Academy Class Ranking Does Not Predict Success, or Morality

John McCain, 894th of 899 class of 1958, US Naval Academy

Class ranking at the academies do not predict success in the military or in life.  This weekend I was thinking that morally class ranking can predict the reverse. The current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was first in his class at West Point and under his watch we have betrayed the Kurds and he betrayed his own staff during the impeachment hearings. Pompeo went on to Harvard Law School before entering politics.  He is a brilliant man with the morals of a maggot.

At the other end of that academic ladder are John McCain and George Armstrong Custer.  McCain was 894th of 899 in the class of 1958 at the US Naval Academy.  Custer was last in the class of 1861 at West Point.  

McCain became a Naval Aviator and a symbol of endurance and courage as a Prisoner of War during the Vietnam War.  He famously refused to leave his comrades and endured three more years of confinement and torture for a total of six years as a prisoner. He became a moral beacon when the reputation of the American military was the lowest it has ever been, before or since.

McCain died two years ago in August of 2018, unmourned by the draft-dodging coward in the White House.  

In April of 2018, Mike Pompeo was named Secretary of State.  On his path to the nomination, there was a controversy about his service.  He served in West Germany near the end of the Cold War from 1986 to 1991. He never served  in the Gulf War, though Try Gowdy and other Republican liars said that he did.  Pompeo left the Army a captain and went to law school. 

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Every soldier knows the best way to be promoted is to serve during a war--the military expands the number of leadership slots, and some of the slots become vacant in every battle.

The military is very focused on procedure in peace. In war balls and bravado rule the promotion list. No other officer who ever served in the US military has risen faster than George Armstrong Custer.  

George Armstrong Custer in 1861 at the US Army Academy at West Point

In 1861, Custer graduated last in his class at West Point Military Academy.  He was 22 years old.  Within two months he commanded a cavalry troop at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia. His bravery in battle impressed senior officers and Custer got promoted so fast he was a Brevet Brigadier General within two years, promoted just a week before the Battle of Gettysburg. He commanded a cavalry brigade at Gettysburg that kept southern cavalry from supporting Major General George Pickett's ill-fated charge, helping to ensure the defeat of Pickett and General Robert E. Lee's army at that great turning point of the war.  

 

A month later Custer was wounded at the Battle of Culpepper Courthouse. He recovered, returned to the fight and was promoted to Brevet Major General in 1864.

 

By the end of the Civil War in 1865, George Custer was one of the officers with General U.S. Grant accepting the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Court House. 

After the war, Custer became known for defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, making a huge tactical error that led to he and his command being wiped out. Hubris, said the ancient Greeks, will lead those who rise the highest to fall the farthest.  He was a Major General at age 26 and dead at 36. 

Satire: Good for Your War, Not Mine

Catch-22, whether the original book, the movie or the recent Hulu series, is a satire of Army Aviation in World War II.  The author, Joseph Heller, was a bombardier in B-25 Mitchell Bombers flying missions in southern Europe. 

When I defended the book in a facebook discussion, my friend Joe Steed mentioned that his father, Bernie Steed, flew B-25 Bombers and on a few missions had a bombardier named Joseph Heller.  The led to writing about Bernie Steed's service in the 488th Bombardment Squadron.  Joe told me that Bernie had no idea that Heller wrote a book. Bernie read a few chapters and decided the book was not for him.

Bernie Steed receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross

I just did the same with David Abrams book "Fobbit."  It turns out I can read and enjoy a satire of a war before I was born, but I did not like reading a satire of a war I was in.  I should have known. When I visited the Bastogne War Memorial there was an M4 Sherman Tank outside the museum painted by an anti-war group. I had also seen Soviet tanks painted with peace signs. 'That's okay,' I remember thinking, 'But I don't want to see an M60A1 Patton tank painted with that shit.'  It's okay to deface other tanks, not my tank.

My tank: Bad Bitch, Fort Carson CO, 1976

So Bernie and I agree after all. Satirize another war, not my war.  

"Father Soldier Son" a Documentary of the Long Aftermath of War

Isaac, Brian and Joey Eisch

This week my son Nigel and I watched a documentary titled “Father Soldier Son.” The movie follows Sergeant First Class Brian Eisch on a combat deployment to Afghanistan and the tragedy his life became over the decade that followed. When I watched the movie, I remembered reading about Eisch getting wounded.  I read about the deployment the First Battalion-87^th Infantry in the New York Times in 2010-11.

Jim Dao, then the war correspondent for the Times, spent several months in Afghanistan following the unit from the beginning of the deployment to end. He told harrowing stories of soldiers killed and wounded during the deployment and their lives at war.

Eisch loved being a soldier and being a Dad.  Eisch was the single Dad of two sons, Isaac and Joey, ages ten and six in 2010. Eisch went to Afghanistan thinking he would resume his life when he returned. That meant moving up in his Army career and resuming hunting, fishing, camping and all the things he and his sons did together. 

From the stories, I sort of remembered who was one of those wounded, he had been hit in both legs by machine gun fire. The movie continued the story I had read a decade ago. His left leg had severe damage, but Eisch tried to recover. After two years, he pain got so bad that he agreed to amputation below the knee. 

As Eisch fell further and further into depression over his leg, his career ended and his life stalled. He met and eventually married a woman who loved and cared for him, but for a long time after he lost his leg, Eisch spent most of his time playing video games and avoiding his family. He had to leave the Army and said his life no longer had direction.

Just when Eisch’s life began to get better, then the younger of his two sons, Joey, was killed while riding his bicycle near their home. 

In 2018 when Isaac turned 18 and graduated high school, he joined the Army and became a paratrooper. 

The movie is really well done and sad.  I usually avoid watching documentaries because I worked in media and I am suspicious of visual media that tries to inform or educate.  But this documentary is so well done, I got lost in the story. The smart-ass critic in my head was silent.

If you want to know some of the cost of our endless wars, this movie shows how difficult life can be for returning soldiers.  The original articles are also available on the New York Times web site.  Dao’s reporting goes into much more depth on the combat missions in Afghanistan.