I wondered when this would happen. I wondered when Marines would wake up to the implications of the sequester. Well no need to wonder anymore. Its happening right now.
He expressed concern about the size of the budget and force reductions and uncertainty about future funding levels. These factors, and the speed with which cuts are taking place, give the DOD leaders "very little flexibility in the tough decisions that are going to have to be made," he said.He lied his ass off.
Even with these challenges, the secretary emphasized that the U.S. military remains the world's best.
"Even with these cuts – and they are severe, and they may be even more severe – there is no question that America has the most significant military capability in the world," he assured the Marines.
"There is no military even close to this military," he said, a point he said the United States has made its friends, allies and adversaries alike.
"We are not without resources. We are not without capability," Hagel said. "You can measure that by any metric," most notably by the men and women in uniform.
"You are the best-trained, the smartest, the best-led, most professional military force this country has ever had," Hagel told the group. He lauded the noncommissioned officer corps that he said stands head and shoulders above all others. "No other armed force in the world, no one is even close to having an enlisted NCO corps like we have in our institution," he said.
The secretary also noted the U.S. military's technological superiority and a budget, that even with deep reductions, remains sizeable.
"When you look at the balance sheet here, we are going to be the best, most capable, strongest military force in the world for a long time to come," he said.
Strategic choices being made today will help ensure that continues into the future, Hagel said.
"I think this is going to make you stronger," he said, expressing confidence in America's people, its values and its military. "We will come out of this stronger than we went in," he said.
The Chinese are rapidly closing the gap and within 5 years will erase it.
But more importantly the troops are waking up to the facts of the sequester. What happens when the Marine Corps wakes up to the fact that leadership has been lying all along---about everything? The military is different from the civilian world. A level of trust must exist between leadership (even at the highest levels) or everything becomes iffy. When it reaches critical mass and that trust is lost that's when bad things happen. That's when this gets nasty.
