Comments on: Military Uneasiness Under Democrats

By: Deadvoter

Deadvoter — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:26:39 +0000

Still waiting for that apology from MoveOn.org. What a way to “Support the Troops, but not the mission.”

How can you support someone and want them to fail at the same time? Makes my blood boil.

To be frank, I never served in the Military. My Dad talked me out of joining the Army when I graduated High School in 1984. Looking back, if I had to do it all over again, I would’ve joined the military anyway.

I did march in a Drum & Bugle Corps for 4 years. That’s asclose to Military experience I have had.

By: RTO Trainer

RTO Trainer — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:42:58 +0000

Hmmm.

I think you have some unkind impressions of us. Perhaps from a different time.

There were 3169 active duty desertions in 2006. I can’t find figures for the Reserve Components, but I imagine it’s hard to track given the nature of our attendance.

I will cheerfully and vigorously defend our professionalism and committment at any event.

Full Disclosure–I had a college degree before I enlisted–I’ve never taken any college money.

If, once upon a time, Military Times employed military journalists, things have changed. Today it is 100% civilian operation, just targeted to the military audience, and, in my opinion, never happier than when sowing dissention in the ranks.

As for the sample–my objection is not to the size of the sample–it is to the filtering of it to only somewhat better than 1/3 of the total respondants.

By: Con1

Con1 — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:02:08 +0000

Granted, I will give you some points. Which ones?
1. Polling only subscribers. However, I don’t really know how else they would run their polls. The military, while “huge” in some ways, is not a media machine. They have to rely on what they have at their disposal.
Where do I disagree with you?
1. They do not allow for responses from people who are not active duty. Being a former serviceman, I applaud that. I will say that, with our current wars and circumstances, National Guard and Reservists are far more utilized than they were in the past. However, I can only say from my own experience from being “full” active duty that- I don’t really care what the “opinion” of the military is when it comes to “who” leads it when it comes to “part time soldiers”. I am not going to dig out the stories about deserters and those who thought “heck- they NEVER call us up” who went AWOL because “this is NOT what I signed up for!!!”
I will only ask full timers what their opinions are about the Commander in Chief.
2. Gannet owns them, yes. When I was in, they were still military journalists. Full time.
3. Data is “only” from 1,947 active duty members? Have you ever seen Gallup or Rasmussen polls? Sometimes they use a sample that is 1/4th that size.

All military folk swear to follow the orders of the Commander in Chief. Almost ALL of them mean it. Active duty, that is.

I would like to see the ratio of deserters from the reservists and NG… vs. the Active Duty folks. That would help me better understand if I think they think their oath is as meaningful as those who are not just after college cash.

(By the way, I took College Cash. I was also active duty, and showed up for work everyday.)

By: RTO Trainer

RTO Trainer — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:47:18 +0000

I’ve been railing against the Military Times papers in general and their polls for years.

While I’m inclined to agree with the way this one comes out (more to the point, this one agrees with my own opinions), I’ve got to say that anything from these papers (owned by Gannet Publishing–same as USA Today) must be taken with a grain of salt, their polls doubly so.

For example, they have NOT included the Reserve components in their polling sample. That’s been a major complaint of mine for some time. They receive responses from Guard and Reserve troops and then filter them out. 5,181 completed the survey. The data is based however on only 1,947 responses, only from active-duty subscribers.

And they only poll subscribers to their papers–which makes the poll about as scientific as an Internet website poll.

By: Michael Payne

Michael Payne — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:41:23 +0000

By the way, nice theme. I’m using the same one on my new website.

By: Michael Payne

Michael Payne — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:39:21 +0000

That General Betray Us ad was not only childish but ignorant.

By: Aknauta

Aknauta — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:05:57 +0000

Yes, Obama has done nothing to inspire the military; his friends are surely enemies of our traditional military and pals with our potential enemies. Seems scepticism is warranted. But we’ve had these kind of Presidents before, witness Carter. We’ll survive this one and conservatives will be stronger for it.