No beer for our soldiers in Deutschland – a land long famous for its brew? That's the skinny from the guys sharpening their bayonets and zeroing their tank's main guns as they prepare for a little trip to Iraq.
Next week, the beer ration will be completely cut off by the commander of the storied V Corps – a multidivision unit that did in the Nazis, stopped the Soviets and has been keeping the peace in the Balkans, all missions executed superbly with a six-pack in the ready rack.
Here's Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace's justification for this astounding order: "To maintain the security, health and welfare of the U.S. Forces ... and respect the local laws and customs of the sovereign state of the federal Republic of Germany."
When I first got word, I rang the Pentagon. "Is it true?" I asked. "News to me," an official said. "I'll check and get back to you." A few hours later, I was informed that V Corps PR folks knew nothing, but they'd check and get back in touch. Now at deadline, still nothing. A sergeant there says, "They're hiding, hoping you'll go away."
Meanwhile, I got a barrage of commo from outraged soldiers who say it's happening, along with multiple copies of the now-infamous order that the general's publicity guys couldn't find.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm a party animal into pushing alcohol. I quit drinking years ago. But what kind of leader cuts off his troops as they're test-firing their weapons to face the widow maker? Can you imagine George Patton cutting off the grog just before D-Day? If this is the quality of Wallace's decision-making, I sure don't want him commanding our kids in combat.
I keep flashing on Christmas 1950. Korea. Our Army had suffered one of its most stinging defeats, and morale was in the toilet. Everyone from grunt to general was singing "The Bug-Out Blues" until we got a new skipper, Matthew Ridgway, a magnificent paratroop general. One of his first orders after tearing up the withdrawal plans and replacing them with attack ops was to bring back the beer and whiskey ration. Officers got a few bottles of hooch a month, and we grunts got a can of beer a day. Overnight, we all went from feeling sorry for ourselves to kicking butt. It wasn't just the beer, it was Ridgway's leadership. Unlike Wallace, he trusted his soldiers and treated us as adults who could handle a cold one when the bullets sang.
A tough old sergeant with an MBA tells me: "We won't be even able to have a beer at home. They treat a soldier who may have had a glass of beer as though he'd just been caught smoking crack. They take blood, put it in a pouch and fly it to Walter Reed. We're talking big-time Pilgrim lunacy."
"I've never seen alcohol ever interfere with training or combat, even well before this insulting order was hatched," says a Germany-based, multiwar, combat-vet colonel.
A 22-year-old PFC said: "I don't need to be told when I can drink. My parents accomplished that years ago. I was able to find the recruiting office, join on my own and get to this point without a violation. I can do a lot more on my own as well as making simple right and wrong decisions."
Withholding beer by fiat is micromanaging at its worst. It cuts the feet out from under the squad leader on up to the division commander and makes our soldiers look like kindergarteners. The German people and our Brit and French military counterparts must think this 24/7 "restraining" order is taking political correctness to a new high.
"I see this order as the general's lack of confidence in we junior leaders," a captain says. "I can lead my men in battle, but not supervise them in the barracks?"
A sergeant major says: "It undermines attitudes. I trust my soldiers. The general doesn't. Here's the hooker: I know them. He doesn't. I expect his next order to stop sex."
Let's hope the German beer lobby is able to turn Wallace on to local lager customs, or that a psychic channels Matt Ridgway. Our dry and angry Green Machine in Germany could use a real two-fisted commander right about now.