Generals

This election cycle’s October surprise is an interview with retired four-star General Kelly. In it he implies that Trump is a Fascist and said, “You know Hitler did some Good Things.” Kelly is reputed to claim Trump would like his generals to be like the German generals of WWII. This is the “Surprise.”

So what is my experience that I can have an informed opinion on this particular issue? Well, I worked directly for a three-star general on my last assignment in the Air Force. He was the commander of a Majcom (Major Commands report directly to USAF Headquarters at the Pentagon) Currently there are nine Majcoms in the USAF. My general was the only three-star Majcom commander, all the others were four-stars. He did not see eye to eye with the Air Force Chief of Staff who would not allow him to be promoted. It had to do with my general having made his stars while working for the Secretary of Defense vice in an Air Force assignment. One of the things I recognized while watching the sausage being made is there is more than a little jealousy at play among general officers.

I have other experiences with four-star generals some of whom became generals after having been one of our students at Air University. They are just people like you and I; they are not God-like nor even demi-god like, although some of them believe themselves to be; What they are is dictators. In the military when a four-star simply suggests something it is believed by his/her staff to be a direct order. As the chief of protocol for Air University I was responsible for a unit of sixty people who hosted more than three thousand Very Important People a year for various symposia, courses, and other national events. As the Headquarters Squadron commander (I occupied two positions simultaneously) I commanded all the personnel assigned to the Major Command headquarters. One of our missions was to support five general officers assigned to command various of the Air University schools and organizations. I am well versed in the care and feeding of flag officers.

For every event we hosted there would be generals and admirals galore. I once received a proper a**-chewing for sending a two-star general to the flight line to greet the Navy equivalent of a one-star general. See the Navy doesn’t have a one-star rank but they do have a Rear Admiral upper and a Rear Admiral lower grade. My staff was constantly bombarded with what should have been requests but were always delivered like orders by the flag officers’ aides and assistants. “The general only drinks 24 year old single malt whiskey, make sure you have some wherever he stops.” “The admiral needs a foam cover on top of his mattress and make sure his sheets are ironed.” “Ensure the general’s shoes are shined to a mirror gloss each morning”. “The admiral likes to change uniforms at noon to ensure the creases in his shirt and trousers are crisp.” And a hundred thousand more similar or even more bizarre requests. My staff handled these but I had to handle the flag officers myself. SO, trust me when I tell you I know how ordinary people become little tyrants within the structure of the military. How they are spoiled and catered to and how the very big egos they needed to become flag officers in the first place are further inflated so that if I had to have four or more in the same room I made sure there was sufficient head space to get all those egos in the same place.

I’m sure General Kelly was a competent general, my brother the retired Marine colonel assures me he was. He looked good in his uniform with its ribbons and badges and those four silver stars. People held doors for him, people shined his shoes, people laughed at his jokes regardless of how lame they might be. But then he came up against the ultimate ego for whom everyone carried around not the right whiskey but a seal, the Great Seal of the United States and around that seal is written “The President of the United States of America.” He wasn’t selected for promotion by a group of generals and then approved by the Senate as are flag officers. He was selected by the people of the United States of America. No longer was General Kelly the brightest star in the gathering and when his ideas were not accepted or his ego conflicted with that of the President he would have felt slighted. Of course he is convinced that his is the right way. But let me point a couple of things out that went unmentioned in General Kelly’s interview:

You know who else admired the German General Staff of WWII? Pretty much the entire U.S. military, that’s who. That a country the size of Germany, with ever decreasing resources and manpower, could fight as long as it did was an amazing feat. It achieved this feat because of the structure of the German General Staff and the way it executed centralized command with decentralized execution. There have been a plethora of studies undertaken at the various war colleges about how the Germans were able to do this and not a little of current U.S. military structure has been based on how the Germans structured their army, air force and navy. So, would it be any wonder that the Commander in Chief might have the same admiration, not for the politics of the German Reich, but for its military organization. As for the statement Hitler did some good things, well, that’s just a statement of fact. If he hadn’t he wouldn’t have been able to instill the god-like worship he received from the majority of Germans from 1935 to 1945.

As for having the traits that could prosper under Fascism who would know better than a four-star flag officer who, while in power, is treated just like Mussolini. They pontificate from their very own balconies and expect to be obeyed without reserve. They believe they have achieved a status that places them above the “common soldier/air person/sea person/space person and certainly above any civilian. The uniforms, the medals, the badges, the unquestioned authority, the catering to, the pomp of bands and flags; trumpets with flourishes, drums and canon salutes; all make a flag officer feel as Mussolini must have felt standing in his balcony overlooking the Piazza Venezia addressing the populi d’Roma. There is no more fascist-like organization in the U.S. than the military and the same may be said about most of national militaries. It is the essence of the organization and necessary to good order and conduct while in combat.

It is no doubt that Trump, before becoming president had a great admiration for flag officers. He has since learned that being a general is more about being a well-versed politician than someone who leads from the front. Kelly’s performance at DHS and then the White House was heavy handed. He fired the communications director upon becoming the Chief of Staff in the White House because the former bragged about reporting directly to the President and not the Chief of Staff. He viewed this as insubordination and in order to assert his authority fired the person.

I’m sure there are those who admire John Kelly and I might have been one of them had he not manufactured out of context statements about his former boss. Another Italian comes to mind here, Iago, aide to Othello, the Governor of Cyprus. Jealousy and ego played out just as Shakespeare would have written it.