The article, "Why The Military Never Learns" is a must read.  Wish I could link it to the site, but it looks like Playboy won't allow it. 

Hackworth is a retired full bird col from the army and Vietnam vet.  The man tells it like it is (something many military people will say is that if you see military pundits on the tv and they are "retired" people from the ranks of Cpt, Major, Lt. Col or Col, the question you have to ask yourself is why didn't they go higher in the rank - the answer to this question usually is twofold - one is that the person messed up at some point in their career or were just incompetent, or two, had backbone and spoke his or her mind - the latter is Hackworth's problem).