National Guard News - ROUND-UP: Significant week in Defense Department news

ROUND-UP: Significant week in Defense Department news

Editor’s Note: It was a particularly significant week in news from the Defense Department, with the announcement of the nomination of Leon Panetta to replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates, of Army Gen. David Petraeus to head the CIA and of Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Allen to command Afghanistan operations.

Meanwhile, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cited the National Guard’s role in connecting the armed forces to civilians in a speech highlighting personnel issues.

The National Guard and other Reserve components are great avenues for connections, he said. These service members are in every part of the country and can explain the military to the greater population. Mullen said the military needs to use this avenue to better communicate with America.

Mullen also said the Defense Department must help solve the federal debt crisis.

Also this week, Army Gen. William “Kip” Ward – U.S. Africa Command’s first commander and a consistent supporter of the National Guard’s State Partnership Program – retired, and Saturday was the 36th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, which shaped many of today’s military leaders, including Mullen and Petraeus.

A round-up of Defense Department news this week …

President praises Gates, nominates new security team

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addresses participants at the leadership breakfast for the Government Executive Media Groups at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., April 28, 2011. The National Guard and other Reserve components are great avenues to connect the armed forces with the American people, he said. These service members are in every part of the country and can explain the military to the greater population. Mullen said the military needs to use this avenue to better communicate with America. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley) (Released)
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WASHINGTON (4/29/11) - President Barack Obama on Thursday thanked Defense Secretary Robert Gates for his service as he officially announced his intention to nominate CIA Director Leon Panetta to lead the Pentagon after Gates retires June 30.

Obama said Gates will go down in history as one of the finest defense secretaries in U.S. history.

The president also nominated Army Gen. David Petraeus to succeed Panetta at the CIA and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Allen to succeed Petraeus as commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Obama also is nominating Ryan Crocker to return from retirement and serve as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. The nominations are subject to Senate confirmation.

"Given the pivotal period that we're entering, I felt that it was absolutely critical that we had this team in place so that we can stay focused on our missions, maintain our momentum and keep our nation secure," Obama said in the White House East Room.

Gates will step down after serving more than four and a half years in office. President George W. Bush nominated Gates for the job at a time when prospects in Iraq looked bleak. The surge of U.S. forces into Iraq was hitting its stride, and hundreds of attacks occurred each day on coalition forces in the country.

"Today, every American must know that because he helped to responsibly wind down the war in Iraq, we're in a better position to support our troops and manage the transition in Afghanistan," Obama said. "Because he challenged conventional thinking, our troops have the lifesaving equipment they need, and our military is better prepared for today's wars.

"And because he courageously cut unnecessary spending," the president continued, "we'll save hundreds of billions of dollars that can be invested in the 21st-century military that our troops deserve."

The United States military has fought in two wars every day of Gates' tenure. Service members have also stood watch elsewhere around the globe. "It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve and to lead our men and women in uniform and our defense civilians," he said. "They are the best America has to offer.

"My highest priority from my first day in office," he added, "has been to do everything I could for our uniformed men and women in harm's way to help them accomplish their mission, to come home safely, and if wounded, to get them the best possible care from battlefield to home front. I've done my best to care for them as though they were my own sons and daughters, and I will miss them deeply."

The president said Panetta has the right skills to take over for Gates. "The patriotism and extraordinary management skills that have defined Leon's four decades of service is exactly what we need in our next secretary of defense," Obama said. "As a former congressman and White House chief of staff, Leon knows how to lead, which is why he is held in such high esteem not only in this city, but around the world."

Panetta has served as CIA director for more than two years. The president said he has played a decisive role in the fight against violent extremism.

"He understands that even as we begin the transition in Afghanistan, we must remain unwavering in our fight against al-Qaida," Obama said. "And as a former [Office of Management and Budget] director, he will ensure that even as we make tough budget decisions, we will maintain our military superiority and keep our military the very best in the world."

Panetta thanked the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency for their superb, but unheralded work.

"I spent 40 years in public service, and it began when I served in the Army as an intelligence officer in the 1960s," he said. "I was proud to wear the uniform of our country, and my respect and admiration for our nation's armed forces has only grown in the decades since."

Obama stressed continuity, noting that Petraeus will carry on Panetta's work at the CIA. After 35 years in uniform, the general will retire from the Army to become the next CIA director, effective early September, pending Senate confirmation.

"As a lifelong consumer of intelligence, he knows that intelligence must be timely, accurate and acted upon quickly," Obama said. "He understands that staying a step ahead of nimble adversaries requires sharing and coordinating information, including with my director of national intelligence, Jim Clapper."

Obama said he values Petraeus' flexibility and adaptability. "Just as General Petraeus changed the way that our military fights and wins wars in the 21st century, I have no doubt that Director Petraeus will guide our intelligence professionals as they continue to adapt and innovate in an ever-changing world," the president said.

And Allen is the right man for the job in Afghanistan, the president said.

"As a battle-tested combat leader, in Iraq he helped turn the tide in Anbar province," he said. "As deputy commander of Central Command, he's respected in the region and has been deeply involved in planning and executing our strategy in Afghanistan."

Panetta would bring decades of service to Pentagon

By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (4/29/11) – CIA Director Leon Panetta, President Barack Obama's choice as the next secretary of defense, would bring to the job more than 40 years of government service that has traversed local and federal government and the legislative and executive branches.

Like soon-to-retire Defense Secretary Robert Gates, also a former CIA director, Panetta served briefly in the military. He served as an Army intelligence officer from 1964 to 1966 and received the Army Commendation Medal.

After his discharge, the Monterey, Calif., native and son of Italian immigrants set the stage for his long government career by working as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senate minority whip Tom Kuchel of California. In 1969, he was appointed as director of the U.S. Office of Civil Rights in President Richard Nixon's administration.

Panetta, a graduate of Santa Clara Law School, served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 16 years and chaired the House Budget Committee from 1989 to 1993.

Panetta left Congress in 1993 to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget in President Bill Clinton's administration, where he took a leading role in balancing the federal budget that led, briefly, to budget surpluses. He served as Clinton's chief of staff from 1994 to 1997.

Panetta and his wife, Sylvia, founded the nonpartisan Panetta Institute for Public Policy in 1997 at California State University, Monterey Bay. The institute provides a range of opportunities for studying government – awarding master's degrees, hosting research fellows and sponsoring congressional internships. Sylvia Panetta serves as the institute's director.

The institute's Leon E. Panetta Archive offers a resource for scholars interested in the workings of Congress, federal agencies and local government, based on Panetta's personal papers from four decades of work.

Panetta has served on numerous boards and commissions, including some related to the military. He co-chaired California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Council on Base Support and Retention and in 2006 served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan national commission seeking a new course for the war in Iraq.

Panetta, appointed as CIA director in 2009, is 72. The Panettas have three grown sons.

If confirmed by the Senate to serve as secretary of defense, he would take office July 1.

Mullen discusses personnel pluses, concerns

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (4/29/11) – Calling personnel issues his greatest comfort and greatest concern, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday praised U.S. service members for the way they’ve adapted over a decade of war.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen told attendees at a Government Executive Magazine leadership briefing that while he is most proud of the flexibility and adaptability of American military forces, he also is concerned that America is losing touch with its military.

The experience in Iraq illustrates the adaptability of American service members, Mullen said, noting that when he took office in 2007, the U.S. surge into Iraq was under way and the levels of violence in the country were high and looked to be going higher.

“I was there last week, and it is like night and day,” Mullen said. “There has truly been an extraordinary shift and change and the creation of an opportunity for 26 million people that just didn’t exist. That came at a great price, and that [this has occurred] is a reflection of our military’s ability to adapt and change from the classic conventional force to what I call the best counterinsurgency force in the world.”

After 10 years of war and the multiple deployments that has entailed, the American military continues to learn and adapt, Mullen said.

A well-known strength of the U.S. military is that it’s an all-volunteer, professional force, the chairman said. But less well known is that it’s also a weakness, because only a small percentage of the nation’s population has a first-hand military connection.

“I do worry about the connection we have with the American people,” the chairman said. “We’re less than 1 percent of the population, we come from fewer and fewer places, and I worry about the things we don’t do any more.”

The base realignment and closure process has shuttered many facilities, Mullen said, and that means service members no longer live in many neighborhoods around the country where they once were part of the fabric.

“We’re not in the churches, coaching the teams, going to the schools,” he said. “So the relationship or understanding [of the military] is often created by what’s in the media.”

The military footprint in the country will not change, the chairman said. “But America’s military must stay connected with the American people,” he added. “If we wake up one day and find out that we’re disconnected or almost disconnected, I think that’s a bad outcome for the country.”

The American people respect the military and want to reach out to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, Mullen said, but often are confused about how to do so. The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments and local communities must work together to ease service members’ transition to civilian communities when they leave the military, the nation’s top military officer said.

If they do, he added, the communities certainly will get more than they give.

“I say this generation is ‘wired to serve,’” he said. “They are in their mid-20s, and they’ve seen some very difficult times in some cases. But they offer great potential for our country, and with a little investment, … they’ll take off and provide decades of service.”

Americans also need to reach out to those wounded in the wars and the families of those killed, Mullen said, noting that these families lost their lifelines to the military when their spouses died. The military needs to embrace these families, he said, and so do America’s communities.

Finally, the chairman repeated a message he has emphasized consistently and repeatedly about the need for the military to remain apolitical. The U.S. military always is under civilian control, and uniformed members “need to be absolutely neutral,” Mullen said.

“We serve the civilian leadership,” he said, “and we need to be very mindful of that and how we speak about it and engage, whether we are active or Reserves.”

Obama taps Allen to command forces in Afghanistan

By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (4/29/11) – Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Allen, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, is poised to become the first Marine to command all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama on Thursday named Allen as his pick to replace Army Gen. David Petraeus as commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan as part of a reshuffling of his national security team.

Allen assumed his current duties in July 2008. He served briefly as U.S. Central Command’s acting commander when Petraeus, CENTCOM commander at the time, left for Afghanistan until Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis succeeded Petraeus.

"It is absolutely critical we have this team in place to sustain our mission," Obama said in announcing his selections at a White House event. The new team, he added, would provide "the continuity and unity of effort that this time in history demands."

Obama called Allen "a battle-tested combat leader in Iraq who helped turn the tide in Anbar province," where Allen served as deputy commanding general of Multinational Division West and the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force from 2006 to 2008.

Since becoming CENTCOM's deputy commander, Allen also has been immersed in the war in Afghanistan, helping to execute military strategy there, Obama said.

"I understand well the demands of this mission," Allen said at the White House today. "If confirmed, I will dedicate my full measure to the successful accomplishment of the tasks before us."

A senior administration official speaking to reporters on background Wednesday said Allen and the others were chosen because they have a proven record of working closely as a team. For his part, Allen is well-known to White House officials for working through some of the toughest problems in dealing with Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, the official said.

Allen is a 1976 Naval Academy graduate who holds three master's degrees in national security-related subjects. He is a former commander of The Basic School and deputy commandant of the Naval Academy. In 2002, he became the first Marine to serve as the academy's commandant of midshipmen.

Mullen: DOD must help solve federal debt crisis

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (4/29/11) – The Defense Department has to be part of the solution for the country's debt crisis, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here Thursday.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen has called the federal debt "the biggest single threat to national security."

It is simple math, the admiral told a Government Executive Magazine leadership forum at the National Press Club. "The worse the financial situation is in the country, the greater the likelihood that resources for national security will go down," he said.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Defense Department budget has almost doubled. Having this ready spigot of money "hasn't forced us to make the hard choices," Mullen said.

"It hasn't forced us to prioritize," he explained. "It hasn't forced us to do the analysis. And it hasn't forced us to limit ourselves and get to a point or deciding, in a very turbulent world, what we're going to do and what we're not going to do."

Defense spending needs to be on the table, the chairman said, noting that it is his job to articulate national security requirements. The country is in a particularly difficult situation, he said, in regard to Air Force modernization.

"We are running out of life in those assets that we bought in the '80s during the Reagan administration," he said.

The national security environment is changing, Mullen said, and often changes. The chairman told the audience that four months ago, he would not have predicted that he would be concerned about Japan and Libya. But now a NATO operation is under way to protect the Libyan people from Moammar Gadhafi's regime, and an earthquake and tsunami disaster sent almost 20,000 U.S. service members and 18 ships to the coast of Japan to assist in the aftermath.

"The demands continue," he said. "We've got to be measured about what we're going to do and what we're not going to do."

The chairman said he is worried about ill-advised personnel cuts "hollowing out" the military.

"However we get to our future, it must be whole," he said. "We talk about cuts in personnel. When I was head of the Navy, personnel was 60 percent of my budget every year. I need every single person I have, but I don't need one more."

Although eliminating force structure can save a lot of money, Mullen said, the country must evaluate that against overall requirements.

Health care costs for the Defense Department, Mullen said, are another concern. In fiscal 2001, health care costs were $19 billion. Today, those costs are pegged at $51 billion, and they are projected to rise to $64 billion in 2015.

"That's not sustainable," he said. "We all have to sharpen our pencils and make sure that every dollar we spend is spent well. We need to be good stewards of the dollars the American taxpayers give us, and we're going to have to do the hard work to get that right."

AFRICOM'S first commander retires after 40-year career

By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service

FORT MYER, Va. (4/29/11) – Army Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward reviewed and saluted the troops for the last time Tuesday on Summerall Field parade ground here as he retired from a career that spanned four decades and culminated in his service as the first commander of U.S. Africa Command.

"This has been an experience for Kip Ward," the general said. "I would not trade it for anything. I leave this position proudly, honorably, humbly."

AFRICOM stood up its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, in October 2007.

Army Secretary John M. McHugh reflected on Ward's career.

"From Somalia to Cairo to Israel and Stuttgart, and back home again, Kip Ward has distinguished himself in each and every assignment," McHugh said. "On behalf of the U.S. Army Kip, 'Job well done.'"

McHugh noted Ward is a Baltimore native and the son of a World War II combat engineer who served at a time when the Army was segregated.

"I imagine it would have been easy, and indeed it would have been understandable, if Kip Ward turned away, rather than turned toward and embraced the Army, both as an institution and as a career," McHugh said.

By following in his father's footsteps, McHugh said, Ward's career is an inspiration.

"That a son of a sergeant in a segregated Army would rise through the ranks to become one of only a handful of African-Americans in our nation's history to attain the rank of four-star general is a testament to the integrity, tenacity, character and the ability of General Kip Ward," the Army secretary said.

Ward said he was 22 years old when Air Force fighter pilot Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. – who later would become the first African-American four-star general – commissioned him as an infantry officer in 1971. Initially, Ward said, he thought he'd spend four years in the Army and then go to law school.

"But as the years went on," Ward said, "it became clearer that serving my country and taking care of my teammates was a pretty fulfilling undertaking ... in a way I saw my dad do it."

Wearing a star, Ward told the crowd of well-wishers, doesn't mean it belongs to the one who wears it.

"[It belongs] to all the aspects of one's life that created the opportunities, and to the causes that led to that star," he said. "I have proudly worn the cloth of our nation. ... I never left a fallen comrade. I remain proud to serve. I am a Soldier."

As a commander, Ward said, he shared his commitment to his troops with an equal commitment to their families. One of his privileges during his career, he said, was meeting America's sons and daughters, and caring for their families.

"There is no greater honor," he said.

Vietnam legacy shapes today's military leaders

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (4/29/11) – Saturday marks the 36th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War – a conflict that claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and continues to affect the United States, including its military leaders and current wartime operations.

The fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, marked the dramatic and painful culmination of the Vietnam War.

The last of the dominos were laid when then-President Richard Nixon announced the end of offensive operations against North Vietnam after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on Jan. 27, 1973. The accords called for a ceasefire in South Vietnam, but allowed North Vietnamese forces to retain the territory they had captured.

With nearly all U.S. forces gone, and Congress' passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 that cut off military aid to South Vietnam, North Vietnam became emboldened. Its forces began a steady march southward toward Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital.

As the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon, Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation operation in history, commenced, moving tens of thousands of American military and civilian personnel from the city, along with thousands of South Vietnamese civilians.

On April 29, 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a heavy artillery bombardment that would become their final attack on Saigon. The city fell the following afternoon when a North Vietnamese tank crashed the gates of the presidential palace, accepting South Vietnam's unconditional surrender.

Ho Chi Minh's dream of a unified, communist Vietnam was fulfilled, and the city once known as Saigon today bears his name. Vietnam now celebrates April 30 as Reunification Day.

The Vietnam War cost millions of lives, including 58,267 Americans, with more than 300,000 U.S. service members wounded in action and 1,711 missing in action.

The Vietnam War had a profound impact on today's American military leaders, including Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

And in many ways, the lessons learned during the Vietnam conflict have shaped the way U.S. forces operate today, particularly in conducting counterinsurgency operations like those under way in Afghanistan.

Mullen, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer, is among the few people still on active duty who experienced Vietnam firsthand. Fresh from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968, he reported aboard the destroyer USS Collett for duty as an anti-submarine officer and participated in combat operations off the Vietnam coast.

Mullen speaks frequently about how the Vietnam War affected the nation and shaped him both personally and professionally.

"The Vietnam conflict was a life-defining experience for every American who lived during that era, and it continues to impact us all: the pain, the conflict, the healing," he said during last year's Memorial Day observance at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington.

"The lessons we learned in Vietnam were bought at a very great price. Acting on them is the best tribute we can pay to honor those who died" – among them, some of Mullen's own friends and Annapolis classmates.

While he was struck during that first assignment at the intensity of the conflict, Mullen said, he soon began to process just how divisive the war had become.

"What I take away from Vietnam is the detachment of the American people from the U.S. military – the disconnect and the unpopularity of the war," he told U.S. News and World Report in April 2008.

Mullen frequently tells audiences he addresses that he had concerns during the early days of the war in Afghanistan that it would have the same polarizing effect. To his relief, he said at the Vietnam Memorial, Americans "are so incredibly supportive of our military men and women now."

The chairman said he attributes the changed attitudes to the lessons learned from Vietnam about supporting troops unconditionally.

"During that time, as a country, we were unable to separate the politics from the people," he said. "We must never allow America to become disconnected from her military. Never."

Like most other current military leaders, Petraeus, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, entered a military still healing from the Vietnam experience. Petraeus graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1974, a year before the fall of Saigon.

But Petraeus has studied the Vietnam experience thoroughly, even writing his doctoral dissertation at Princeton University on "The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam."

That dissertation, published in 1987, recognized the lasting impact the Vietnam experience would have.

"The legacy of Vietnam is unlikely to soon recede as an important influence on America's senior military," Petraeus wrote. "The frustrations of Vietnam are too deeply etched in the minds of those who now lead the services and the combatant commanders.

"Vietnam cost the military dearly," he continued. "It left America's military leaders confounded, dismayed and discouraged. Even worse, it devastated the armed forces, robbing them of dignity, money and qualified people for a decade."

This experience, Petraeus wrote, left many military leaders overly cautious. Specifically, he said, many felt "they should advise against involvement in counterinsurgencies unless specific, perhaps unlikely circumstances" ensure domestic public support, the promise of a quick campaign and the freedom to use whatever force is needed to achieve rapid victory.

Later in his career, as he oversaw the revision of the military's counterinsurgency field manual, Petraeus applied some of the lessons learned through the Vietnam experience.

That manual has become the guide for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It emphasizes that military power alone can't succeed against an insurgency, and the importance of public diplomacy as part of a "comprehensive strategy employing all instruments of national power."

Informed by the Vietnam experience, the strategy also recognizes that clearing and keeping the enemy from an area alone does not spell success. A critical third tenet, it notes, is the establishment of a legitimate government supported by the people and infrastructure development that empowers them.

After applying those principles – first while commanding U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and now as the top commander in Afghanistan – Petraeus said he is seeing this strategy bear fruit.

Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month the coalition in Afghanistan continues to face tough days against insurgents, but is making steady progress in improving security and helping the Afghan government improve governance, economic development and the provision of basic services.

"These are essential elements of the effort to shift delivery of basic services from provincial reconstruction teams and international organizations to Afghan government elements," he told the panel.

As the transition approaches for Afghan forces to begin taking security responsibility for their country, Petraeus emphasized that actions being taken now in Afghanistan will have consequences for years to come – just as those in Vietnam more than three decades ago.

"We'll get one shot at transition, and we need to get it right," he said.

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