By By now most of you have probably heard that General Dempsey is President Obama’s choice to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, however here is why the President’s favorite general was passed over for the assignment:
Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was widely considered the most likely candidate to replace Adm. Mike Mullen when Mullen’s term expires in the fall. President Barack Obama had informally offered the job three times to Cartwright, according to a story in The Washington Post, and Cartwright eventually agreed to defer his retirement to take the position.
Earlier this month, however, Obama informed Cartwright that he was no longer a candidate. Gen. Martin Dempsey is likely to be named Tuesday as the nominee.
Cartwright hurt his chances, according to the Post, by clashing with his bosses: Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The Post cited the president’s strategy review of the Afghan war in 2009, when Mullen and Gates were pushing Obama to send an additional 40,000 troops; Cartwright independently advised the president to send 20,000. Unnamed officials told the Post the episode strained the men’s relationship with Cartwright, and they lobbied Obama to find someone else to lead the JCS.
Cartwright’s critics also emphasized his lack of combat, accused him of having an insular leadership style and predicted he would have difficulty winning confirmation in the Senate, the Post said. [Stars & Stripes]
Read the rest at the link but the allegations of an affair with an aide that led to his wife leaving him hurt his chances as well. I’m just wondering how is it that someone can rise to the rank of a four-star general without ever deploying to combat?
6:35 pm on May 31st, 2011 1
Gays in. Osama Out. Admiral Out. Army In.
8:47 pm on May 31st, 2011 2
The same way you’ve got LTCs and above and 1SGs and CSMs doing it. They worry about what’s good for their career and punch professional tickets vs. fighting for a combat billet anywhere in the CENTCOM AOR (don’t get me started on “deployments” to Qatar qualifying as a combat tour) so they can get in the fight. Makes me wonder how these guys can call themselves leaders…
9:01 pm on May 31st, 2011 3
We all know that some get the short end of the stick when it comes to deployments. Remember at Ft Hood when they finally dragged some of those 4th ID, and other long-timers out of the woodwork for their first deployments? Everyone at Hood had gotten used to sending “First Kevlar” to every deployment.
9:50 pm on May 31st, 2011 4
Reading this I had an off thought to look up more info on the whole James Yee issue. Pretty screwed up situation and a text book example of what happens when you put a bunch of weekend warriors and guardsmen in-charge of an entire facility. Each one of them had less experience then your average regular Army E4.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/nation-world/jamesyee/
1:01 am on June 1st, 2011 5
Sometimes it’s just the way the cookie crumbles, the cards are dealt, wrong place right time, etc.
As far is this fellows particular case, I know nothing about him but will toss this in as a possibility:
Some are much better suited to being staff officers than field leaders. If this is true, in his case, I don’t have a lot of problem with this. I would rather the military use people according to where their strengths rather than punching tickets and artificial, one size fits all, career paths. No one wins if you take an exemplary staff officer out of the pentagon and turn the into a substandard field officer; I’ve been on the receiving end of that misery. BONUS: Saves lives too.
The
armyarmed services as a whole would be well served to try this approach at all ranks. Not everyone is a leader, nor should they be.1:04 am on June 1st, 2011 6
Damned typos…
Sometimes it’s just the way the cookie crumbles, the way the cards are dealt, wrong place right time, etc.
As far is this fellows particular case, I know nothing about him but will toss this in as a possibility:
Some are much better suited to being staff officers than field leaders. If this is true, in his case, I don’t have a lot of problem with his lack of combat tours. I would rather the military use people according to their strengths rather than have them punching tickets and following artificial, one size fits all, career paths. No one wins if you take an otherwise exemplary staff officer out of the pentagon and turn him into a substandard field officer; I’ve been on the receiving end of that misery. BONUS: Saves lives too.
The armed services as a whole would be well served to try this approach at all ranks. Not everyone is a leader, nor should they be (nor should they required to be if they a valuable in other ways).
8:24 pm on June 1st, 2011 7
@ Leon-I agree with your proposal that some are better staff officers than field commanders and that the Army should use each according to his talents and avoid cookie cutter approaches but…why not make them staff officers in deploying units so at least they see how their staff decisions can affect others and see how the “real world” works outside their cubicle? I just hate people not having combat patches after being at war for 9 years. I would say this goes for senior officers who haven’t deployed since DS/DS when they were LTs…get in the fight for God’s sake!
12:40 am on June 2nd, 2011 8
Matt I know its hard to believe but there many high priority assignments that won’t get you deployed, usually having to do with O-5 and above billets. No one should be actively seeking deployment and combat conditions, anyone who is needs to have a full psych evaluation done as somethings not right. That being said no one should be actively dodging deployment’s either, if your number comes up then it comes up.
I can use my own experience as a good example. First duty station was working as a DMS administrator at a DOIM, was doing that when 9/11 went down. Later my number came up for a Korea rotation, got assigned to administrator a bunch of logistics servers and various other specialized systems. Commanders kept me around for several years through two units, all the time being like Scotty and fixing everything. Then ETS’d out into the sunset. I had no doubt that had I reenlisted a second time that my very next station would of been a deployment and I had no issue with that, just figured it was time to start my future career rather then spin my wheels.
3:20 am on June 2nd, 2011 9
someotherguy-it is hard to believe. That’s like a pro football player saying I wanna practice all the time and never get in a game. I know we all joined the military for other reasons than killing the enemy, but when there’s a war going on, it’s kinda our job (crazy, I know!) to run to the sound of the guns. The CENTCOM AOR is so incredibly big that I know when the O-5s and above have finished their high priority assignments, they can take some time out in the last 9 years to find a job on the CENTCOM staff or the ISAF staff and do a deployment or two. Or they could just ETS instead of sucking off the military’s tit and picking up time toward retirement without getting experience that would make them relevant. The days of waiting to see if your number came up died with 9/11 and won’t be coming back until we draw down in Afghanistan when all you have to worry about is Sinai or Bosnia deployments.
8:23 pm on June 2nd, 2011 10
And this is how I know when people need to go have a Psych Eval done. No sane person should be “looking” for combat, their dangerous and like to get other people killed for their recklessness. This applies equally to junior soldiers and senior leaders. Do you ~really~ want a battalion commander who wants to get into a fight so he can have his combat patch? A person willing to sacrifice his troops to get a patch on his shoulder, not like he’ll actually be the one behind the gun pulling the trigger or having bullets fired at him. There is no glory to be found, and people seeking glory end up getting others killed. You act like if your not calling DA every day looking for a chance to kill someone that your somehow “sucking on the Army’s tit”. That is disrespectful and downright wrong. I begin to doubt your service with statements like that, anyone who’s served more then a few years knows you don’t go looking.
Post 9/11 you don’t ~need~ to go looking for combat, it will come to you eventually. You will come down on orders to an assignment that will be deploying within a year of you getting there. Its not a question of if but of when, if you haven’t been put on assignment yet (assuming your not actively trying to avoid it) its because someone doesn’t want you on assignment yet. You can’t avoid things in the Army for long, eventually your tour will come to an end and your next assignment will be to a deployment base. Officers actually have it the worst, their careers are destroyed if they turn down assignments, they must go where their told. Enlisted at least get the option of leaving service when their contract is up.
9:08 pm on June 2nd, 2011 11
Now, I didn’t say I was looking for it. I go every 3-4 years to give my family some stability. Additionally, to be honest, most people in theater aren’t going off the FOB, so they’re hardly looking to get in a fight. And the people we’re mostly talking about, the E8s/E9s and LTCs and above are too busy being Fobbits to be concerned about getting shot. They’re probably more worried about making their next workout session or movie on the post theater. But if they are going off the FOB, they’re flying off it, a much safer way to get around. If you are a combat arms commander in a shooting war, I ABSOLUTELY want you volunteering to go since you just train all the time and never get to do your job for real otherwise. That is EXACTLY what you signed up to do. Furthermore, there are literally hundreds of Soldiers who haven’t deployed in the post-9/11 world, so I guess “eventually” hasn’t happened yet for them…:) Finally, most of they guys we’re talking about here will be on staffs on super FOBs like Balad in Iraq some senior staff place, living in some comfy spot. Hell, they could even be in Qatar or Kuwait getting credit for supporting the war, but at least they’ll be doing their job under “combat conditions.”