AS a rule, when soldiers are told to ask questions of a visiting general, they play it pretty safe. Bowing to the same rule, most generals offer blandly stirring replies. This was not the case on February 5th, when General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, flew in to inspect American marines posted to Darwin, on Australia’s sweltering, crocodile- and snake-infested northern tip. After some prodding, a soldier finally stood to address General Dunford, the most senior officer in America’s armed forces.
The soldier’s question was blunt. He asked how a conflict with North Korea might unfold, and specifically what had changed since the Korean war, so that: “We don’t get as many casualties as we did in the 1950s.” As ceiling fans clanked round in the crowded sergeant’s mess, the general replied that he is “painfully aware” of the costs of war on the Korean peninsula, because his father fought there a marine rifleman, nearly seven decades ago. Then he addressed the prospect of a new...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2nI9rH0
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