Unrelated shorts – Sullivan dies, St. Louis arrest

GEN Gordon Sullivan died at age 86 on January 2.  Not sure who he was? The good general had a unique distinction  – Army Secretary and Chief of staff – simultaneously.

Retired Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, who served as the Army’s 32nd chief of staff from 1991 to 1995 and oversaw pivotal post-Cold War transformations, died Jan. 2 at the age of 86, according to the Association of the U.S. Army.

Sullivan, who began his Army career as an armor lieutenant in 1959, is the only person in modern Army history to have served simultaneously as the service’s chief of staff and acting Army secretary. President Bill Clinton tapped Sullivan as the acting secretary of the Army for a three month period in 1993 after the last person holding that post, John W. Shannon, was caught shoplifting from the base exchange at Fort Myer, Virginia.

His tenure as chief was marked by significant troop cuts — a 600,000 soldier reduction in the years following Desert Storm — and political controversy over gender integration and the introduction of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy that permitted closeted gays and lesbians to serve in the military. Sullivan, who opposed women in combat arms units, told interviewers in 2002 that in retrospect, he believed “the Army did not to a very good job of executing” gender-integrated training policies. Amid these other efforts, the Sullivan-era Army also deployed soldiers for contingency operations in Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda and the Balkans.

Asked about the experience in a 2002 oral history interview, Sullivan quipped that “life was very easy because I didn’t have a secretary of the Army between me and the secretary of defense.”  Army Time

Respects to the rank and his career. To be frank, though, if I have to list Army debacles in the ’90s, his fingerprints are on most of them.

H/t to JeffLPH for this one

And now to the dark side:

Brett Leary, 42, of St. Louis has been charged with stealing $36,000 from a veteran’s fund.

Leary is accused of stealing more than $36,000 from the Gateway Warrior Foundation while he served as vice president. Investigators say his father found (sic) the organization back in 2014, and it aims to provide service dogs and other resources to wounded veterans.

According to court documents obtained by FOX 2, Leary became vice president of the organization earlier this year “due to restructuring of the foundation’s leadership.”

The foundation kept funds in a bank account at a Commerce Bank branch in Eureka, but shortly after the leadership change, that account closed.

Court documents indicate that Leary opened a new bank account in Eureka and was given full authority to make online transactions. He reportedly had a debit card connected to the account and checks sent to his home.

Investigators say that Leary admitted to stealing funds from the organization, then offered a $36,716.44 check to cover the funds he allegedly misappropriated. Court documents state the check came back for insufficient funds.

Leary turned himself in to the Eureka Police Department earlier this month and was charged on Dec. 21. He had a criminal setting hearing scheduled for January 29, 2024, per Missouri court records.  Fox2

Stealing from a vets charity? Anyone else for making “kneecapping a mandatory first-offence penalty, or is that too Irish of me?

Category: Army, Crime, fraud