Pizza Hut Customer Service

So we used Pizza Hut's convenient website for ordering a couple of personal pan pizzas for delivery from the Wrightsboro Road store in Augusta.  Since all we had was milk in the refrigerator, I decided to add a 2-liter root beer to the order.  Mug Root Beer was clearly one of the six drink choices on the website.  I placed the order at 6:05  PM and received an automated messaged saying that my order would be delivered no later than 6:45 PM.

At 6:39 PM, the guy calls and leaves a message on my phone that they don't carry root beer.

Hey, if you don't carry root beer, don't advertise on your website that you do.  Second, if you don't have what the customer wants, don't delay the order by playing phone tag with him.  In this case, it would have been so simple to just throw a 2-liter Pepsi, a Mountain Dew, a Dr. Pepper, a Sierra Mist -- you know, all the other 2-liter drinks that you do, in fact, carry; and tell me at the door when you're making the delivery that you're sorry, but your store doesn't carry root beer, and tell me that you brought all the others so that I can make a different choice, and offer me a couple bucks off my next order.  You probably would have gotten a better tip -- and repeat business -- for being so thoughtful.

Instead, it was more like 7:15 PM before I got my pizza, which was pretty good, by the way.

Why General Dwight Eisenhower was not Relieved After the Debacle at Kasserine Pass

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

On the face of it, the sacking of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in the wake of the stunning Allied defeat at Kasserine Pass seemed certain, but he was not relieved. Though a strong case could have been made for his immediate dismissal, the issue of whether he should stay or go was never raised. Cooler heads prevailed. Career-wise, the man who would go on to earn five stars and become the nation’s 34th president lived to fight another day.

It is customary when armies are routed upon the field of battle that their commanders—assuming their failure to obtain the honor of their death in combat—are fired, sacked, relieved, replaced. Already in World War II the Army and Navy had seen this custom followed. Rear Admiral H. E. Kimmel and General Walter Short, both commanders in the Pacific, had been forced into retirement, as a consequence of their failures related to the Japanese surprise attack upon the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The chief of naval operations, Admiral Harold Stark had for the very same reasons been denied a theater command. The debacle for U.S. and British forces at Kasserine Pass and the subsequent maintenance of its responsible commander, General Eisenhower as theater commander represents an interesting deviation from this custom. After Kasserine, Eisenhower would rise, Phoenix-like, to become the Supreme Allied Commander, earn a fifth star, and later become president of the United States.

For unto us a Child is Born, unto us a Son is Given

The Words Charles Wesley Wrote for 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'

Charles Wesley

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Refrain:
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

Come, Desire of nations, come,
Fix in us Thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display Thy saving pow’r,
Ruined nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to Thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
Oh, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.




Source for the words: http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/Hark_the_Herald_Angels_Sing/

Merry Christmas! (Music and Pictures)

Enjoy!


 

There was a Man Sent from God whose Name was John

December 24th.

John H. Edinger, Jr.
(Jan 5, 1940 - Dec 24, 2010)
My Stepfather

As a kid all the way up into my fifties, I always looked forward to December 24th.  It is always just one of the best days of the year.  It is a day that has carried memories of many Christmases past.  Things that I recall from childhood Christmases, and in those later Christmastimes with my own children, never seem to fade.  They were always happy times, even when we were stationed overseas in my Army days.  In my family, we always opened one gift apiece on Christmas Eve.  December 24th was always the day!  Not even my own birthday each year filled me with as much anticipation.

Maybe it will be like that again.  I cannot know that for sure right now; for today is the first December 24th since the last one.  Memories today--and all year long leading up to today--are and have been filled with what transpired on Christmas Eve, 2010.

Michael C. Edinger
(Sep 3, 1965 - Dec 24, 2010)
My brother

December 24, 2010 was my stepfather, John's last day with us.  That wasn't John's choice; my brother, Mike decided that for him.  But then Officer Garcia of the Mount Airy Police Department decided that it would be Mike's last day with us, too.  Such decisions!  Such consequences!  We began the year with a double funeral on New Year's Day.

All year long I've kept the message on my cell phone of Jack calling me on Christmas Day to tell me what happened.  Three hundred and sixty-two days later, I got a Christmas card from Jack and his family.  I think I'll put the family photo he enclosed on the fridge and delete the phone message.

This Christmas, Jack took his family someplace far away for a vacation.  My mother decided she would travel, too, visiting my brother, Greg and his family and perhaps some old friends in and around Onslow County, North Carolina.  Connie and I are glad just to stay home and watch each other swallow.  Sarah is here with us, and Sam, and Mr. Herky.  We plan to talk to Rebekah and the little ones tonight via Skype.

And, before we go to bed, each of us will open a gift.  After all, it's Christmas Eve.

“What If America’s ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ Had Failed to Materialize?” by Mark Grimsley

As a rule, I shy away from ‘what if’ kinds of historical accounts. I understand they can be very interesting and thought provoking but my thinking is that there is so much I want to learn about actual history and, having so little time in which to learn it, I cannot afford to spend time with history that never happened. 

The thing that piqued my interest in Mark Grimsley’s article was not the ‘what if,’ but the ‘arsenal of democracy’ part. In my day job, at a Training and Doctrine Command center of excellence, my work and the work of dozens around me, is all about capability development.  If you add to our work the work of those in acquisition and those in planning, programming, budgeting, and execution, then what you would essentially have is the Arsenal of Democracy, 21^st Century Edition.  So it was with some expectation that I would get to read something about how my job was done in the World War II era that I selected this article.

General of the Army
George C. Marshall

Moreover, several weeks ago I finished reading a book about General George C. Marshall who was the Army chief of staff during WW2.  The book contains a fascinating account of how the Army, the Army Air Corps, and the Navy were mobilized, under Marshall’s leadership, to fight that war.  The sheer weight of numbers—of planes, tanks, trucks, ships, boots, blankest, rifles, bombs, barracks, and all the things it takes to fight a war, plus the mobilization all the men and women who fought in it—was phenomenal.  It gave me a look at what my current job might be under the circumstances that prevailed circa 1939.  In short, I expected this article to sort of go behind the whole ‘arsenal of democracy’ cliché and tell something of what might have befallen the nation had there been no George Marshall.

I was disappointed.  For one thing, Grimsley never even answered his own question.  In places, the article is vague, or contradictory, and even corny.  Nowhere in the article was there even a hint of what might have happened if the famous ‘arsenal’ had failed to materialize.  The core of Grimsley’s story is about a “Battle of the Potomac” fought between civilian and military planners.  He builds his account of this battle around an obscure government agency, the War Production Board (WPB), and its head, a guy named David Kennedy, a senior vice president at Sears, Roebuck and Co., which in the end figured not at all in averting any economic or military crisis.

The Price of Honor, by Colonel David H. Hackworth

Just finished The Price of Honor, by Colonel David H. Hackworth.  It was a lot more than I expected.  Great story, but I'm still trying to figure out who T. C. Johnson is ... or was.

When Schwarzkopf Met Westmoreland, by Don North

Don North was a free-lance photographer and videographer who happened one day, in August 1965, upon a chance encounter between General William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam and one of his young officers who would one day command the U.S. led coalition in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  That officer was just a major then.  His name was H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

General Westmoreland (L), Major Schwarzkopf (C)
Photo by: Don North

North explains the two officers’ meeting as a photo opportunity for Westmoreland.  Microphones were not allowed but cameramen and photographers could shoot film and take pictures at a respectable distance.  They were quite a study in contrasts.  Schwarzkopf, filthy from field duty and smelling of death, made the general “recoil a little.”  The general, arriving from his headquarters in the rear, was turned out in freshly laundered and starched fatigues. 

Footage of the two officers speaking with one another appeared on the nightly news.  Without audio the video created an impression quite different from what actually transpired, according to Schwarzkopf.

This is interesting because, in the two men’s histories there are some notable similarities.

• As senior commanders, both men chose to command operations from the rear.
• Westmoreland is widely blamed for losing the war in Vietnam; Schwarzkopf took a lot of heat for the coalition’s not winning outright in the Gulf War.
• Both men addressed joint sessions of congress.

North reports that Schwarzkopf characterized the meeting as a photo op, saying that Westmoreland asked him nothing about his mission, not even an “atta-boy” for a job well done.  Instead, according to Schwarzkopf he asked about the quality of the chow the troops were getting and if they were receiving mail. 

Schwarzkopf’s mother, wrote North, happened to catch the news when that segment ran.  Without the benefit of sound, her impression was that Westmoreland was a most caring man and capable leader.  Then-major Schwarzkopf said that the episode caused him to lose whatever respect he had for the general. [1]

General Scharzkopf during
DESERT STORM

Loss of respect is something else Schwarzkopf has in common with his Vietnam counterpart.  Schwarzkopf wasn’t given to the kind of photo-op described in North’s article, of the type made to enhance his public image.  On the contrary, his public image needed no enhancement.  Instead, as the supported combatant commander in the Gulf War, Schwarzkopf earned the disrespect of nearly everyone who worked for him, up to and including officers of flag rank, by failing to control his temper.  Characterizing the infamous Schwarzkopf temper as a “sweeping [of] his headquarters with verbal grapeshot month after month,” author Rick Atkinson described the CENTCOM headquarters as “a dispirited bunker, where initiative withered and even senior generals hesitated to bring him unpleasant tidings.” [2]  Others have written about Schwarzkopf’s “counterproductive, fear-inducing tirades.” [3].   Retired Army colonel, David Hackworth put it this way when trying to explain the CENTCOM commander’s leadership style.  “Schwarzkopf,” he wrote, “sat in his bunker and bellowed and fretted.” [4]

Implications

I actually learned more in this article about General Westmoreland than I did about General Schwarzkopf.  The article itself was not all that informative.  However, General Westmoreland as a subject, linked this to one of the articles analyzed last week.  That one, painting the general in a more positive light; and, this one, showing a negative side of him, suggests that General Westmoreland was a very complicated man.  At the same time, reading the article and writing this synopsis made me realize how little I still actually know about General Westmoreland and the war in Vietnam.  Several avenues of thought, prompted by this study, run out to inconclusive ends.  One concerns the Army’s attitude, at the time of the Vietnam War, compared to its frame of reference at the time of the Gulf War.  General Schwarzkopf led an Army that was still emotionally scarred by Vietnam.  A large part of the motivation to win in the Gulf seemed to be to finally get over the ‘Vietnam syndrome.’  “No more Vietnams,” was a phrase we heard often.  My curiosity is piqued over what were the Army’s and the nation’s attitudes about Vietnam in relation to the Korean War, a conflict for which we were very much unprepared and which also was considered lost.  Why did we not hear talk of “no more Korea’s?”   The other still significantly unformed conception about Vietnam is about the actual fighting and whether or not it is true to say that the U.S. won the engagements on the battlefield but lost them in the press.  Was it our political leadership that failed us, or was it the military?  See, all this is why I signed up to study military history.

Notes.

1.  Don North, “When Schwarzkopf Met Westmoreland,” History Net (March 17, 2011),   http://www.
historynet.com/when-schwarzkopf-met-westmoreland.htm (accessed December 14, 2011).

2.  Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (New York, Houghton-Mifflin, 1993), 3.

3.  Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Boston, Little, Brown, and Co., 1995), 148.

4.  David H. Hackworth, Hazardous Duty (New York, William Morrow and Co., 1996), 59.

Best Bumper Sticker

The best idea for a bumper sticker I've heard so far ...

"If you voted for him in '08 to show you were not a racist,
You must vote against him in '12 to prove you are not an idiot."

--  I think Bill Bennett (Morning in America) came up with that one.

In Defense of Washington's Five Rules

Some have suggested that Washington’s Five Rules may have been his attempt to apply vague western ideals of just warfare to this existential threat to the fledgling American nation about to declare its independence. I believe the guiding ideals in Washington’s mind were military ones. His paramount concern was victory. “We have taken up Arms in Defence of our Liberty, our Property; our Wives and our Children,” he had written in his open letter to the people of Canada. “We are determined to preserve them or die." [1] The motivations behind his instructions to Col. Arnold, therefore, sprang not from an impulse of chivalrousness but from military necessity.

The first four rules were each in some measure calibrated to put Arnold’s and General Montgomery’s troops—and, by extension, the American colonial position, in the best possible light. They were clearly aimed at winning support. Canadian support was essential if the Americans were to realize their objective of driving off the British from their northern border, for at Quebec their forces were outnumbered 2-to-1. [2]

It is doubtful whether Washington’s commanders hewed very closely to any of the rules. Number five directed them to withdraw if their objectives could not be met. Instead, they laid siege to the city for more than four months and only retreated in the face of British reinforcements arriving once the spring thaws cleared the St. Lawrence Seaway for shipping. [3] The fact that Montgomery’s and Arnold’s combined forces suffered such a “shattering defeat,” suggests that rules one through four were pretty much ignored also. [4]

Washington seeking
the One whose battle is really was

Author David McCoullough suggests that the defeat at Quebec sapped Washington’s general staff of the nerve required to mount an assault on the heavily fortified British garrison at Boston in early 1776. It was while they were considering such a plan that a rider brought the dispatch to Washington with the news that the mission to Quebec had failed, that Montgomery was dead, that Arnold was severely wounded, and that Quebec instead of falling had been reinforced. Even before this discouraging information reached him, Washington, near despairing, had a just a few days before written to Joseph Reed. Recounting the innumerable disadvantages he labored under and the deplorable state of his army, and marveling that the British seemed totally blind to these facts, else they would have not spared a minute more in launching an overwhelming attack, Washington wrote—

“If I shall be able to rise superior to these, and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it. To blind the eyes of our enemies; for sure if we get well through this month, it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages we labor under.” [5]

Such language, especially prefaced as it was by that gigantic word ‘if,’ tells me that if George Washington ever imagined that his army’s cause was just, in the traditional western idealistic sense, such thoughts were as far from his mind now as they could possibly be.  I don't think anyone who knows anything at all about George Washington would deny that he was a man of honor. And while it's not accurate to say that he cared about winning at the expense of everything else, I don't think he accepted his commission with the intention of losing, however so honorably he might have done so.

Gabriel's Oboe

Kasserine Pass

Kasserine Pass, Tunisia, North Africa

It was the most inauspicious of starts for the eventual victor of World War II.

The Allied defeat at Kasserine pass was marked by “fundamental flaws in doctrine, command, and organization.”  That is, the forces under Eisenhower’s command at the time, British units possibly excepted, were in no wise prepared for war.  They lacked soundness in understanding fundamental principles that should have guided them in their execution of operations necessary to carry out national objectives.  They lacked fitness in their commanders, especially the type of fitness for command that is developed either in battle or through tough, realistic training.  They were not optimally organized—especially at echelons above brigade—for coalition warfare in an austere environment at the forward end of supply lines that stretched across the Atlantic Ocean, into the Mediterranean, and extended half-way across the northern shores of Africa.

In its doctrine, the Americans had not determined how best to employ their National Guard units.  Throwing in a mix of NG units with the 34^th Infantry Division, they put a force on the field that was “ignorant of field manuals, unable to reconnoiter properly, and generally deficient in basic and small-unit training.  Many … arrived in Tunisia not knowing how to use the weapons they were supplied (notably bazookas and mines), how to secure their flanks, procedures for identifying friend and foe, or how to fight at night.”  Budiansky  notes that, given their performance at Kasserine, apparently “the book on tank doctrine [had been] thrown out the window.” [1]

A component of its deficient doctrine was American ignorance of how to form itself in mechanized warfare.  Compounding its overall weakness as a fighting force, its commanders sent armored units into the fight piecemeal instead of massing them.  The result was that these units were destroyed in detail.  Though this mistake was corrected and never made again during the war, it was a disaster for the Allied side at Kasserine.

Eisenhower

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the theater commander, had been promoted by General Marshall above many who actually outranked him.  He had never before commanded forces in combat and his inexperience showed.  Nevertheless, he is to be credited for assessing the Kasserine fiasco for what it was and making appropriate changes—quickly.  He relieved Brigadier General Raymond McQuillin and replaced the overcautious General Lloyd R. Fredendall his opposite type, Major General George S. Patton as II Corps' commander.  Though Budiansky doesn’t mention it, Omar Bradley was also tapped by Eisenhower to assume higher command in the wake of Kasserine.

That such an overwhelming defeat did not spell doom for the Allied effort in the overall war was owed much to the German inability to capitalize on its victory.  There was considerable disorganization within the German high command.  Rommel was never reinforced to the extent necessary to maintain any advantage in the North African theater.  Moreover, he was weakened by illness and had to evacuate himself from the theater shortly after the battle in order to seek proper treatment.  Without his leadership, the Axis war machine sputtered.

The failure of the Nazis to take full advantage of their victory at Kasserine gave the Allies what they so desperately needed—time to learn from their mistakes and to make those changes in doctrine, organization, and leadership that were essential to the success the Allied forces would obtain as the war waxed on.

The Germans failed to exploit their victory because they were essentially beaten--in the North African theater. That, I think, is the intent of the article, that in spite of having the tar kicked out of them, the Allies had actually turned a corner at Kasserine. Some of that is 20/20 hindsight, but some is legit. The Germans' morale was ebbing. Berlin was ignoring Rommel's requests for reinforcements and was giving him much less than he was asking for in terms of supplies. Rommel, himself was not in good health. All these negatives were a drag upon German leadership. At Kasserine, they were like an athletic team that had pushed itself beyond its limits with a lot of time still left on the clock. And time was what the Allies used to their advantage.

Notes.

1.  Stephen Budiansky , “Triumph at Kasserine Pass,” Historynet.com (March 30, 2011), http://
www.historynet.com/triumph-at-kasserine-pass.htm (accessed November 20, 2011).

Doctrine Development: Wiki vs. the Doctrine Laboratory

Wiki riff-raff writing disjointedly, redundantly,
inconsistently, inaccurately and, worst of all, where the
editor cannot check on him.

There's a blog I enjoy keeping tabs on, published by the doctrine editorial staff at the "intellectual center of the Army."  A recent update struck me as humorous.  An editor wrote that "One of my concerns is about how doctrine developed in wiki drafts will be brought up to editorial standards. I've seen a draft developed by numerous contributors through the wiki. It had some really good ideas, but they were hard to pick out because, overall ...

the text was disjointed, redundant, inconsistent, and inaccurate. Among other things, they had kept a lot of obsolete text based on other doctrine that had changed. They were so focused on their specific topic that they hadn't verified the other doctrinal topics mentioned in the older version."

What's funny is that that is exactly the kind of writing that's churned out in the writing labs at every TRADOC center of excellence.  That's why we have editors and a staffing process.  But even published doctrine is sometimes "disjointed, redundant, inconsistent, and inaccurate, and all those other things.

The wiki-development process is being applied to doctrine development for the first time under the framework of Doctrine 2015, the School of Advanced Military Studies-inspired concept that aims to get doctrine out to the field and into the hands of soldiers faster and smaller, more accessible formats.  It's something new.  So, naturally, it's going to have some bugs.  

But we will have fewer bugs once we ever get TRADOC Regulation 25-36 revised and published.  What's up with that, anyway?  Maybe we should have put that one out on the wiki site.

George Washington’s Five Rules for Honorable War, by Ray Raphael

George Washington

Were it not for the fact that George Washington died more than two centuries ago, I might have suspected that he lifted his Five Rules from Army Field Manuel 3-24, Counterinsurgency, last revised in 2006.  In fact, a central purpose behind Raphael’s article is to offer the example of Washington to contemporary U.S. commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. [1]  Washington’s rules were actually a set of instructions he gave to one of his expeditionary commanders, Colonel Benedict Arnold.  What they generally have in common with Army counterinsurgency doctrine is that success is not measured by the amount of territory conquered but by capturing the hearts and minds of the people.  Here, as captured by Raphael, are Washington’s five rules—

1.   Don't Assume You Are Welcome
2. Cultivate Local Support
3. Respect Local Religious Practices
4. Don't Abuse Prisoners
5. Withdraw if Your Objectives Are Unobtainable

Though territorial gain was not Washington’s primary consideration, it nevertheless was a consideration.  He hoped that by winning the confidence of the citizens of Quebec (predominately French), he might persuade them to come over to support the American cause and help him thwart British designs on colonies by capturing “the gateway to the St. Lawrence River and thereby to all of Canada.” [2]  But to do so, Washington felt it necessary to forge an alliance—or at least an understanding—with the citizens of Quebec.  Moreover, Washington felt that to ignore the Canadian situation would leave the colonies exposed to a “potential [British] threat along the northern border.” [3]

To that end, he launched an invasion of the city of Quebec, to be led by General Richard Montgomery and Col. Arnold.  The two officer’s forces were to rendezvous at the fortified city which, for Arnold and his men, was a long and arduous journey.

In warning Col. Arnold not to assume his welcome, Washington exhibited a keen awareness of certain political realities.  The Brits had horned in on the French in Quebec a dozen years previously and were exerting increasing control over what the French felt was a sovereign French territorial possession.  Washington hoped that French bitterness against the English would push them over to the American’s side.  Nevertheless, there remained strong opposition between the French and Americans, mainly on religious grounds, which was strong enough, Washington felt, to preclude any alliance the Americans might hope to build.

His warnings concerning the necessity of gaining the support of the locals, respecting their religious practices, and the treatment of prisoners, stemmed from his understanding of the youth and inexperience of his fledgling Army.  A misstep in any one of these areas, however slight—and particularly if an egregious one—could very conceivably ruin the entire expedition and add disadvantage on top of disadvantage.

His final instruction to Col. Arnold was that the American forces were to withdraw if their objectives proved unattainable. [4]  There was a battle at Quebec, though for some reason Raphael does not mention it.  General Montgomery was slain and Col. Arnold was wounded.  Raphael writes that Arnold “saw his mission through.”  [5]  However, Washington biographer, Ron Chernow described it as a “shattering defeat,” a “catastrophe,” and “a severe setback for Washington, whose first strategic plan had misfired.”  [6]

Given Washington’s Five Rules at the outset of the mission, and the bitterly disappointing defeat at the end, I suppose that one could draw the moral lesson from this story that, at least for our forefathers, the road to Quebec was paved with good intentions.

What I learned from this article

If I were asked, before reading this article, who was the first U.S. commander to lead an invasion of a foreign country, George Washington would not have been one my first ten choices.  This surprise stems from, I must confess, my relative ignorance both of Washington and his times.  Of the former, I learned something of his sentiments as he expressed them in an open letter to the people of Canada—

“We have taken up Arms in Defence of our Liberty, our Property; our Wives and our Children: We are determined to preserve them or die." [7]

Of the latter, I was surprised to learn of the degree of anti-Catholicism that existed and some of the ways in which this sentiment was expressed.  I was appalled to learn of the desecration of George Whitefield’s grave by American soldiers which gave the Quebec expedition something of the flavor of a religious crusade.

Not directly from the article, but from the supplementary research to write this analysis, I learned something about the troops who fought under Col. Benedict Arnold during this time.  I mention it because it is of a piece with something I learned earlier in the course while writing an analysis on Creasy’s account of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.  Creasy, in the course of his account, described Wellington’s soldiers’ daily fare, and wrote of “ammunition bread” as one of their staples.  Ron Chernow, in his biography of Washington wrote of Col Arnold’s men subsisting in 1775 on things like “soap and candles and … boiled moccasins.” [8]  Thirty years separated these two campaigns, Arnold’s and Wellington’s, so one could infer that civilization had made considerable progress by Wellington’s day, simply by comparing the two armies’ chow.  Alternatively, since in that era these two events, Waterloo and the Revolutionary War, may be considered contemporary to each another, one may detect a subtle sense of superiority within the British profession of arms, as opposed to their poorer American cousins, for at least the British had bread.  One could argue that herein lay the real reason that the Revolutionary War was won by those soap devouring, moccasin chewing Americans.

Notes.

1.  Ray Raphael, “Washington’s 5 Rules for Honorable War,” Historynet (December 11, 2009), http://www.historynet.com/washingtons-5-rules-for-honorable-war.htm (accessed November 30, 2011).  “Indeed,” writes Raphael, “[Washington’s] instructions could offer useful insights to contemporary American leaders and soldiers as they carry out military campaigns in distant lands.”

2.  Ibid.

3.  Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: PenguinPress, 2010), 210.

4.  Raphael.

5.  Ibid.

6.  Chernow.

7.  Ibid.

8.  Ibid.

My Comment on the CSA's Reading List

General Raymond T. Odierno
38th Army Chief of Staff

Recently, the Chief of Staff of the Army posted his Professional Reading Recommendations from the Chief and invited comments.  Here is mine ...

"Sir, outstanding list, except for the absence of any reference to a Joint or an Army doctrine publication. Lists like these inform the ranks on what you think is important and worth knowing. It clues people in on what things they should be learning more about. If doctrine is really important to the Army, like you and both of your predecessors have said, then the lack of even a single joint publication or field manual on the list says that none of you were really serious about that."

The National Security Agency

The National Security Agency and its Mission

The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence gathering agency of the federal government, located at Fort Meade, Maryland, near the nation’s capitol.  The NSA is actually two agencies, having merged in 1972 with the Central Security Service (CSS) which was established to promote a full partnership between NSA and the cryptologic elements of the armed forces. [1]

NSA Building

The mission of the agency is to lead the U.S. government in cryptology that encompasses both signals intelligence and information assurance products and services, and enables computer network operations in order to gain a decision advantage for the nation and our allies under all circumstances. [2]

The agency's director is uniformed military commander, presently a four-star Army general named Keith Alexander.  As head of the NSA, his primary responsibilities are to—

• Collect (including through clandestine means), process, analyze, produce, and disseminate signals intelligence information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes to support national and departmental missions. 
• Act as the National Manager for National Security Systems as established in law and policy, and in this capacity be responsible to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director, National Intelligence. 
• Prescribe security regulations covering operating practices, including the transmission, handling, and distribution of signals intelligence and communications security material within and among the elements under control of the Director of the National Security Agency, and exercise the necessary supervisory control to ensure compliance with the regulations.

General Keith Alexander

Gen. Alexander also wears another hat as commander of the United States Cyberspace Command (USCYBERCOM), the headquarters of which also resides at Fort Meade.  As the USCYBERCOM commander, Gen. Alexander’s is responsible for establishing the Department of Defense’s cyberspace vision and directing and coordinating the offensive and defensive cyberspace capabilities of each of the service branches in support of geographical combatant commanders.

There is a sort of left-hand/right-hand between USCYBERCOM and the NSA.  While the latter is a federal agency, the former is an entity of the Department of Defense.  The USCYBERCOM mission is to plan, coordinate, integrate, synchronize, and direct activities [necessary] to operate and defend Department of Defense information networks and, when directed, conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations (in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations) in order to ensure U.S. and allied freedom of action in cyberspace, while denying the same to our adversaries. [3]

Ten years ago, author James Bamford described the NSA as “the largest, most secretive, and most powerful intelligence agency in the world.  With a staff of thirty-eight thousand people, it dwarfs the [Central Intelligence Agency] in budget, manpower, and influence.” [5]

Potential for Controversy

Because of its mission, there exists the continuing potential for embarrassment and controversy for elected officials, especially members of Congress and the president.  During the George W. Bush presidency, especially during the dark and uncertain period of the war in Iraq prior to the “surge” in 2006, Democrats in Congress and much of the national media became obsessed with the NSA and its wartime mission, which was to electronically intercept the communications of enemy combatants, even if—especially if—those communications originated or terminated within the territorial boundaries of the United States.  Some called this eavesdropping on American citizens.  Others referred to it domestic spying or Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.  Given that 2006 was an election year, the left used these arguments to create an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust, turning Bush’s use of his chief signals intelligence agency against him and against Republicans in general.  The resulting hysteria was one of the main reasons why control of the House and Senate that year reverted to the Democrats, and why Bush’s secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, chose to resign.

Former federal prosecutor and National Review contributor, Andrew McCarthy, writing in the midst of the media firestorm over Bush’s use of the NSA’s capabilities to prosecute the war against Al Qaeda, ridiculed the arguments of the left, showing (1) that President Bush, as commander-in-chief, in utilizing all resources at hand to intercept enemy communications occurring domestically, was following precedent set during the Civil War by President Lincoln and, during World War II by President Roosevelt; and (2) that Congress, not the president, had actually placed itself above the law in passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 (signed into law by President Carter). 

Arguing that “we are either at war or we are not,” and that “if we are, the president of the United States, whom the Constitution makes the commander-in-chief of our military forces, is empowered to conduct the war—meaning that he has unreviewable authority to employ all of the essential incidents of war fighting …. Not some of them,” [6]  McCarthy demonstrated that by passing FISA, Congress made the commander-in-chief’s warfighting authority subject to judicial review, in direct contravention of the Constitution.  The left, in the run up to the 2006 elections pumped up the notion that, by ignoring FISA (which the Bush Administration was alleged to have done), the president was given a “blank check” with which to prosecute the war, thereby endangering the civil liberties of all Americans, calling the NSA program “one of the most outrageous, execrable, impeachable acts ever committed in recorded history.” [7]

McCarthy’s central point, in defense of Bush and the NSA, was that—

“Al Qaeda is an international terrorist network. We cannot defeat it by conquering territory. It has none. We cannot round up its citizens. Its allegiance is to an ideology that makes nationality irrelevant. To defeat it and defend ourselves, we can only acquire intelligence–intercept its communications and thwart its plans. Nothing else will do.

“Al Qaeda seeks above all else to strike the United States–yet again–domestically. Nothing–nothing–could be worse for our nation and for the civil liberties of all Americans than the terrorists’ success in that regard. For those obvious reasons, no communications are more important to capture than those which cross our borders. Al Qaeda cannot accomplish its ne plus ultra, massive attacks against our domestic population centers, unless it communicates with people here. If someone from al Qaeda is using a phone to order a pizza, we want to know that–probable cause or not.” [8]

Check the list on the right.  Mr. McCarthy is one of my counselors.

Notes.

1.  National Security Agency website, http://www.nsa.gov/about/index.shtml (accessed November 22, 2011).

2.  National Security Agency website, http://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/index.shtml (accessed November 22, 2011).

3.  Ibid.

4.  United States Strategic Command website, http://www.stratcom.mil/factsheets/cyber_command/ (accessed November 22, 2011).

5.  James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency From the Cold War through the Dawn of a New Century (New York: Doubleday, 2001), front flap.

6.  Andrew C. McCarthy, “The Probable Cause of The NSA Controversy,” National Review Online (January 23, 2006), http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/216574/probable-cause-nsa-controversy/andrew-c-mccarthy (accessed November 22, 2011).

7.  Ibid.

8.  Ibid.  

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