Posted on 05/10/2016 10:50:54 PM PDT by pboyington
Hey Pappy .... the combat leadership of our military and all the rank & file under should NOT be under civilian command or control . The so-called Dept. of Defence needs to be redesignated the War Dept . , with a Secretary of War. Forget the ‘ defence’ BS. If we aregoing to fight wars we need to fight to win . We have self limited ourselves as a nation & a people by placing the task of winning wars in the hands of clueless feckless civilians.
If Trump is elected he needs to take the gloves off , severely limit ROE’s and as C&C give basically one order : seek total victory ....
It makes me sick to see the Army I grew up with, served with and my family fought with, crumble before my eyes.
Ed
Look up HR McMaster. You’ll find an active Lt General cut from the same cloth as his one-time commander General Franks. In fact McMaster was one of Frank’s Captains in the largest tank battle of the Iraq War, 73 Easting.
I remember the sordid tale of Petreus and his General buddies in CENTOM in Florida a few years ago.
There was a civilian "socialite" off-post that had weaved her way into the military senior ranks.
There were all sorts of garden parties, dinner parties, social events, etc.
Turns out there were literally HUNDREDS of emails back and forth between Petreus, another General, and this socialite woman.......while Petreus was in theater.
From my personal experience as a field grade....
Over the past 10 years, every time I see a senior officer, especially when they are with each other, they are almost always laughing, joking around, and just yuckin' it up. Seems like they're having a great time!
It's a club. It's a big social club.
The modern General mostly attends conferences, meetings, dinner parties, garden parties, awards ceremonies, and crap like that.
They're basically debutantes.
The evening before D-Day, Eisenhower left SHAEF headquarters at 6 PM and traveled to Newbury where the 101st Airborne was boarding for its first combat mission. Ike arrived at 8 PM and did not leave until the last C-47 was airborne over three hours later.
In My Three Years with Eisenhower Captain Harry C. Butcher says, "We saw hundreds of paratroopers with blackened and grotesque faces, packing up for the big hop and jump. Ike wandered through them, stepping over, packs, guns, and a variety of equipment such as only paratroop people can devise, chinning with this and that one. All were put at ease. He was promised a job after the war by a Texan who said he roped, not dallied, his cows, and at least there was enough to eat in the work. Ike has developed or disclosed an informality and friendliness with troopers that almost amazed me". The famous picture of Eisenhower supposedly forcefully delivering last minute instructions to the troopers actually involved talking about his experience working in a store when he was a kid.
In Crusade in Europe General Eisenhower says, "I found the men in fine fettle, many of them joshingly admonishing me that I had no cause for worry, since the 101st was on the job, and everything would be taken care of in fine shape. I stayed with them until the last of them were in the air, somewhere about midnight. After a two hour trip back to my own camp, I had only a short time to wait until the first news should come".
Very good article! Thanks for posting!
I’m sure the troops will trust SOME generals.
Retired General Mattis comes to mind. . .
Tom Clancy wrote the book on Fred Franks’ end run there, and here’s the link to Into The Storm
http://tomclancy.com/book_display.php?isbn13=9780425196779
A picture is worth a thousand words; post a picture of the current Secretary of the Army.
This is amazingly similar to the hapless British Army under General William Howe while in Philadelphia during the American Revolution. General Howe grew tired of all the fun though and went back to London!
Excellent observation
we dont have GENERALS..... we have uniform wearing YESMEN
I have a distrust of generals.
IMO, the higher the rank, the more likely their position is political and they are perfumed princes and REMFs.
Generals generally do not face the enemy and die in battle. Their worldview is different.
The guy was the S3 OPS officer of the 2nd Squadron in August 69- Cambodia excursion when wounded. I can tell you that every 1st CAV infantry officer who went into Cambodia as a platoon leader or company CO I ever knew got a SS, BSM, AM, and ARCOM as a package deal unless he was a screw up. My IOAC class was loaded with First Cav types and 101st.
Worth noting that General McMaster was initially passed over for promotion to brigadier general because he wrote and published “Dereliction of Duty,” an exhaustive study of the military’s failure to stand up to LBJ and McNamara during the Vietnam War. Never mind that the culprits were long since retired (or dead) by the time McMaster published his best-selling book in 1997—or that his work was based on exhaustive research from the JCS archives. For telling the truth, McMaster came very close to never reaching flag rank.
Readers may remember the infamous Army promotion board headed by David Petraeus, who came back from his command in Iraq to lead that panel. It was that promotion board that finally gave McMaster his first star.
The Army has been ordered by Directive to make time for Lactation. Then 16 black female cadets at West Point give the black power salute. Unheard of in the 60’s - summer of 73 and the black power salute was first tried in the army in fall of 73. Almost every damn one of them was thrown out of the Army with Division JAG’s help.
“Dereliction of Duty”
A truly excellent book, exposing JFK’s incompetence and the incredible dishonesty of Robert McNamara and LBJ. All of which resulted in the deaths of thousands of GIs. I’m not as persuaded about the culpability of the JCS considering that JFK, LBJ and McNamara worked hard at keeping them from having any say over the war, but maybe I need to read the book more closely.
Interesting that Petraeus played a role in saving McMaster’s career and giving him his first star. Maybe Petraeus needs to be resurrected by a President Trump.
Dad did a tour in Vietnam in 1962 with MAAG and then was stationed at the Pentagon. I know that he and his fellow officers regarded McNamara as being on par with, oh, Satan.
This article talks directly about LBJ and the Joint Chiefs.
The Day It Became the Longest War
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/34024
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