Help debunk a pentagon memo!

[cynatnite]

The pentagon has released a memo in an attempt to defend rumsfeld.

In it, they say there are 8,000 retired and active duty generals. It sounds like generals are a dime a dozen. I don't buy this number.

Can anyone help out with this? It would be great if we could discredit this memo.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=942312&mesg_id=942312

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/washington/16rumsfeld.html?hp&ex=1145246400&en=80490becc6fc560d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[KeepItReal]

1. Think quality: Check the last place the Generals speaking out have served

Most of them were leading troops in Iraq or CENTCOM (responsible for that area) under Bush & Co.

"Major-General Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq until 2004"

"Anthony Zinni, a retired general and former commander of US Central Command"

"Batiste, who led the 1st Infantry Division in northern Iraq in 2004-2005"

"Rumsfeld's critics include retired Marine Corps Lt. General Gregory Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff ... and retired Army Maj. General Paul Eaton, who led the training of Iraqi Security forces."

etc...

[cynatnite]

2. They make it sound like generals are as common as captains...

That's why they mentioned the number in the memo.

They're saying 'oh, that's six guys out of 8,000'.

The number seems very inflated and I want to call them on it. I'll have to rework the searches and come up with something else to find the statistics.

[KeepItReal]

3. The numbers don't matter. These Generals have been where it counts

In the Pentagon with Bush & Co's civilian screw-ups and on the ground in Iraq.

A General doing service in the National Guard in Oregon is not extactly a credible rebuttal to the leader of the 82nd Airborne in Iraq.

Feel me?

[cynatnite]

4. Yeah, I do

I understand what you're saying.

This just bugs the hell out of me. :)

[KeepItReal]

5. They *have* to throw numbers around. They can't mess with the facts.

These Generals are the real deal and their voices are credible and serious threats to Bush & Co.

[Neil Lisst]

6. but how many of them served in high posts in THIS WAR?!

talk about trying to minimize

These guys aren't brig generals who flew aircraft. They're Army and Marine 2, 3 and 4 star generals.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Pretty pathetic that the Pentagon feels the need to say this. 'B-b-but

there's a lot of other generals NOT denouncing the shrubco led war!'

[Kutjara]

8. According to...

...this DoD website (http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/military/rg0602.pdf), there are 881 active duty 'generals' in the US military (including naval Admirals) as of Feb. 28 of this year.

If the Pentagon figures are true, this means that there are 7,100 or so retired flag officers. This figure seems to me to be very high. If we assume even a 20% annual turnover of generals, this number represents 80 years' worth of retirees. I know generals never die (they just fade away) but, even so, this seems a bit excessive.

Does my 20% figure seem reasonable? Does anyone else have any data?

[cynatnite]

9. They are inflating the numbers to minimize these generals

8,000 has got to be a bogus number.

I honestly can't see having that many in retirement at all.

I just found that, BTW. :)

[Kutjara]

11. Oh shit! I know how they got that number.

I grew up on Army bases, so I should have thought of this before.

Is there still a tradition that retiring military officers get bumped up one rank when they retire? They certainly did back in the 70s and 80s when I was a kid. That means that retiring full colonels are actually recorded as 'generals.'

I'll bet a lot of these 8,000 'generals' never served that rank during active duty. The Pentagon are counting defunct colonels.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

15. No, there's no bump in rank. You retire at, and receive pay at, the rank

and grade you were at when you retired. ESPECIALLY with flag ranks which is a HUGE deal in the military. There are so many more Colonel/Captain O-6's then General/Admiral O-7's (the number representing the officer rank), there's no way they'd be throwing around the flag ranks just for people making retirement.

[Kutjara]

16. OK, so then the Pentagon figures are definitely bogus.

[cynatnite]

19. There may be 2,000 at the most...

on active duty, reserves and national guard. It is a very inflated number.

So how do we go about finding out the numbers of retired generals?

It seems to me this could give one the impression there is a high turnover rate in the general ranking. That's patently false, IMO. By the time a person gets their first star they have already been in for many years and not likely to leave unless they absolutely have to.

Now, unless they've done a hell of a lot of promoting officers to generals in the last month and a half, they might be able to fudge the numbers to get that 8,000.

My guess is they did backflips to get it.

[Kutjara]

22. What's the average...

...age at which someone is promoted to general? 40? 45?

And what is the average retirement age for generals?

If we know these numbers and do some rough calculations on male life expectancy (I'm supposing >90% of generals are men; particularly the retired ones), we might get to a reasonable approximation of the number of retirees.

[cynatnite]

24. I knew a couple who had been in over 35 years

One was a two star and the other a three star.

I don't know a general age of when they retire.

You figure these guys spent at least 20 years or so working up the ladder. Some joined in their early twenties. That's my guess.

:shrug:

[Kutjara]

28. So that would...

...tend to support my guess that you'd need to be around 40 before you hit brigadier. For the fast-trackers, maybe 35.

If they're required to retire at 65 and the majority stay until then, there is absolutely no earthly way that 7,100 are sitting around in retirement homes. That would imply that some of these retirees are about 135 years old.

[cynatnite]

10. In respects to the reserves and national guard...

that's not included in the numbers we have found so far, but it can't be more than active duty.

That still leaves several thousand generals unaccounted for.

BTW, I emailed Raw Story about this.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

21. If you have about 1800 including reserve/NG, and include all retired,

(that's ANY surviving), I could believe it. This would include all generals & admirals who are still alive, from Vietnam and Korea eras and since, anyone old enough to be a flag rank during WWII is probably dead by now.

It doesn't mean that these old toothless milkshake drinking generals and admirals in the nursing homes and old soldier/sailor's homes of America are in any way relevant compared to these guys who just got out and served under this incompetent administration in this wrongheaded war.

The fact that the Pentagon felt the need to put out a memo speaks for itself. They KNOW this is really, really bad, and unprecedented, and that the shit is up. If it wasn't a clear marker that something was rotten in the state of Denmark, they wouldn't address it at all.

[cynatnite]

23. Here's why I don't want to let go of this:

I'm bothered by the fact they are trying to minimize these guys by using what seems to me to be inflated numbers.

They make it sound like generals are a dime a dozen.

They're saying 'that's 6 guys out of 8,000'.

We all know that Rumsfeld is as discredited as it gets. I'm a vet and very proud of my service. The generals I met when I was in were some of the best men I ever knew. They had a deep abiding loyalty to the troops...most especially to the enlisted since they do most of the bleeding and dying.

It just feels like they're minimizing the generals' experience and years of devotion to serving. These guys live and breath military.

It twists my guts into knots into how they are trying to minimize their service in this way.

[Kutjara]

27. Absolutely. It's a...

...clear indication that nobody in Washington has the slightest respect for the fighting arm of the military. Unfortunately, I include the Pentagon in that assessment. Those deskjockeys must consider themselves very far removed from the average grunt in the trench to pull this shit.

I think they should swap. Every soldier, airman and sailor currently on active duty in the Gulf should be shipped to the Pentagon, and every pampered wannabe in that five-sided whorehouse (no insult to honest whores intended) should be sent straight to Bagdad.

This would achieve two important goals:

(1) US military policy would be set by those who actually understood what is required to fight a war.
(2) The US would be out of Iraq in a week as the former Pentagon assholes dropped their weapons and fled for their lives.

I can't see any downside to this, as long as we manage the PR right.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

29. I understand what you are saying, and the intent of the memo. I'm just

saying I don't know that their number is actually wrong. Of course it's worth investigating to see if it's true. But I wouldn't assume off the bat that it's necessarily false. (Of course I don't assume it's true either.)

[Kutjara]

25. Very good points.

I think the Pentagon should extrapolate their figures a bit more.

I wonder how many generals there have ever been, since the dawn of civilisation. I'm sure the analysts at the Pentagon could make a reasonable guess.

Now, I wonder how many of all the generals who have ever existed would think that the current clusterfuck in Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran/you-name-it has been well handled?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

In any other age, Rumsfeld would be dragged behind a horse for 200 miles.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

12. Active Duty does not include Reserve or National Guard General/Admirals.

I'd doubt they'd increase the number by that much though...

[Kutjara]

13. I've got a number for NG/Reserves.

The PBS website said that Army National Guard/Reserves were 700,000 in 2004 (compared to 500,000 regular Army troops). I haven't yet found equivalent figures for the AF or Navy. If the ratio of generals to grunts is the same in the NG, we can more than double the 881 figure I gave for active duty generals. Say 1800 in total.

[Kutjara]

14. Oops, here's the link:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june04/army_1-13.html

[madeline_con]

17. Check this out...

GENERAL/FLAG OFFICER WORLDWIDE ROSTER

The consolidated Department of Defense information contained on this web site has been moved.

If you are a Federal Government entity with a need for this information, please send us an email at [e-mail].

http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/m13/fobtop.htm


--------------------------------------------------
There's still info here:


Military Personnel Statistics

Rank/Grade


http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/military/rg0602.pdf

[Kutjara]

18. Thanks Madeline,

the second link is the one I gave above. It's interesting that the other site has removed its consolidated data, though. Wonder when they pulled it down?

Or am I just being paranoid.

[cynatnite]

20. I wondered, too n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

26. General Mills, General Foods, General Tzo's Chicken...

general well-being, General Hospital, General Electric...