The Negative Side of Politics with the Military

The Negative Side of Politics with the military.

Other soldiers and my self do not agree with being placed under U.N. Commanders. I will explain here in detail why we do not want or need this type of assignments.

Firstly we shall cover the facts and background of this topic. What happens is say SGT. Reynolds and his squad maybe even a platoon or more is sent overseas and assigned to a U.N. a Commander of some sorts. This Commander could be from various countries that are part of the U.N. Which means in some likely hood, you could even be placed under a commander from a nation that does not necessarily like the United States. Lets be honest he may hate Americans. When you are assigned to these commanders they are in complete control of you. For instance, when I was in Belgium last year I was assigned to a Belgium Captain who did not like us at all. He made sure that any and every way possible to make our duty hazardous and dreadful. Unlike American officer’s who are trained to be accepting of all soldiers that may fall under their command this Captain did everything in the world to let it be known he did not value our lives. I could list specific instances of this but will bore you no further on this topic of conversation. The main point of this argument is that they can be very biased and not fair in the command choices. In all honesty, we are all human and some have more hatred and biased opinions than others. That is just a fact of life.

The main problem is that a lot of European officers receive their commissions from their home countries. Well you may say that that is ok and normal for instance American commander will receive his from the President of the United States and completes a formal training course lasting 9 weeks just to be an officer and after that will receive even more job related schools that can last from weeks to months maybe even a year in some cases. A lot of U.N. countries have no formal or extensive schools to train their officers and in some cases they even attend training along side their enlisted counterparts. Now it is a matter of opinion whether or not training along side enlisted soldiers in a specific school causes severe problems. But the facts remain that it is not healthy and not does breed respect from the enlisted for their counter parts. My Belgium commander for instance never attended a military police school. He simply received a commission and went to a six week officer school. The rest of his training was done hands on. In most cases these foreign commanders are flat out incompetent. This is in direct relation to their home country not allocating training nor officer inspired schools. I know that not all countries can afford the facilities and training that we provide but there should be a standard across the board on this matter. Some of them have even bragged about receiving their commissions purely on family and political connections. This offends and shocks me to the deepest cores. In American you earn the right to call yourself an officer.

Lastly, there are moral and political reasons why this practice should be abandoned. It undermines soldiers moral in the negative cases like mine where I served in a foreign country under the leadership of a U.N. commander. It can be very depressing to have to serve under an officer that has no respect for his rank and your life. When you are commanded to go