Welcome to the Pentagon Wars: The National Guard Still Hates Me
The Pentagon doesn’t fight just one kind of war. Some are fought with tanks and rifles; others with spreadsheets, PowerPoint, and somebody quietly asking, “Where haven’t they spent their money yet?” Born from Robert McNamara’s 1960s-era attempt to bring rational analysis to defense spending, the POM process evolved into an institutionalized food fight where the Active Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve defend their rice bowls while hunting for everyone else’s leftovers. I happened to be pretty good at looking under the fiscal seat cushions—and somewhere, I suspect, a retired National Guard programmer still mutters my name. Welcome to the Pentagon Wars.