Posted on 12/06/2008 3:44:15 PM PST by jamese777
Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has selected retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary.
The officials said Obama will announce his selection Sunday. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the official announcement. Shinseki is the former Army chief of staff who upset his civilian bosses in 2003 when he testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the U.S. invasion. He was forced out of his job within months for being "wildly off the mark." But his words proved prophetic after President George W. Bush in early 2007 announced a "surge" of additional troops to Iraq after miscalculating.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcwashington.com ...
Isn’t he the same a-hole that decided ALL troops should wear a beret, not just the special forces guys who actually earned it?
Oops.
Why? Isn’t he the one that came up with the black beret because he felt that would give each and every soldier a sense of pride. I seem to remember that he compared it to the ‘green beret’.
Yep, That’s Mr Feel Good!
Many times these “condition of anonymity” leaks are made to give a chance for it to be a trial balloon so if it fails it doesn’t reflect badly on Obama. If everyone laughs, they just claim it was only a rumor and never really true. Often the “anonymous” leaker is the official spokesperson, but just tells the press “now this is spoken on condition of anonymity”.
However, he was right about Rumsfeld's estimate of troops needed in Iraq being way too low.
>> Isn’t he the one that came up with the black beret because he felt that would give each and every soldier a sense of pride.
I thought wearing the uni and serving your country gave you pride? Good to know that Zerobama hires the Bush rejects like General Feelgood.
Yes.
But, he also wanted a larger force in the Iraq War.
Yup, one and the same. Everyone should wear the same beret so no one’s feelings would be hurt.
The O made the announcement official. Puke
Didn’t he want 400,000 to 500,000 troops in Iraq.
And where did he think we were going to get that number?
And he was right! Folks can dump on him for the beret but you can’t dump on him for looking out for his soldiers.
You need two hands to put a beret on. You needed only one hand to put the old baseball cap on.
Also, recently it was decided that combat badges (hitherto restricted only to infantrymen) would now be awarded to certain other branches (such as the armored and possibly the engineers). Which means, that the branch which has the lowliest, dirtiest, and most casualty-ridden job gets deprived of one of its unique distinctions, which helped give it pride.
Pretty soon we’ll just start handing out medals to everyone like they hand out good grades to everyone in schools, so that no child fails...
I don't think it gave a sense of pride to soldiers, but seeing a pregnant female soldier in maternity Battle Dress Uniform and a black "Ranger" beret sure gave a sense of pride to Marines.
Eric Shinseki is a protoge’ of Senator Dan Inouye, who is up for reelection in 2010, when he will be 86 y/o. I’ve read that Inouye wants Shineski to be his successor.
Has anyone here served with him? Could you give us some inside info on what he is really like?
Better choice than Max Cleland.
well, in the pic at the link he’s wearing Ranger rocker on his sleeve, but no CIB.....so he gave away the Black Beret
and the surge didn’t need “several hundred thousand”.....it was well under 200K total, IIRC
what a guy!.....
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