As a former enlisted man in the marines, I find it difficult that I would need to remind the officers. Over and over again in boot camp, I was reminded of it and it is simple. As a marine, my job in a war, a battle, or even a skirmish is single fold – to remove the enemies desire to fight. When I have done that, I have won. When we as a fighting force have done that, we have won. When the enemy has removed our desire to fight, they have won.

More often than not, our more recent wars have been lost at home. The enemy has managed to remove the desire of those on the home front to win. It happened in Nam and it has happened in every war since.

Moreover, those who have made the major decisions lost track of how to win. The fact is, when the enemy is so badly beaten that he has lost the desire to fight, then we have won. And so it is after the war, even more than during the war.

Moreover, those wars, all of them should have cost the enemy so badly that he would never-ever want to take up arms against us again. Besides, when others see how we fight, they are less likely to attack us. As an example, we should have taken some of the oil fields of Iraq. We should have taken some of the oil fields of Iran. I don’t know what we could have done in Afghanistan, but given a little time, we could have thought of something. The point is, we never destroyed the desire of them to fight. I know that because they kept fighting. I know that because they are still fighting today.

Worse, others have seen how we fight. They have seen we don’t fight to win and they have seen we quickly lose our desire to fight.