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Jewish World Review August 7, 2003 / 9 Menachem-Av, 5763
Joseph L. Galloway
Army gets one tough man for one tough job: Chief of Staff
http://www.jewishworldreview.com | A new chief of staff of the U.S. Army, the 35th chief of the nation's senior service, has taken the helm. His name is Pete Schoomaker, and he's about as tender as woodpecker lips. Much of what he's done and seen in more than 30 years of active-duty service is classified above Top Secret. He was, for a time, an operator in the Delta Force, the Army's super-secret counter-terrorism force. Schoomaker was present on the ill-fated 1980 hostage-rescue mission into Iran that ended in fire and failure. His memories of that night, when what was intended to be a lightning strike into the heart of the enemy's capital to rescue the U.S. Embassy hostages dissolved into disaster at a desert landing strip, are clear and painful: "Twenty-three years ago I stood ... in the Iranian desert on a moonlit night at a place called Desert One. I keep a photo of the carnage that night to remind me that we would never confuse enthusiasm with capability. Eight of my comrades lost their lives. Those of us who survived knew grief ... we knew failure - but we committed ourselves to a different future," Schoomaker said in his arrival message to the Army. In the wake of that searing failure, the nation created the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and with it an organization that could undertake missions like the one in Iran with success, not failure, built into the planning and execution. Years later, Pete Schoomaker commanded SOCOM and helped build and shape an organization that put more than 13,000 special operators on the ground in Iraq.
But an old comrade says this is what you really need to know about Pete Schoomaker: "In 1978 Charlie Beckwith (the legendary founder of the Delta Force) sent him and the other young bucks we had selected on one of the exercises we used to evaluate and train them," said L.H. ``Bucky'' Burruss, also a veteran of Desert One. "We parachuted each of them singly onto one of the Fort Bragg drop zones, had each of them link up with a `partisan' who issued him a weapon and the task of walking miles alone from the drop zone, infiltrating a building in the cantonment area and killing a target with live ammo - all within a nearly impossible timeframe." Burrus adds, "Captain Schoomaker did (this mission) successfully, although we noticed he was limping when he finished. It wasn't until the next day that we discovered he had broken his foot on the jump." Gen. Schoomaker, who was summoned out of 2 ½ years of retirement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after several three- and four-star generals turned down the job of Army chief, is now turning his attention to a plate full of problems. In his arrival statement, Schoomaker said the United States is at war with terrorism worldwide and must win. "War is both a physical reality and a state of mind," Schoomaker declared. "War is ambiguous, uncertain and unfair. We become more flexible and more adaptable. We must anticipate the ultimate reality check - combat. We must win both the war and the peace. We must be prepared to question everything: What is best for the nation? What must endure? What must change?" Schoomaker praised the soldiers who are his Army, and their families, as well as the National Guard and Army Reserve units that are "indispensable, full members of the team." He quoted the late Gen. Creighton Abrams, a commander in the Vietnam War who became Army chief himself: "People are not in the Army; they are the Army." In testimony before Congress last week, Schoomaker, 57, said he and Rumsfeld had agreed that between them they would have an "open and honest dialogue." Asked if he thought the Army needed more people, Schoomaker replied that he did. "It's one of the things ... we are going to have to look at immediately." Schoomaker testified that he believed U.S. troops would be in Iraq a long time, and no one should be looking for a quick or easy solution. "If you look at history, in the Balkans and elsewhere, you will find that thinking in the short-term isn't the way to go." If Secretary Rumsfeld thinks he's found a softer, easier Army chief to deal with after the retirement of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, his nemesis for the last two years, he should disabuse himself of that notion. Pete Schoomaker doesn't roll over and he never quits.
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