Petreaus resigns

Glad to see someone gets it. Excellent points, all.

He's no saint, for sure. Saints tend to make poor combat leaders.

Attitudes like these have no place in any organization: military, public, or private. Saint George?? Saint Joan of Arc??? Saint George (his father was also an excellent officer) refused the 'gifts' his commander was trying to use to change George's mind.

I look up to the General P because he had courage to resign. What he did was wrong in any organization. A certain President and a ton of other people in the public and private sector do not have that courage.





The best definition of "honor" and "character" is "how you behave when you think no one else is watching or will find out."

And no one can take your honor or character away from you, you make the choice to give them away.
 
I agree, but the best definition of "honor" and "character" does not include never making any mistake or being perfect.

If General Peteraus gave his honor and character away by cheating, he got it back some of it back by resigning.

Just to be clear, I am happily married, have not cheated and don't plan to.

Well said. I think this is truly disappointing behavior- but it is a reminder that virtually all people have "feet of clay". Anyone who believes otherwise is kidding themselves or is a child with no experience of the real world. We don't have to either excuse or condone flawed personal behavior and often you just have to pay the price for your failure. But you have to move on. One of the big problems with our country it seems to me is that we no longer understand that people make mistakes, that they need to pay a price but that the mistake doesn't usually either negate everything they have done nor does it mean that the rest of their life is defined by those mistakes. Interestingly the same tendency to not put others mistakes in perspective is utterly ignored when faced with their own personal mistakes. Then- no punishment is ever warranted and no personal behavior is is so bad that it can't be justified. (That's why there are lawyers on every street corner- the combination of " someone must pay" with " you didn't do anything wrong" mentalities makes us a playground for litigation compared to every other country in the world.)
So General P- I am disappointed in you. You should have known better personally as well as professionally. But he isn't the first middle-aged guy whose brains migrated below his belt line when faced with a bright and attractive opportunity who flatters him with attention. He resigned and didn't offer up some convoluted self justification/ denial. More folks ought to take that lesson from this whole sordid affair.
 
Attitudes like these have no place in any organization: military, public, or private. Saint George?? Saint Joan of Arc??? Saint George (his father was also an excellent officer) refused the 'gifts' his commander was trying to use to change George's mind.

If you don't mind, can you explain what attitude ScoutPilot displayed?
 
. . . .One of the big problems with our country it seems to me is that we no longer understand that people make mistakes, that they need to pay a price but that the mistake doesn't usually either negate everything they have done nor does it mean that the rest of their life is defined by those mistakes. . . .

If I may, what I find interesting is the double standard, for certain folks (i.e. Biden's plagiarism, Polanski's rape of a minor, Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman," Geitner's tax problem, Ted Kennedy's DUI, and etc) mistakes are foregiven and for other folks no mistake is accepted.
 
Attitudes like these have no place in any organization: military, public, or private. Saint George?? Saint Joan of Arc??? Saint George (his father was also an excellent officer) refused the 'gifts' his commander was trying to use to change George's mind.

I look up to the General P because he had courage to resign. What he did was wrong in any organization. A certain President and a ton of other people in the public and private sector do not have that courage.

Please, do explain what "attitude" that is, and what perspective you have to justify your interpretation of it. I'm interested to hear.

Saint Joan of Arc...I wasn't aware she'd led an unblemished life. The ideals of saintly behavior and the tall tales and fables about people whom some church have dubbed "Saints" are two very different things.

I've noticed that most of your other posts on here are quite preachy as well, but you always shy away from the question of who/what you are that gives you such insight. Why is that?
 
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If I may, what I find interesting is the double standard, for certain folks (i.e. Biden's plagiarism, Polanski's rape of a minor, Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman," Geitner's tax problem, Ted Kennedy's DUI, and etc) mistakes are foregiven and for other folks no mistake is accepted.

Those that you mention were not military. Those in the military are held to a higher standard.

By resigning, Petraeus did the honorable thing professionally.
But shouldn't he have resigned months ago? He resigned because the affair became public. Wouldn't resigning months ago been the most honorable thing to do?
It seems that most people become sorry only when they get caught.

We're forgetting his wife and family in this conversation. He has a much longer row to hoe in restoring honor to his marriage. The more honorable thing to do concerning his marriage would have been to tell his wife of the affair when it ended.
 
Those that you mention were not military. Those in the military are held to a higher standard.

By resigning, Petraeus did the honorable thing professionally.
But shouldn't he have resigned months ago? He resigned because the affair became public. Wouldn't resigning months ago been the most honorable thing to do?
It seems that most people become sorry only when they get caught.

We're forgetting his wife and family in this conversation. He has a much longer row to hoe in restoring honor to his marriage. The more honorable thing to do concerning his marriage would have been to tell his wife of the affair when it ended.

I think we are disagreeing on little things. But that's the case most of the time anyway

As far as I can tell, the affair "officially" started after he became the CIA director, so he wasn't active military.

Should he have resigned before getting caught - yes.
 
By resigning, Petraeus did the honorable thing professionally.
But shouldn't he have resigned months ago? He resigned because the affair became public. Wouldn't resigning months ago been the most honorable thing to do?
It seems that most people become sorry only when they get caught.

Exactly! The only reason he resigned is because he got caught. I don't believe honor had much to do with it.

Also this was not a momentary lapse in judgement. It apparently went on for quite some time.

Everybody makes mistakes and some will pay a price for those mistakes. I certainly hope the General's price does not overshadow all of the good that he has done.
 
Exactly! The only reason he resigned is because he got caught. I don't believe honor had much to do with it.

Correct.

He was "caught" long before he resigned.

Some reports say that he resisted resigning until he no longer had an option. He resignation came at the urging of someone else.

So much for doing the "honorable" thing.
 
Those that you mention were not military. Those in the military are held to a higher standard.

By resigning, Petraeus did the honorable thing professionally.
But shouldn't he have resigned months ago? He resigned because the affair became public. Wouldn't resigning months ago been the most honorable thing to do?
It seems that most people become sorry only when they get caught.

We're forgetting his wife and family in this conversation. He has a much longer row to hoe in restoring honor to his marriage. The more honorable thing to do concerning his marriage would have been to tell his wife of the affair when it ended.

Oh how easily we sit in judgment from our lofty perch upon our white horse! It must be a grievous task to live among the great unwashed who only seem sorry when they're caught, and must then be cast out among the damned.

As was mentioned, the DCI is not a military post. GEN Petraeus is retired. His post was that of a civil official...much like a President or Secretary of the Treasury.

We have no idea what the Petraeus marriage is like. They could've stopped loving one another years ago. They could come out of this stronger. It's not our marriage, nor our place to assume.
 
Correct.

He was "caught" long before he resigned.

Some reports say that he resisted resigning until he no longer had an option. He resignation came at the urging of someone else.

So much for doing the "honorable" thing.

No speculation please.
 
We are all speculating. Unless of course someone here knows something first hand all of this information is filtered by the government and the media.
 
How long will we allow talented and dedicated officers like David Petraeus to be sacrificed on the outmoded Judaeo-Christian altar of morality? It's time to consider a more modern alternative: Sharia. If the DCI had been allowed up to four wives, there's no way he would have felt compelled to resign. Smoke that in your hookahs, you darned infidels!
 
How long will we allow talented and dedicated officers like David Petraeus to be sacrificed on the outmoded Judaeo-Christian altar of morality? It's time to consider a more modern alternative: Sharia. If the DCI had been allowed up to four wives, there's no way he would have felt compelled to resign. Smoke that in your hookahs, you darned infidels!

When it actually becomes outmoded, just like nobility, segragation, same sex marriage, and etc.
 
Again, I think you are too narrowly focused. I was not (and I doubt Scout was either) trying to justify their actions or make excuses. When I read A Scout’s post, I saw an observation from well-trained officers who have been taught to ask tough questions so that mistakes can be corrected in the future. It has been my experience that some of the answers are not liked by the mainstream populations.

For years now the military has seen an increase divorce rate among its troops as well as increased suicide. While most of the studies that I have seen have been confined to the junior level troops (E-1 through E-5 and O-1 through O-4 ranks) it would be a mistake to think that senior NCO’s and officers are immune to the same problems.

For the last six years of my career I spent more time in a combat zone than I did here in the United States. To think that has not played havoc on my marriage and family would be a mistake. For the past six years I have been surrounded by friends and family who deeply care about me. Yet, I personally have never felt more alone at times. I know my wife cares about me and she wants to sympathize with me and ease whatever pain I may feel. On the flip side, I care deeply for her and out of my respect and love for her, I never really open up with her about my experiences. This is caused by several things I am sure to include wanting to protect her…and myself ….as well as maybe a bit of guilt because some of the things I had to do go against her values, and to an extent even my own values.

This paradigm of mine makes it very easy for me to see a correlation in both of these Generals and makes me ask the question if their recent experience played a part in their loss of judgment and focus.

To me there is a cause and effect here. With the size of our military and the fact that it is a volunteer force, it means we as a nation have to ask ourselves is this something we can live with…or is there changes that we need to make to our force. For me the answer is simple….we need to make changes to our force to include more manpower either on active duty or in the reserves.

Beautifully stated. Thank you for compliment, by the way. The problem with deployment after deployment is that it becomes immersive to the point of altering your view on nearly everything. After spending 3 years abroad, engaged in the act of waging war, I personally feel like it does take a significant hold on your viewpoint and skew it fundamentally. That doesn't mean it's right or wrong, or good or bad. It just....is. To say it's skewed is qualitative, not evaluative.

I know tpg feels this as well as anyone. The experience changes you. It changes how you view people, your loved ones, your morals and values, the truths you believe, the value of human life, and yourself. And that's just at the company/battalion level. No one ever put my picture on Time magazine and asked if I could really save the war effort. That was Petraeus' mantle to bear...the hopes of a nation that could only care about the war effort long enough to lay it at his feet and say "Please to walk in front, sir."

So, I suppose if you view the world in the simple black/white spectrum of the armchair quarterback, it would seem like I'm attempting to rationalize or justify his actions. That's far from the case. He made a promise and he broke it. That, in our society, is wrong and he will have to deal with that in his own way. However, we do need to ask whether there might be a reason he strayed so far from the principles he demonstrated throughout a long career. Reasons do not make things right or wrong. They simply give us insight. If a husband stalks and kills his wife's rapist, that is a reason, and knowing it helps us understand what happened. It doesn't excuse the man from going to jail. But it helps us frame the event and ask pertinent questions.

This situation is no different. Did years upon years of military service, waging war from Mosul to Afghanistan, fundamentally change the man in ways that allowed him to willingly abandon his principles? If so, what does that tell us about the larger force? What does that tell us about the Soldiers and Marines who've seen year upon year of bloodshed, who lived through the madness of the surge, whose children are as used to life without them as with them? Do we need to rethink the model of our military, or the model of our wars? Maybe not, but then again, maybe so.
 
TPG and Scout:

WELL SAID!!! :thumb:

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83
 
Oh how easily we sit in judgment from our lofty perch upon our white horse! It must be a grievous task to live among the great unwashed who only seem sorry when they're caught, and must then be cast out among the damned.

As was mentioned, the DCI is not a military post. GEN Petraeus is retired. His post was that of a civil official...much like a President or Secretary of the Treasury.

We have no idea what the Petraeus marriage is like. They could've stopped loving one another years ago. They could come out of this stronger. It's not our marriage, nor our place to assume.

Well, don't you just take all the fun out of me sitting on my high horse.
Touche.
I find it interesting that the ones on here that are less harsh on Petraeus are the military members. Us civilians are the harsher critics. Noone has condoned what he did, but the military folks, while disappointed in Petraeus, seem to have an understanding that the rest of us don't get. So maybe it is best viewed from the inside.

Scout - You are harsher on the 'philanderer' at West Point on the same issue. Where do you see the difference.
 
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Well, don't you just take all the fun out of me sitting on my high horse.
Touche.
I find it interesting that the ones on here that are less harsh on Petraeus are the military members. Us civilians are the harsher critics. Noone has condoned what he did, but the military folks, while disappointed in Petraues, seem to have an understanding that the rest of us don't get. So maybe it is best viewed from the inside.

Scout - You are harsher on the 'philanderer' at West Point on the same issue. Where do you see the difference.

Pespite his mistakes, Petraeus is a leader who has sacrificed mightily to fight and win our nation's wars. The other individual in question has no such credentials to hang his hat on. There is also significant belief that that gentleman used his rank and position to do favors for someone, some of them of the fiscal nature (remains to be seen what the investigation bears).

That, and Petraeus didn't set about turning Beast Barracks into Happy Time Day Camp. Thus I reserve the right to be arbitrary in my condemnation.
 
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