Posted on 02/20/2014 2:40:22 AM PST by Timber Rattler
The ever-beleaguered Army has a reputation — not undeserved — for being bland, conformist, and bureaucratic, an organization where brilliant mavericks are forced to retire at colonel and the guys who make general don’t rock the boat. Just ask any of the long-serving and long-suffering officers convening here in Huntsville, home of the massive Army Materiel Command, for the Association of the US Army’s annual winter conference.
But it looks like 12 years of war and three years of budget chaos may be able to shake things up. One sign of the times is that the Army plans to promote two generals who are smart guys with enemies.
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingdefense.com ...
Another proof that Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter
McMaster long looked like the classic Army maverick who did well on the battlefield …Too often good combat soldiers make poor peacetime soldiers. Generally they are more concerned with doing the job and not interested in politics.
Anything going on in Today’s Army under the Marxist C.I.C. that we have is suspect.
It takes a long time to train an officer.
When a war comes the military must expand rapidly and it is prudent to have a large cadre of trained officers available to train and lead freshly minted troops.
Further, the military has become vastly more complex from a time when you could train a solder to march and shoot a rifle in 8 weeks.
I like that. So true we even call it Mother Rucker.
“....the plan also calls for stripping the Army National Guard of all its AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. The two moves together leave the Guard with no combat helicopters — only transports”
Anybody else think this is more than a bit coincidental. Ever more concentration of combat power to the regulars.
It is almost like they are planning something.
Ah,nah. Forget I said anything.
How much lift capacity does the active component retain? If all the AH’s are in the active component and all the lift in the reserve component, there’s an imbalance.
Nice to see McMaster get the nod. I don’t know him beyond what I’ve read about him, but somebody somewhere deep in the bowels of the Puzzle Palace better start channeling the ghost of David Hackworth.
McMaster’s “greatest sin” was writing his superb book, “Dereliction of Duty,” detailing the supreme lies and incompetence (at the SecDef and JCS level) that governed our entry into Vietnam.
The book should be required reading for anyone in grades E-4 and above. McMaster is scathing in his criticism of LBJ, Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is very much an indictment of the E-Ring culture that persists to this day, where senior officers are more concerned about their careers than the nation they serve.
McMaster wrote his book in 1998, but it’s as timely and relevant today as it was sixteen years ago. Once again, we have an imperial president employing the military in operations that have no bearing on U.S. national security, and our senior, uniformed officers have taken a pass.
The herculean effort it took to get McMaster his first star is another testament to the enemies he made in writing that book. Still amazed he has received two more stars over the past six years. However, his “new” assignment is an indicator that General McMaster has reached his ceiling. Deputy Commander of TRADOC is not a place to earn your fourth star.
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