A hint for you:
Posted on 09/24/2003 3:32:06 AM PDT by jaykay
Retired General H. Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11, shared his recollection of that day and his views of the war against terrorism with the Foothill College Celebrity Forum audience at Flint Center, Sept. 11 and 12.
His review of that historic event and his 38 years in the military kept the audience's rapt attention throughout. But it was his answer to a question from the audience at the end that shocked his listeners.
"What do you think of General Wesley Clark and would you support him as a presidential candidate," was the question put to him by moderator Dick Henning, assuming that all military men stood in support of each other. General Shelton took a drink of water and Henning said, "I noticed you took a drink on that one!"
"That question makes me wish it were vodka," said Shelton. "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."
Shelton was on a 757 en route to Budapest for a conference when he learned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Knowing that New York had perfect weather and there were no computer problems, he determined that it was a terrorist attack and immediately turned the plane around.
Shelton's 38 years in the military included two years in Vietnam and service in the 173rd Airborne Brigade and Green Berets. In addition to having been an adviser to the president and a member of the National Security Council, he has been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the Purple Heart and six Distinguished Service Medals. He has been decorated by 15 foreign governments and knighted by Queen Elizabeth.
His 6-foot-6-inch military bearing and commanding presence at the Celebrity Forum belied his recent personal battle. Only months after his retirement, following 400 parachute jumps from 30,000 feet, the former special ops soldier fell from a ladder outside his home, landed with his head caught in a chain-link fence and was partially paralyzed from the neck down.
The doctor told Shelton he would never walk or use his hands again. Shelton said he checked the doctor's name tag for "God"; he didn't see it. Eighty-four days later he walked out on his own, and he is now close to 100 percent recovered. The unfortunate experience taught him an invaluable lesson -- "the importance of faith, family and friends when the chips are down."
Three days after Shelton took office as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his commitment to the integrity of the military was tested. When U.S. planes in the Iraq no-fly zone were attacked, a member of Congress suggested that perhaps "we" could fly a U-2 spy plane so low over Iraq that it could easily get hit. Then we'd have a reason "to kick Saddam out of Iraq." After Shelton responded that he would order that "just as soon as you are qualified to fly (it)," he was not asked again to compromise his office.
"Sometimes people in a position of power lose perspective on right and wrong," Shelton said.
The events of 9/11 were not a surprise to Shelton. He had been concerned because the United States offers a vulnerable target-rich environment. Two areas continue to worry him. First, a cyber-attack on air control, water, 911, financial or other nationwide systems could "bring us to our knees." Second, the use of weapons of mass destruction, even small amounts of sarin gas, anthrax germs, bio-attacks, continues to be a dangerous threat. Their deployment had been planned for the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, but al-Qaeda ordered the attack before they were in place.
In order to deal with the ongoing danger, the United States must "continue to go after terrorists," he said. "Bush has maintained the pressure and earned kudos in spite of the criticism."
From Al Gore's address to the graduating Class of 2000:
Gore addresses West Point Class of 2000
Tells cadets, “You have earned this day.”
....Gore started his address by recognizing Gen. Wesley Clark, former supreme Allied commander in Europe and a member of the West Point Class of 1966.
I am honored to share this stage with General Wes Clark," Gore said, "who graduated first in the Class of ‘66 and who was at the center of so many key events of the past decade. ...
Granted, you have to be cautious believing anything eitherr Clark or Gore have to say. But I'll also check the West Point Howitzer yearbooks later this afternoon, just to be sure.
If your mother says she loves you, check it out....
-- Motto of the Chicago News Bureau....
A hint for you:
I'm OUT! (RACK ME! as Jim Rome would say :0)
Concur. Even without reaching any position of polititical power or authority, Clark has already harmed the country just by the reaction of other nation's military leaders quietly and privately informing those who need to know of their real opinions of him based on their experiences in dealing with him.
What a shame his personality was never tempered by having met a more capable enemy commander to remind him of his humility, and how fortunate for his men who would have been the resulting casualties. It was bad enough as is.
-archy-/-
Ever run across this interesting report from Hudson High?
The Long Gray Line: The American Journey of West Point's Class of 1966, by Rick Atkinson:
"I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."
-- Gen. H. Hugh Shelton, Retired Chairman, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff
30,000 feet? Is that correct?
Not generally. More typically, airborne static line mass jumps are conducted from around the minimum peacetime training altitude of 1250 feet above ground altitude, or thereabouts, per FM3-21. General Clark may have been HALO [High Altitude/Low Opening] qualified and made some jumps from such heights [an oxygen bottle is required for jumps from above around 12,000 feet] but it's unlikely most of his jumps were HALO.
I've got 388 jumps with only 8 being HALO. But I had no particular operational requirement or personal interest in getting any more HALO time than that.
But it's far more likely that the error comes from the gushing writer rather than any exaggeration on Clark's part.
-archy-/-
It makes you wanna cry.
How many teachers in our schools are showing that photo and reading this article to their students this morning?
Yet, what our nation desperately needs is men of character and integrity like General Shelton.
Too bad most kids will grow up never knowing he existed.
You HAVE read the book by Anton Myrer, [author of The Last Convertable,] haven't you? If not, you're in for QUITE the treat.
When I first got to Germany... [snipped]
I'll see yours, and raise you one....
When I was in Germany, through an odd set of circumstances, I found myself as the battalion interpreter after the guy who had previously faced the job received notification that he was to be drafted into the West German army- he held dual citizenship, and the US Army shipped him out of the Army, but fast. Accordingly, I had a German fahrschein civilian driver's license and Privately Owned Vehicle, and got shagged for duties both as a classified documents courier, basicly a glorified mailman, and liason with the local police and military units who sometimes dealt with American GIs as a source of trouble, sometimes as witnesses or victims. That included the Bahnhoff Police at the local railroad stations....
I had dropped by one such in Augsburg, dropping off photos of wanted deserters, and was in civilian clothes, when hailed by an obviously freshly minted butterbar second lieutenant. And he was a ringknocker, a little feller sporting a West Point ring the size of a walnut. Well, he earned it.
And in very halting broken phrasebook German, he asked me for directions to the station platform to his train. He literally had a mimeographed phrasebook out, passed on to him when he flew in to the country at Rhein-Main, I expect. Ah, he was looking for the way to Bremerhaven, up north, and was heading south, toward the Austrian and Swiss borders, had he continued. Assuming such a stalwart leader of men was not contemplating deserting or invading Switzerland on his own, he was lost.
And just a little too arrogant. Still, the least I could do was help him out, at least getting him some better assistance with a minimum of inconvenience to myself, or being ordered to drive him around if he found out I was US military.
In my best German-accented halting English, I explained to him he was headed south, not north, and would have to change his travel plans. He could change his trains at the station at Damen, and they'd sell him a new ticket or arrange for him to contact a US transportation officer from there. And how to get to that station? Why the platform for those trains is right through that door over there, clearly marked *DAMEN*.... You're very welcome, Herr Amerikaner Leutnant!
Damen, for the benefit of anyone never stationed in Germany or knowing the language, is the German term for *Ladies Rest Room*....
But despite a bit of discomfort and embarassment, it was indeed a quick and dirty way of getting him to the attention of some other folks who'd get him on his way, without calling attention to myself. But I'd have been real unhappy if he'd ever been reassigned to my outfit....
Number Two: Hippies/Protesters in SF war story:
While en route to Overseas Replacement in San Francisco to my expense-paid tour of the health resorts and spas of Southeast Asia as a welcome change from the frostbitten West [mostly] German climes, I got to play documents courier with some paperwork from Bad Tolz on my return and en route to my leave, conveniently close to Ft Bragg. Accordingly, I had to travel armed, under orders, which meant that I'd have had to sign out a weapon the unit sending me likely wouldn't get back. But the guys from 10th Special Forces had fixed me up with a couple of sets of 'Nam-issue jungle fatigues and jungle boots, with faded spots where the previous owners Spec 5 patches were replaced by my PFC's single stripe- I looked like a guy back for my second or third tour, who'd messed up and gotten busted, but was happy to get back to where he knew what he was doing and where he was wanted. *Trust us* said my snakeater pals from Lt Colonel and Master Sergeant down to buck sergeant and Spec 5; you want to do it our way [and they were right, as usual; it saved me all sorts of grief].
And too, the weapon I took along, signed to me was not the usual M1911A1 .45 handgun, with which I was good enough, but a 12-gauge Winchester pump shotgun, helpfully a takedown model that fit nicely in my AWOL bag, along with a DF letter from the Colonel commanding the 10th Special Forces Group that the weapon was in my custody under his personal authority and direction, and that I was not to surrender it or be without it without direct notification of him personally. It was not the best *getout of jail free* letter I ever got, but one of the first, and it worked just fine.
I dropped of the paperwork okay, went on my leave, and caught a military train ride from Louisville, KY to San Francisco, via Chicago- I wanted the 2-day train ride. Lo and behold, once we got to the SF area, we started getting hit by concrete blocks being dropped from overpasses and other novelties, including bags full of that which smelled nasty. After the senior NCO in charge of the movement got hit with one such that spattered a couple of guys close to open windows, he came over to me and asked if I was armed, which I was. And he told me to take a position where I could convince anyone trying to climb aboard the train and further annoy us that it was a really, really bad idea. No problem, I took my bag to the vestibule of the last car, pulled out the scattergun, and took up a nice seat covering the back entrance with the 12-gauge. And I had a nice view of some of those on the overpasses as we went past; I could have given them a lovely scare, and might have gotten lucky with a stray buckshot pellet, but I didn't. And when the old Sarge came around to see how I was doing and bring me my meal from the diner, he got a look at the shotgun, turned a little white, and said *You ssnakeeaters play kinda rough, dontcha?
It wasn't until twenty years after the end of the war that that story finally got the ending it deserved. I was with a girlfriend whose college music teacher was telling of the old days at Berkely, when he and his pals had such great sport dropping cinderblocks and $hitbags on trains of guys en route to 'Nam...then I got to tell him about the story from my end of it, and he literally peed in his pretty little little double-knit slacks. I don't know if I would have enjoyed letting fly at him or not, but there's no doubt in my mind that he figured I would have. And might still.
If there were fault to be placed on the operations or in order to attribute a focus on the cause of the underlying disagreement between General Shelton as Chairman of the JCS and Clark as the field commander of a complex multi-national operation deeply influenced by the politics of international relations, I would lay that blame at the feet of SecDef Cohen. He was indecisive, unwilling to become well informed on the needs of the operation and approached the entire problem as a political balance rather than the prudent application of force to achieve the strategic end. Cohen was so far out of his league as SecDef that the depletion of military readiness and a terribly failed logistics train were unarguably due to his gross incompetence.
Gen. Clark's buddy in Kosovo was Hashim Thaci, the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which, according to the Belfast News Letter (Northern Ireland) of July 30, is engaged in sex slavery, prostitution, murder, kidnapping and drugs. The Daily Telegraph reported on Feb. 19 that "European drug squad officers say Albanian and Kosovo Albanian dealers are ruthlessly trying to seize control of the European heroin market, worth up to $27 billion a year, and have taken over the trade in at least six European countries."
Another Clark buddy was Agim Ceku, who commanded Croatia's army during "Operation Storm," when ethnic Serbs were driven out of their ancestral homes in the Krajina region of Croatia in 1995 in what columnist Charles Krauthammer described in Newsweek on April 5, 1999, as "the largest ethnic cleansing of the entire Balkans wars." This is the same Gen. Ceku who commanded the KLA.
That's the main thing about KLArk. He's a Serbophobic, Russophobic baby-killing war criminal who cozies up to islamist thugs while killing Chrstians and stealing their land and their cultural heritage!!!! Add to that his close connection to the clintons. His election as President would clearly be a MAJOR DISASTER for America,as well as for the rest of the world!!!!
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