McChrystal in the classroom
TT sends a link from the New York Times‘ Elisabeth Bumuller who decides to take a look into General Stanley McCrystal’s Yale classroom to see how he faring among the pointy-headed crowd. It seems he’s doing better than an American general of the Vietnam era might have done;
“The first day I came here, they were expecting a demonstration,” General McChrystal, who is retired from the military, said in an interview after class, shortly before heading out to a New Haven bar for beers with his students. “And I was mad because there were only nine people” protesting his appointment.
But that isn’t the end of it. The students seem to be more mature than their teachers;
At Yale the military is, for most students, a great unknown, and many in General McChrystal’s class say they signed up out of curiosity. “I would never have imagined myself three years ago in a course taught by a general,” said Erik Heinonen, one of General McChrystal’s students and a former Peace Corps volunteer.
Some faculty members at Yale remain opposed to a retired celebrity general who does not hold their union card, a Ph.D., teaching at a civilian university, and say they are uncomfortable with his history of driving the secret commando raids that killed so many people in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also point out that the wars of the last decade have been unpopular on campus.
But faculty members who support General McChrystal say that students distinguish between the warriors and the wars, and that Yale should include an option to learn firsthand about the military as part of a college education.
“There is almost no antimilitary bias among students,” said John Lewis Gaddis, a Yale history professor and the recipient of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for biography, who has welcomed General McChrystal to Yale. “I wouldn’t say it’s true among the faculty.”
I envy and admire those students for seeking knowledge from people who actually wrote history instead of just succumbing to the usual liberal drivel from people who only write about history. Yale is lucky to have McCrystal and I hope they continue to ignore the filthy 60s hippie beasts who are clinging to their tenure and sequestered behind the Ivy-covered walls safe from the realities of the world.
Category: Schools, Veterans Issues
It was funny because I remember a professor in a English lit class I had to take bragging about protesting the School of the Americas every year and being a part of the 60s counter culture… She wasn’t as warmly received as she thought she would be. I got a D in her class, but I did tell her I would have been better suited to pile my cash up and burn it, I would have at least been warm.
Reading articles like this almost make me want to get my masters and phd just so I can teach…
Jason, grab your academic ruck and let’s go! I need somebody I can trust on flank security! (I’m currently in school for my teaching credentials, hoping to do what I think you’d like to see in the educational system) Best, HG
Once I get a little more on my recovery I think I am going to start looking into distance masters programs. If nothing else if I can teach some ethics or intro to philosophy classes at some of the community colleges.
I don’t know why people continue to praise McChrystal. He should be in leavenworth and not yale. He has blood on his handsand he was an incompetent theater commander in Afghanistan
When I enlisted in 1999, I had a good friend who went to Yale. She was smart, friendly, pretty, and all around great gal.
A few years later, we ran into each other at a bar back home. We somehow got into a conversation about the war, and I told her I was proud to serve and excited to deploy to Iraq. She responded, in all her Yaley-ness, “thats because you’re brainwashed”. She went on to tell me that the only people who joined the military were “broken people”.
Haven’t spoken to the her since. Fuck Yale. They turned a great girl who was friendly and smart, into a egotistical cunt and probably have done the same to countless others.
I hope ALL (except No. 4) you Commenters teach, lecture, and generally clean up The Colleges — man, do they require it .
No. 6 (“Anonymous”) is I, DR BRETT
(I forgot to sign in) .
I’m surprised I ever graduated! I went back to school in 1982 and caught plenty of flack from former ‘hair head’ teachers who still hated the military 10 years after the end of the war in Viet Nam. What bothered me then and what scares me now is that fewer teens/young adults are going straight into college after high school with no understanding of the REAL world. It leaves them so impressionable to the propaganda spewed by the socialist educators in our colleges and universities.
As I’ve told plenty of people, “If I was brainwashed by the Marine Corps it beats being lobotomized by they ultra liberal left”.
“They also point out that the wars of the last decade have been unpopular on campus.”
Yes, and mainly because the teachers proselytized on the subject.
Good article Jonn, well said.
The General really is a great speaker, I still enjoy watching him at TED last year:
It’s not because he’s a retired general that the professors hate him. It’s because he’s probably one of the only ones on campus that has had an actual job that didn’t involve making coffee or waiting tables. Imagine having a college professor in an Ivy league school that has the ability to back up what he says with real life experience. Must put the others in a tizzy.
I agree with your point gschmitt.
It’s the reason why sometimes you see even professors making fake claims of having a background in spec ops.
Even a professor with the most advanced of degrees is nothing compared to a military veteran that has served in the most elite of units and in some of the most intense theaters of war.
No matter how much these phonies may hate the military, deep inside they probably have penis envy and jealousy over a been there, done that type of guy. They just don’t have that ‘street cred’ someone like McChrystal has. It’s like Code Pink and those other weirdos, they may profess to hate the military and war, yet they still want that association with military veterans that have seen combat.
I would like point out that the battle of Ganjigal in Kunar Province where Dakota Meyer was awarded the MOH is because of McChrystals piss poor ROE.
And I would also like to point that he stated (and I’m paraphrasing) that if we come in contact with the enemy and if there is any possibility of injuring civilians we have to break contact. Sometimes it’s a little hard when you’re in a river valley getting shot at from multiple sides. Spoken like a cherry that’s never been in a fire fight.
Am I the only one here that was in Afghan in 2010 when that asshat was in charge?
dirtymick, I find it rather odd that you accuse General McCrystal of imposing impossible ROEs. ROEs come from the DoD, your obvious buddy leon putznetta and the joint chiefs. Gen. McCrystal is a soldier following orders. The ‘not killing civilians if it’s avoidable’ is the policy of your cic & potus, comrade obama because he cares more about them than American GIs.
For someone who claims to have “been there and done that” to accuse a General Officer of being a “cherry that’s never been in a fire fight”. Psst, your ignorance is showing.
His ROE when he was theater commander his directives came down signed by him. I remember having to stand in formation while the platoon read his tactical directive. Let vehicles in your convoys, warning shots are no longer authorized, I have to gain positive identification (muzzle flashes, smoke plooms etc. even though the best course of action is shoot at possible fighting positions, avenues of approach and put down suppressive fire to keep the enemies head down. It’s kind of hard to get PID when engagements were 500m plus a lot of times in kunar)etc etc. I’ve had to sit in an OP and relay fire missions to units in contact to Camp Wright to only have to get back on the radio and tell the unit in contact that it can’t be authorized or it’s going to take an hour to get approved. So yes I’m a bit salty at McChrystal.
I have never claimed to have been there done that but the problem is he had no combat time and had never led conventional troops.
If ROE comes straight from DOD like you said then how come when Petreaus took over as theater commander after McChrystal got canned he loosened the ROE?
I have never once claimed to have been there done that. I’m just irritated that guys like McChrystal get praised when the guy was an incompetent (we saw it first hand in RC East). Yes I’m calling a general officer a cherry because it’s assholes like him and countless other general officers (including our civilian leadership) that have turned Afghanistan into a fucking disaster. I’m all about staying and doing the job but I have no longer have confidence in my civilian leadership and the generals that are running these wars.
“If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy… if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don’t know whether you will create civilian casualties, if you can withdraw from that situation without firing, then you must do so,”
-Stanley McChrystal
Spoken like someone who has never been in a fire fight.
I know I’m not an eloquent person but this sums it up:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2010/10/19/problems-with-the-applied-rules-of-engagement/#comments
Yat Yas I’ve followed your comments for a long time and I back your play 99% of the time but you try playing 11Bravo or 0311 at the platoon/company level for almost a year with all the bullshit that’s been happening with this fight since 09 (actually the whole duration of the war) and you’ll understand my frustration
Also, his idea of turning over the Korengal April 2010 during the spring offensive when a new brigade was RIPing (327 infantry) in because of some magical idea that Population centric COIN was the right idea was an act of sheer genius.
Here’s the 15-6 investigation on the battle of Ganjigal in Kunar Province… http://www.captainsjournal.com/2010/02/19/ar-15-6-investigation-of-marine-deaths-in-kunar-province/
McChrystal has blood on his hands.
No one ever protested the avowed Communist-Black Panther-gun runner-FBI’s Ten Most wanted list “Professor” Angela Davis. But military veteran McChrystal is practically vilified. Enlightened Yale students maybe… fellow Yale professors, I doubt it. I bet his fellow “professors” snub him at the cocktail parties.
Dirty Mick, I am with you. McChrystal is a tool. He was a big fan of COIN on roids and no amount of post career reconstruction can change that.
To further illustrate how foolish the man is you need go no further than the elections in 2008. McChrystal was a big BHO supporter and yet he was stunned when BHO did not give him the requested number of troops for the Ghan surge. Why was he stunned? Did he not pay attention to everything BHO said about the surge in Iraq? Or is he just that stupid?
As to general grade officers as a rule, you are again spot on. They suck. How many of them realize we are losing the war in Afghanistan? I will bet quite a few do and yet they say absolutely nothing about it. How many have resigned in protest over how we are fighting the war? How many have even raised a peep abouta plan that calls for us to stay in the Ghan to a certain point and then just leave, no matter what the situation in the Ghan is?
Why are we letting our soldiers and Marines get killed if the policy is not to win the war?
Yep, McChrystal is an ass hat and he has a lot of company.
“There is almost no antimilitary bias among the students.”
That’s because it’s all among the teachers and professors (Marxist asshats).
jack @ 22 you summed it up well… “Why are we letting our soldiers and Marines get killed if the policy is not to win the war?” america let’s politics and public opinion control the war tempo way too much. and the only ones that pay for it are the grunts on the ground. the colonels and generals get to sit back and fast track to promotions while the civilian leadership fucks everything up.
“ROEs come from the DoD”
No they don’t. Theater-wide ROE comes from the Geographic Combatant Commander (GCC: CENTCOM, EUCOM, PACOM, etc.).
JOA-wide ROE, which can be more restrictive but not less restrictive, comes from the senior commander responsible for it.