Monday, October 02, 2006

No Armchair General


That's how the Washington Times describes Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) commander, Army Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal:

"He goes on raids. He doesn't sit back at headquarters," said the source, who asked not to be named. A spokesman at U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., declined to comment on the general's operating style. The West Point graduate's personal commitment to the mission has led some to dub him the first "commander-forward" of JSOC. He spends little time at the command's headquarters at Fort Bragg, N.C. Instead, he shuttles between task forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to personally supervise hundreds of commandos. Gen. McChrystal's team was so instrumental in finding Zarqawi, and enabling an Air Force F-16 National Guard pilot to kill him in an air strike, that President Bush thanked the general in a phone call to him and Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "I haven't spoken to our commanders yet, except to call Gen. Casey and McChrystal and congratulate them, but more importantly, for them to congratulate the troops and the intel groups that were working on finding Zarqawi," Mr. Bush said at a June 10 press conference at Camp David.

Sounds like an American version of General Rommel!