Like Private Jessica Lynch, the now General David Petraeus has been yet another heavily- and quickly-promoted story of the Pentagon, looking desperately for heroism in failure. Petraeus has been a media darling from the first. Tom Clancy wrote about the training of Petraeus in his usual idiom of homosexual romance. He was written about in almost embarrassingly glowing terms after that.
The real heroism is easy to be find. When you walk through an airport and see young men and women serving us all, returning to a war they hate and see little point in out of comradeship and a desire to do their Constitutional duty honorably, that's heroism. Because there is nothing in it for them but a paycheck, bullets, schrapnel and honor. They are not going to be going on the lecture circuit at $25K an appearance.
The people who command these troops in an exercise they know cannot succeed have, repeatedly and cynically, failed their troops and the American people. General Petraeus is only one of the more-talented and more-skilled officers who has failed. General Petraeus has, as officers throughout history have done, traded ambition for duty.
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