Tuesday, October 16, 2007
With hindsight and a dollar, you can buy a cup of coffee ...
Madscribe:
I wasn't in the Army as long as I was the Navy, but one thing I noticed in my reserve career was that Admirals are a lot more upfront with their civilian superiors than Generals.
Take, for example, Admiral William J. Fallon . A consistent critic for good ol' common sense in the interplay of diplomacy and military force, he seems to be a man comfortable in his own skin (and position) regardless of who is in Washington and whatever pipe dreams they want puffed.
Now comes the Generals Sanchez and Abazaid, who say that, yes, our bid for Iraqi social change is a disaster. The late Col. David Hackworth wrote endless columns about such worthless proponents of false troop goodwill, skewering them as "perfumed princes" that were only concerned about retirement checks regardless as to what happened to their troops, and were not worthy of the legacy of real Army generals like Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton and others. With each passing generation of commissioned leadership, Hackworth's hymns are worth repeating more and more.
Of course, all the Marines, soldiers, airman and sailors that have died for their wonderful hindsight, which seemed to be missing when Generals like Sanchez and Abazaid were actually in a position to do something of substance other than bloviate, don't have the luxury of making pronouncements from comfy, cushy chairs with a nice fat retirement check ...
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I wasn't in the Army as long as I was the Navy, but one thing I noticed in my reserve career was that Admirals are a lot more upfront with their civilian superiors than Generals.
Take, for example, Admiral William J. Fallon . A consistent critic for good ol' common sense in the interplay of diplomacy and military force, he seems to be a man comfortable in his own skin (and position) regardless of who is in Washington and whatever pipe dreams they want puffed.
Now comes the Generals Sanchez and Abazaid, who say that, yes, our bid for Iraqi social change is a disaster. The late Col. David Hackworth wrote endless columns about such worthless proponents of false troop goodwill, skewering them as "perfumed princes" that were only concerned about retirement checks regardless as to what happened to their troops, and were not worthy of the legacy of real Army generals like Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton and others. With each passing generation of commissioned leadership, Hackworth's hymns are worth repeating more and more.
Of course, all the Marines, soldiers, airman and sailors that have died for their wonderful hindsight, which seemed to be missing when Generals like Sanchez and Abazaid were actually in a position to do something of substance other than bloviate, don't have the luxury of making pronouncements from comfy, cushy chairs with a nice fat retirement check ...
Labels: Cowardly Commissioned Types, Military Leadership
