By Jeffrey Page

After watching the self-inflicted downfall of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, I’m thinking about firing off a letter to the Army about an incident at Fort Dix years ago. I want a do-over.

The general and some of his top aides cracked wise to a reporter for Rolling Stone about their civilian commanders. And generals are supposed to be smart. The response was quicker than most things President Obama does. Within days, McChrystal was fired and now fades away with retirement pay of $150,000 a year. (May I digress? Have you heard New Jersey Governor Chris Christie or any other critics of public pensions railing about McChrystal’s retirement benefits, or do they save their anger just for teacher pensions?)

Now, when I was in basic training at Fort Dix, I responded – in a manner considered disrespectful – to a sergeant who had imposed an absurd punishment for an infraction that couldn’t be avoided. For that I was hauled before the company commander and offered my choice of punishment.

While McChrystal gets his $150K, I was told I could request a court martial for disobeying an order and probably wind up in the stockade. Or I could accept what was known as non-judicial punishment, which meant my pay could be cut and I’d probably draw extra guard duty and/or KP. Or, the captain of Tango Company, Second Training Regiment said, I could come in after training and sweep and mop his office three nights running, and we would call it a day. He didn’t offer to pension me out and send me home.

I started to complain and the captain said, “Shut up, Page, and just go get the broom.”

“But the man’s a dope,” I managed. He cut me off. Such disrespect could not be tolerated if unit cohesion was to be maintained, he said. Which sounds like a principle someone ought to have taught General McChrystal.

He and his aides insulted the president of the Unites States in the most sophomoric manner and he gets his pension and a ticket home. I insulted a staff sergeant by failing to do 10 pushups for “refusal to come to parade rest as commanded” and lost most of three nights sleep. (Note: The men of Tango Company had been standing on a small mountain of construction rubble waiting their turn to enter the mess hall for breakfast. Standing at parade rest was not possible.)

The depth of McChrystal’s disrespect for his civilian commanders was staggering. One of his staffers was quoted in the Rolling Stone article as saying of an early meeting of President Obama and General McChrystal: “Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The boss was pretty disappointed.”

Rolling Stone also reported on McChrystal’s preparing to deliver a speech and jokingly saying that if asked about Vice President Biden – with whom he had differences on counterterrorism – he could respond: “Are you asking about Vice President Joe Biden? Who’s that?”

An aide had a better idea and offered it up: “Biden? Did you say Bite Me?”

What was that business about unit cohesion?

There’s more. Biden’s counterterrorism plan would lead to “Chaosistan” in Afghanistan, McChrystal said. One of his men dismissed Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones – himself a retired general – as “a clown,” while another revealed McChrystal’s view of Obama’s man in South Asia, Richard Holbrooke: “The boss says he’s like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to get fired. So that makes him dangerous.”

McChrystal’s contempt for Obama created a situation designed for hypocrites. He was a general who was “pretty disappointed” with his commander, but apparently not so disappointed that he thought about resigning his commission and putting in his retirement papers. And so he continued to send his soldiers into harm’s way in Afghanistan to satisfy a commander he believed was not fully engaged.

How do you explain that to the spouses and parents of your troops who are killed or gravely wounded in battle?

Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com

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