pretty much in that order too insofar as being well-off. And so long as milutary servicepeople are actually in the military they're taken care of (relatively speaking.) But once they're out they're right there in that untouchable category. VA healthcare is an oxymoron.

The people who should be given carte blanch in every restaurant and store they walk into might get a 5% discount if any at all. President Obama's infamous "You didn't earn that" speech was wrong. Should have pointed out without veterans and the military we'd all be British subjects. Damn right you didn't earn that, without the men and women willing to die and be grossly inconvenienced with a lifetime of nightmares ahead of them none of us would have much of anything at all.

You DO realize that WWII was our last declared war, right? You cannot demand the country go on a full-out war effort without a war being declared by Congress.