When a Captain or Colonel is promoted to admiral or general, he is sent through a program called “Capstone,” which is basically a 6 week program to make sure all new admirals and generals understand how the services integrate in support of national strategy. A friend of mine told me that when he went through the program, on the 2nd day a very well known 4 star officer spoke to them and told them that they shouldn’t get too excited about their new rank and position, that “if you were all on a bus and it drove off a cliff, we could get another busload tomorrow.”

Yet, to hear the caterwauling from those opposed to Senator Tuberville’s hold-up of nominations, what he is doing is tantamount to some sort of personnel Pearl Harbor, that a failure to put each named figure into place as the head of some organization or the other – NOW – is to leave the nation defenseless.

Hooey.

First, let’s be clear, the number of admirals and generals who are in command of actual combat forces – units that are engaged in combat operations that are currently taking fire from the enemy and there is an admiral or general in the field, making tactical decisions – is Zero.

Second, there is no command, no organization in the US military today (or for the last 247 years) that was so poorly led that it needed the admiral or general to function on a routine, daily basis.

Third, I know a great many Colonels and Captains who have held senior combat commands and to a man they will tell you that the command functioned better the further it was away from the nearest admiral or general. As a very good friend of mine – a retired admiral – once said, “the fact is, there is no such thing as a good visit from the admiral.” When admirals (or generals) are about to show up, real work stops and everyone starts preparing for “the visit.” And when admirals hang about your “space,” whether the bridge, the war room, the command tent, or even the foxhole or mess tent, everything changes. Let him hang around long enough and it gets downright weird. The only people who regularly disagree with this thesis and believe that the regular presence of generals helps the troops are generals.

Fourth, as was demonstrated this week, if Senator Schumer wanted to end this, he could.

But finally, let’s take brief look at officers, and the number of officers…

Here are some “fun” numbers: In 248 years the US Army has had 242 four-star generals. If you include George Washington, (who wasn’t a 4-star general when alive, he was promoted in 1976), by the end of World War I the US had had 7 (seven) 4-star generals. Between the end of World War I and the end of World War II we added a grand total of 18 x 4-star generals. At the end of World War II we had on active duty 16 x 4-star and 5-star generals.

In December 1945 4 of our 4-star generals (Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower and Arnold) were promoted to 5-star generals. Prior to that the US Army had run the war with 7 x 4-star generals. Following the promotion of the 4-star generals to 5-star, in March and April of 1945, 11 x 3-star generals were promoted to 4-star.

Between the end of World War II and the end of the Vietnam War (Military Assistance Command Vietnam stood down March of 1973, so, I’ll use that date) the US Army promoted 71 x 4-star generals. Between the end of Vietnam and the end of the Cold War (December 1991) the US Army promoted 50 x 4-star generals. So, including George Washington, 147 x 4-star generals in 216 years.

Since December 1992 the US Army has added 96 x 4-star generals.

The other services are as bad or worse.The first US Marine 4-star served for the last 6 months of World War II and later. The Marines had 4 x 4-star generals between the end of WWII and the end of the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War the Marines have had 31 x 4-star generals.

The US military today consists of 1.3 million active duty Soldiers and Sailors and Marines and Airmen and Space force, plus more than 700,000 National Guard, and 700,00 civilians. All together just short of 2.9 million folks. We also have almost 300 ships, and perhaps 10,000 aircraft.

In 1944 Admiral Nimitz, as a 4-star admiral, had a force of several thousand ships, tens of thousands of airplanes, and several million men, a force larger than the entire DOD – and he was fighting – and winning – a war.

The Navy had 14 x 4 and 5-star officers by the end of WWII, including 5 who were promoted to 4-star in 1945. Since the end of WWII the Navy has promoted 168 officers to 4-stars, even as the forces have shrunk.

By early 1945, across all theaters, with 1/3rd the number of 4-star officers, we had 16 million in uniform, 5,000 combatant ships, 6,000 + cargo ships, and more than a quarter of a million aircraft, all controlled using WWII technology.

We have 7 x 4-star admirals today, with not quite 300 ships combatants.

Compared to WWII we have 6 times as many flag officers (1 through 4 stars) per soldier or sailor, we have three times as many 4 star officers, we have communications systems that are literally millions of times more capable than they were in 1945, we have intelligence collection capabilities that are, relative to 1945, almost magical in their capabilities. Shouldn’t that mean we need fewer admirals and generals?

Yet, somehow the Army and Navy are going to grind to a halt if we don’t promote more generals? Planes going to fall out of the sky? Satellites will burn up in uncontrolled reentry? Ships will sink? No. Nothing of that sort is going to happen.

I suppose the worst that might happen is a bus might drive off a cliff. But, as the 4-star general said, we could always get another busload.

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