Bill Bennett: “I want to comment about the wisdom of that particular approach. If I may, I want to go back to the most inconsequential…”

“I want to comment about the wisdom of that particular approach. If I may, I want to go back to the most inconsequential military career perhaps in the history of America--my own. It will demonstrate what happens in the military and demonstrate the power of inertia because once something gets started in one direction, it continues in that direction until some outside force is put upon it. That is not just Newton's law of motion; that is the law of motion in government as a whole. I went into the military in 1957. I joined the Utah National Guard and was sent on active duty for training, first to Fort Ord, CA, and then, because my Guard unit was in the artillery observation business, to Fort Sill, OK. I went to Fort Sill, OK, to be trained in sound ranging. If that does not mean anything to you, Mr. President, I would not be surprised because sound ranging is a military skill that reached its apex of applicability in World War I. It had some applicability in World War II, very little in Korea, and virtually none in 1957 when I was trained in it. But the inertia of the military organization was such that no one had reviewed the pattern of training people in sound ranging.”