Famous Foax

[ltmurnau]

GEN David Petraeus, the new commander in Afghanistan, talks with BGEN John Vance, the commander of Task Force Kandahar, outside Kandahar City.



My tenuous connection to this picture is that John Vance and I were in the same platoon in "phase training" at the Infantry School in 1985, learning to be rifle platoon commanders. I remember wowing him once (but only once) because I knew more about Soviet tactics than he did. I always thought he would go far, not only because his father was also a general but also because he was quite tough and smart in his own right.

Comments

[r1vethead.livejournal.com]

Besides the glaring ethical issue ltmurnau raises, there's another one - discipline.

If you have general officers at the top of the chain of command acting in an undisciplined fashion, the cohesiveness of the entire unit is damaged. Discipline is the difference between life or death for conventional military units.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

I guess I thought that angle was implicit in what I said but you're right, the discipline aspect is far more important than the (air hooks on) "ethics deficit" (air hooks off, and you can break my fingers if I do that again today).

[r1vethead.livejournal.com]

I think it was implicit to anyone familiar with the military.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Yes, and Mme. Bovary is a camp-follower from way back!