Vanity: The silly way we reward our Generals

Tha San Francisco Chronicle ^ | February 6, 2005

[ILL]

Mattis told about 200 people at the San Diego Convention Center: "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling."

Do we mean to say they shouldn't use all the goodies they were given in order to kill the enemy? Hell no. They should kill as many of the enemy as possible. A verbal "faux pas" is not something that these generals are schooled at. If they were schooled as politicians they would have given us some sort of a hogwash story how heartbreaking it was to kill an Iraqi unit that set their convoy with road blasts. Sorry, but I just don't buy it. Rush to judgment has traditionally been easy for all of us and moralizing has never won a war. OK, he was a little too open or clumsy but he's not paid to be a speaker, his job was to command a unit in combat. If he's ever judged for anything that should be the scope of our interests. It is unacceptable to train these men to kill and later hold them liable for having killed (who cares if they enjoyed it or not). Such similar stupidities have befallen some other great American generals like William Tecumseh Sherman, George S Patton Jr. and Dwight D. Eisenhower. During their tenure they were severly criticized but after a few decades have elapsed we glorified their exploits. Let's not be that hasty and that hypocritical. We trained these people to do exactly what the General said he was doing, and we equipped them with plenty of toys to accomplish that goal (kill as many of the enemy as possible).

[SmithL]

I'm onboard.
I want our warriors to act like warriors and leave the stupid politics to stupid politicians. Mattis is one of the good guys.

[Budge]

Welcome to FRee Republic.

I look forward to more discussions from you.

[RunningJoke]

"the PhD in comparative sociology is no small potatos"

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

[Allosaurs_r_us]

This is an excerpt from one of his books. Sounds like a freeper to me. Maybe you should do a little research before you jump the gun JC.

 

Practical application is the particularly important field, and our history is rich with great individuals whose efforts have done many great deeds. The ingenuity was never in short supply in today’s United States. What would be so terrible if another Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin were born and applied themselves or their prior principles to the today’s difficulties? It is quite possible and even probable in this writer’s study...

[rdl6989]

Go ahead and flip the zot switch. I thought it already had been zapped, but I don't smell the ozone.

[rdl6989]

This does not pass the smell test, you know

No it doesn't. It doesn't even come close. TROLL ALERT!

[Poincare]

Your response to my comments don't make any sense relative to what I said. Your remarks do not address anything I said. You tell me nothing except, perhaps, the quality of your thought (or lack thereof).

[dsc]

"You still never explained what the hell that three-pointer comment was all about."

I read it to mean that, since the General's job is to kill the enemy and break his things, he should be evaluated on how well he does that.

Criticizing him for a lack of unrelated skills -- like basketball or political mealymouthing -- is silly.

[dsc]

"It sometimes gives me the vision that the rest of the world can't even begin to see."

I guess I'm just lucky: whenever I start to think I've had such a vision, I soon discover that somebody else thought of it hundreds of years ago.

[MeekOneGOP]

The powers that be make the decision to pull the plug or not.

Dat be Jim Robinson and the Admin Moderators. :^)

[ILL]

See? You finally got the basketball metaphor.

As far as the individuals who visited my web site, wouldn't it be nice if they also pointed out the following which is publically available (DEEDS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS OR ZOTS, ZAMS AND ZIPS):

Dr. Pavlovich is available on a three month's notice under the following conditions:

Absolutely FREE OF CHARGE:

lectures, teachings (humanities, history, education, geography, sociology,

tolerance, understanding and sports-athletics) to any:

a) public schools

b) K-12 public school

c) any High school

d) any hospital, any fire brigade, any Red Cross agency, any UNICEF outlet

e) any city or county school (community colleges)

f) translations - interpreting: to any United States goverment agency

(police, immigration, Coast Guard, any United States military unit)

Now for the rest who want to play "cops and robbers" I suggest you put your money where your mouth is (like I did)

[ILL]

Somebody else already got the explanation for you. It was a metaphor. Apparently some of us are slower thinkers than others. I can't be held liable for that.

[ILL]

Yes those are my words - I do advocate that the principles of our founding fathers were (and are) error free. Once some bright individual (like today's president, and hopefully the next one too) apply themselves to those same principles we got nothing to fear. All the "problems" will be eliminated. So far much of the credit goes to Bush (social security was a wise move, so was the invasion of Afganitan/Iraq, so was the education, so was the lowering of prime rates...etc. etc.)

[JCRoberts]

I did and I also apologized to the Doctor.

[JCRoberts]

Yes, on occassion, I am slow to catch on. That's what I get for not going to church yesterday!

[Roses0508]

Loved this quote, as has every other female I've shown it to.

[Sandy]

I read it to mean that, since the General's job is to kill the enemy and break his things, he should be evaluated on how well he does that. Criticizing him for a lack of unrelated skills -- like basketball or political mealymouthing -- is silly.

Heck guys, I said the same thing way back in reply #54. :-)

[ILL]

Oh well, I also said that some of us are a little slower than others, but what the Hell, it's all for a good cause. I am one of those pain in the neck guys who writes to every major paper in the country (usually those end up being: SF Chronicle, NY Times, WP and Boston Globe), trying to correct the "errors of their ways or the inaccuracies that I percieve. I get published (at best 1 out of 20 times) and that one time they edit my text into junk, so I get more hate mail, but I again keep writing even if the "late bloomers" get it next year, I'll be OK.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

"This man did his job (and in the course of doing it, made the greatest advancement in the history of the Marine Corps on only one MRE a day, with no cots). The man should be given a medal not criticised."

You got that right. He led the 1ST Marine Division in a dash to Baghdad then kicked major butt in Fullujah. He has earned the right to say what he wants. The perfumed princes and arm chair generals should STFU.

[ILL]

I read his biography and couldn't believe that anybody would have anything critical to say about Gen. Mattis. Do they even know what he has accomplished? When Gen. Mattis first landed in Iraq, while planning his advance he told his units: "I want the Iraqi first combat expieriences with our Marines to be so miserable and so memorable that they would never ever want to see themselves in any fight with the US Marine Corps"