Silent Hunter

I noticed at the House hearings that Petraeus has quite a few medals.

Wikipedia has a partial list, but can someone give me a full list?

HistoricalDavid

Damn... the Times or Telegraph had a large colour photograph annotating each medal a couple of days ago!

See if I can't dig it up and photograph it for you.

EDIT: Sorry, got thrown out.

dave lukins

The amount of medals required a "large" photograph It probably took two people to throw the paper away

Bluesman

Ah, but of course, he's a traitor, at least according to the Democrats' mouthpiece, MoveOn.org.

Medals? Why, those just represent his skill in treachery, and his ability to kill poverty-stricken little brown people, don'chaknow?

Very few Democrats - and NONE of their presidential candidates - has come out yet and condemned one of the most vile, scurrilous attacks on an American soldier, commanding our troops in the field.

THIS is the face of the Democratic Party.

So...who here is a proud Democrat? Anybody want to tell me why nobody of any importance on your side has stepped forward to disassociate themselves from this disgusting smear of a hero?

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Bluesman

What, NObody wants to tell me I'm wrong?

Well, okay, allow me to continue making my point, then. Here's some help from the House Minority Whip:

Dreadnought

Sir,
You would never hear those words from my mouth about Patreaus as I am all for him. I could only get a brief look at his ribbon shield but judging by some of those campaign ribbons and where they took place he surely is no stranger to conflict on the ground and certainly a man of outstanding character.

__________________
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Bluesman

The very best. He's given all he's got to serve us all, and what does he get in return? My gratitude and yours, those pieces of colored ribbon to wear on the clothes his country let him wear, and the scorn and derision of people that aren't worthy of shining his shoes.

I hate the people that smeared him so much, I wouldn't trust myself to be within arm's reach of them.

HistoricalDavid

Anyone got a transcript of the recent hearings? I remember Lantos actually led with bona fide ad hominem instead of criticising the meat of Petraeus's report. I would YouTube it but I can read much quicker than Lantos can speak.

Did he win two Distinguished Service Crosses? A quick wiki shows that that is the second-highest medal after the Medal of Honor and awarded for extraordinary heroism in the face of the enemy. His career timeline shows first combat in 2003 so he must have been pretty old to be in the field.

Not to mention a pretty positive assessment of the man himself, unusual for a British newspaper considering he is obviously of the evil neo-con NWO.

Dreadnought

Please note this came from Wiki and ofcoarse is subject to scrutiny. As this gives a brief outline of the General's career.

Early years
David Petraeus was born in 1952 to Dutch American parents. His father, Sixtus, was a sea captain who had emigrated to the United States from the Netherlands. Some reports have it before[3] World War II and some after.[4] He grew up in Cornwall on Hudson, New York, and graduated from Cornwall Central High School in 1970.

Petraeus then went on to the U.S. Military Academy in nearby West Point. Petraeus was on the intercollegiate soccer and ski teams, was a cadet captain on the brigade staff, and was a "distinguished cadet" academically, graduating in the top 5% of the Class of 1974 (ranked 43rd overall). In the class yearbook, Petraeus was remembered as "always going for it in sports, academics, leadership, and even his social life."[5]

Two months after graduation Petraeus married Holly Knowlton, a graduate from Dickinson College and daughter of retired Army General William A. Knowlton who was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) at the time. They have two grown children.


[edit] Army career
Upon his graduation from West Point in 1974, he was commissioned an infantry officer. He began his career with an assignment to a light infantry unit, the 509th Airborne Infantry Battalion at Vicenza, Italy; ever since, light infantry has been at the core of his career, punctuated by assignments to mechanized units, command staffs, and educational institutions.

After leaving the 509th as a first lieutenant, Petraeus began a brief association with mechanized units when he became assistant operations officer on the staff of the 2nd Brigade, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and in 1979, when he was promoted to captain, he was charged with a company in the same division: Company A, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized). Later, in 1978-79, he also served as operations officer to the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized)'s 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized) and its 1st Brigade. In 1981, Petraeus became aide-de-camp to the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized)'s commanding general. [6]

Petraeus left the 24th's 19th Infantry to continue the higher education he began at West Point, earning the General George C. Marshall Award as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Class of 1983 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He subsequently earned a MPA and a Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1985 and 1987, respectively, and later served as an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy. His doctoral dissertation, "The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era," dealt with the influence of the Vietnam War on military thinking regarding the use of force.[7] He also completed a military fellowship at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service in 1994-95, although he was called away early to serve in Haiti.

After earning his Ph.D. and teaching at West Point, Petraeus continued up the rungs of the command ladder, serving as military assistant to Gen. John Galvin, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. From there, he moved to the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) and then to a post as aide and assistant executive officer to the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Carl Vuono, in Washington, D.C. He would return to the Pentagon in 1997-99 as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Joint Staff and then to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Henry Shelton.

Upon promotion to lieutenant colonel, Petraeus moved from the office of the Chief of Staff to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)'s 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment from 1991-93. As battalion commander of the Iron Rakkasans, he suffered one of the more dramatic incidents in his career when, in 1991, he was accidentally shot in the chest during a live-fire exercise when a soldier tripped and his rifle discharged. He was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, where he was operated on by future Senator Bill Frist. The hospital released him early after he did fifty push ups without resting, just a few days after the accident. [8][9]

During 1993-94, Petraeus continued his long association with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) as the division's Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 (plans, operations and training) and installation Director of Plans, Training, and Mobilization (DPTM). His next command, from 1995-97, was the 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, centered on the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. At that post, his brigade's training cycle at Fort Polk's Joint Readiness Training Center for low-intensity warfare was chronicled by novelist and military enthusiast Tom Clancy in his book "Airborne." In 1999, as a brigadier general, Petraeus returned to the 82nd, serving as the assistant division commander for operations and then, briefly, as acting commanding general. From the 82nd, he moved on to serve as Chief of Staff of XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg during 2000-01. In 2000, Petraeus suffered his second major injury, when, during a civilian skydiving jump, his parachute collapsed at low altitude due to a hook turn, resulting in a hard landing that broke his pelvis.


[edit] Peacekeeping
Although Petraeus did not see combat before his 2003 deployment to Iraq, he completed three overseas assignments short of war earlier in his career. In 1995, his Georgetown fellowship was cut short when he was assigned to the United Nations Mission in Haiti Military Staff as its Chief Military Operations Officer during Operation Uphold Democracy. Four years later, as assistant division commander for operations, he deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait as part of Operation Desert Spring, the continuous rotation of combat forces through Kuwait during the decade after the Gulf War.

During 2001-02, as a brigadier general, Petraeus served a ten-month tour in Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of Operation Joint Forge. In Bosnia, he was the NATO Stabilization Force Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations as well as the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Joint Interagency Counter-Terrorism Task Force, a command created after the September 11 attacks to add a counterterrorism capability to the U.S. forces attached to the NATO command in Bosnia.


[edit] Iraq

[edit] 2003 - 2004

Camp New Jersey, Kuwait (March 21, 2003) - Major General David H. Petraeus (right), commanding general, 101st Airborne Division, (Air Assault) looks on as Lieutenant General William S. Wallace, V Corps commanding general speaks to soldiers.In 2003, Petraeus, then a major general, commanded the 101st Airborne Division during V Corps's drive to Baghdad. In a campaign chronicled in detail by Rick Atkinson of the Washington Post's book In the Company of Soldiers, Petraeus led his division through the battles of Karbala, Hilla, and Najaf (where he came under fire during an ambush by Iraqi paramilitary forces). The 101st was not, as had been expected, called upon to lead urban combat in Baghdad, leading to some limited criticism of the division's role in the campaign. Instead, as V Corps's lines of supply came under threat from attacks by irregular forces in the cities of the Euphrates river valley, the division's three brigades, reinforced by an armored battalion, took the lead in clearing the cities of Najaf, Karbala, and Hilla. Other notable roles filled by the 101st during the campaign included an armed feint toward Hilla to cover the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized)'s drive through the Karbala Gap, an armed reconnaissance by the division's brigade of Apache attack helicopters, and the relief of beleaguered elements of the 75th Ranger Regiment at the Haditha Dam. Following the fall of Baghdad, the division conducted the longest heliborne assault on record in order to reach Nineveh Province, where it would spend much of the next year (the 1st Brigade was responsible for the area south of Mosul, the 2nd Brigade for the city itself, and the 3rd Brigade for the region stretching toward the Syrian border).

An often-repeated story of Petraeus's time with the 101st is his habit of asking embedded reporters to "Tell me where this ends," an anecdote many journalists have used to portray Petraeus as an early recognizer of the difficulties that would follow the fall of Baghdad. Indeed, it was during the year after the invasion that Petraeus and the 101st gained fame for their performance in Iraq, not for the combat operations in Karbala and Najaf but for the rebuilding and administration of Mosul and Nineveh Province. Described by one former subordinate as "the most competitive man on earth," and by another as "phenomenal at getting people to reach their potential"; these two traits of intensity and cultivation of subordinate officers have widely been reported as key to his success in Mosul. Petraeus oversaw a program of public works projects and political reinvigoration that made the city one of the most peaceful in Iraq during the first year of the war. (One of Petraeus' catch phrases during this period was, "Money is ammunition," supporting the use of commanders' discretionary funds for public works.)[9] One of his major public works was the restoration and re-opening of the University of Mosul. During 2004, after the 101st replacement by I Corps's Task Force Olympia, Mosul became a major battleground in the fight against the Sunni insurgency that erupted that spring. Petraeus and his supporters point to the assassination of the governor of Nineveh the following July, five months after the 101st departed, as the catalyst for the 2004 violence, not the unit's redeployment.

In June 2004, less than six months after the 101st returned to the U.S., Petraeus was promoted to lieutenant general and charged with the task of training the new Iraqi Army and security forces as commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq. During his stay at MNSTC-I, Petraeus oversaw the expansion of Iraqi military and police from nearly zero-strength to considerable size. [citation needed]

In September 2004, Petraeus wrote an article for the Washington Post in which he lauded the progress he said was being made by Iraqi security forces. The article was criticized by Paul Krugman in his column of July 19, 2007: "General Petraeus, without saying anything falsifiable, conveyed the totally misleading impression, highly convenient for his political masters, that victory was just around the corner." [1]

Critics have also pointed to the incomplete state of the Iraqi forces at the time Petraeus handed the command over to Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey in September 2005. Yet despite criticism of Iraqi troops' performance, most accounts of Petraeus's time at MNSTC-I note the sheer scale of the increase in the Iraqi Army's size during the general's tenure. [citation needed] Moreover, Petraeus gained a reputation at MNSTC-I as an effective motivator of Iraqi troops, making many visits to frontline Iraqi units to perform inspections and boost morale. [citation needed] During his January 2007 Senate testimony, he described both punitive measures he took against Iraqi units that did not live up to expectations and rewards he gave to those units that performed well. One officer who served under Petraeus at MNSTC-I wrote that after working for the general, he was convinced that "He will re-energize a tired U.S. mission in Iraq and refocus their objectives. He is a superb counterinsurgent, and the American people will start to see results in Iraq instead of stagnation." [citation needed]


[edit] 2005 - 2007
From late 2005 through February 2007[10], Petraeus served as commanding general of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC) located there. As commander of CAC, Petraeus was responsible for oversight of the Command and General Staff College and seventeen other schools, centers, and training programs as well as for development of the Army’s doctrinal manuals, training the Army’s officers, and supervising the Army’s center for the collection and dissemination of lessons learned. During his time at CAC, Petraeus oversaw two major changes geared toward improving the Army performance in Iraq and Afghanistan: he presided over the 1st Infantry Division's revamped training of advisory teams for deployment to Iraqi military and police units, and, with Marine Lt. Gen.James N. Mattis and Lt. Col. John A. Nagl, he coauthored Field Manual 3-24, the Army's new official counterinsurgency doctrine.[11] FM 3-24 relies on counterinsurgency tactics Petraeus has long espoused, particularly in Mosul, chiefly the protection of the population from insurgent violence even at greater risk to counterinsurgent personnel.


[edit] 2007 - present

The commanding general of the 9th Iraqi Army Division, right, speaks with a journalist from the Al-Arabiyah news channel, left, as they walk with General David Petraeus, center, through the Al Shurja market in the Rusafa area of East Baghdad, March 11, 2007.In January 2007, as part of his overhauled Iraq strategy, President Bush announced that Petraeus would succeed Gen. George Casey as commanding general of MNF-I to lead all U.S. troops in Iraq. On January 24, Petraeus testified before the Senate on his ideas for Iraq, particularly the "surge" strategy of increased U.S. presence in Baghdad that he supports as in line with classic counterinsurgency doctrine. The "surge" strategy, as well as the ideas Petraeus included in FM 3-24, have been referred to by some journalists and politicians as the "Petraeus Doctrine," although the surge itself was proposed well before Petraeus took command. Despite the misgivings of most Democratic and a few Republican senators, over the proposed implementation of the "Petraeus Doctrine" in Iraq, specifically with regards to the troop surge, Petraeus was unanimously confirmed as a four-star general and MNF-I commander on January 27. [12][13]

Before leaving for Iraq Petraeus recruited a number of highly educated military officers, nicknamed "Petraeus guys" or "designated thinkers," to advise him as commander, including Col. Mike Meese, head of the Social Science Department at West Point and Col. H.R. McMaster, famous for his leadership at the Battle of 73 Easting in the First Gulf War and in the pacification of Tal Afar more recently, as well as for his doctoral dissertation on Vietnam-era civil-military relations entitled Dereliction of Duty. While most of Petraeus's closest advisers are American military officers, he also hired Lt. Col. David Kilcullen of the Australian Army, who was working for the US State Department.[14] His "on-joining" message[15] to troops said, in part, "It is an honor to soldier again with the members of the Multi-National Force-Iraq."

Since taking command of MNF-I on February 10, 2007, Petraeus has inspected U.S. and Iraqi units all over Iraq, visiting outposts not only in greater Baghdad but in Tikrit, Baquba, Ramadi, and as far west as al-Hit.


A newspaper ad by the progressive advocacy organization, MoveOn drew criticism from many Republicans and some Democrats for asking if he was "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" and for claiming that he was cooking the books for the White House.[16][17]In April 2007, Petraeus made his first visit to Washington as MNF-I commander, reporting to President Bush and Congress on the progress of the "surge" and the overall situation in Iraq. During this visit he met privately with members of Congress and reportedly argued against setting a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.[18]

By late May, 2007, Congress did not impose any timetables in war funding legislation for troop withdrawal.[19] The enacted legislation did mandate that Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, deliver a report to Congress by September 15, 2007 detailing their assessment of the military, economic and political situation of Iraq. Despite Petraeus’ statement in June 2007 that there were “astonishing signs of normalcy” in Baghdad[20], which drew criticism from Senate majority leader Harry Reid[21], Petraeus has warned that he expects that the situation in Iraq will require the continued deployment of the elevated troop level of more than 150,000 beyond September 2007; he also has stated that U.S. involvement in Iraq could last another ten years.[22] In July 2007, Petraeus released his interim report on Iraq indicating that coalition forces had made satisfactory progress on 6 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress. Petraeus' final report on Iraq was delivered to Congress on September 10, 2007. On August 15, 2007, a Los Angeles Times report alleged that, according to unnamed administration officials, the report "would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government."[23] Petraeus declared this as false, saying, "I wrote this testimony myself." He further elaborated that his testimony to Congress "has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress." [24]


[edit] Bibliography
Lorenz, G.C.; James H. Willbanks & David H. Petraeus et al. (1983), Operation Junction City, Vietnam 1967 : battle book, Ft. Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Combat Studies Institute, DTIC ADA139612, LCC DS557.7 .O63 1987, OCLC 15637627
Petraeus, David H. (1985), "Review of Richard A. Gabriel's The Antagonists: A Comparative Combat Assessment of the Soviet and American Soldier", Military Affairs (Lexington, VA: Society for Military History) 49 (1): 17-22, January 1985, LCC E181 .A5 v.49 1985, ISSN 00263931, OCLC 37032240, DOI 10.2307/1988272
Petraeus, David H. (1987), The American military and the lessons of Vietnam : a study of military influence and the use of force in the post-Vietnam era, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, OCLC 20673428.
Taylor, William J., Jr. & David H. Petraeus (1987), "The legacy of Vietnam for the U.S. military", in Osborn, George K., Democracy, strategy, and Vietnam : implications for American policymaking, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, LCC E876 .D46 1987, ISBN 9780669163407, OCLC 15518468
Petraeus, David H. (1987), "Korea, the Never-Again Club, and Indochina", Parameters (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College) 17 (4): 59-70, December 1987, SuDoc No. D 101.72:17/4, GPO Item No. 0325-K, PURL LPS1511, ASIN B000100LYE, ISSN 0031-1723, OCLC 1039883.
Petraeus, David H. (1989), "Military Influence And the Post-Vietnam Use of Force", Armed Forces & Society (Piscataway, NJ: SAGE Publications) 15 (4): 489-505, Summer 1989, ISSN 0095-327X, OCLC 49621350, DOI:10.1177/0095327X8901500402, <http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/4/489> (retrieved on 26 August 2007).
Petraeus, David H.; Damian P. Carr & John C. Abercrombie (1997), "Why We Need FISTs— Never Send a Man When You Can Send a Bullet", Field Artillery (Fort Sill, OK: US Army Field Artillery School) 1997 (3): 3-5, May-June 1997, HQDA PB6-97-3, USPS 309-010, PURL LPS13201, SuDoc No. D 101.77/2: 1997/3, ISSN 0899-2525, OCLC 16516511, <http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/1997/MAY_JUN_1997/MAY_JUN_1997_PAGES_3_5.pdf> (retrieved on 26 August 2007).
(2004) "Lessons of the Iraq War and Its Aftermath" (summary of remarks)
(2006) "Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq," Military Review
(2007) The US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (introduction


Just in question...I wonder how many of those Democrats that seem not to believe the Generals report have even seen a fraction of time in the field as the General. Senator Harry Reid seems to be the mouthpiece so next we shall review his track record.

Dreadnought

You will have to excuse me ladies and gentlemen as I am finding it rather diffacult to find anything about Senator Harry Reid military service record.

Bluesman

Weird, huh?

HistoricalDavid

Lantos is a Holocaust survivor and was an anti-Nazi resistance fighter, according at least to wiki.

I have no particular love for Democrats, but I dare you to mock that, Dreadnought.

Dreadnought

Why mock when I'm only pointing out the facts? I'm not one to mock but I do like facts albeit Republican or Democrat. The label means nothing to me its whats in the best interest of our country that means something to me.And when you have a man point fingers at the man on the ground and call him a liar or that he doctored reports that seems to me to be a rather shining point of interest especially when the acuser seems to have no experience in the matter what so ever.

astralis

goddamn. a thread about medals has devolved into yet another friggin' political rant. okay, in the spirit of when bluesman first started the whole butter cookie thing:

----

i hear there are reports that gen. petraeus, among his other varied accomplishments, won the coveted Butter Cookie Baker of the Year Medal five years running.

due to its desirability he is forbidden to put it on his fruit salad. rumors? truth?

discuss.

__________________
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Dreadnought

Oh and by the way David my father, probably most of the peoples fathers here fought the Japanese,Germans,Italians during WWII. So in order for me to mock such a thing I would be mocking my own. Something that would NEVER happen.