Military

Brigadier General Vincent Brooks – the public face of CentCom during Operation Iraqi Freedom has a new job:

Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks, Deputy Director for War on
Terrorism, J-5, The Joint Staff, Washington, DC to Deputy Chief of Public Affairs,
Office of the Secretary of the Army, Washington, DC. Brigadier General Brooks was
previously announced for Assistant Division Commander, 3d Infantry Division
(Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Georgia.

Read about it at at DefenseLink.

In today’s New York Times, Bob Herbert writes about Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia.

Herbert writes about how SSGT Mejia served six harrowing months in Iraq, went home to Miami on a furlough last October, and then refused to return to his unit when the furlough ended.

And he then goes on to say:

Sergeant Mejia told me in a long telephone interview this week that he had qualms about the war from the beginning but he followed his orders and went to Iraq in April 2003. He led an infantry squad and saw plenty of action. But the more he thought about the war — including the slaughter of Iraqi civilians, the mistreatment of prisoners (which he personally witnessed), the killing of children, the cruel deaths of American G.I.’s (some of whom are the targets of bounty hunters in search of a reported $2,000 per head), the ineptitude of inexperienced, glory-hunting military officers who at times are needlessly putting U.S. troops in even greater danger, and the growing rage among coalition troops against all Iraqis (known derisively as “hajis,” the way the Vietnamese were known as “gooks”) — the more he thought about these things, the more he felt that this war could not be justified, and that he could no longer be part of it.

Mind you, SSGT Mejia volunteered for the National Guard, and has apparently remained there long enough to reach the rank of Staff Sergeant. He’s identified later in this column as a squad leader and thus he has a significant amount of responsibility for the lives of his men. And because he decided the war was unjustified, he refused to return.

He let down his men.

Herbert attempts to cast this as an entirely different issue as he writes about SSGT Mejia’s defense:

Sergeant Mejia’s legal defense is complex (among other things, he is seeking conscientious objector status), but his essential point is that war is too terrible to be waged willy-nilly, that there must always be an ethically or morally sound reason for opening the spigots to such horror. And he believes that threshold was never met in Iraq.

And then at the end of the column:

A military court will decide whether Sergeant Mejia, who served honorably while he was in Iraq, is a deserter or a conscientious objector or something in between. But the issues he has raised deserve a close reading by the nation as a whole, which is finally beginning to emerge from the fog of deliberate misrepresentations created by Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al. about this war.

The truth is the antidote to that crowd. Whatever the outcome of Sergeant Mejia’s court-martial, he has made a contribution to the truth about Iraq.

The reality is that this man swore and oath – he had an obligation to the service, to his country, but most importantly to the men in the squad that he led. And instead he chose to throw all of that away.

The real issue here isn’t that SSGT Mejia has made a statement about the war – but rather that he let down his men and violated his oath.

And for that, SSGT Mejia was convicted this week.

Lex once again shares a great sea story about his first carrier qualification as a young pilot:

Finally a morning broke in Pensacola, Florida for me and my band of brothers to test our skills as countless of our predecessors had. We had received a long, comprehensive brief on what to expect aboard the ship, including a hair-raising series of emergency procedures drills – what to do if the brakes or catapult should fail on deck, for example. When to stay with the aircraft, and when to eject. The point at which you need no longer bother to eject, just so we’d be prepared and recognize our impending doom, if ever we came to it.

The instructor also told us not to “look at her,” when we were holding overhead in formation. We’d get distracted from our primary task of flying in formation, with potentially disastrous consequences. Then he looked us all in the eyes one by one, shook our hands, and wished us luck.

He led us out to the ship, through the radio shifts and into the orbit overhead. In spite of his warnings, I had to look down and see her waiting there below. “TOO SMALL!” my mind screamed, and looking back at my lead I could tell my wingmen had done the same thing as I had: Our previously beautiful four plane formation became the shadow of its former self, as wings rocked left and right while student pilots snuck their peeks at the ship and then back at their lead.

Our time arrived at last, he brought us down into the pattern from behind the ship, and we got our first look at the fantail and landing area from pattern altitude. “TOO SMALL!” but never mind. My lead broke left into the downwind, and after 15 seconds I joined him.

I think I have stressful and difficult days at my job – but even my worst days are nothing like this.

Sgt. Hook writes today about demonstrating courage with one of his peers with the 25th Infantry Division in Afghanistan, where they are presently deployed:

When I arrived at the hangar I found 1SG Richard supervising the moving of a mobile containerized office commonly called a SPAM. He saw me coming.

“Hey Hook, how’s it going?” he said walking towards me. 1SG Richard stands about a foot and a half taller than me, which adds to his ego as he’s always looking down to talk.

Stopping just a few inches from him, I turned and leaned against a workbench, he followed suit. Looking straight ahead I spoke first. “What the hell is going on down here Dick?” I asked using his first name for the first time.

“I had your guys move their stuff out of the way Hook, we got word that the engineers are going to pour some concrete here,” he feebly replied.

“Let me get something straight with you Dick, if you ever tell my Soldiers to do something without my prior knowledge I will take you out,” I said as calmly as I could.

Cutting him off with a raised hand but still not looking at him, “understand this Dick, my Soldiers are here to fly and maintain these aircraft and they’ve done a damned good job of it for the past six weeks and I will not allow somebody else to interrupt that mission, engineer project or not.”

“There is a right way to do things and a wrong way Dick. Make a note; we do things the right way around here Dick. I don’t give a rat’s ass about an engineering project that does not include my unit’s input or address our needs. There are combat units around this country that are depending on these aircraft and I’ll be gottdamned if you or anyone else is going to screw that up!”

Finally looking at him I asked, “understood?”

He immediately apologized and started kissing my ass, but I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted the line in the sand drawn and I think he saw that.

I turned to walk away and said over my shoulder, “I’ll see you later Dick.” A group of my Soldiers watched in amazement as I left the hangar and walked back up the hill.

The Army’s Creed of the Noncommissioned Officer states that my two greatest responsibilities are the accomplishment of my mission and the welfare of my Soldiers. My mission is the welfare of my Soldiers and I think I accomplished it that day. We haven’t had anything but the utmost of cooperation out of Dick since.

I will be sending his story to my team at the real job when I return from vacation tonight – it’s a great example of challenging and “self-policing” amongst a peer group.

As Sgt. Hook says, this we’ll defend.

The Pentagon announced today that Major General David Petraeus, the Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division has been promoted to Lieutenant General and head of the new Office of Security Transition in Iraq.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld announced today that the President
has nominated Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus for appointment to the grade of lieutenant
general and assignment as chief, Office of Security Transition-Iraq. Petraeus is
currently serving as the commanding general, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
and Fort Campbell, Fort Campbell, Ky.

Petraeus was the central figure in Rick Atkinson’s new book In the Company of Soldiers about last year’s efforts by the 101st Airborne during the Iraq War and occupation. Pretty interesting individual. I wish him well in his new assignment.