Quote:
Originally posted by Jack Moroney
But actually, I never have been hung up on titles or rank because I know full well, that at least in terms of officers, titles and rank are never acheived alone but as a result of a lot of folks that worked with you or in spite of you to accomplish the mission. Let me put it another way, no officer ever accomplished anything by himself so when you see titles and rank you are seeing the end result of efforts by a lot of folks and the measure of that man's success is really a measure of the company he keeps-at least in Special Forces. Now I am not saying that we do not have our shitbirds, nor am I saying that folks don't get carried along thru politics or who they know vice what they do, but all in all, in our business I would like to think that is rarer than in the conventional army. You see, SF soldiers just will not tolerate incompetence and they will weed them out and send them packing. I have seen it done.
So unless you really know the person in question you are drawing your conclusions based on perceptions of what you think that title should represent based on your understanding of what that means to you. I think that might fall into the arena you legal guys like to call circumstantial evidence. So let me recommend a course of action here. While you can judge to some degree the level of success a person might have achieved by his rank or title you really can't judge the person, nor can you judge his credibility in subjects or skill sets unless you know specifically what he did or did not do. This may surprise you but I only take pride in the fact that I was able to work with and for SF soldiers and the fact that I finished my career as a colonel has a lot more to do with them then it does me. You see I always considered myself a soldier that just happened to be an officer and that leverage allowed me to use whatever power I could for one purpose and one purpose only-enable my soldiers to succeed. It was there success that allowed me to achieve whatever I wore on my collar or chest. IMHO real credibility is accorded to a person only by those who know him and not by his title or rank. The long and the short of it around this house is that rank/title has no effect, I still have to take out my own garbage.
Jack Moroney
|
I agree with everything you've said, sir. My point is only that I find it helpful to know something about the background of someone expressing a political point of view. A mere "former" title is incomplete information, but it is at least some indication of whether the person's prior experience uniquely qualifies them to speak on a particular subject.
As I indicated in my first post above, I could care less what most former employees of the State Department have to say, at least as to most topics.
NDD, if you ever call me a lib again, I'll call you a Yankee college boy. I mean it. LOL