Rube Goldberg

While in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves for 29 years, I thought I had seen some pretty stupid things the military was told by politicians to do.  It always begins with politicians deciding the easiest, most sensible solution to a problem would have too much political baggage and cost them votes in the next election. So, they look for a politically expedient solution, one that is invariably very expensive and convoluted. In this vein, all too often, politicians turn to the U.S. military for a solution to a non-military problem. Then some A-type personality in the military presents a hare-brained idea to the politicians, probably never thinking that the idea would be accepted.