The Generals - Book Review

[Scout26]

I should probably wait until I finish Dereliction of Duty as these two books do closely tie together.

The salient point made by Mr. Ricks is that the JCS and CoS have, since the Korean War failed to use relief to remove poor performing or incompetent Generals from command.   In fact, the only General officially relieved since Korea was BG Karpinski (also demoted to Colonel), no others have.  (Yes, some have retired early and left positions before their "end" date, but not relieved.)

Sorry, got to run, I'll post more later.   

[RevDisk]

Karpinski. Either she was an incompetent officer and unfit for her command, or she was incompetent enough to be scapegoated by the intel folks without having good dirt on them. Either way, ayep, not fit for command.

[Scout26]

Also set up to fail.  The 800th was not trained or structured to run EPW or confinement facilities.  That was the mission and organization of the 300th MP (PW) Command.  I know, I was in the 300th.

It was also stretched far beyond the resources it had to run all the facilities in Iraq.  Plus this was during the "Arrest, confine, question and hold every military age male in Iraq" phase of the war.   There's a big difference between processing EPW's  (a transient population) as opposed to running a confinement facility (a more stable population).

Having said that, she still was incompetent (as was much of her staff) and should have been fired long before that, simply for failing to fire the Battalion commander that ran Abu Ghraib among other things.

Anywho.  Back to the book.

While he goes on and on about who should have been relieved (Maxwell Taylor, (twice); Westmoreland; Franks, Fredrick; Franks, Tommy (twice); Sanchez, Casey.  While he quotes survey after survey of junior officers, fails to note that each and every one pointed out that they don't trust their commanders and know that they are required to lie to be promoted. 

He does point out the the unit rotation policy of OEF/IF are a huge improvement over the individual rotation of Vietnam, yeah fails to grasp that the individual rotation policy CONUS causes the same problems as it did in Vietnam.   Every commander feels that their command time is a relay race.  And as long as they don't drop the baton on their leg, it's all good, and they will get a successful command OER.  Whether they actually improve the unit or not. 

Which causes extreme micromanagement.  If your OER (and career) are hanging by a thread then every time PVT Snuffy steps on his dick it costs you points.   (I saw this in Germany, a brigade commander had all his companies on a 3x5 card with tic marks next to them.  "Oh, *expletive deleted*it" tic marks.  And he treated different commanders and companies differently based on the number of "Oh, *expletive deleted*it' tic marks they had.)  So to be successful meant not screwing up, how best to not screw up?  Don't take any chances.  Pencil whip reports and training.  Sitting in a classroom talking about how to react to an ambush, just as good as going out and training on it, but less chance of someone having an accident in a vehicle and/or getting hurt.   

No imagination, no insight, just tactics.    We have the greatest tactical Army in the world, but we were/are getting beat by a bunch of illiterate tribesmen unchanged from the 6th century.  Why?  Because most of our military leadership doesn't know how to think, how to adapt, how to change to the battlefield.  We have and are making the same mistakes as in Vietnam.  The prize, the mission, the win is the people.  Not killing terrorist, but the old hearts and minds thing.  But all the leadership knows is DePuy's Tactics and Firepower model.  Which is great, if you are fighting on the plains of Central Europe.  Be we didn't even fight that war in DS/DS (The blame for the incomplete victory is on both Schwarzkopf and Franks, Fredrick.  Bad plan by Schwartzkopf to have the Marines, et al attack before VII Corps had completed the encirclement, and bad on Franks to pause for 24 hours allowing a goodly sized chunk of the Republican Guard to escape.)  But we're not.  It's counter-insurgency.  I bet not one General currently serving has read anything about the British experience in Malaysia.   Nor any lessons learned from Vietnam.   Seeing as the is no official Army History on Vietnam, only various books and papers. 

But still.  The General Officer corps has and continues to fail the nation and the soldiers entrusted to it.  We have an Army of Lions, lead by Donkeys.   

[RevDisk]

Wesley Clark was another one. He nearly started a war with Russia over a facility across from the Pristine airport. I was in that facility, thank the Gods for the British telling him to suck it.

[Scout26]

Wesley Clark was another one. He nearly started a war with Russia over a facility across from the Pristine airport. I was in that facility, thank the Gods for the British telling him to suck it.

Yeah, Clark waaaaaaayyyyyyyy overstepped his bounds on a couple of occasions. 

Clark received a call the following evening from General Hugh Shelton who said he had been told by Secretary Cohen to deliver a piece of guidance verbatim. "Get your *expletive deleted*ing face off the TV. No more briefings, period. That's it."

[Hutch]

Can't remember where I read this, but it was reported that many officers were relieved during WWII, and it wasn't necessarily the end of their careers.  Attitudes were different.  You pull a pitcher in a baseball came, he doesn't head to the locker room to clear out his stuff.  He had a bad day, or was about to be confronted by a batter or situation he was not prepared to overcome.

Couple of reasons for this.

1)  Relatively few below field grade were career officers.  They weren't planning to retire after a long career.
2)  The war in which we were engaged was, at least initially, an existential battle for The American Way.  We wouldn't put up with an increased risk to success in order to protect a career or reputation.
3)  The sheer numbers of EM in harm's way was such that a poor battlefield commander could have cost thousands of lives, not a handful.  This promoted a warrior culture in the officer corps far different than we have now.

All this is not to say there weren't careerists looking out for each other in WWII, or that there are no warriors in the officer corps now.  Just that the ratio is far different.
 

[Scout26]

Can't remember where I read this, but it was reported that many officers were relieved during WWII, and it wasn't necessarily the end of their careers.  Attitudes were different.  You pull a pitcher in a baseball came, he doesn't head to the locker room to clear out his stuff.  He had a bad day, or was about to be confronted by a batter or situation he was not prepared to overcome.

Couple of reasons for this.

1)  Relatively few below field grade were career officers.  They weren't planning to retire after a long career.
2)  The war in which we were engaged was, at least initially, an existential battle for The American Way.  We wouldn't put up with an increased risk to success in order to protect a career or reputation.
3)  The sheer numbers of EM in harm's way was such that a poor battlefield commander could have cost thousands of lives, not a handful.  This promoted a warrior culture in the officer corps far different than we have now.

All this is not to say there weren't careerists looking out for each other in WWII, or that there are no warriors in the officer corps now.  Just that the ratio is far different.
 

Correct. 

MG Lloyd Fredendall was relieved after Kasserine Pass and went back to the states where he was highly regarded as training commander and promoted to LTG and command of 2nd Army. 

"Terrible" Terry de la Mesa Allen and Theodore Roosevelt Jr we relieved as Commander and ADC of 1ID by Patton on Sicily.  Allen went on to command the 104ID in Europe and Roosevelt was the highest ranking office to go ashore in the first wave on Utah Beach with the 4th ID in Normandy.  Where he performed exceptionally well.  (Henry Fonda portrays him in The Longest Day.

Jay W. MacKelvie was relieved of command (along with two regimental commanders) of 90ID by LTG Lawton Collins shortly after the division arrived in Normandy in July '44.  He later commanded the 80ID Artillery and the then V Corps Artillery.

In fact there's a book on them:  Relieved of Command Most were reassigned to training positions as they had proven their worth in those positions.    However it doesn't cover the wholesale firing/retiring of many National Guard Division (and regimental) commanders by GEN Marshall prior to and just after the war started. Even a few of those were brought back later in the war.

Despite his assessment of officers he deemed fit to command in combat, Marshal did make some errors.  However, he was not above correcting those mistakes and/or allowing those officers commanding those "mistakes" to take the necessary action to improve those units.