But the key advisor is not a West Pointer!
Well said, and well taken.Originally Posted by Shek
However, General Petraeus has chosen as his chief advisor on counterinsurgency operations Australian Lt. Colonel David Kilcullen, who I believe is not a West Pointer, or am I wrong on that one? Like my late Uncle, Rear Admiral Art Gavin, graduate of U. of Wisconsin, who as a Navy 05 was put directly in command of all Navy and Army aviation in the Panama Canal Zone by the Secretary of War in Dec., 1941, immediately after Pearl Harbor. Art surely was hated by many brass hat and fat bottom Army and Navy flag ranks and senior 06s, but he was the best and right guy for that job at that time. I view Lt. Colonel Kilcullen, who is additionally a PhD, as in that mold and wish him well, too!
I am a USAF OTS product, commissioned Feb., 1963. Served as a Det. Commander with the old US Embassy in Karachi, then West Pakistan, housed with a bunch of you green suiters in a MAAG staff house next door to the Army 08 head of the USMAAG to Pakistan. His aide was my housemate and that aide, a lifelong friend since Karachi days, is now himself a retired 08, and was #2 in his class at West Point of 1958.
My job in Karachi from 1963-1965 was as USAF Liaison Officer for the Commander, 6937th USAFSS Group, ie, the base commander, US Air Base (U-2s) at Peshawar. As a Second and First Lieutenant this was a unique assignment but I grew and learned from all concerned, as I surely didn't know a damn thing at the get go!
The service academies are well and good, but many flag rank officers today did not graduate from the academies. Same applies to many fine 06s of all services today.
I turned down as a reserve officer 07 reserve promotion opportunity as the Air Force wanted me to come back on active duty for 8+ months to understudy with the four star then heading up US Space Systems Command. I could not spare the time, etc. away from civilian job and a young family, wife and three small children, and an aged Mom in an Alabama nursing home, who I essentially supported.
Taking USAF Reserve non-unit, largely purple suiter slots my last 12 years in the Air Force Reserve, by dumb luck, coupled with doing all the advanced schools, service and NWC courses, too, helped me as an "old man" make 06.
Colonel was and is good enough for me, when I would have been happy to retire as a Major. *I had been wounded as a non-combatant in the January, 1965 earliest phase of the India-Pakistan War in the Rann of Kutch, so when I left regular active duty in late 1967 did not join the USAF reserve until four years later, in part due to slow recovery from spinal wound from 1965 Rann of Kutch, etc. I limped like hell and hurt like hell for a few years before "rebouding."
Back to the task at hand, the War on Terrorism and in Iraq/Afghanistan. My wife and I were roundtrip on a Space A (Alabama Air Guard refuelding tanker) vacation July, 2006 in Germany and France (and in Belgium and Luxembourg).
At the American Cemetary at Normandy we met a group of 60 Dutch and US Special Forces, headed up by a senior Dutch NCO. They were all in less than two weeks from when we met them (beside Brigadier Roosevelt's grave, the son of President Teddy Roosevelt, killed at Normandy D-Day Landing) headed into Afghanistan. Having been there (Afghanistan and Pakistan) during 1963-1965, I was able to share some cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious experiences that I would hope may have been of some small benefit to these men, and to their mission and personal safety. The Dutch senior NCO made me feel good when he said very low key that he and his men were touring the American Cemetary as boys all under age 30, some in their late teens, to understand better that freedom is not free.
To close on a humerous note. One cousin by marriage is a West Pointer, retired as a Regular Army 05. The other cousin by marriage, (both married to my second cousins who are sisters) is a retired Regular Army 06, University of Alabama ROTC commissoned. If the 05 had used any degree of humility, he, too, could have retired as an 06.
My forte with USSOCOM, and it's predecessor, USREDCOM, and with TDY active duty orders short tours as a reservist with MAC (I ran the airlift in January, 1991 for Desert Storm out of Charleston); with FORSCOM (Peruvian and Bolivian drug wars in late 1980s); and CINCLANT (Admiral Kelso, the famous Navy pilots party CO) my last 10-12 years in the USAF Reserve, as a part time purple suiter, was computerized wargamming using Star Wars big bucks to set up the and help operate the JCS Wargaming Center at Ft. Lewis, which we later moved to it's current location at Hurlburt Field, FL. We developed the pc gamed scenarios and exercises that led to your battlefield pc fighting technology that helps you win and the enemy loose in firefights and such.
I am a mean old free thinker, who worked firing programs for Marine Corp artillery with the best of them, as an unusual example. Coordination of Navy ship bombardments and USAF planes bombardment. Computer gamed as well as tried in the field use of rough field ad hoc flying sites using C-130s and C-10s was a snap after dealing with mundane routing of support flights into and out of Peshawar "around K-2" the second highest peak in the Himalayas, by contrast, in 1963-1965.
I just hope that the Army isn't so short sighted as to "only" give PhDs to West Pointers. Other officers commissioned from other sources are just as bright, and very innovative, too. Not that many West Pointers aren't innovate, but I am biased that many of the West Pointers I knew in years gone by were to focused on their personal career advancement vs. doing the best job possible, whatever it was, for the corporate benefit, as in today's case, of beating back and down a multigenerational fight with radical Islam.
Serving the cause of our nation and the free world, to me, in my own career, part time though much of it was (only the first 6 years out of total 31 years military service were active duty) should in my book always come before personal ambition. Study the situation, apply your actual experiences, say what you think needs to be said and learned from, and don't worry about whether this will or won't profile you as one of "the boys" of the "ring knocker" old club for career enhancement.
Not meaning to insult anyone, but you have my blunt opinions.
Cheers,
George L. Singleton, Colonel, USAF, Ret. (perhaps too much rank for such a blunt outspoken redneck boy from Tennessee and Alabama)
GSingle556@aol.com
PS - Keeping our forces committed to Iraq smaller in number was not a mistake in my view. The mistake to me has been the belated forcing of Iraqis to shoulder as much of the fight as possible sooner, but damn slow elections and constutitional process wasted a bunch of time, in my opinion. Too, I would have and would now find a way to use Turkish troops by the division load! Airlift them over the Kurds. GS.
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