General Petraeus: collection

[Infanteer]

I can fault it. It's nonsense. Patraeus is in no measure even close to military achievements of men who like Abrams, or even the highly dubious George Patton who never got five-stars. To elevate him to the same rank and status as William T. Sherman, and MacArthur, would be a travesty.

If nothing else, Iraq and Afghanistan are minute conflicts compared to the Civil and Second World Wars, so what has he done to deserve even being discussed?

Oh, I don't disagree with you - Iraq and Afghanistan are minute when compared to other things and they aren't and never were wars of survival. Historically, I'd put him on the level of a Westmoreland or an Abrams - commanded large numbers of U.S. forces in dirty side wars. He just has a better press agent then the others (especially Westmoreland, who gets more bad press then he deserves).

However, he was the central figure of American conflicts in the 2000s. What I'm saying is I can't fault the perception that he was the military figure of the first, conflict-ridden decade of the 21st century. I don't really agree with the common perception that everything he touched turned to gold (it's Lawrence of Arabia-esque) and, like others have said, "stars aren't rewards".

We should be discussing how to reduce several hundred collective 'stars' from our current inventory, not how to add one.

Start with LCol/Col to get rid of inflationary pressure from the bottom. For some reason, Americans more then others have loved to over-promote. When we send guys internationally, we generally have to promote them 1 rank higher to do the same job in a NATO (American) setting.