Posted on 12/06/2008 8:27:56 PM PST by My Favorite Headache
WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.
Obama will announce the selection of Shinseki, the first Army four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry, at a news conference Sunday in Chicago. He will be the first Asian-American to hold the post of Veterans Affairs secretary, adding to the growing diversity of Obama's Cabinet.
"I think that General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they come home," Obama said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" to be broadcast Sunday.
Shinseki's tenure as Army chief of staff from 1999 to 2003 was marked by constant tensions with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which boiled over in 2003 when Shinseki testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the invasion.
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, belittled the estimate as "wildly off the mark" and the army general was ousted within months. But Shinseki's words proved prophetic after President George W. Bush in early 2007 announced a "surge" of additional troops to Iraq after miscalculating the numbers needed to stem sectarian violence.
In Obama's eight Cabinet announcements so far, white men are the minority with two nominations — Timothy Geithner at Treasury and Robert Gates at Defense. Three are women — Janet Napolitano at Homeland Security, Susan Rice as United Nations ambassador and Hillary Rodham Clinton at State. Eric Holder at the Justice Department is African American, while Bill Richardson at Commerce is Latino.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
....make sure that we honor our troops when they come home.
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Interesting statement from OB, a man who has long associations with those that made sure OUR return from VN was as distasteful as possible....I include in ‘that’ group those of the VN era that had ‘better things to do’ than “dirty their hands” as far as the Military went.
Those Chicken Hawks that sat out VN have come back for us again, wanting our Children and Grandchildren to do what they wouldn’t back in their youth....
No, prophetic would have been correctly predicting the numbers of troops required by significantly less then a factor of ten. We needed a few 10's of thousands of troops more. Not a few 100's of thousands of troops more. Does anyone in the MSM even know basic math functions anymore ? When are those 200-400 thousand troops coming home ? How many troops will it take to subdue Pakistan like Obama wants ? Lets see, about 6 times the population of Iraq. So that would take 1.2 to 2.4 million US troops.
LOL!
I hate those GD berets. We used to be the American Army, not some nondescript beret-wearing pack of European wannabes.
Been there, done that. Google is your friend, do your own research.
It’s polite and helpful to provide a link and citation. If you don’t know HTML, just give the addy :)
The words are mine. The opinions are mine. The information is mine. It is an original work. It is what you call a first hand account. You may share at will, and a simple citation to FR will suffice.
Here’s my favorite story on the topic of black berets. I especially like the quote from “Jim” and the closing...
Letting My Hair Down (Editorial Column)
Monday, September 30, 2002 3:00 AM EDT
By: Patricia Matson
I had an interesting conversation with a re-enactor recently. After the action and pageantry of special events are over, it’s usually rewarding to talk with the people involved.
After the Battle of Paoli dedication and re-enactment, some of the spectators then went on to Historic Waynesborough, the house where Revolutionary War General “Mad” Anthony Wayne lived. After the battle in 1777, British troops were sent to search Wayne’s house. They didn’t find him there, since he had stayed with his troops, but they did arrest a couple of servants.
Re-enactor Jim portrayed a member of the light infantry of the 40th Regiment of Foot, a sort of British special forces back then, which made the search. Jim is also a soldier in real life, getting close to retirement.
He said he was thinking about transferring into a different re-enacting unit, one that marched in drill but didn’t do any running through fields, since his knees are not responding to stress too well these days.
I was charmed by a confession Jim made: He said that he had chosen to re-enact with his particular group because of the hats they wear. I could sympathize with that; the hat he had tucked under his arm was pretty neat-looking - black, with the left side of the broad brim turned up and adorned with an ostrich plume.
“Most people think I’m joking when I say that,” he chuckled, “but it’s amazing what guys will do to get to wear neat hats.”
I was reminded of the fuss last year when the U.S. Army decided to change its headwear to black berets for everyone. Before, most of the army wore sort of baseball caps in the field, but the Rangers had worn black berets.
The Rangers are an elite, fast-moving Army strike force, and it’s tough to get into and make it through the training. One of the force’s marks of honor was being allowed to wear black berets, unlike the rest of the Army - until recently.
In World War II, U.S. Rangers trained with the British Commandos, who awarded them green berets, but the U.S. Army wouldn’t allow their wear, and deactivated the Rangers at the end of the war. In 1951, during the Korean War, 13 companies of Airborne Rangers were founded, and they wore black berets for night training. Later, they were disbanded - until the Vietnam War, the next time the elite troops were needed. After 1974, the black beret became standard issue for the Ranger battalions. Special Forces troops wear the green berets, and Army airborne units wear maroon berets.
In June 2001, the Army adopted the black beret for all its soldiers’ wear. The official rationale for this was that the army has been transforming itself from a cold war force to a force generally capable of rapid deployment in situations that demand immediate responses, and the black beret symbolizes the Rangers’ adaptability.
Grumbling from the Rangers said that berets-for-everyone was a ploy to boost morale across the Army, without requiring anything more in the way of training for the regular soldiers. Meanwhile Ranger morale plummeted, as everyone else got to wear “their” berets.
Following this decision, the Rangers went to wearing tan berets. I suppose that sooner or later, the Army will get around to co-opting those or forbidding them, as well.
The Army has been guilty of much more damaging stupidities than about-faces on the issue of berets, and certainly the armed forces have much more important things to worry about these days. Although considered by some as symbols of honor, the color and style of hats may not really be a major matter in the grand scheme of things. But the underlying issues of troop morale and soldiers’ adaptability are vital ones.
You may improve other soldiers’ morale by giving out black berets, but it’s kind of like the emphasis on self-esteem in the schools: Telling people that they’re good soldiers may make them stay in and try harder, but it doesn’t actually make them any more capable, any more than telling Johnny he’s smart will make him able to read.
What the armed forces really need to do is make sure that their people get the training needed. Give every soldier Ranger training, if that’s what’s called for by the dangers in the world today, but don’t just stick a feather in his hat and call it adaptability.
Patricia Matson can be reached at editor@phoenixvillenews.com
It sounds like it’s from Obama central. Is that where you get your information?
Please provide the link to your source.
Sorry, Gondring, meant to put centruion316’s name first.
centruion316, put up or shut up. It’s required that you post your source if you want anyone to believe you.
It sounds like it’s from Obama central. Is that where you get your information?
Please provide the link to your source.
I don’t know how to make it any clearer. I wrote it myself. I was there. I am the source.
You’re not on my thesis committee, so if you want to check to see if I have my facts right, please be my guest. I certainly know alot more about this than most of the folks slinging opinions around on this and other threads on this subject.
The word is Centurion, not centruion. Look it up.
Which is the truth?
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