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Was all of the Iraqi invasion driven by command's desire for glory?


I got the impression that much of the mission selection and tactics by Godfather was driven by some sense of achieving glory for the unit and his command. As I watched I kind of wondered what military value this unit provided to the entire mission -- it seemed like they kept buzzing around from one potentially lucrative engagement to another, none of which really seemed to add up to much in terms of any strategic value.

It kind of makes me wonder how much of the Iraqi invasion was driven by the same kind of mentality among other commanders -- career officers who know that this is maybe one of their few chances to achieve combat success so lucrative to their future careers.

Given the *beep* which the invasion left Iraq in, it's like they rolled into Iraq, flattened the token organized opposition they faced for their own personal gain, yet once had taken Baghdad there was no apparent overall strategic accomplishment.

I've always thought this outcome was less about field commanders and more about the political leadership trying to conquer Iraq on the cheap. That may be true, but perhaps the inevitable outcome is a weak central strategy which leads to the kind of careerist competition for glory.

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At several points in the series, several people make remarks on how they are helping Godfather secure his "stars".

And add to that Godfather's sycophantic desire to please "Chaos" (General Matis) by taking on high-risk missions and just plain stupid decisions (Locking down a hostile town with crappy humvees while friendly tanks roll on by, driving through a hostile town when they could have just gone around it, etc).

He's popular with his command staff, because they don't know/care (with a few exceptions), he's eloquent and knows whats up, he just wants to advance his carreer.

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I read someplace after posting this that 1st Recon was meant to be a feint in the invasion as opposed to a significant element of a combat force.

If this is true, either Godfather knew about it and tried to compensate for the fact that they weren't part of the "real" action or he didn't, and picked missions from the phony objectives he had been given.

If you stop and think about it, most of what these guys did was drive around. Their combat engagements were pretty thin except for the firefight at the edge of the bridge.

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