General Patton on Lieutenant Kerry

Subject: General Patton on Lieutenant Kerry
From: (Tom Cervo)
Date: 2/1/04 7:42 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Years ago, Col. David H. Hackworth, the retired military man turned political
pundit, called Clark the "Perfumed Prince" because he was convinced Clark
screwed up in Kosovo. When Clark joined the Democratic presidential
candidates,
Hackworth's quote got more play than a Beach Boys single in the 1970s. Then
Hackworth gave his real assessment of Clark after interviewing the general
for
three hours.
"He is insightful, he has his act together, he understands what makes
national
security tick-and he thinks on his feet somewhere around Mach 3. No big
surprise, since he graduated first in his class from West Point, which puts
him
in the supersmart set with Robert E. Lee, Douglas MacArthur and Maxwell
Taylor.
Clark was so brilliant, he was whisked off to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and
didn't get his boots into the Vietnam mud until well after his 1966 West
Point
class came close to achieving the academy record for the most Purple Hearts
in
any one war. When he finally got there, he took over a 1st Infantry Division
rifle company and was badly wounded.
Lt. Gen. James Hollingsworth, one of our Army's most distinguished war
heroes,
says: "Clark took a burst of AK fire, but didn't stop fighting. He stayed on
the field 'til his mission was accomplished and his boys were safe. He was
awarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart. And he earned 'em."
It took months for Clark to get back in shape. He had the perfect excuse, but
he didn't quit the Army to scale the corporate peaks as so many of our best
and
brightest did back then. Instead, he took a demoralized company of
short-timers
at Fort Knox who were suffering from a Vietnam hangover and made them the
best
on post-a major challenge in 1970 when our Army was teetering on the edge of
anarchy. Then he stuck around to become one of the young Turks who forged the
Green Machine into the magnificent sword Norman Schwarzkopf swung so
skillfully
during Round One of the Gulf War.
I asked Clark why he didn't turn in his bloody soldier suit for Armani and
the
big civvy dough that was definitely his for the asking. His response: "I
wanted
to serve my country."
He says he now wants to lead America out of the darkness, shorten what
promises
to be the longest and nastiest war in our history and restore our eroding
prestige around the world. For sure, he'll be strong on defense. But with his
high moral standards and because he knows where and how the game's played,
there will probably be zero tolerance for either Pentagon porking or two-bit
shenanigans.
No doubt he's made his share of enemies. He doesn't suffer fools easily and
wouldn't have allowed the dilettantes who convinced Dubya to do Iraq to even
cut the White House lawn. So he should prepare for a fair amount of
dart-throwing from detractors he's ripped into during the past three decades.
Hey, I am one of those: I took a swing at Clark during the Kosovo campaign
when
I thought he screwed up the operation, and I called him a "Perfumed Prince."
Only years later did I discover from his book and other research that I was
wrong-the blame should have been worn by British timidity and William Cohen,
U.S. SecDef at the time.
At the interview, Clark came along without the standard platoon of handlers
and
treated the little folks who poured the coffee and served the bacon and eggs
with exactly the same respect and consideration he gave the biggies in the
dining room like my colleague Larry King and Bob Tisch, the Regency Hotel's
owner. An appealing common touch.
But if he wins the election, don't expect an Andrew Jackson field-soldier
type.
Clark's an intellectual, and his military career is more like Ike's- that of
a
staff guy and a brilliant high-level commander. Can he make tough decisions?
Bet on it. Just like Ike did during his eight hard but prosperous years as
president."


Good post.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer