Right after the [not-guilty] verdict was passed down on Martinez, the widow of CPT Esposito lashed out in anger and demanded an investigation into MG Taluto saying he was at fault and that because of his leadership at the Division level, her husband was killed by one of his own soldiers. Now anyone that knows military ranks and levels of leadership know that blaming the Division Commander is like blaming the President for something that a TSA agent does at an airport. Those two positions (Division Commander and Company Commander) are so far apart and disconnected, it isn’t even funny. It is asinine, idiotic and downright stupid to hold a CG accountable for something like a fragging within a company.Bouhammer leaves out my weariness from having to suffer fools such as he, but goes on with his sundry claims that America has been denied a dear leader and other such chest-pounding puffery.
However Mrs. Esposito, out of an act of desperation and anger to hold someone accountable went after MG Taluto. Because of her failure to understand the Army rank systems, her frustration with the Army not doing its job on the prosecution, and her position as the poor widow she got and maintained attention on the matter long enough to stall the confirmation of MG Taluto for the NG Director position and his 3rd star. [Emphasis mine]
One almost has to admire how Bouhammer strings together his narrative. Leaving aside his temporal errors which show that he has no real knowledge of the case and looking only at his root argument, Bouhammer's position is little more than "hysterical widow has bad day in court, takes it out upon the poor undeserving." If only . . .
Albeit inadvertently, Bouhammer does nevertheless reveal the mindset of those for whom it impossible to conceive how military discipline was allowed to slip within the 42nd Infantry Division and how the responsibility for that decline ultimately rests with its division commander. The 42nd Infantry Division was allowed to descend to the point where a staff non-commissioned officer could issue literally hundreds of threats and gestures of contempt against his commander in front of officers up to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and non-commissioned officers up to the rank of Sergeant Major and suffer nothing for it. For Bouhammer and those who agree with him, Article 89 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice must be no more than a mere suggestion and the role of a general officer in ensuring that those entrusted to his command uphold well-established principles of military discipline, well, that's just "asinine, idiotic and downright stupid."
Of course, my family and I are forced to endure the blowback from such stupidity every day. Such the pity that I can't make Bouhammer walk a mile in our shoes.
8 comments:
May god bless you and your family. Thank god for men and women who defend our nation.
Siobhan,
We were thinking about you and Phil on this Memorial day. We couldn't find an email address and thought this may be a way of getting a note to you. We have not read all the content of your blog but were really dismayed to learn about what was going on. Please know that we still grieve with you and keep you in our prayers. We will always remember Phil as a special and honorable man.
Sincerely,
Mike Vande Woude & Nancy D'Alessandro
Siobhan,
It's been five years since you lost your husband, your daughter lost her father, and I lost my friend. I don't know why it has taken me so long to send a note to you, but I'm so, so sorry for your loss. I think of Phil often and although we've never met, I think of you often, too.
Phil was my roommate the fall semester of our junior year. He was a great roommate, and a great friend.
Ed Austin
H2, '97
We found your blog in the course of researching the senate's confirmation process for military officers. We must tell you that a commanding general is as responsible for what goes on down at a subordinate company command orderly room, as he/she is at battalion, task force, brigade, division, corps, army and army group headquarters. If your readers don't think so, then they simply don't get it, are naive and have no earthly idea what the authority and responsibility of command are really all about. What can be delegated and what cannot be delegated is so historically well known that it cannot be denied (even by those who are in denial). That is, one can delegate authority, but one can never delegate responsibility. That's why Harry S. Truman said that the buck stopped with him---at the highest headquarters that there is in the United States, i.e., the office of the constitutional commander in chief at the White House, on Air Force One, or in any other location that the president might be hanging his hat. Naturally, we can't speak for the guard, but only for the regular army.
We very much agree with the previous post as to "the authority and responsibility of command" and very much disagree with the remarks (source: links below): "...Now anyone that knows military ranks and levels of leadership know that blaming the Division Commander is like blaming the President for something that a TSA agent does at an airport. Those two positions (Division Commander and Company Commander) are so far apart and disconnected, it isn’t even funny. It is asinine, idiotic and downright stupid to hold a CG accountable for something like a fragging within a company..."
If any experienced and knowledgeable active duty career Soldier (even a junior NCO) reads the following brief autobiography, he can see that this fellow is a relentless self-promoter (i.e., overblown resume) whose own description of himself says that he has spent a lot of time behind a desk, e.g., "HHC" (head-and-head stuff) & "rear detachment" (with academic credentials that are on their surface automatically suspect, i.e., "University of Phoenix")---although he says, "...I have killed more than my fair share of caribou..." (whatever that's supposed to mean).
It would be interesting to know what active duty rank he held when he was (apparently honorably) discharged from the regular army to join the guard, that is, where between private and sergeant major, i.e., between the pay grades of E-1 and E-9 he achieved (and why he left active duty, after apparently being close to half way to retirement, i.e., 9 years "1987" to "1996"); what his regular army rack looks like (i.e., active duty awards and decorations); what his college transcripts (his grades) look like; what in the world "deployments to NYC" mean exactly (e.g., to the "Republican National Convention in 2004"); what "jumping into most of those places" means precisely, and so forth.
These links reflect this fellow in his own words (according to his web site http://www.bouhammer.com/2010/02/what-a-tragedy/ from your blog here, and then to http://www.bouhammer.com/about/). Note: Although we tried our best, we gave up on trying to meet your four thousand or so character limitation on the size of a post, thereby foregoing the complete quote of this fellow's overblown autobiography.
We very much agree with the previous post as to "the authority and responsibility of command" and very much disagree with the remarks (source: links below): "...Now anyone that knows military ranks and levels of leadership know that blaming the Division Commander is like blaming the President for something that a TSA agent does at an airport. Those two positions (Division Commander and Company Commander) are so far apart and disconnected, it isn’t even funny. It is asinine, idiotic and downright stupid to hold a CG accountable for something like a fragging within a company..."
If any experienced and knowledgeable active duty career Soldier (even a junior NCO) reads the following brief autobiography, he can see that this fellow is a relentless self-promoter (i.e., overblown resume) whose own description of himself says that he has spent a lot of time behind a desk, e.g., "HHC" (head-and-head stuff) & "rear detachment" (with academic credentials that are on their surface automatically suspect, i.e., "University of Phoenix")---although he says, "...I have killed more than my fair share of caribou..." (whatever that's supposed to mean).
It would be interesting to know what active duty rank he held when he was (apparently honorably) discharged from the regular army to join the guard, that is, where between private and sergeant major, i.e., between the pay grades of E-1 and E-9 he achieved (and why he left active duty, after apparently being close to half way to retirement, i.e., 9 years "1987" to "1996"); what his regular army rack looks like (i.e., active duty awards and decorations); what his college transcripts (his grades) look like; what in the world "deployments to NYC" mean exactly (e.g., to the "Republican National Convention in 2004"); what "jumping into most of those places" means precisely, and so forth.
These links reflect this fellow in his own words (according to his web site http://www.bouhammer.com/2010/02/what-a-tragedy/ from your blog here, and then to http://www.bouhammer.com/about/). Note: Although we tried our best, we gave up on trying to meet your four thousand or so character limitation on the size of a post, thereby foregoing the complete quote of this fellow's overblown autobiography.
We think that we can make some comments that may add to the moderator's assessment of the guard division under discussion.
Generally speaking, the lower standards for the guard (than for the regular army) have been going on for decades---this, since the congress/pentagon made a conscious decision to use the inactive guard/reserve to "round out" regular army (RA) active duty (AD) units. The purpose was to exaggerate the readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces in the eyes of the OPFOR, e.g., Cold War Russia; Saddam Hussein's Iraq; Mullah Omar's Afghanistan; Osama bin Laden's & Ayman al Zawahiri's terrorist organization, etc.
When the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, TX deployed to REFORGER 83 in northwestern Germany (augmenting the Dutch corps there)---the First Team included a "round out" brigade of guard. In other words, the RA division had 2 AD brigades of armor/mech infantry training 12 months per year on the Cowhouse Creek, plus 1 guard brigade "training" for about 1 month each year.
When the First Team arrived in Germany with sidearms, rifles & other personal weapons---its 15,000 personnel then drew everything else from POMCUS (Prepositioning Of Material Configured in Unit Sets). The latter included tracked/wheeled vehicles, e.g., main battle tanks; armored personnel carriers; combat engineer vehicles; armored vehicle launched bridges; jeeps and so forth.
The one thing that sticks out in our memory about the guard brigade that deployed with the First Team for 6 weeks in 1983, was that it was not prepared to do much of anything---other than catch a plane at the CONUS POE; debark at the European POD; (barely) draw its equipment from POMCUS; form a convoy and get on the autobahn; travel between point "A" and point "B"; and then reverse the process from point "B".
It wasn't so much that the members of the guard brigade didn't want to participate in the exercise, but rather that their chain of command was more or less inept---beginning with the brigade CO and "HHC". The RA folks tolerated the guard folks, and mainly hoped that the latter would just stay out of the way.
When the First Team deployed to Operation Desert Storm in 1991, it simply left the under "trained" guard round out brigade behind.
Have things changed much? It doesn't sound like it from this blog.
By the way, the moderator of this blog may be interested to know that the so called "milblogger" mentioned by her and an earlier poster may in fact be the (self-described) ex-guard member at the following 3 links: http://gazingattheflag.blogspot.com/2009/07/year-of-nco-1sg-troy-steward.html and http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/07/31/25301-year-of-the-noncommissioned-officer---spotlight-nco/?ref=home-spot3-title and http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/07/31/25301-year-of-the-noncommissioned-officer---spotlight-nco/?ref=home-spot3-title, the latter stating: "After figuring out where we would be sitting and walking through the steps we would take to have the awards presented, someone walked up to ask us to follow him and meet the CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, Admiral Mike Mullen. The Admiral was there and wanted to meet all the recipients. The first thing the Admiral did was shake my hand and present me one of his coins (that coin trumps all now), and then WE SPENT ABOUT 5-6 MINUTES DISCUSSING AFGHANISTAN POLICY. What an opportunity that was and not one I ever thought I could imagine I would be in, especially with a Crown and Coke in my hand. He walked up and asked me, "So 1SG you were in Afghanistan huh?" As I looked at him perplexed HE TOLD ME THAT HE READ ALL ABOUT ME, INCLUDING READING SOME ENTRIES FROM MY BLOG...which just about floored me. HE AND I TALKED ABOUT THE PROGRESS WE ARE MAKING ON THE GROUND with the Afghan Army and what the new Afghan National Police mission has done to the forces on the ground trying to stretch between the two..." (EMPHASIS added)
Hi Siobhan,
I'm Bill Donohue, a co-worker of Phil's at Citi. As a writer, I've been searching for an outlet to voice my outrage over this verdict...but I also did not want to overstep my boundaries. I'm happy to see a post from Mike & Nancy...I know Mike was very fond of Phil as a person.
My wife and I visited The Point 2 weekends ago and stayed at the Thayer. We went for a weekend away from Long Island, but I also had been wanting to go to..in some way...pay respects to Phil. He seldom left my thoughts as we walked through the cemetery, stood at Trophy Point, visited the monuments near The Plain. I tried to imagine Phil there...and what it was like to go to school at USMA. I wished I could have been the kind of person to have WANTED to go there and and to have led such a purposeful life. Every stop I made, I said something to him...I hope I made him happy.
I always remember the time we took some time off work to walk up to Borders' on Broadway. Pete Rose was there and Phil wanted to get a book signed for his Dad. Phil was saying that we had to get back soon, we'd been gone too long! I told him to relax, life's too short, something like this doesn't happen everyday! :-) I may have been the only one ever to lead Phil off the "straight & narrow!"
I share your pain, be assured. Ask anyone at Citi, I am not one who suffers injustice well and I was a victim of such there. I am constantly reminded of the verse from scripture that reads, " 'Vengeance is mine. I will repay,' sayeth the Lord." If only I was as good a person as to be so patient.
If you ever would require help with writing anything, Siobhan (although you do perfectly! on your own), please let me know. I would consider it a privilege.
Yours Sincerely,
Bill Donohue
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