The Buzz on 'Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War'

I have ordered this book, part of my Christmas bonanza, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, by Robert M. Gates. I ordered it before all the published reviews of it started to appear in the press. Apparently, the book is causing quite a buzz. Here are some examples ... 

Book review: ‘Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War’ by Robert M. Gates, by Greg Jaffe, a reporter for the Washington Post with extensive experience covering the Pentagon. One of the better parts of Jaffe's review is what Secretary Gates had to say about the vice president ...

“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,”

White House pushes back against claims made in former SECDEF's book, by USA Today writer, David Jackson, which relies heavily on quotes from a National Security Council spokeswoman named Caitlin Hayden. I've read and listened to a lot of, so called 'pushback' from Barack Obama since 2008, and this USA Today article is pretty weak stuff. On the Biden issue, all we're given is that the president disagrees with Gates' criticism, saying that (quoting Ms. Hayden) -

"From his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time and has helped advance America's leadership in the world. President Obama relies on his good counsel every day,"

Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty,’ by the famous, Bob Woodward. From Woodward's point of view, 

"It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president."

And Fox News' Stuart Varney posted a brief synopsis of what seems to be a brewing storm on his Facebook page, saying -

"The Left is now in full, defensive, spin mode. Democrats take their marching orders from the New York Times, and those orders are: attack the bearer of bad news. In fact, the gates' book is devastating to the President's credibility as Commander-in-Chief, as the leader of troops he was committing to battle. His heart wasn't in it. Worse, gates writes that both Hillary Clinton and President Obama considered the surge in Iraq as mainly a political move. They weren't concerned with winning the war. They were concerned with the vote. The politics. I come from a family that for several generations, has served in the military. I am trying to put myself into the shoes of parents here, who saw their sons and daughters volunteer to fight and die, with Barack Obama as Commander-in-Chief. I would not be happy, reading that a defense secretary is calling out the president for putting politics in front of victory."

Megyn Kelly interviews Brit Hume on the subject at the Fox News website.

Commentary Magazine had this to say ...

"Unless the reporters who read advance copies of the book missed something juicier, nothing in Gates’s memoir seems likely to spoil anyone’s presidential aspirations, and I doubt Gates has any interest in doing so anyway. Picking out excerpts and anecdotes can easily skew the perception of the book, especially before the public has had a chance to read it. But the splash being made by these (mostly unsurprising) insider claims is a testament to the credibility Gates has earned over his distinguished career, and suggests the considerable authority his account of these last few years will carry."

With reviews like that out there, I'm looking forward to reading the book.

The Military Mind

A Great Read!

"The military mind has always been especially immune to new ideas."  

Those were William Manchester's words from his book, The Arms of Krupp 1587-1968.  He wrote them describing the closedminded opposition on the part of the Prussian, English, and Berlin governments to Alfred Krupp, in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, when he tried to interest their armories in cast steel barrels for artillery and small arms.

In the same breath, Manchester noted that Samuel Morse, who was perfecting his code about the same time as Krupp's experimentations with weapons of steel, "was to spend eight years hammering on Washington doors before the first strand of wire went up." (Emphasis mine).

Manchester further points out that similar standoffishness was encountered by America's Richard Gatling, England's Henry Shrapnel, and Germany's Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.

Things are no different in the present century.  I can appreciate the timelessness of Manchester's observation, having just spent four years trying to write doctrine for the Army.

"Christianity" in the Workplace

Lt. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins, DISA Director

Yesterday the Army Times carried a story with this headline: 3-star ripped for presentation referencing God.  The 3-star in question is Lt. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins, the recently appointed director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).  The references to God—which brought down the wrath of those who worship only at the altar of political correctness—were two slides in Hawkins’ presentation: one said, “Always put God first, and stay within His will”; the other said, “Always remember God is good — all the time!”  As new directors and commanders are wont to do, Hawkins’ presentation, which came at an “all hands” meeting—sort of like a town hall meeting within the organization—was about communicating his “command philosophy” to the DISA staff.  These kinds of presentations are meant to set the tone, establish the command climate, introduce the new director, establish communication, all those good things.

Some jerk in the audience took offense at the fact that the new director dared to mention God in the workplace and found a sympathetic ear in the media and complained.  Following that, some high up muckety-muck in an organization called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, opined that Hawkins should be court martialed.  Hence the story.

Government is the Problem

This is the first in an occassional series that puts light on what President Ronald Reagan put light on in his first inaugural address on January 20, 1981 when he said, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

The Following is by Rush Limbaugh:

   I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving our country in Uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11. Well, I can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country.