The Ghosts Understand

With things going so well in Iraq, the embed count is nearing zero.
By Ralph Peters

FT. LEAVENWORTH, KAN.--THE Missouri River runs brown in the winter. Standing on the western bluff, you look down past still-visible wagon ruts marking the start of the Santa Fe Trail and on to the landing that served Lewis and Clark.
Across the river's great bend, bare trees fringe the floodplain that rises to the low hills of Missouri. Under the winter sun, the panorama gleams with a heartland beauty. A passenger jet rises in the distance. Turn around: You're at the heart of Ft. Leavenworth, the soul of the US Army, where centuries of ghosts watch over men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

From here, the Cavalry rode west and the troop trains rolled east.

Amid the old brick quarters and barracks, Sherman had second thoughts about his career and a young instructor named Eisenhower, who longed to be fighting in France, dressed down a carefree volunteer named F. Scott Fitzgerald.

At dawn, the ghosts congregate so thickly by the old parade ground that you almost feel their touch as you jog by. They come out to recall the campfires and campaigns, and to stand watch over those who've rallied to their traditions, who took up the guidons and flags. The spirits who once wore blue then gray, Cavalry twill or olive drab, are proud these days. As a new class of officers enters the Army's Command and General Staff College, virtually every one wears a combat patch on the right sleeve.

The ghosts understand.

The wraiths are there by the chapel, standing to. They once rode west across an unmapped prairie, stormed Mexico City's gates, faced off at Vicksburg and finally quelled the Apaches. They went over the top in France, survived the Bataan Death March and rode helicopters into firefights.

They understand.

But the old ghosts don't understand the times beyond the post's front gate. They can't understand the devious spite the nation's elite directs toward our troops.

How could these spirits - who saw more American soldiers die in an afternoon than have fallen in six years in Iraq - comprehend the privileged Americans who delight in tales of rising military suicide rates or "vets gone wild," while ignoring the heroes who've won a war that America's intellectuals declared unwinnable?

Well, Sherman's wraith understands: At one point in our Civil War, he banished the press from his camps and hankered to string up a few reporters.

But the other ghosts are befuddled. Grant, our greatest general, believed that crises would bring out our best.

Earlier this week, I spoke with present-day officers studying at Ft. Leavenworth. It struck me, yet again, that we have never had a better Army. (The Navy, Marines and Air Force are represented, too - by tradition, all the services send contingents to each others' staff colleges.) These men and women in US uniforms are serious and skilled, bold and uncomplaining. What's striking is how little they expect: Of all Americans, they have the least sense of entitlement and the greatest sense of duty.

Nor is the officer corps forged by our current wars a breed of yes-men. They've learned the hard way to ask the toughest questions. Listen to the majors in the new class and you find Army officers dubious about our lack of a strategy in Afghanistan, Air Force pilots appalled at the waste involved in buying the F-22 - and sailors (far from the sea) thinking beyond the horizon to future threats.

And then there are the Marine officers, ready for anything.

The closest thing to bitching I encountered was an observation by a superb public-affairs officer with whom I worked in Anbar: Now that things are going so well in Iraq, he reports, the press isn't interested - the embed count is dropping toward zero.

Well, during my latest visit to Ft. Leavenworth I didn't meet any of the tormented, twisted soldiers the press and Hollywood adore. Just the men and women who stand between our country and the darkness.

They're home with their families for a bit, but the workload at the Staff College is heavy. Officers who grasp the tenets of counterinsurgency have to master big-war planning, too. We need to be prepared for any conflict.

And these officers who, for a few months, have traded their weapons for computer screens, will be ready. These are the men and women the headlines ignore. Because these are the officers who won.

The ghosts can stand at ease.

Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and a Command and General Staff College grad (barely).