By Robert Killebrew
Tom's conversation with General Marshall was after mine, and I don't want to go back to the general -- patience has its limits. But I stand by what I wrote: in large terms, he was pleased that the current crop of American generals is younger, fitter, and better-educated than generals in his day. As I said in the first post, Marshall was concerned with youth and fitness in senior officers, and while that may not seem like much to an academic, Marshall knew that the physical demands of war would eventually overwhelm a brainy but slobby officer. Don't overlook this point -- it's more important than it seems, as Marshall knew.
I do think that Tom overlooked a point about which he, I, and General Marshall are in complete agreement -- that generals in the early days of the Iraq-Afghan period hesitated to speak truth to power, and that -- by inaction -- they allowed politicians to intrude in what is rightfully the military leadership's responsibility. The most shameful example in recent history was the disgrace of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, over which the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen. Richard Myers, who had foreknowledge and took no action) should have resigned, and the Army commander on the ground, Lt. General Rick Sanchez, should have been fired very publicly. Instead, after some delay we reduced a National Guard brigadier to colonel and court-martialed a pregnant private first class. That, coming on top of General Tommy Franks' incompetence, was probably the nadir of American generalship.
General Marshall had little patience with trimmers; the heart and soul of officership is the acceptance of responsibility, and in that we should wait and see how the present crop of leaders -- the post-Franks generation, who were colonels when these wars started -- measures up. So far, the results are hopeful.
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