THE PEOPLE —  GENERALS




THE GENERALS


—  GENERAL HENRY H. SHELTON —
  —  CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS — COMMANDER SOCOM —

IT WAS BREAKING NEWS — INSIDER:   President Clinton today chose Gen. Henry H. Shelton of the Army as his nominee to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Administration officials said, ending a months-long search that had stumbled over the Pentagon's response to the issues in the AOR conduct of its officers.

Confirmed by the Senate, General Shelton, who is the commander of the United States Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida,  succeeded  Gen. John M. Shalikashvili as the senior military adviser to the President and the Secretary of Defense.

General Shelton, 55, a commander in the Persian Gulf war who also commanded the United States-led military operation in Haiti in 1994, would be the first commander of Special Operations to lead the Joint Chiefs, the nation's top military advisers. He would be the third Army general in a row to have the job, which has traditionally been rotated among the armed services.

President Clinton made the choice, following Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen's recommendation, after meeting this afternoon. We were friends of General Shelton at MacDill AFB, home of SOCOM.  We initiated a fare-well party to celebrate the appointment.

FAST FORWARD —PART ONE  —  After a private reception at the home of  Richard  Leandri,  In Tampa Bay Florida where we presented him with a few  special gifts to take with him to Washington,  we had another scheme planned under secrecy, a few days later, being Special Ops people, sometimes more ooops than ops, we planned a surprise party at the Command for his staff and friends.  — Top Secret Pizza Party—  

🍕   And we gave him and his staff a going away party, way unusual and beyond normal  — in the headquarters of SOCOM —  

🍕   Our team spies ( all scouts) task involved infiltration and interrogation of  all the Pizza stores within two miles of the gates near Macdill — 

🍕   Gen. Shelton loves his Pizza  and found out what be brand he liked by scouting the stores and asking if they had a H. Shelton in their computers, whom he ordered from for home delivery.   Voila! We had a hit!

🍕   Our Twenty Assorted Pizzas arrived by our crew from Papa John’s,  almost every kind on the menu.  Smuggled in under cover.

🍕   Thats classified — many told us but ID cards and pics provided Information, but one store confirmed the name. 

🍕   All we needed to know was what store di he always call — It was one store — 

🍕   The forty to fifty plus attendees officers, enlisted and civilians were sworn to secrecy  —  after all this was a Special Operation for a special person.  We got the data and confirmation.  And prepared a few unceremonious gifts for the trip.

The CB Rangers presented him with essentials he might need for a deployment into the dangerous AOR known as Washington DC.  It consisted of items of survival nature— .

💢   A certificate indicating he was not a foreign agent —

💢   In Washington anything in media possible by the opposition —   

 💢  Army Issue Butt Pack In Kevlar  —  In DC covering ones posterior is essential  — 

💢   A Can of Anti-Bullsh*t Politician Spray ( ABPS)  to clean the room after they leave  —  

💢   Two rolls of Ultra Soft Camouflage G.I.paper —  Pentagon only uses lowest bidder grades  — 

💢   His own personal Red tape ( Fifty Feet) since Congress has a bonanza of it and doesn’t share  —  

💢   The heartfelt thanks of those who went into battle with this man, he is highly respected in military planning and  leadership, he leads “ From the front”   and earned the badge of Special Forces, the Ranger Badge and others.  

💢   He is a  “ Snake eater”.  The nickname Snake Eater actually refers to a crew or man in Special Forces, because of intense conditions they hunt for their own food when out of rations and sometimes resort to eating, well, snakes. 

💢   And thats why he was chosen to go from Commander of SOCOM to Chairman of the Joint chiefs, appointed by President Clinton and praised by President George Bush — for a  new kind of war,  new kind of soldier  — A proven leader  — and he had the skills needed  — and appreciated by the men he led, prepared for a war on terrorism.

💢   The party was a blast — and we roasted him a little and he was great sport -  he went with the program and we’ll miss him —  And I did not face a firing squad. 

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GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS 

Tommy Ray Franks is a retired general in the United States Army. His last army post was as the Commander of the United States Central Command, overseeing United States military operations in a 25-country region, including the Middle East. 


DOLLY JACOBSON, GEN. TOMMY FRANKS, MRS.FRANKS,  AL JACOBSON
MEMORIAL FOUNDATION BENEFIT FOR CENTCOM 
 
Led the initial US war efforts in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom
Under General Norman Schwartzkoph  — 

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LT. COL BRUCE . P CRANDALL

Medal Of Honor Recipient


AL JACOBSON,  ELLIE SCARFONE,  BRUCE CRANDALL
MEDAL OF HONOR WINNER LTC CRANDALL WAS PORTRAYED IN MEL GIBSON MOVIE
“ WE WERE SOLDIERS” 

The story of Lt.  Col. Bruce P. Crandall, U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War...  LZ X-RAY
He would later receive the Medal of Honor due to his heroic actions during the Battle of La Drang
AKA  KNOWN AS  —   THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Sky Soldiers by Larry Selman - Valor Galleries 


BRUCE:  I know you can do it Mr. President, it’s just a clip...




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ARMY GENERAL DAVID H. PETRAEUS

COMMANDER USCENTCOM, DIRECTOR OF THE CIA 
AL JACOBSON, GENERAL PETRAEUS , USCENTCOM, 

David Howell Petraeus is a retired United States Army general and public official. 

He served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from September 6, 2011, until his resignation on November 9, 2012.  

Prior to his assuming the directorship of the CIA, Petraeus served 37 years in the United States Army.

The retired four-star Army general, served in the military for nearly four decades, eventually becoming the most famous and revered member of the armed forces during the war on terror and the war in Iraq. Known for developing a new theory of counter-insurgency, which emphasized winning the support of civilians rather than seizing territory, 

Petraeus was placed in charge of all troops in Iraq by President George W. Bush in 2007 and oversaw the so-called surge of forces meant to turn around a faltering war effort. 

In 2010, President Barack Obama, who had ordered a surge of troops in Afghanistan—a move opposed by then Vice-President Joe Biden—appointed General Petraeus the commander of forces in that country. Petraeus retired from the military the following year, and went on to serve as Obama’s CIA director. 

SIDEBAR:   The Scandal Story At MacDill -  The story made headlines and the press ate it up, made a mountain which became a volcano and he got caught up in it.  It should have been kept internally, handled and solved.

He resigned from that post in 2012, after providing some  “ need to know”  classified information to his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with whom he was having an affair.   He admitted to it.   Paula Dean Broadwell is an American writer, academic and former military officer.  She served in the US Army on active and reserve duty for over 20 years, including time as a school undergraduate, with experience in over 70 countries.  

Even though she had a clearance, she was an officer in the military and frankly much worse was going on involving incidents at Macdill AFB.   A compromise took place,  Petraeus later pleaded guilty to one count of mishandling classified data and is today still involved for his commentary in many circles as a valued participant in the war against terrorism.  Her fault was sheer stupidity, and Jill Kelley, a prom queen who blew the party -- 

BOTTOM LINE:  No harm took place over the data, never saw daylight and was a breech caused by another series of incidents at Macdill which had bigger repercussions, really grocery store tabloids that the press just ran with.  

I was there,  I saw, I understood, they blamed the wrong people.  For some at MacDill it was a long and embarrassing situation caused by one individual trying to climb the social ladder,  I blame him for nothing,  other than the infidelity mistakes men make,  he had nothing to do with it,  and is still one of my favorite heroes of the country.  There are few with his keen insight into terrorism.  And no one more important to the United States   





MARINE GENERAL PETER PACE, 
16TH CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS


RETIRED GENERAL PETER PACE, 16TH CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS 
OF STAFF WITH HIS WIFE LYNN, AL JACOBSON AND DOLLY JACOBSON 
CELEBRATING THE MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY

General Pace became the 6th Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 1 October 2001, the first Marine to hold that position. Once again, he found himself serving with General Richard B. Myers, USAF, who became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the same day. Just three weeks earlier, on 11 September 2001, al-Qaeda operatives had launched multiple terrorist attacks against the United States, striking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 

Coalition forces launched military operations against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan on 7 October, toppling the radical Islamist regime three months later. As the administration shifted its attention to other nations that supported terrorism, the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Combatant Commands prepared for a strike against Iraq and its impact upon the nation’s global defense posture. While the Joint Chiefs evaluated US Central Command’s evolving operations plan, late changes in force composition complicated the pre-invasion buildup. 

This required that Generals Myers and Pace seek Secretary Rumsfeld’s approval for hundreds of individual deployment orders. To remedy this situation and facilitate the anticipated redeployment of forces following the war, the Joint Staff J-8 began transitioning from the Timed Phased Force and Deployment Data System to a new Global Force Management System.  

SIDEBAR:  And as most  agreed Rumsfeld should have been thrown out, as all knew he was a stand up comic , not a military man and was not liked by the military.  Coalition forces launched Operation IRAQI FREEDOM on 19 March 2003, occupied Baghdad on 9 April, and heard President Bush declare an end to major combat operations on 1 May. 

SIDEBAR:   OOOPs a little too early George, about fourteen years later, we were still banging heads with them in the middle east in Afganistan.





 ARMY GENERAL SCHWARTZKOPH 

 (1934–2012)


SPORTING CLAYS WITH “ THE BEAR”  FOUR STAR GENERAL SCHWARTZKOPH  
WHOM I  HAVE THE DEEPEST RESPECT FOR HIS LEADERSHIP GUIDANCE , 
MOTIVATION AND ESPECIALLY HIS SHOOTING ABILITY…BEAT US EVERY TIME

H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. was a United States Army general. While serving as the commander of United States Central Command, ( CENTCOM)he led all coalition forces in the Gulf War.  Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Schwarzkopf grew up in the United States and destroyed Saddam Hussein's Army.

SIDEBAR:  He once responded to a Reporter who asked him during a briefing on TV he was giving,   “ If he would tell us what he thought about Saddam Hussain ?

“ As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a General, nor is he a soldier.  Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that  —

SIDEBAR:  The war’s outcome had never been in question, but the rapidity of the Iraqi military’s defeat stunned the world. “Stormin’ Norman,” as the media had begun calling him, was given most of the credit for the coalition victory.

Well deserving and a most gracious host while we spent time on the range -   You liked him because he had answers, direction and courage to do things and get good at it.  I’ll miss those good times, I learned a lot. The troops loved “Stormin Norman” and I believe they would follow him anywhere.

     






— GENERAL COLIN L. POWELL — 

SECRETARY OF STATE

 —  CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF  —

And A Fellow New Yorker 


Secretary Of State  —  (CNN)Colin Powell, the first Black US secretary of state whose leadership in several Republican administrations helped shape American foreign policy in the last years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, has died from complications from Covid-19, his family said on Facebook. He was 84.

"General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19," the Powell family wrote on Facebook.   "We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American," they said, noting he was fully vaccinated. 

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Powell was a distinguished and trailblazing professional soldier whose career took him from combat duty in Vietnam to becoming the first Black national security adviser during the end of Ronald Reagan's presidency and the youngest and first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush. 

His national popularity soared in the aftermath of the US-led coalition victory during the Gulf War, and for a time in the mid-90s, he was considered a leading contender to become the first Black President of the United States. But his reputation would be forever stained when, as George W. Bush's first secretary of state, he pushed faulty intelligence before the United Nations to advocate for the Iraq War, which he would later call a "blot" on his record. 

Though he never mounted a White House bid, when Powell was sworn in as Bush's secretary of state in 2001, he became the highest-ranking Black public official to date in the country, standing fourth in the presidential line of succession. 

"I think it shows to the world what is possible in this country," Powell said of his history-making nomination during his Senate confirmation hearing. "It shows to the world that: Follow our model, and over a period of time from our beginning, if you believe in the values that espouse, you can see things as miraculous as me sitting before you to receive your approval." 

Later in his public life, he would grow disillusioned with the Republican Party's rightward lurch and would use his political capital to help elect Democrats to the White House, most notably Barack Obama, the first Black president whom Powell endorsed in the final weeks of the 2008 campaign. 

The announcement was seen as a significant boost for Obama's candidacy due to Powell's widespread popular appeal and stature as one of the most prominent and successful Black Americans in public life. 

Powell is survived by his wife, Alma Vivian (Johnson) Powell, whom he married in 1962, as well as three children.


Professional Soldier   —  Colin Luther Powell was born April 5, 1937, in Harlem, New York, to Jamaican immigrants. After growing up in the South Bronx, Powell attended school at the City College of New York, where he participated in ROTC, leading the precision drill team and attaining the top rank offered by the corps, cadet colonel. 

"I liked the structure and the discipline of the military," Powell said, according to a CNN profile of him in the early 2000s. "I felt somewhat distinctive wearing a uniform. I hadn't been distinctive in much else." 

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He entered the US Army after graduating in 1958, and later served two tours in South Vietnam during the 1960s, where he was wounded twice, including during a helicopter crash in which he rescued two soldiers. He stayed in the Army after returning home, attending the National War College and rising in leadership. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1979, appointed as Reagan's final national security adviser in 1987 and was tapped by the elder Bush in 1989 to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Powell's tenure in the elder Bush's administration was marked by his involvement in some of the most notable American military actions of the late 20th century, including the 1989 Panama operation, the 1991 Gulf War and the US humanitarian intervention in Somalia, though he retiredfrom the Army days before the disastrous Battle of Mogadishu. 

Although Powell was initially reluctant to commit US troops when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, he became one of the administration's most trusted spokesmen when the assault on Saddam Hussein's army finally came. 

"First we're going to cut it off. Then we're going to kill it," Powell famously said at a news conference at the time, referring to the Iraqi army. 

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Following the assault, Powell became something of a national hero, enjoying a 71% favorability rating in the first few year years after the war. His efforts during the war also earned him two prominent awards: a Congressional Gold Medal in March 1991 "in recognition of his exemplary performance in planning and coordinating" the US response to Iraq's invasion, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

As the elder Bush presented Powell with the award at a White House ceremony in 1991, he said the general's “ Deep compassion for every one of the thousands of men and women under (his) command will always be remembered." 

During Powell's time in the military, which lasted until 1993, he also received a number of other notable awards, including the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. He received his fourth star in 1989, becoming the second African American to rise to that rank. 

In addition to the military awards, Powell also received the President's Citizens Medal, the Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal, and the Secretary of Energy Distinguished Service Medal, as well as a second Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded with distinction, from President Bill Clinton. 




Collin Powell and Lt. Gen. Flynn  —  Michael Flynn, Trump’s military adviser, scumbag and traitor to the country says Colin Powell’s emails include ‘really mean things.  Wow!  anything coming from Flynn, one of T-RUMPS supporters is incredibly bad.   He is a lying mentally sick acolyte of the lying,  mentally ill Former President and should have been in jail if it weren’t for the pardon T-RUMP gave him.  This man is a traitor and frikken idiot.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn accused former secretary of state Colin L. Powell of writing “really mean things” in his private emails late Wednesday, after Powell’s emails were leaked online and showed him lambasting Flynn as “right-wing nutty” and a poor leader before retiring.

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Flynn, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s top military adviser, questioned why current and former senior officials haven’t yet learned that they will be targets to hackers.

“I have said ‘I would love to have my emails hacked’ — and people, I know they have tried it — because … I’m not disparaging people in my emails,” Flynn said in an interview with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly who quit FoX News.   “I’m being very honest, very blunt. … What I say publicly is what I say in my private email communications. I don’t screw around like that because I was taught as a young kid by my father to treat others like you like to be treated. And that’s the Golden Rule.”  What a large crock of sh*t coming from one of the worst bad mouths in the service.

BOTTOM LINE —  Flynn was one of the most respected intel officers of his generation. Now he’s leading      “ Lock her up' chants as one of T-RUMPS ass-kissing sycophants.  We rank him as a five start traitor, certified creep and liar.  

Powell’s emails, first reported Wednesday by BuzzFeed News, appear to confirm a number of details in a Washington Post story that was published in August and said Flynn’s boisterous partisan rhetoric has rattled or angered a number of other retired military officers.    Powell, who was the Pentagon’s top general from 1989 to 1993, called Flynn a “jerk” at least once in his emails, and said he heard the retired three-star officer was forced out as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2014.


Top Diplomat During Turbulent Time  —  With a prominent national profile, Powell was floated as a potential presidential candidate in the 1996 election. But in a highly anticipated decision, he declined to participate in the race, citing a lack of "passion" for electoral politics. 

"Such a life requires a calling that I do not yet hear," he told reporters in 1995. "And for me to pretend otherwise would not be honest to myself, it would not be honest to the American people." 

Powell was again encouraged to run in the 2000 presidential election, but rebuffed calls for him to mount a bid. He instead endorsed George W. Bush, delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention in which he argued that the then-governor of Texas would "help bridge our racial divides." 

He was Bush's first Cabinet selection when he was announced as the 43rd President's nomination for secretary of state, and with his expertise in foreign policy and widespread popularity, he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. 

He shared Bush's reluctance to project military strength across the globe, a view that was quickly displaced by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As Bush's top diplomat, he was tasked with building international support for the War on Terror, including the Afghanistan War, but it was his involvement in the administration's push for intervention in Iraq, over the concerns of many of America's longtime allies, for which his tenure at State would become best known. 

In February 2003, Powell delivered a speech before the United Nations in which he presented evidence that the US intelligence community said proved Iraq had misled inspectors and hid weapons of mass destruction. 

"There can be no doubt," Powell warned, "that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more."

Inspectors, however, later found no such weaponry in Iraq, and two years after Powell's UN speech, a government report said the intelligence community was "dead wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the US invasion. 

But the damage was already done -- to both Iraq, which the US went to war with just six weeks after Powell's speech, and to the reputation of the once highly popular statesman, who was reportedly told by then-Vice President Dick Cheney before the UN speech: "You've got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points." 

Powell, who left the State Department in early 2005 after submitting his resignation to Bush the previous year, later called his UN speech a "blot" that will forever be on his record. 

"I regret it now because the information was wrong -- of course I do," he told CNN's Larry King in 2010. "But I will always be seen as the one who made the case before the international community." 

"I swayed public opinion, there's no question about it," he added, referring to how influential his speech was on public support for the invasion. 

In his 2012 memoir, "It Worked for Me," Powell again acknowledged the speech, writing that his account of it in the book would likely be the last he publicly made. 

"I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me," he wrote, referring to the report he used that contained faulty evidence of supposed Iraqi WMDs. "It was by no means my first, but it was one of my most momentous failures, the one with the widest-ranging impact." 

"The event will earn a prominent paragraph in my obituary," Powell wrote. 


Shifting Politics  —  After leaving the Bush administration, Powell returned to private life. He joined the renowned venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in 2005, where he worked as a strategic adviser until his death. For a time, he gave speeches at "Get Motivated!" business seminars, and he authored the 2012 memoir. 

Though the large majority of Powell's time as a public servant was spent in Republican administrations, the later years of his life saw him supporting Democratic presidential candidates and harshly criticizing top Republican leaders. 

By 2008, the longtime Republican's coveted presidential endorsement went to another party when he announced his support for Obama's White House bid. At the time, he touted Obama's "ability to inspire" and the "inclusive nature of his campaign," while criticizing attacks on the Illinois senator by Republican presidential nominee John McCain's campaign as "inappropriate." He was later named an honorary co-chair of Obama's inauguration and endorsed him again in 2012. 

Powell went on to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 over Donald Trump, whom he had strongly condemned as a "national disgrace and an international pariah." 

In an extraordinary move that year, three presidential electors in Washington state cast votes for Powell rather than Clinton, resulting in state fines that were later upheld by the Supreme Court. 

He again snubbed Trump in 2020 during the President's second campaign, announcing his support for Joe Biden in June of that year while blasting Trump's presidency. 

"We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution. And the President has drifted away from it," he told CNN, adding that he "certainly cannot in any way support President Trump this year." The retired general later delivered an address in support of Biden during the Democratic National Convention. 

And after Trump incited a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol in early January 2021, Powell told CNN that he no longer considered himself a Republican, with the longtime grandee of the GOP saying he was now simply watching events unfold in a country he long served. 

"I can no longer call myself a fellow Republican. I'm not a fellow of anything right now," he told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on "GPS." "I'm just a citizen who has voted Republican, voted Democrat throughout my entire career. And right now, I'm just watching my country and not concerned with parties." 

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