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In Praise of Junior Officers
There is a great passage in Powell's Men at Arnhem in which he describes how junior officers and noncommissioned officers die in combat. I do not have the book in front of me, but it describes how, in combat, junior officers do not normally die while doing anything fancy or obscenely heroic but rather by simply doing their jobs. They die while running from one position to another, adjusting their machine gun's right and left limits, shifting one squad a little to the right, etc. They die while consciously exposing themselves to the enemy in order to carry out their job, which does not allow them to fight in place.
That having been said, I have never known a job more horrifying and more rewarding than to be a platoon leader in combat. The only job I ever saw that looked even remotely as rewarding was that of Ranger squad leader.
Anyway, I thought of Powell while reading this James Dao piece in today's Times.
Thanks for the link, AM.
Thanks for the link, AM. This is adequate reporting. Live with a rifle company, write what you see. Not hard. Why isn't there more of it?
Visitor/Feral Firefighter, do
Visitor/Feral Firefighter, do you have a point? What the hell does any of that have to do with anything currently going on? McChrystal is retired, the family has known for years. No matter what the cycle of managing a very difficult situation by a group of men in Afghanistan six years ago, what is your point?
Friendly fire happens. It is never easy to tell a family that their son's death was the result of a tragic mistake made in the dark in the heat of combat. It's a bucket of shit for all involved. It happened, it could have been handled better. It's over. Get over it. In the meantime, WHAT IS YOUR FREAKING POINT? Or are you just trying to up your own traffic to a conspiracy theory website that no one really cares about except the tinfoil hat crowd?
I heard that Kim Jong Il was involved. Talk about conspiracies. We won't even go into Qaddafi's involvement, but there could be a whole book about that. Maybe that could be YOUR book! Better get busy, nutcase.
What's my point? Well, the
What's my point? Well, the story is not quite dead ... yet. Amir Bar-Lev's documentary "The Tillman Story" is among the finalists for the Oscar Best Documentary (out on DVD 2/1). Jon Krakauer's paperback edition of "Where Men Win Glory" came out 7/10 (expands upon Gen. McChrystal's role in more detail). Mary Tillman released her paperback edition of "Boots on the Ground by Dusk" (at blurb.com) with a new foreward that describes how Congress failed to hold those accountable, especially McChrystal.
I put together my website last year when it became apparent that nobody else was going to tell the "untold" story about the Democratic Congress and President Obama continuing the whitewash of Gen. McChrystal's (among others) hands-on role in the Army's cover-up. I don't bear much animosity toward Gen. McChrystal; he was just a cog in the machine and left the most fingerprints behind.
"Conspiracy theory" ? Well, just to be clear, I don't believe Tillman was assassinated. He was killed by three bullets from a SAW burst from about 40 meters away by a tunnel-visioned soldier... there's no mystery there. But, after Tillman's death, the lying & hypocrisy has never stopped all the way to the top of the chains of command.
AM has been part of the whitewash or has been woefully/willfully ignorant of the facts of the case.
Thanks for making your point.
Thanks for making your point. So what's your purpose? To make those who tried to spare a family anguish pay? To bring down the great Abu Muquwama for his alleged complicity? As a lowly Captain in another battalion he was undoubtedly deeply involved and surely he must pay for his crimes. Or his ignorance. Either way, he must pay.
Oh yes. He. Must. Pay.
So, you hijack a thread about junior officers spawned from an article about a Captain in Kunduz to make.him.pay. Yes?
That's your purpose?
“I have never known a job
“I have never known a job more horrifying and more rewarding than to be a platoon leader in combat. The only job I ever saw that looked even remotely as rewarding was that of Ranger squad leader.”
. . .
In his 2004 book, "This Man's Army", AM also wrote that "Increasingly, being an officer in the army is no longer a temporary service to the country – it’s a career. Consequently, officers are often looking out for their own futures rather than for the safety and good of their men."
Here's Ranger team leader SGT Mel Ward's take on the actions of his officers in the aftermath of Tillman's death (p. 384 of “Where Men Win Glory” paperback):
"If you are going to lie and cover up what happened to someone who gave their life, ... -- then you deserve to swing. When I started hearing about the false award recommendations, spinning the facts, changing their stories -- I was so pissed. The dishonor the Army is doing to Pat's family ... it's unforgiveable. ... From the moment you first join the Ranger Battalion, it’s ingrained in you that you will always do the right thing. … You will always tell the truth. ... Then you see something like what they’re doing to Pat – what officers in the Ranger Regiment are doing – and you stop being so naïve. The only two times where I personally was in a position to see where the Army had the choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing, both times they chose to do the wrong thing. One of those times was what they did to Pat. It made me realize that the Army does what suits the Army. That’s why I won’t put that uniform back on. I’m done.”
Ranger school and West Point graduate John T. Reed, in his post “The General Who Lied About Pat Tillman Gets Promoted to the Highest Rank and Made Head of Afghanistan,” wrote that “McChrystal’s promotion turns out to be an integrity litmus test. Those opposed to the promotion (the Tillman family) have integrity; those in favor of promoting McChrystal ... do not”.
Feral Garbageman wrote above that AM "must pay"? Well, AM seems to be doing quite well with his own future as a mouthpiece pushing the COIN gospel, he's hanging out with the big dogs like Bob Woodward, etc. .... his integrity, that's another matter. AM's whitewash of Gen. McChrystal shows which side he's on; certainly not with truth or the "good" of the Tillman family.
My purpose? Maybe AM isn't yet beyond shame.
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