I recall General Shienski (spelling?) being ostracized by Rumsfeld for saying something like we will need 200,000 or 300,000 troops to stabilize Iraq post combat operations.
General Eric Shinseki.
Best accomplishments while serving in the Army:
- He spoke to truth to Rumsfeld over the troops needed to occupy Iraq and consequently derailed his own career.
- Pushed for the implementation of Stryker brigades in a matter of four years.
- Served honorably in two tours in Viet Nam, earning two Purple Hearts (losing the front part of one of his feet).
Worst thing he did (in my humble opinion):
- Issued berets to all Soldiers.
Rumsfeld earned my disgust with his flip comment "you fight the wars with the Army you have, not with the one you wish you had". That might be true enough, but you pick the wars you fight based on the capability and willingness to undertake the burden of fighting that war- and then when your plans go astray - you work like hell to supply that Army with what it needs for the fight that you put it in. Rumsfeld and the Chicken Hawks in his staff did a best-case scenario of what they would need in Iraq and planned accordingly, even though there were plenty of indications that the real fight was not going to be storming into Baghdad- but what would happen after we blew through the Iraqi Army. So long after it was apparent that (paraphrasing Colin Powell) having tipped over the china shop, we were gonna have to buy the broken crockery and start gluing it back together - the OSD and his minions were still pretending that a pick up team of Iraqi politicians could put it all back together again while we stood aside. Shinseki showed some real moral courage by articulating the reality that we would likely need a much larger / longer presence on the ground in Iraq. Instead we raced in, threw all of the cards into the air and discovered with no plans and no resources on the ground , things got worse and we couldn't go home- and all the F22's, Drones, Satellites and Light Sabres that the "Revolution in Military Affairs" (RMA) gurus were counting on were pretty useless in a fight for the security of neighborhoods.
I second the thoughts about berets- what a goofy idea that was. Everybody was going to have the esprit of the Ranger Regiment or SF because of their cover?