I’ve had quite a few search referrals for General Merrill “Tony” McPeak, and felt I should add a little of my knowledge for those who are looking for information about him.
When he worked for Howard Dean, I wrote about him. When he began working for the Kerry campaign, I wrote once more. He’s looking for a job, I guess.
I don’t try to judge anyone who achieves flag rank without good reason. They got there due to intelligence and skill. Once you get a star, moving higher comes with a balance of military and political skills. Some lean one way, the rest another.
McPeak was the Air Force Chief of Staff when I finished out my career. That means he was in charge of the Air Force contingent at the Pentagon, and was not in the operational chain of command. He restructured the Air Force during his tenure, and made a lot of moves those of us in the field never really understood. I was in the 1st Special Operations Wing, a unit with significant history. When he changed everything, 1st SOW became 16th SOW. McPeak thought there should be only one “1st” and that was the 1st Fighter Wing. Other things made even less sense like wanting to base A-10s with C-130s so they could learn to work together better. They never do, work together that is.
Anyway, those were his decisions to make. McPeak worked for the Secretary of the Air Force, Donald Rice. Rice accompanied me on our deployment to Ethiopia in 1989. I was impressed. We had two congressmen along, and he did his level best to keep them out of our way. He was definitely a no-BS kind of guy.
A friend who was working in the Pentagon at the time called to tell me a story that was going around. The image of Rice fits the man I knew, so it seemed legitimate to me. During a meeting, McPeak said something Rice didn’t like. Rice turned to him and said, “General, shut up and worry about your new uniforms.”
I was a lieutenant when McPeak took over. My guess is when Cheney had to pick a new CoS he asked all the four stars what they would do if they took over–and then picked the guy with the longest list.
I actually got to work for him at a start-up company in the late 90’s. I won’t be weighting his opinion on the election very highly.
Comment by Karl Gallagher — September 4, 2004 @ 10:12 pm
I don’t want to diminish the things he may have accomplished, but it nice to hear some first-hand knowledge.
Comment by Bunker — September 5, 2004 @ 1:00 pm