For a four-star general and the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal made a poor strategic decision by granting Rolling Stone an interview in which he was critical of his superiors, including Vice President Biden. Granted, if mocking Biden were a crime I would’ve been arrested long ago, but that doesn’t make it okay for him to do. Publicly criticizing your boss is one of the fastest ways I know of to get fired.
As a result, the chain of command has been thrown into a bit of chaos. President Obama replaced McChrystal by demoting the head of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus. As a result, CENTCOM is without a four-star general to fill Petraeus’s duties, which isn’t exactly a full time job. There is also the potential for damage to the morale of our troops in Afghanistan, who by all accounts were quite fond of McChrystal.
As for Petraeus himself, it’s not a bad choice. As you’ll recall, Petraeus was the architect of the surge that led to significant progress in Iraq. This is an intelligent man and a distinguished leader who understands that the purpose of an army is to kill people and break things. He has an impressive resume, having served in the Army since 1974 and as a general since 1999. He led the 101st Airborne in the charge to Baghdad and was appointed by President Bush to take command of CENTCOM in Fall 2008.
This appointment represents a shift for the Democrats. As Obama said of the surge in January 2007, “I don’t know any expert on the region or any military officer that I’ve spoken to privately that believes that that is gonna make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.” Days before Petraeus testified before the Senate in September 2007, Biden said, “I think he’s dead-flat-wrong.” During those hearings, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Petraeus, “You have been made the de facto spokesman for a failed policy. The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.” Liberal activist group MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times referring to him as “General Betray Us.” Since then, al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch has been beaten back to the point that politicians and the media rarely discuss Iraq. The worst of the fighting is over, allowing attention to shift back to Afghanistan.
But what real effect can we expect Petraeus to have in his new position? Probably not much. Petraeus can’t change the fact that Afghanistan is filled with fighters whose allegiances are constantly shifting between the Taliban and coalition forces, depending on which they perceive as being a more beneficial choice at the moment. Petraeus can’t change the fact that eastern Afghanistan is full of rugged mountains and small tribal communities that tend to be loyal to the Taliban. He can’t change the fact that our diplomatic team is incompetent. It also doesn’t help that the impending American actions in Kandahar have been horribly telegraphed and delayed as Obama and his advisors try to figure out how to go about it.
Lost in the shuffle of this political battle is the most important element of any war: the soldiers. They aren’t interested in the bickering between a bunch of politicians on Capitol Hill. They care about doing their duty and whether they will return home to their families alive and in one piece. This is something that’s been in the forefront of my mind, as my best friend, Zach, prepares to leave for Iraq in just a few short weeks.
His story is not unique among those who have served before him. He joined the National Guard after high school as a way to pay for college, but found that he enjoys the military more than going to class. His mother was strongly opposed to the move and their relationship deteriorated to the point that they couldn’t talk to each other without yelling. Over time, things became equally tense with his father and brother.
The day of his deployment, I figured his fiancée and I would be the only people there to see him off. But when I arrived at the ceremony in Nebraska City, there they were. A family finally reunited just before he was to leave for a year in the sandbox. As his bus left for the airport, he sent me a text that said, “The people on the bus are crying more than the families outside.”
These brave men and women have come from all over the country and all walks of life to serve under the stars and stripes. Some do it out of a sense of duty, some join to pay for college, some feel they have no other choice, but regardless of their reasons they volunteer to do it.
These men and women deserve our eternal gratitude for the trials they endure in order to defend us. For many, the word “hero’” evokes images of comic book characters such as Superman or Spider-Man. Heroes are people with extraordinary powers who live in the imaginations of children. But we have real-life superheroes walking among us here at UNL. All you have to do is walk in the M&N Building and look around. These are the people who we should associate with that word. They are America’s greatest national treasure.
– Andrew Lacy is a senior broadcasting major at U. Nebraska.