True Grit (Major General Doug Stone)

Readers Digest ^ | July 2008 Issue | Judith Miller

[RDTF]

Major General Doug Stone is trying to turn jailed Iraqi militants into citizens. Call him a do-gooder, but guess what? It's working.

Turning Shame Into Pride After Major General Douglas Michael Stone arrived in Baghdad in April 2007 to take command of security prisoners in Iraq, he promptly assembled his officers for some blunt talk. The abuses of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were a "moral failure" that had shamed a nation long admired for respecting international law and human rights, he told them. They were also a betrayal of the U.S. military's and America's "core values."

"Abu Ghraib was a leadership failure that telegraphed to 1.3 billion Muslims that we had no respect for them," Stone told me as we flew in an H-60 Black Hawk helicopter to Camp Bucca, the sprawling civilian detention facility in the flat desert of southern Iraq. "Abu Ghraib will not be forgotten. But it is being replaced."

Unvarnished assessments and cool determination are Stone hallmarks, say his friends and colleagues. So, apparently, is unorthodox thinking. Gen. David Petraeus, who commands the multinational forces in Iraq, says it was Stone's ability to "think outside the box," and his flair for encouraging creativity in subordinates, that prompted him to recruit Stone for the vexing, politically charged detention mission. Although the two men had never before "soldiered together," Petraeus says, "we needed that kind of thinker and leader to take the detainee effort to the next level."

-snip-

[RDTF]

[hinckley buzzard]

Gen. David Petraeus, who commands the multinational forces in Iraq, says it was Stone's ability to "think outside the box," and his flair for encouraging creativity in subordinates, that prompted him to recruit Stone for the vexing, politically charged detention mission

Petraeus again. Can this man do anything wrong?

[Vigilanteman]

West Point turns out such men. The elite Ivy Leagues turn out clueless State Department Employees.

[Eric Blair 2084]

"True Grit" was great. It wasn't even the Duke's best performance but he won the award for it.

[freema]

MOST excellent story!

[FlyVet]

And, ironically, Wayne, in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", said to one of his junior officers, "Never apologize, son. It's a sign of weakness."

Asking for, and receiving, forgiveness, is a hard thing. But, sometimes it works.

[do not press 2 for spanish]

“...telegraphed to 1.3 billion Muslims that we had no respect for them.”

And the problem is?

[Old Student]

“And the problem is?”

It’s only about .3 billion of them who are really the ENEMY. No point in needlessly antagonizing the other billion.

[USMCPOP]

"In other words, Stone doesn't need this job -- or the four master's degrees and the doctorate he picked up along the way from Stanford, Pepperdine, the U.S. Naval War College, and the University of Southern California.

Compulsively curious, he speaks three foreign languages fluently: German, Spanish, and Urdu. He mastered some Navajo as a child and, on various deployments, acquired some Farsi, French, Italian, and now Arabic. He reads the Koran every morning to help him understand Iraqi culture and how best to turn insurgents and other enemies into peaceful citizens of a new Iraq, if not into genuine American friends.

But, but, but.. HE'S STUCK IN IRAQ !!!???

[freema]

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbut! Just another dumb gyrene who couldn’t make it anywhere, from a low income, rural gun-toting family who had no other options.