For any rational political leader, war is indeed unthinkable, but two huge military bureaucracies in the two countries [Russia and America] are paid to think about it every day, to plan for it, and to develop scenarios for "winning." The madness of one bureaucracy sustains the other. The technological nightmare into which we have entered is an environment that chokes rational thought.
There is so much crap [waste] going on over there [the Pentagon], I could run the Navy Department on the cost-of-living increases alone.
That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed. It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
A good sign that an army has been around too long is that it starts getting top-heavy with officers.
But the Air Force was sort of a bastard child of the Army, much like the Marines with the Navy. Everything had to be done over by the Army after it had already been done by the Air Corps, a mess.
After four tours of duty as a Navy SEAL officer, I came home from Iraq and watched the VA - the second-biggest bureaucracy in the country - fail my friends. The VA was broken and my friends were suffering. And yet, time and again, the only 'solution' I heard from liberals was to spend more money. It made me angry.
The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong.
'Catch-22''s admirers cross boundaries - ideological, generational, geographical.
With our Reserve and Guard units playing increasingly important roles in the war on terror and in Iraq, it is unacceptable to make them jump through any unnecessary hurdles.
... the refusal of the military to become involved in the reforms, their allergy to anything new, their contempt for human dignity, their arrogance and self-satisfaction, their favoritism, personal whims, elitism.
There was only one catch and that was Catch22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask, and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
In modern times, the American military has become more bureaucratised.
There was only one catch and that was catch 22
There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy ... There's a catch. Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.
I cited 'Catch-22' as a landmark film and one of my favourites.
The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one.
There are plenty of people in the in the military and high ranking generals that do not feel that they have been optimized or listened to .
