Modern generals like to say they serve their country. Increasingly, they serve their own legacy.
They don’t always start that way. Most of them come up the hard way: sand in their teeth, rotor wash in their eyes, the metallic taste of fear on patrols they are too young to fully understand. They remember the platoon leader who bled out in the medevac helicopter, the interpreter who disappeared after a raid, the mother at a checkpoint who screamed over a dead child. At that stage of a career, legacy is a luxury. Survival and competence are the only currencies that matter.
But something happens as they rise.
The war moves further away, even if they’re still flying into theaters and walking flight lines. The meetings get larger, the rooms get nicer, the words more abstract: “effects,” “lethality,” “gray zone,” “near-peer competitor,” “strategic messaging.” At the rank where your collar carries stars, every decision comes with a quiet, unspoken question:
No comments:
Post a Comment