11-11-11

Veterans Day, one of the few remaining federal observances we actually reserve for a specific date, seems different this year.  I don't know why.

Maybe the fact that we seem to be winding down our long military involvement in places like Iraq and Afganistan has something to do with it.   Or perhaps the 11/11/11 date that comes so close to the original Armistice Day "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" ending of World War I gives us pause this year.  I'd hate to think that the Friday anniversary making it a three day weekend is key, but it might be. 

I'm a veteran and proud of the fact that I served.   Unlike my father and several friends who wore the uniform,  I was lucky.  Nobody ever tried to capture, maim or kill me--so far as I know.  I spent my time in Georgia and Kansas playing war games, calling in artillary strikes on cattle and hiding from my company commander. I couldn't wait to get back to civilian life and my chosen profession of vagabond radio reprobate.  I was good at that.  Soldiering, not so much.  

The problem with the military, and all large organizations, is that they don't encourage contrary opinions. Indepedent thinking leads to management problems and a lack of discipline the theory goes, but sometimes that results in  decisions and actions that are silly or just plain wrong.  Superiors DO NOT appreciate input contidictory to their opinion!  Suggesting that the Captain, Major, Colonel or General might be just "a teensy bit wrong" about something will get your heels locked every time.  Trust me.  If I had any designs on a military career, these would be the musings of the world's oldest first lieutenant.  

Which brings me to...Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller.  Until a couple of weeks ago General Fuller was the deputy commander for programs at the NATO training mission in Afghanistan.  It seems that General Fuller didn't get the memo about not expressing an opinion that contradicts "official" Army policy.  On a speaking tour in Kabul, the General was asked for his thoughts on recent comments from Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai in which Mr. Karzai told a Pakistani interviewer Afghansistan would come to Pakistan's aid if attacked by the United States.

"Why don't you just poke me in the eye with a needle!  You've got to be kidding me," Fuller said.  "I'm sorry, we just gave you $11.6 billion and now you're telling me, 'I don't really care?"

Fuller went on to say that Karzai was erratic and inarticulate and failed to appreciate the American lives lost in defense of the Afghan people.  Good call!

So, what happens?  General Fuller's boss, General John R. Allen dismissed the deputy commander effectively ending his Army career.  A good soldier done in for simply stating the obvious.  The pentagon did the same thing last year to General Stanley McChrystal for his esentially correct observations regarding the Obama administration's handling of our country's mission in Afghanistan.

Major General Peter Fuller

On this Veteran's Day how about a big thank you to General Peter Fuller for having the guts to speak the truth.  Perhaps even a little more frankness in the upper echelons of our military might lead to better planning and fewer American lives sacrificed in the future.  The troops always know the truth.  It is mostly the Generals and politicians who can't handle it.