My point, which perhaps I'm not making well is that there is no reason to assume that her military experiance gives her any "edge" in writing these stories. The fact that we can't verify her service details lends even less credence to her credentials. As I've pointed out, if she was a Log Wog she has virtually no point of reference to base her Commando books on. The only similarity between the Log branch and the SOF is that they wear a uniform. Even if she was an infantier her experiance would basically count for nothing because Special Operations formations and tactics are radically different. She might know how to pepperpot but how does that translate into hostage retrieval (for example)?Praeothmin wrote:But it's still superior to the military skills of anyone who has never experienced it.
And if she did go through basic training and participated in training exercises, then by reading books recently, she can still correlate what she reads to what she experienced.
For example, are you retired?
If you are, and in 10 years time, you were to enter a debate about military tactics, would you then tell the people to ignore your posts because you haven't practiced those skills in 10 years?
Of course not, because even though you might have forgotten some things, even though your skills had eroded, you would still have your experience to rely on.
Which is why, I will say once more, that we cannot say she has no experience and doesn't know at all what she's talking about.
I'm just not giving her the benefit of the doubt. Many deride Dr. Saxton for his work on the ICS and doubt his qualifications and conclusions, I am applying the same standard to Karen Traviss because this is an area which I have experiance with. And my experiance with Reservists (both domestic and foregin) has lead me to question everything they do because most of them are idiots.