Bush Likely to Tap Marine to Head Military

Associated Press ^ | 4-20-2005 | ROBERT BURNS

[kingattax]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has recommended to President Bush that he nominate Marine Gen. Peter Pace to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a senior official said Wednesday.

Bush was expected to announce his choice soon, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pace, 59, currently the Joint Chiefs vice chairman, would be the first Marine to hold the top job in the military. The Joint Chiefs chairman is the senior uniformed adviser to the president and the secretary of defense.

It is widely expected that Bush will name Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, Jr., to succeed Pace as vice chairman. Giambastiani, 56, was Rumsfeld's senior military assistant before being named commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command in 2002.

The Pace and Giambastiani moves are among many changes in the works at senior levels of the Pentagon. The Navy's top officer, Adm. Vern Clark, is due to retire this summer, and the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. John Jumper, is due to depart this fall. The job of Air Force secretary is vacant, and the current Navy secretary, Gordon England, has been nominated to replace Paul Wolfowitz as deputy defense secretary. Rumsfeld's top policy aide, Douglas Feith, also is leaving.

If confirmed by the Senate, Pace would succeed Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who is scheduled to retire late this summer after four years as chairman.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised in Teaneck, N.J., Pace graduated from the Naval Academy and got a master's degree in business administration from George Washington University.

After basic training in 1968, he was sent to Vietnam as a rifle platoon leader. He later served in Korea, as a commander for two years during the Somali intervention, in Japan and as head of the U.S. Southern Command.

He became vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Joint Chiefs chairman has the authority to transmit communications from the president and defense secretary to leaders of the nation's combatant commands, but does not exercise direct military command over any forces.

[shellshocked]

I'd love to see a Marine in command. I'm an AF guy, but nothing like a Marine to keep the military honest about its mission and how it should conduct itself.

[dcwusmc]

The Marine Corps has been in existence as a separate service, though subordinate to the navy, since 10 Nov 1775. The subordinate part ended in about 1949, with the modern defense act which created the air farce and all, and the Commandant became a co-equal member of the JCS. We are still a department of the Navy, the MEN'S department. Though our spiritual and medical support come from Navy Chaplains, doctors and Corpsmen, the last of whom are Marines in everything but name.

[A Simple Soldier]

You win stupidest post of the day.

Re: His wearing of the Parachutist Badge. Airborne school is both a technical skill school and a leader development school. A man who will jump out of a perfectly good airplane with a parachute on his back, packed by a complete stranger, shows a disposition toward confidence, trust and physical courage.

Re: His going to graduate school and earning a Masters Degree, consider this quote,

"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
-Thucydides

Thucydides wrote a book. Try reading it.

[quadrant]

Rubbish!!
There have been plenty of great generals - Army and Marine -who never learned to jump from airplanes.
The list is long but I'll mention Patton, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Vandergriff, Puller, Geiger, Raymond Davis.
And was Creighton Abrams a paratrooper? If he wasn't, he certainly learned how to lead somewhere.
These men knew how to lead, and they didn't learn it running around Fort Bragg chanting, "I want to be an airborne soldier," or whatever the silly chant currently in vogue.
Of course, you can always cite William Westmorland as a general with paratroop wings, but do you really want to match his leadership qualities with Raymond Davis' or Creighton Abrams'?

I may be mistaken, but I don't think any of the generals on my list had a Masters Degree. And can you think of a better scholar than Douglas MacArthur? And lets remember that MacArthur wasn't even a college graduate because West Point didn't offer degrees until about 1927 or so.
Lets not forget that William Westmorland had an MBA from the Harvard Business School, a tour of duty that really qualified him to serve as COMUSMACV.
This quest for advanced degrees - like paratroop wings - is a ticket punching device that entered the Army in the 1950's and has sadly infected the other services.

Finally, Thucydides was a great historian, but I don't recall him winning a lot of battles.

[quadrant]

By the way, I could tell you were in the Army, even if "a simple soldier" didn't give it away.

I've noticed among soldiers that quotations from famous people (like Thucydides) often serve as substitutes for serious thought and analysis.

[Eagle Eye]

LOL...you and what ARMY?

[Eagle Eye]

I have to agree with you regarding your opinions on education, training, leadership and someone's stupid post.

There is no reason that Flag or other officers shouldn't be very highly educated.

There is no reason NOT to attend other services schools even if the utility is not immediately apparent.

[JOE43270]

I am an Airman and I will have a Marine for a leader!

[quadrant]

How do you define "highly educated"?

Is the acquisition of advanced degrees proof that a person is educated, and more importantly fit to command a military unit?

Please remember that until the mid-20th Century most military officers weren't "highly educated" in the sense defined as the acquisition of advanced degrees.

One wonders how many battles John Churchill, Lee, and Grant could have won had they spent several years studying instead of commanding.
And if Naval officers are included, I don't remember reading that Chester Nimitz, Raymond Spruance, or William Halsey had an advanced degree.

What specifically in the course of study for an MBA (which is the advanced degree held by Pace and Westmorland) that will qualify an officer to lead troops in combat or for that matter to be an effective Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

I submit nothing.

There are reasons not to send officers out to get advanced degrees: attendance wastes money and time, and it becomes little more than ticket punching.

[A Simple Soldier]

I am quite proud to serve as a member of America's senior service. BTW, Soldiers are not in the Army; we are the Army.

You need to read less David Hackworth and more books. BTW, he is a friend of mine and I am a friend of his. I have met him and we correspond fairly regularly. So hold off before you resort to lumping me in with the perfumed princes.

You are correct in that Parachute wings do not automatically a leader make. Neither does the Ranger tab. But I seem to know a lot of Marines who went, graduated or want to attend that course. It is an indicator. Gen. Pace probably went as a Midshipman or as a young 2nd Lt. So for his 3-weeks at Fort Benning, Georgia, 30 plus years ago, you deem him less than optimal for the position of Chairman? Your problem is not with him, it is with HQMC and Uniform Branch.

Next, you are refering to a distinguished group of officers from a day when virtually no one had civilian graduate degrees. They went to military schools, often for years and taught though. Their equivalent education was easily Masters level if not Doctoral. Patton had a personal library that would rival almost any high schools. There was even a book written about his books and reading habits. Eisenhower, a middling student at West Point, graduated first in his class at Command and General Staff School and from there his career took off.

Westmoreland was a terrible strategic leader, but he was quite a superb tactical leader if you actually go into the record (he commanded the 187th ARCT in Korea). He could not transition to the mindset required. But I can easily cite Ridgway, Taylor and Gavin to counter Westy.

As for Grant, he spent the pre-Civil War years pickling his liver as a failed businessman, not commanding troops. Now McClellan on the other hand had a quite extensive troop command resume.

I assume you meant A.A. Vandergrift, and not Vandergriff (the surname of a a less well-known, but still distinguished and well-published soldier and close friend of mine).

[Eagle Eye]

There is nothing wrong with senior military officers being high educated in politic, foriegn policy, international affairs, electronics, engineering and technology, physics or other sciences, or even business.

The day of the leader being the biggest and baddest warrior who could whup everyone else's butt is long gone.

Something tells me that you haven't and don't spend much time around the military.

[quadrant]

I admit your military experience is far greater than mine; however, actual military experience is not necessarily a prerequisite for sound decision making, as any review of history will show.

Actually, I've read only one of Col Hackworth's books, though I do peruse occasionally his web site. As for my reading habits, you know nothing, but I'll match mine against yours or anyones.

I'm certain there are a lot of Marine 2nd Lts who want to attend the infantry/ranger course at Ft Benning. However, simply because they want to go does not mean that it is wise to allow them to go. As I stated earlier, the tab/patch gathering traits of the Army have seeped over into the Marine Corps, a fact that many Marine officers - included several general officers - have noted both verbally and in print.
This sort of careerist activity may be acceptable in an institution like the Army but its fatal in a culture like the Marine Corps.

I agree that in prior years few, if any, officers had advanced civilian degrees. And I agree that many of our greatest officers were autodidacts. If these men were educated in that manner then, why is it a virtual necessity that a upwardly mobile officer attend graduate school now?
Does anyone believe that a year or two studying for an MBA will substitute for Patton's lifetime's study of military history?
My criticism of allowing officers to attend civilian graduate schools should be in no way extended to advanced schooling such as the Command and General Staff School or the Army or Navy War Colleges, etc. It is entirely proper and desirable that officers should attend these institutions.

I am not competent to judge Westmorland's actions as a tactical leader. He was and is, however, the epitome of the Army system: First Captain at West Point, all the right service schools, qualified as a paratrooper and later as a helicopter pilot, MBA from Harvard, and held the right commands. Still, his record as COMUSMACV was terrible.
If a man who is the best an institution can offer cannot succeed, how can we expect success from men who according to institutional standards do not measure up to his record?
Do you believe that Ridgway, Gavin, or Taylor could have done better in South Vietnam? If so, why?
I could be mistaken, but wasn't Maxwell Taylor close to the Kennedy family (in fact, I think one of Bobby Kennedy's sons is named after Taylor) and participated fully in policy making for our involvement in SE Asia.
If memory serves, one of them was Ambassador to South Vietnam and consequently bears a large share of the blame for the debacle.

Perhaps we should follow Lincoln's advice: find out the type of whiskey Grant drank and order it served in the cafeterias of the Pentagon.

My apologies to General A.A. Vandergrift.

[quadrant]

Nothing at all wrong with senior officers being highly educated, but the acquisition of degrees for degrees sake - or to fulfill some sort of ticket punching requirement - leads to nothing except petty careerism.

Actually the officers I've met and I've met a few - are far more broadly educated than their counterparts in private business.