The Fashion Case Against Eric Shinseki
Unanimous praise is boring, so let’s all be thankful one of James Fallows’ diligent readers has stepped up to the plate:
From everything I’ve heard, Eric Shinseki is an admirable and decent man and deserves commendation for his service aside from having been visionary about stabilizing postwar Iraq.
That said, in my year-and-a-half since putting on ACUs [Army Combat Uniforms] I’ve heard only bad things said about him by the rank and file, and that’s for something unrelated to Iraq: Shinseki is apparently the genius who decided that we should all wear the beret (which is useless as it provides no shade or or rain or wind protection, and particularly nasty because it takes two hands to put on right, and weighs a ton when wet) as part of our regular uniform in garrison. For that, well, I resent the dude a little as do I think most soldiers.
Still think it’s a good pick.
61 Responses to “The Fashion Case Against Eric Shinseki”
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December 8th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Actually, I heard an interview on NPR with a reporter who’d done extensive work on the VA saying she felt this was not a good pick because Shinseki isn’t willing to be confrontational enough to change the culture in the VA. I don’t remember her (the reporter’s) name, but I’m sure others heard this interview.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:18 am
This was the number one gripe RedState had against Shinseki.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I heard that it was Bill Clinton’s decision to make the soldiers wear Monica Lewinsky berets — as a way to remind them of where they stand in the scheme of things.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:32 am
And in a similar vein, Barack Obama just used Steve Hildebrand to tell us progressives to suck his cock. From
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081208/pl_politico/16293
“Responding to rising discontent on the left to President-elect Barack Obama’s centrist cabinet picks and early policy decisions, deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand has told progressive critics to take a deep breath.
With a long list of tasks ahead of him, Obama needs liberals to stand by him as he deals with a faltering economy, home foreclosures, an auto bailout and two wars, Hildebrand wrote Sunday on Huffington Post. Even so, Hildebrand added, Obama was elected “to be the president of all the people – not just those on the left.”
‘This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making,” Hildebrand wrote. “Some believe the appointments generally aren’t progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn’t the way he thinks and it’s not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn’t, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges.”
————-
Most qualified? LARRY SUMMERS??? New York Fed TIMOTHY Geithner?
Well, in the sense of being among the dumb fucks who caused this economic disaster.
Hildebrand can take a flying leap and kiss my ass.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Concerned troll is concerned.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:40 am
> Shinseki is apparently the genius who decided
> that we should all wear the beret. . . .
Now that’s criticism I can believe in. My understanding is that much of the Army hates this uniform change — not least the Special Forces, who saw their badge of distinction diluted Army-wide. Disgust with the beret is such that soon after the change was implemented, my brother-in-law, a Reserve colonel, wore civilian clothes to the funeral of his father, a retired Army top-kick, at a National Cemetery. He hated the beret that much.
Still, I’ll take him, but I sure hope he gets raked over the coals at confirmation about those g– d— berets.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I heard that it was Bill Clinton’s decision to make the soldiers wear Monica Lewinsky berets — as a way to remind them of where they stand in the scheme of things.
+1 for humor.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:49 am
A beret (pronounced [be'rɛ] in French or /ˈbɛreɪ/ in English[1], except in the USA, where it is usually pronounced /bəˈreɪ/[2]) is a soft round cap, usually of wool felt, with a flat crown, which is worn by both men and women and traditionally associated with France.
Courtesy Wikipedia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ya see! France! Shinseki is a frog fan! Blech! More exclamation points!!!!!!
December 8th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Note that if Progressives are never appointed to government leadership positions , then it is easy for the corrupt sellout class to dismiss Progressives as “lacking experience” and hence lacking competence.
Of course, it is only in deeply disfunctional organizations that asskissing fuckups rise above people of intelligence , competence, and virtue. But such unfair gaming is how the good old white boys have kept women and Negros under their thumb for centuries.
Obama would not have won the election without the Progressives.
Obama needs to realize that he has won the election — he is now free to do what he wants.
But By the same token, he and his boys can no longer excuse craven compromises and cowardly actions as being driven by the need to win election.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Shinseki bypassed the chain of command and went stright to Capitol Hill to get the Crusader off Rumsfeld’s chopping block.
+1 for going behind Rumsfeld’s back. Demonstrates solid judgement.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Wasn’t Gen Shinseki also responsible for pushing the crappy
Stryker vehicle system ? Which was meant to roll off an
airplane ready to fight, but ended up too heavy to do that,
while still being too lightly-armored to face RPG’s or IED’s ?
And has all the speed, maneuverability, and low footprint of a
school bus ?
As for his testimony before the Iraq invasion, I was distinctly
unimpressed that he hedged it as “several hundred thousand”
troops rather than quoting a specific number calculated as a
ratio of the Iraqi population. If he had said “Army doctrine
and experience demands at least 450000 soldiers in the
occupying force for a country the size of Iraq” that would
have been twenty times better. He tried to hedge. And he got pushed out anyway.
So I’m distinctly unimpressed by Gen Shinseki all round. But
then in the grand scheme of things, VA isn’t an especially
important portfolio. If the Beltway consensus is that Shinseki is a hero for his pre-Iraq waffling, and that Obama
gets major credit for picking him, then it’s probably a smart move.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Re Al’s comment “Not only was Shinseki insubordinate, but he was also pushing for a huge, expensive artillary system that *we didn’t need*. That’s a big problem. ”
—————-
Oh, bullshit. I like the Army –because they are smart enough to realize that doing “counterinsurgency” and “special operations” in some God-foresaken Third World shithole is a job for fools and Marines.
There are only a few places on Earth WORTH defending — and those places have nice restaurants, elegant women with big tits, a well-developed infrastructure and well-stocked wine cellars.
Which means they are flat, have roads and built-up urban terrain. Hairy assed terrorists stick out like a sore thumb and can be left to the police with some help from the snake eaters. Or else the terrorists discover titty bars and assimilate.
In such places, What you have to worry about are Tanks. And Artillery is what kills tanks.
The Air Force sure as shit doesn’t. The Air Force is the most unreliable and hideously expensive form of artillery the idiots in the Pentagon have ever been able to create.
Half the time they don’t show up. The other half of the time, they show up with $200 Billion stealth fighters which can only drop a tinsy 500 bomb. Because the stealth fighter has to carry the bomb inside its stealthy belly –else it won’t be stealthy.
But a streamlined fighter don’t have much space in its belly for bombs. Or for fuel — so it can only hang around for 15 minutes or so.
By Air Force standards, Crusader would be been a great deal at 10 times its cost.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
No offense to the French, but the beret is actually Basque in origin.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Oh, and BTW, it should be noted that Shinseki was actually wrong about Iraq. It did NOT take “several hundred thousand” troops to stabilize the country, as Shinseki said it would.
Since Iraq sunk into a murderous civil war, and became infested with international jihadists, without ever become stabilized through the military efforts of American troops, this statement is compltelely incorrect.
If you want to argue that Iraq is now stablized, you have to acknowledge that it only became so once hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops, Sunnni tribesmen, peshmerga, and Badr Brigade troops were added to our own.
Demonstrates solid judgement to argue in favor of a huge artillery system that would be unusable in any conceivable war? Displays good judgement to completely ignore the World of Warcraft fantasies about how wars of fought that undergird your, and Rumsfeld’s, assumptions. But more importantly, demonstrates the good judgement of realizing that conversations about important policy matters need to take place with grown-ups, not delusional, hubristic fantasists like Donald Rumsfeld.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
A cover that doesn’t provide any? Welcome to the club, Army. Look up the “Dixie Cup” hat worn by us Navy enlisted types since time immemorial, and if you can explain to me the utility of such a useless piece of headgear, I’ll buy you a beer.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
What really sucks is that the military used to prohibit — and still may ,for all I know — the use of umbrellas. Which is not a problem if you have a decent hat and a trench coat.
But I assume you would feel kinda like Sad Sack standing in the rain with a soggy berth and feeling cold water running down your ass.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
VA claims can take 5 – 10 and more years – yes, years – to decide. So, why is he a good pick? What experience does he have running an entrenched administrative agency that needs its entire approach to deciding claims drastically changed? I’m not saying he is a bad pick, but what makes him a good pick?
December 8th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
BJC,
He has the status to get the attention of Congress, the media, and the public.
What you’re talking about, let’s see who gets sub-cabinet jobs.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
The reason the Army was forced to wear the beret was because someone in acquisition bought some ridiculous number of them accidentally. Since they were made specifically for the Army, there wasn’t any recourse to return them, the Army was stuck with them and this was the result. I recall hearing a story about this just before the switch was implemented. I don’t recall the exact number, but they bought something like 100x more than was required.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Al is furious at wasteful military spending. Ok.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
It did NOT take “several hundred thousand” troops to stabilize the country
… in LESS THAN FOUR YEARS. How’s that? Does that fix it for you?
December 8th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Re kxf_in_dc’s comment “The reason the Army was forced to wear the beret was because someone in acquisition bought some ridiculous number of them accidentally.”
————–
Good thing that person didn’t buy a truckload of miniskirts.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
What really sucks is that the black beret was always and exclusively worn by the elite Rangers. Strangely enough Shinseki himself is a grad of Ranger school.
Don Williams +5 Funny
December 8th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Translation: the war in Iraq has gone exactly like right-wingers wanted it to.
December 8th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
When I was in the Army, we wore the garrison cap (a.k.a. “c**t cap) and hated it. It was a stupid, worthless, effeminate accessory perfectly designed to look stupid. I might have stayed in if I’d have known they were switching.
December 8th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Re a murphy’s comment “When I was in the Army, we wore the garrison cap (a.k.a. “c**t cap) and hated it. It was a stupid, worthless, effeminate accessory perfectly designed to look stupid ”
—————-
I always thought it looked cute on blond (female) stewardesses.
Cunt cap or Monica Lewinski beret. I think they’re either trying to break your spirit — or grease the way for the feminist to take over the officer corps.
December 8th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
The official beret story, including the text of Shinseki’s order.
December 8th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Good thing that person didn’t buy a truckload of miniskirts.
There called kilts, you know.
December 8th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Al, you keep on saying “I” or “we” when referring to decisions concerning the War on Iraq. Did you have a personal part in that glorious conquest? It would be thrilling if you told us what you did in the war, that put you on such intimate terms with Rumsfeld and Shinsecki.
Surely this is not just some adolescent identification problem, surely?
December 8th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Heck, I would have been perfectly happy to put in Shinseki’s “several” hundred thousand troops right away — it would have been much better than Rumsfeld’s idiotic idea about doing it on the cheap.
Al
Was it hard for you during the war Al? Was it so hard? What a trial those lesser military minds must have been to you. BTW, is it Major Al, or General Al. I wouldn’t want to address you improperly.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
This reminds me of the anecdote in Ben Shalit’s The Psychology of Conflict and Combat about “the hat.” The Israelis had just lost the Yom Kippur War (1973). The brass decided that all soldiers should henceforth wear this despised article of uniform, which hitherto soldiers had left off ad lib. (the IDF not having as rigid formal discipline as other Western armed forces). Shalit interprets the enforcement of the hat as a symbolic, compensatory action.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
BJC,
I’m not saying he is a bad pick, but what makes him a good pick?
I thought of a better answer: he knows what it’s like to be a good soldier and find out the people who are supposed to have your back are selling you out.
I think he’ll fight to keep that from happening as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:57 am
No offense to the French, but the beret is actually Basque in origin.
Aha! So it’s terrorist headgear!
December 9th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Personally, I think they should go back to kepis.
I don’t have too much sympathy for the Army, though. If they want better uniforms (and accessories), they should let gays serve.
December 9th, 2008 at 3:29 am
People stop splitting hairs on Shinseki. You all know you’re glad that Obama nominated him simply because it’s a big “F**k You” to Bush, Rumsfeld, et al.
From what I can see the man is supremely qualified but even if he’s not it’s still worth sacrificing one cabinet position just to stick it to Bush:
http://chaosoutoforder.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/obama-to-bush-go-fuck-yourself/
December 9th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Recently, on a military blog, there was much discussion about the new Air Force dress uniform req, which was going to cost eleventy million dollars or somesuch nonesense. I suggested that they go to Mervyn’s, pick out a pair of Navy Dockers and a Light Blue Arrow shirt. Total cost less than seventy bucks (and that’s Retail!). The whole dress-up play culture of our military is pathetic. They Navy seems to be ditching the dixie cup for ball-caps, perhaps the other services can follow suit if the frenchie beret is a threat to their manhood.
December 9th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
On hats: the “combination cover” (brimmed hat w/ Navy officer emblem on the front) always gave me a headache. I much preferred the “fore and aft” hat (aka “pisscutter” or another less mentionable name involving female genitalia). I had left active duty by the time the Army went to the beret, but I couldn’t help rolling my eyes over it. I’ve never understood why the services spend so much time and money revising their uniforms… again and again.
All that being said, I do appreciate the Shinsecki appointment, if for no other reason than it’s a sharp stick in the eye of the current administration.
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