@1dirthawker you and I are friends and we definitely generally agree on almost everything we have ever discussed in person and on this site. However, I think you and most people are understandingly not completely informed about the DEEP involvement of the USA around the world in every region. In addition, it is this deep involvement that keeps the world a semi-safe place and keeps the USA homeland and its citizens so insulated and naive of the real threats. I have known about our deep involvement that occurs about everywhere in the world but my eyes have definitely been opened even more by a close friend.
This friend and employee was recently medically retired from the US military (shrapnel from an RPG) and retired as the most senior enlisted man from one of the special operation groups in JSOC. He was forced to retire after scoring an 87 on a combined mental and physical test where a 90 is required. Due to his injuries, his physical scores dropped too much. His resume is astonishing. He was an operator, team leader, instructor, ran the sniper school (his longest confirmed kill was at 2600 and change meters) for a time and was General Kelly’s highest ranking enlisted man in Afghanistan. Over his 21-year career in JSCO, he was deployed throughout South America, Eastern Europe, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There are several JSOC groups and each group covers a different part of the globe.
What the general population of the USA, and for that matter, the world, doesn’t understand is the DEEP involvement of JSOC in keeping the world a livable place for the rest of us. There are many dozens of countries who ask for our help, off the record, and we have teams operating across the globe, daily. These teams are in direct contact with enemies or if not, are training the operators of these other countries to deal with enemies, drug cartels and terrorists. If you think 911 was bad, just know that many, many groups are out there around the world trying to start the same types of things. I am a firm believer that without the JSOC operations that stifle potentially much larger problems, the “regular army” such as where
@Red Leg served, would have a lot more work to do and be involved in even more large geopolitical conflicts, such as Ukraine.
The amazing artillery and advanced conventional weaponry that
@Red Leg describes so eloquently are astounding to me. In addition, JSOC operators have smaller tools that even the regular army infantry troops are not allowed to use. Without knowing the specifics of these tools, I know they can jam cell communications, shut down electrical grids, send pulses that blow up IEDs buried in roads and other tools can see inside buildings.
It is naive to believe that we can just pull away from our responsibilities unless we want the entire western world to devolve into the third world. This is an unfortunate FACT. Russian aggression is just one of several problems we need to keep in check, regardless of Europe's weakness and feigned inability to do it without us. If you want your grandkids to have some sense of insulated, safe “normalcy”, we, unfortunately, have a distasteful job to do. This job is being done daily, even though most people are clueless and uniformed of the evil in this world.
